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monstersdownthepath · 3 years

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Spiritual Spotlight: Hanspur, the Water Rat (and Ashkaelae)

Chaotic Neutral God of Rivers, River Travel, and Smugglers

Domains: Chaos, Death, Travel, Water Subdomains: Exploration, Murder, Rivers, Trade

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 58~63

Obedience: With the assistance of another priest of Hanspur or by yourself, simulate the act of drowning. You can do this by fully submerging yourself in a body of water, exhaling all of your breath, and painfully inhaling water instead of air. Alternatively, you can lie on your back with your head at a lower elevation than your legs while water is slowly poured on your face and up your nose. If you choose the latter method, you must cover your face with a cloth while the water is poured. When you conclude this simulated drowning, contemplate your life and how your goals coincide with the teachings of Hanspur and the Six River Freedoms. Benefit: You gain a +4 sacred or profane bonus on Survival checks attempted while on or near rivers.

Just reading this makes my sinuses burn and my lungs itch, and not just because it’s springtime and I have allergies! As anyone who’s ever been in a body of water large enough to slap their face with a wave can attest to, inhaling large amounts of water sucks. While this Obedience requires only one wet breath, some... well, some pretty severe complications can arise from it, if your DM ponders even slightly what doing this to yourself every day would do. Dry drowning and secondary drowning are both real dangers from brief immersion, let alone concentrated efforts at simulating one of the worst fates someone can experience (I say this a lot but basically anything that deprives you of air is pretty terrible). The ‘simulation’ will likely only last a few seconds while the rest of the hour is spent recovering from your experience and meditating, but even that may not be enough to offset the fluid likely building up in your lungs. Priests of Hanspur must sound atrocious, coughing themselves ragged every day! No wonder it’s recommended your ritual is overseen by another priest, either, because they’d likely be skilled in helping you manage your symptoms.

Dangers of daily drownings aside, keeping up with the demands of this ritual is pretty easy so long as you’re somewhere with easy access to water. In Hanspur’s homelands, the River Kingdoms, this is pathetically simple! Everywhere else? It’s a lot harder! While I do appreciate that there’s a secondary ritual you can do if total immersion is impossible, but what happens if you’re stuck somewhere with no easy water access? Your waterskins won’t carry you for very long, even if you pilfer them from your party as well. Better invest in a Decanter of Endless Water! Or do something ridiculous like fill the party’s Bag of Holding up so you can just hop in and out whenever you need to.

That benefit is also the weakest I’ve seen in a long time, granting a bonus to only a single skill type and only while near rivers. Survival checks aren’t even all that commonly made, unless your DM is kind enough to let you use Survival to navigate with river rafts rather than Profession or Ride checks. Hanspur really doesn’t want his faithful straying too far from the River Kingdoms, which is only further exacerbated by how his Boons work, so if you’re not the type to linger near rivers you may just want to skip him entirely.

Boons are gathered slowly, typically obtained when a given character has 12, 16, and 20 hit dice. Unlike fiend-worshipers, servants of the Eldest, and devoted of the Empyreal Lords, characters worshiping Neutral gods do not have catch-all classes… but Neutral-aligned characters can enter the Evangelist, Sentinel, and Exalted Prestige Classes earlier than Evil characters, classing in as early as level 6 (they need +5 BAB, 5 ranks in a single skill, or the ability to cast lvl 3 spells); entered ASAP, one can gain the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14.

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: River Sage. Gain Hydraulic Push 3/day, River Whip 2/day, or Hydraulic Torrent 1/day.

Hydraulic Push and Hydraulic Torrent live in the same niche of “giant water spouts what push stuff around,” with Torrent being obviously an order of magnitude more powerful than Push. While Push has a range of Close and can target only a single creature or square, Torrent is a 60ft line that Bull Rushes or attempts to destroy everything it encounters, so it really depends on if you’re thinking you’ll need three small streams or one really, really big one. Notably, Torrent can Bull Rush targets of any size, unrestricted by the limits of your pathetic frame, while Push contains no such limiter removal and thus likely means you can only blast creatures up to a size larger than you.

Also of note, Torrent attempts to shatter everything it comes into contact with until it runs into something or someone it cannot destroy or push past. The Strength score the Torrent uses is equal to your caster level plus your casting ability modifier, meaning it will start out barely stronger than you are but will eventually be able to punch holes in iron and shatter stone. Hell, with a lucky roll, it may be able to do that anyway. Your choice on which two to take wholly depends on if you want to push three Medium critters around or launch one Colossal one.

What? River Whip? I don’t see any spell like that here! Lets move on! (alright alright; i just don’t like it. it’s good as an emergency weapon but more or less anything else is better in any scenario)

Boon 2: River Scion. As a free action you can breathe underwater, as if affected by Water Breathing, for a number of hours per day equal to the number of Hit Dice you possess. These hours need not be used consecutively, but must be used in 1-hour increments.

A disappointingly weak Boon. Really, what else is there to see or say? If you need to go underwater, this ability is great and has zero downsides. If you don’t, this Boon doesn’t exist. It’s a very binary Boon that relies on your environment, which means that if you’re overjoyed if you’ve remained in the River Kingdoms, but in a desert or jungle or mountain peak, you’re going to be extremely disappointed upon hitting level 11.

Boon 3: River’s Embodiment. 1/day as a standard action, you can transform yourself into a Huge water elemental, as per Elemental Body IV. You can stay in this form for 1 minute per Hit Die you possess, and can dismiss this effect as a free action.

Finally, a transformation ability that doesn’t suck! What does suck is that this is a level 7 spell being granted to you 1/day, when other Boons are equivalent to level 9 spells in power. Hanspur could have at least given you a little bonus on top of it, or made it 2/day, but it’s hard to complain about the force you become under Elemental Body IV. You become immune to bleed, critical hits, Sneak Attacks, and on top of it all get insurmountable DR 5, and the stack of stats you get? Mmmm-mm! Chef’s kiss!

+6 AC, +8 Con, +4 Str, all for the price of -2 Dex (more than made up for with the +AC). And, of course, a swim speed and the power to collapse yourself into a destructive Vortex, but those are only useful if you’re in water, while the rest of the stat buffs are far more universally useful. You’re not exactly the destructive and terrifying Fire Elemental or the deceptively sneaky Earth Elemental, but a wall of surging water can still wreak all manner of havoc on your enemies, your new dual slams able to smash ships (and bones) to pieces, and since Water Elementals are capable of speech and gesture, you can merely bask in your new tank stats while still casting spells.

There’s also the much more amusing but niche use of transforming while already polymorphed by a hostile effect, as having a new polymorph effect used on you while you’re already changed can end the first automatically.

While I wish the effect was usable more often, or at least broken into 1-minute increments, I can’t call it a bad Boon by any means.

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: River Guide. Gain Obscuring Mist 3/day, Haunting Mists2/day, or Aqueous Orb 1/day.

I love the name of this ability because two of the three spells do the opposite of guiding people. Now I’m a big fan of Obscuring Mist; it’s a simple staple in my list for almost every caster I make just because of how versatile it is! But now that I know there’s an alternative, it may have competition. Both Obscuring Mist and Haunting Mists do roughly the same thing, but one could argue that Haunting Mists does it better; in addition to granting concealment and shutting off an enemy’s eyes, it deals 1d2 Wisdom damage and shakes up anyone starting their turn inside the mist... But as a Figment spell with the Fear descriptor, there are a great many creatures immune to its unique power, and True Seeing allows one to see through it perfectly, whereas Obscuring Mist remains impenetrable to the apex predator of the Illusion school.

While it cannot be dispelled by wind or motion like a tangible fog, it’s important to note that there’s no way to protect specific creatures from the sanity-damaging effects of Haunting Mists, and its casting distance of 20ft and 20ft spread means that you will likely always be caught in its radius. The range means using it offensively is painfully limited, unless you want to cast it from invisibility after sneaking into the middle of an enemy formation, which... you probably, definitely don’t want to make a habit of.

It’s great for covering your retreat, but not your advance or setup like the normal Mist is.

Aqueous Orb is a good choice if your party is getting screwed over by the mist more than the enemy, creating a big ol’ 10ft ball of water that intercepts and engulfs anything that moves into it, or which it moves into. It deals 2d6 nonlethal damage whenever it rams into a creature and a further 2d6 to everything it has engulfed each round, but the damage isn’t so much the main draw as the fact it’s a massive, roving Sphere of Grappling, snaring and drowning any creature it manages to get ahold of if they fail the Reflex save. It’s a fun little spell that’s great for mopping up and controlling minions, especially ones you don’t actually want to kill, and even at its worst it can become a makeshift barrier in a narrow hallway since there’s no written way to actually move through it beyond wasting 2, 3, or more rounds by slamming into it and swimming through to the other side while your party books it in the other direction.

Boon 2: River Traveler. As a free action, you can grant yourself and any allies within 30 feet of you a swim speed of 60 feet. This effect lasts for 1 round per Hit Die you possess or until you dismiss it as a free action, whichever comes first. Your allies must remain within 30 feet of you or lose this benefit. In addition, you gain a +2 profane or sacred bonus on saves against spells with the Water descriptor.

See, this should have been added to River Scion as a bonus. River Scion and River Traveler feel like they could have combined into a single Boon to make something decent, but as it is they both fall into the same niche: Solves the encounter they’re meant to solve, useless otherwise. This ability is noteworthy for having no restrictions about how many times it can be used, essentially letting you switch swimming off and on at will. The fact it doesn’t take an action is incredibly important, because using the massive 60ft swim speed the ability grants actually removes the bonus, as getting further than 30ft from you makes it fizzle.

I don’t really understand why it would grant 60ft of movespeed if they’re restricted to a 30ft bubble, nor do I understand the purpose of the bubble in the first place. It makes exploration a slog, and escape scenarios more finicky than they should be. Since it can be activated whenever you need to as a free action, the duration feels unneeded. There’s so much about this ability that conflicts with itself that it bugs me too much to say much in the way of positives. The +2 to saves vs Water spells is a fun little ribbon, though most Water spells tend to be harmless utility spells rather than ones you’d need to make a save against.

Boon 3: River’s Depths. 1/day as a standard action, you can cause one creature within 30 feet to begin drowning, filling its lungs with water. The target of this ability can attempt a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Wis mod) to negate the effect. If the target succeeds, it is staggered for 1 round. If it fails, the target immediately begins to suffocate. On the target’s next turn, it falls unconscious and is reduced to 0 hit points. One round later, the target drops to –1 hit points and is dying. One round after that, the target dies. Each round, the target can attempt a Fortitude save to end the effect. This ability affects only living creatures that must breathe and cannot breathe underwater. This is a curse effect.

Now this one’s just insulting, being a technically weaker version of a level 5 spell, Suffocation. It’s weaker in four ways: 1) It fails against creatures which are amphibious which, if you’re in the River Kingdoms, is many. 2) It’s curse effect, which can mean some creatures are resistant or immune to it. 3) It has a 30ft range, unlike Suffocation’s range of Close (25ft + 5ft/level). And, finally, 4) Just ONE successful save ends the effect entirely, while Suffocation continues to torment and stagger the victim for 3 rounds until its effects finally expire.

It’s hard to ignore fact that it’s a basically a Save-Or-Die with excellent DC scaling, but I can’t get over it being weaker than an existing level 5 spell! ... Granted, Suffocation could probably get away with being bumped an extra level or two higher given how frighteningly effective it is at shutting down any creature who needs to breathe even if they succeed their save. I’m probably slamming down too hard on an ability that, again, is a Save-Or-Die at best and an unavoidable stagger at worst (good for making some emergency repairs against a powerful full-attacker), and for extra fun can be used without any components involved, so you can just drop it on someone out of the blue and they’ll have no idea who just tried to kill them. While I am disappointed it doesn’t meet the power of other Boons, it’s undeniably effective against a large portion of the creatures you’ll be fighting, even at 1/day.

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: River Warden. Gain Wave Shield 3/day, Masterwork Transformation 2/day, or Quench 1/day.

Wave Shield is one of those rare spells that are amazing to have, but not especially good to prepare or to waste a precious Spells Known slot on. It’s an immediate action spell that grants insurmountable DR and Fire Resistance equal to half your caster level in response to a single incoming attack, which isn’t stupendous at low levels but is a generous equivalent to immediate, on-demand temporary HP as you get higher and higher level. If a creature relies on a lot of little hits rather than a few big ones, blocking even one of them can save you in the long run, and if your DR cancels out the damage from a poisoned or diseased attack, all the better!

It’s not an especially strong spell given how it only works once before fading away, but it’s better than the other two options by a country mile. Masterwork Transformation is something you’ll rarely need more than a few times in a campaign before masterwork items fall into your laps (or you can simply buy them), and by the time you gain this ability it will likely no longer matter. That being said, if you’re in a low-wealth campaign or have been forced to scavenge for your gear, Masterwork Transformation will save you THOUSANDS of gp over the course of your life, because as a spell-like, the material components are ignored and thus you can slowly upgrade your entire party’s armaments for free. Given its ability to affect a generous 50 pieces of ammunition per casting as well means the Ranger and Gunslinger will adore you, and you can work in tandem with a mystic craftsman (PC or otherwise) to get all of your favorite gear enchanted without discarding your precious family heirloom sword for that masterwork one you looted.

Not to mention the simple joy in taking all the gear off a bandit clan, Masterworking all of it, and selling it for a tidy profit.

Compared to the combat utility of Wave Shield and noncombat utility of Masterwork Transformation, it’s hard to make a case for Quench, which falls into the category of ‘niche spell’ like Water Breathing and Water Walking in that it will instantly solve a handful of scenarios and be utterly useless in the rest. Yes, you may need to put out a forest fire or stop a building you’re in from burning to a crisp, but you’ll have to decide if it’s worth giving up three emergency DR 4/-- and Fire Resistance 4 bandages... as the martial-focused Sentinel. If you plan on fighting a fire that day or encountering a magic item that can generate fires (which Quench shuts off for 1d4 hours) and no one else in your party bothered learning Quench, by all means, but as the Sentinel having the DR is probably better in most cases.

Boon 2: River Champion. 3/day as a standard action, you can sculpt water into the form of a melee weapon that you are proficient with. You must have enough water to form the weapon, an amount equal to the weapon’s normal weight. Once formed, the weapon behaves as a weapon of its type with an enhancement bonus of +1, which increases by 1 for every 5 additional HD you have beyond 5 (max +4). This weapon deals double damage to creatures with the Fire subtype. The weapon dissolves into ordinary water after a number of rounds equal to your HD or as soon as it leaves your hand, whichever happens first.

Boons which call weapons to your hand are alright in cases where your signature weapon has been taken from you, and by the time you receive this ability you will have a signature weapon, but such times tend to come few and far between. This one also has the additional caveat that you don’t actually create the weapon from nowhere, there must already be water around to make it, at least enough water to match the weapon’s typical weight. The good news is that a gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds, and a trident--Hanspur’s holy weapon--weighs only 4, with most other weapons barely ever approaching 10, so you can reasonably carry around an emergency weapon in a waterskin or in your backpack... And you know, now that I think about it, it’s kind of cool to be able to turn a glass of water into a dagger.

But when will you need to? How often do you find yourself bereft of a usable weapon often enough to need an emergency armament like this? I can see the niche in front of me, making a new weapon as-needed against creatures whose DR makes them difficult to damage with your normal gear or taking advantage of that delicious little tidbit about doing double-damage to fire-based creatures, but they take your whole standard action to make and last for only a single combat (if that), and you can’t even shuffle around the +1 bonuses for additional effects!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s by no means bad (unless you’re both in a waterless area and haven’t filled your waterskin), especially at 3/day, but I can’t help but wonder when you’d actually need it at level 11+ when you likely already have a primary weapon and several backups.

Boon 3: River’s Renewal. When completely submerged in water, you gain Fast Healing 2. You can recover a total number of hit points equal to twice your HD in this manner each day. At 20 HD, if you fall below 0 hit points and your body is fully submerged in a river, you automatically stabilize.

As a final Boon, I wish the Fast Healing had a higher threshold than just 28 points a day (+2 per level). In combat it likely won’t matter, and while out of combat it’s a decent amount of healing, usually enough to spare a couple spell slots from your healers or some potions, it’s just not all that impressive for a third and final Boon. Sentinels are the only followers of Hanspur who don’t get some method to easily navigate the seas, so taking advantage of this Boon to its fullest extent relies on an outside method of gaining water breathing or a swim speed.

Funnily enough, you can carry around a Bag of Holding filled with water and use it as a recuperative pod in case you don’t have access to a deep puddle, which is dubiously useful but not entirely terrible. HOWEVER, the little addition at the end is also a kick in the teeth; why does that only happen at level 20? Why can’t that be a base part of the Boon? It’s just insul--Wait, it only works if you’re submerged in a river, too? You can’t stabilize with some good old pond water? The mighty ocean? Can’t take a dip in a bathtub to stop bleeding out? Come on, Hanspur!!! Be a little more generous to your worshipers!

I dunno, maybe I’m underselling the out-of-combat healing this Boon offers, but it just doesn’t feel worth it to put up with the Water Rat for your entire adventuring career just for an extra 1/8th of an HP bar.

You can read more about him here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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blackjack-15 · 3 years

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The Weight of Living — Thoughts on: The Deadly Device (DED)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT, SAW, CAP, ASH, TMB

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. For this meta, like TMB, there will be an extra section entitled “The Theme” between The Mystery and The Suspects.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with my list of previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: DED, TMB; brief mentions of FIN, SSH, and ICE; brief mention of Iron Man (2008).

The Intro:

First off, this meta was supposed to be uploaded well over a week ago, and I apologize; life and health kind of got in the way, but it should be more constant for these last 3 metas.

I hope.

Like I mentioned with the last meta, this will be kind of a companion/two-piece meta with TMB. Where TMB focused on the effects of the dead on the living, DED instead focuses on the living’s effects on the dead — the dead in this case being Niko Jovic, of course. Let’s dive into that, shall we?

Just like how everything in TMB was dead, everything (other than Niko, rest in peace) in the lab is alive. The lab is full of people, of research — “living knowledge” in other words — of live wires and electricity, and is constantly growing and changing, just like a living organism does. With all this life present, the game is mostly concerned with how the living affect Niko.

What’s left of Niko after his death is his legacy — his work, his personality, his relationships (or lack thereof) with others, and it’s fascinating to see how our characters deal with and affect that. Grey is dedicating to curating Niko’s legacy (at Niko’s request, it should be noted), Ryan lives in awe of it, and Mason and Ellie are more pragmatic, wanting to use his legacy and work to improve their own lives. Victor, on the other hand, wants Niko’s legacy all to himself — to effectively erase it, in other words, which is another marker of him being our out-and-out villain.

Niko was divisive in life, and is even more so in death — no one can quite say exactly who he was. A jerk, a total scientist, someone who needed caring for, naïve, a useful tool — all of these were how people thought of him, and all of these were a part of who he was. In the end, it’s the efforts of the living that kill Niko — Ryan’s engineering, Ellie and Mason’s lack of concern, Grey’s reticence to get involved, and Victor’s machinations – along with his own secrecy and feeling of being apart from the world — or dead to it, more appropriately.

Stepping back from our characters and the weight of the living for a bit, let’s talk about the other thing that really makes DED stand out not only as a game but specifically as a Nancy Drew game — that is, its design in being a game that subverts the Nancy Drew formula at every turn.

There are a few obvious ones, like a phone character turning to a real-life suspect (rather than the other way around, like in TMB and ICE, or in any other game, where phone characters are Above Suspicion), the person hiring Nancy actually being the baddie, and Nancy having her safe places removed throughout the game, rather than crossing off locations where Bad Things can happen, but the more interesting ones are a little more subtle.

Our suspects provide a few more subversions — for example, our ‘meanest’ characters (Mason and Gray) are neither our explicit Good Guys or our definite Bad Guys, as often tends to be the case in Nancy Drew games. We also have suspects who hate each other openly revealed to be working together towards a common goal, which is a nice twist on the Warring Suspects trope that we see in quite a few games (ICE, FIN, SSH, etc.).

Finally, the structure of the mystery gives us our last two subversions. Instead of our normal Nancy Drew status quo where the characters are simple but their motivations end up being surprising/hidden/secret, we here have a straightforward motive — remove Niko to get his stuff — and our characters are the part that’s not straightforward, with each of them having warring traits within themselves that contribute to the fog surrounding the mystery.

Our villain also fails in this game through the cover-up, not through the crime. Normally, there’s a mistake that the culprit makes during the committing of a crime that Nancy finds evidence of later — a dropped business card, etc. — but in this case, it’s really only the cover up that implicates Victor at all, and he would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for, well, himself.

These subversions wouldn’t have been possible 10 or 15 games ago, and it’s a mark of how far the games have come that a game can be dedicated to subverting the usual formula and do it with such panache — and make a great game out of it, besides.

The Title:

As a title, The Deadly Device is pretty solid, if lacking a bit of flash. It gives us our method of murder and the academic ‘scope’ (i.e., science/engineering) that we’re playing in for this game, and tells us our crime — can’t be a deadly device without someone ending up, you know, dead — but doesn’t do a lot outside of that and hinting that the dead as a thematic element will have some role to play.

The reason the title is solid, however, rather than lacking, is that there’s not much else to call it that’s quite as well-fit to the game. It pulls (in a matter of speaking) from two Nancy Drew stories, The Crime Lab Case — which, as a title, yawn — and In and Out of Love, a story from the Nancy-at-college era that tried to be Hotter and Sexier than the previous books, but just ended up being a bit ridiculous. Neither one of those titles would have been any better — they would have been significantly worse, honestly, so The Deadly Device will stand as a good, solid effort for a great game.

The Mystery:

Disaster has struck at Technology of Tomorrow Today, a research lab in snowy Colorado: the lead scientist, a man named Niko Jovic, has been discovered dead in the Tesla Coil lab of electrocution. Months later, the case has gone cold, so owner Victor Losset decides to take matters into his own hands and hires Nancy to find his employee’s killer — not that there’s any doubt in his mind that Ryan Kilpatrick, the engineer who built the coil that killed Niko, is responsible.

When Nancy arrives on-scene and undercover, however, things aren’t quite as cut and dry as Victor would have her believe. It seems that everyone at the lab has means, motive, and opportunity — and whoever killed Niko doesn’t have any qualms about killing a nosy detective to cover up their crime…

Like with TMB, DED isn’t that interested in obscuring its bad guy to a “gotcha!” moment at the very end of the game. Instead, it’s largely concerned with putting disparate personalities under a huge amount of pressure and seeing what results. No one at the lab is super fond of anyone else who works there, nor of their superiors or employer(s), and all have the equipment and the intelligence to make use of the equipment to deadly ends.

Also like TMB, the crime has already been committed or begun, and it’s not Nancy’s job to prevent it — nothing is going to bring Niko back, after all — but to put together the post-mortem pieces and discover what really happened in the past, and the effect that the living have on the dead. It’s a thematic sort of conflict, and it really helps to elevate the game past “fun science mystery”. And speaking of thematic resonance in this game…

The Theme:

As we discussed last time, TMB was a game about fear — fear of death, of responsibility, of ignominy, of failure, etc. Being its sister game, DED is focused on the opposite of fear: acceptance. Instead of failure, responsibility, and other ever-present fears, DED is about the acceptance of the good, the bad, of yourself, and what others will do with your work and legacy once you’re gone.

In other words, DED is a game most concerned, thematically speaking, with certainty and resolve, rather than fear.

One of the biggest thematic elements in the game that proves this point is the presence of Niko’s recorded diaries. Not only does this feature some excellent voice acting by Josh Crandall, but it also gives a dead character the chance to discuss his motivations, his considerations, and — importantly — his sense of his impending death.

At no point does Niko dissolve into hysterics or even palpable fear; he simply accepts that there are consequences for both his and others’ actions, and that there are people in the world who believe the opposite of what he believes in — and are willing to kill for it.

Niko was a man who personified resolve and acceptance to a fault — had he informed others that his life was in danger, Victor would have had a much harder time killing him — but was also jealous of those who didn’t have to or have the capacity to have that kind of acceptance:

“I see why Tesla liked his pigeons. They fly only where they’re directed, and never question the effect the beating of their wings will have on the skies and the world below.”

The lack of acceptance in our villain is actually what leads to his downfall. The case has gone cold, and Victor is, legally speaking, off the hook — but he can’t accept that he’s gotten away with it, and instead decides to push it one step too far by hiring a detective. Had he not hired anyone, he would have been free and clear for the rest of his life — if the police weren’t able to find anything, the chances of them reopening the cold case are extremely slim — but instead Victor couldn’t accept it, and so hired the instrument of his own demise.

Every suspect has their own resolve in this game, and it’s that facet of their personalities that gives Nancy such a hard time at first, because none of that resolve includes answering the questions of a pesky investigator.

The Suspects:

First off is Obadiah Stane Victor Lossett, Nancy’s boss, owner of Technology of Tomorrow Today, and super evil killer of scientists who piss him off and prevent him from making oodles of money.

Like I mentioned above in “The Mystery”, the game isn’t so much concerned with obscuring Victor’s role as the bad guy. It’s a lovely moment when he shows up, changing from phone to real-life character (and suspect) — it’s in fact one of my favorite moments in the series, and I’ve spoken about it before in my list of the top 5 twists/surprising moments in the series — but it’s not a surprise that he’s involved in Niko’s death.

Victor fulfills the subversion of the formula that DED plays with a while also telling the correct story and theme for the game: he’s a man who took advantage of others for his own personal gain, and so everything he has is taken from him — including his notoriety — because of his lack of acceptance of the world.

“The world fondly remembers those who always give, and soon forgets those who only take.”

Next on the list is Ryan Kilpatrick, Victor’s favored patsy suspect and technical engineer at TTT. Energetic and quirky to (in my opinion) a fault, Ryan warned Niko several times that the Tesla coil would kill him, and then did exactly what he wanted her to do anyway.

To be fair to the girl, she was definitely in love with him, albeit a love more based on pity than on straight-out affection. “He had no one else in the world looking after him”, anyone?

Ryan only makes sense in a world where Niko was killed in the way that it appears first: by a simple malfunction in the Tesla Coil. Because Ryan built it, she would be legally responsible for his death, even though he was her boss when he told her to build it that way. It would be a simple, easy answer, and one that would have been totally thematically opposite of the story the game was telling, which makes her the perfect “preferred” suspect for Victor’s ruse.

Our two research assistants are next for consideration, so let’s start with Ellie York, our night-shift assistant who switched in order to avoid her coworker. A Good Southern Girl, Ellie is not above talking smack with a pretense of politeness and has a rather sinister motive up her sleeve.

Despite the fact that all research done at a lab is property of the lab, she (and Mason) decides that Isn’t Fair and tries to shop around their research to the highest bidder in an attempt to make enough money to pay off her debts.

The fact that she’s selling research that isn’t wholly done by her or Mason when she’s mad that her research is being (contractually and legally) used by someone else does rather put a damper on her ‘righteous anger’, doesn’t it.

As a villain, Ellie would have had to be a pair with Mason, which would have been interesting and a parallel to TMB, but just wouldn’t have told the story that DED wanted to tell. It would have been a story about backbiting and jealousy within a workplace, and thus would have lost its resonance with the historical backstory and with who Niko was as a person. As the victim makes the murder, Ellie (or Mason, or and Mason) would have been a poor choice.

Mason Quinto works the day shift and is far more neurotic than his night-shift companion, though just as guilty of attempting to sell research. He prefers his space neat and orderly, and gets quite steamed when Ellie messes it up to piss him off.

Yeah, there’s no way those two don’t end up in bed when they’re drunk. Honestly.

While the more ‘scientist’-like and nerdy of the two assistants, Mason is, in a refreshing change from normal tropes, also the more maverick of the two, running away with Niko’s work after the murder is solved and is only found at an expo by Gray a bit later, where a fight erupts until Mason comes back to work with Gray and Ellie.

He can also turn into a supervillain in a second chance, which is awesome.

Like I said above with Ellie, the only way Mason makes sense as the villain is to be a pair with Ellie, but it just isn’t the right story, thematically speaking. Mason (and Ellie) are a great example of how everyone in DED is guilty of something, whether they think they’re justified or not, and how putting these kind of people in a pressure cooker and turning it on only leads to disaster, sooner or later.

The last still-living member of our cast is Gray Cortright, security guard and ex-theoretical physicist, along with being probably Niko’s only friend — for a certain value of ‘friend’, it should be noted. Gray used to be the “smart one” until he went through what is basically a nervous breakdown due to his knowledge of theoretical physics and never quite recovered.

I’ll note that Gray would have been a more obvious choice for the early Nancy Drew games; a friendship gone wrong, a slightly “crazy” villain — the pieces are there. But because DED subverts the Classic Formula, Gray is instead probably the only person fully on Niko’s side — no tricks, no ulterior motives, no nothing. He’s exactly what he presents himself to be: gruff, grumpy, unkind, and not even close to a murderer (except, perhaps, where Mason is involved).

Let’s finish off our roll call with Niko Jovic, our murder victim and one of two foils for Nancy in this game. Niko was “100% a scientist”, interested most in the free use and free sharing of technological and scientific advancement, and less interested in developing technology to harm others.

This didn’t make him very popular with those who wanted to harm others, funnily enough.

It’s important that our victim in this case foils Nancy, because this is a game about (as we’ve discussed) acceptance and consequences. The consequence of Niko not paying attention to the fact that other people in the world are not like him was that there was an opening for a bad man to kill him. It’s not Niko’s fault that he was killed, but neither was he unaware that it was coming. He’s described as a ‘dead brilliant jerk madman’, and there’s a lot of truth in that; those who ultimately do good things and work hard are not always good or kind or nice themselves.

And yes, this is how he relates to Nancy. Nancy, like Niko, is a person who rather thinks what most of us would call “people skills” or “kindness” get in the way of the most important thing: solving puzzles and figuring things out. Both of them make the world better through their work, but honestly speaking, that’s not their ultimate aim. They’re not working directly to improve the world, they’re working for knowledge and to solve the puzzle.

In other words, they’re investigators, not philanthropists. And often (ultimately, for Niko), that’s what puts them in danger.

Over on Team Nancy, we have some familiar faces, beginning with our most unfamiliar familiar face, Nancy herself.

Hired as a professional detective undercover, Nancy Drew arrives at the lab to ferret out the murderer — and the truth behind Niko’s death — before anyone figures out that she’s not actually there on behalf of a new owner.

We learn a lot about Nancy in this game, not the least of which because she’s in what we can cheerfully call the opposite of her element (contrasting with TMB). Closely observed, surrounded by a subject that’s not quite in her normal wheelhouse, and where everyone around her is hell-bent on hiding everything they can from her — it’s a recipe for a frustrated detective, and that’s part of the reason that we see the return of not one but two (three? technically) detective (or detective-adjacent) phone friends, rather than Bess/George/Ned.

(Side Note: George, for all her specialty with science and technology, wouldn’t have been a good phone friend for this game, as she would have focused on the science, which isn’t really the point of Nancy’s investigation, and not enough on the case. Just putting that out there.)

This game features Nancy as a sort of patsy, rather than an unexpected observer or the target of revenge, and it should be no surprise that she outgrows that role fairly quickly. Her reluctance to search for evidence against someone, rather than evidence for the crime, clears the hurdle of Ryan’s Suspected Involvement pretty quickly while being the opposite of what Victor wanted out of her assistance.

On display here is Nancy’s fairness and her ability to ignore what others say about a case if it doesn’t suit her. Sure, she’s been told to watch Ryan and find her guilty, but Nancy’s pretty uninterested in that, instead centering her search around Niko rather than Ryan. Ellie makes a comment about Mason being about 60% scientist (and Niko being 100%), and it’s fair to say that Nancy’s about 60% a detective; she has other interests and motivations, but when she’s ‘at work’, she’s focused on doing her job to the greatest extent that she can — which is what makes her such a problem for Victor in the long run. And speaking of problems for Victor…

Returning from her role as the gloriously catty mean girl in ASH is Deirdre Shannon, criminology student and absolute sass master. Busted for hiring someone to write an essay for her in college, Deirdre’s clever enough to suggest making up the credit by assisting in a real-life murder investigation — albeit with a heavy dose of sarcasm for her frenemy.

Besides having the best lines in the game (her “did you forget that I don’t like you?” and voicemail message are incredible, along with her assertion that Nancy should get her head checked out due to her repeated hits on the head), Deirdre is there to help Nancy see things from a different perspective and to clue her in on information that she has no way to get — backing up alibis, old publications, and the like. She’s less concerned with the background of the case — the Hardy Boys (!!) have that covered — and is more here to figure out exactly who can be taken off of Nancy’s suspect list and why.

She also, in a rather glorious twist of fate, is the reason that Nancy is hired, having told Victor that Nancy suffers from “chronic wrongness”, among other things. I can just imagine how pissed Victor must have been in jail with her — more than with Nancy, certainly — and can easily see a future where, upon his release/escape, Victor goes after Deirdre — it was after all Deirdre, not Nancy, who cleared Ryan.

But enough about games that would have been better than MID. That’s a nigh-unquenchable topic.

Deirdre’s there as the more prominent foil to Nancy within the game — and the game isn’t shy about foiling the two women. Both are bright, both come from River Heights, both are interested in/involved with the same boy, both are involved in crimes/criminology to some extent…the list goes on.

The thing that Deirdre-as-foil shows us about Nancy is that Nancy isn’t unique in what she does. Sure, the way she got into the mystery business and her credentials are unusual, but she’s far from the only girl in her late teens that’s interested in crime and mysteries, and far from the only one who can solve these types of mysteries.

Deirdre is often referred to as “the girl who could have been Nancy Drew” had things worked out differently for her — different parents, different friends, different connections, etc. — and we see that play out here. She’s not lacking for smarts, intuitive thinking, or creative problem solving — just in opportunity.

The Hardy Boys are here for their only appearance in the Nancy Games, and boy do they do The Most.

When last we saw him, Frank Hardy was helping Nancy out with a ‘relationship talk’, but here he’s interested in two things: talking to Nancy and researching to help Nancy. He’s quite proud of Nancy and her reputation, and is more than willing to help her on the case — though his first priority is her safety, as demonstrated by the voicemail.

That really should be capitalized, huh. “The Voicemail”.

I first wanna say kudos to DED for actually making progress in Frank’s character arc and relationship with Nancy, and giving context to his sulking in the next game. So often in games like the Nancy Drew games — and indeed, in the earlier games in this series — there’s an addiction to the status quo that doesn’t really allow for anyone to learn anything permanent, much less something that changes their behavior, so I’m pretty thrilled with this development even outside of shipping.

Second, I love that this is a topic that both boys are interested in, albeit for different reasons. Too often we have either Frank or Joe being enthusiastic about the context of Nancy’s investigation, and it’s nice here to see that the boys can agree on something — even if their answers are different as to why.

Speaking of different reasons for interest, Joe Hardy is back (we haven’t seen him for quite a few games!) and is better than ever. I’ve said it before (and I’ll say it again), but really Rob Jones does a phenomenal job with Joe, especially as the games progress, and DED is a perfect example. Joe’s dialogue is pitch-perfect and his excitement about Tesla is adorable.

I’m also going to point out that Joe’s identity as a very proficient tactician is in play in this game, as he is the one to point out how very strange it is that a man of means and importance would hire Nancy — not that, as Frank points out, Nancy doesn’t have a great reputation, but just that Victor should be able to hire a world-class detective rather than a girl in her late teens to investigate this murder.

The thing that the Hardy Boys are here to represent is Nancy’s fledgling footing into the professional world. Sure, she’s been a detective for hire for a while now, and TOT sort of ushered her into that world for good, but the Boys have been doing this for much, much longer, and have the sort of resources that make a huge difference when investigating crimes like murder versus circumstances like “my daughter is unhappy go help her”.

For all of Nancy’s natural inclinations, talents, and drive that make her a good detective, the Hardy Boys (along with Deirdre) show the downside of being an autodidact: the breadth of your resources isn’t anywhere near what others’ might be. The things she needs to solve this mystery are privy to those with better resources — colleges and agencies — and she has to rely on them to get the job done.

The Favorite:

DED is a game that I didn’t expect to like, but ended up really loving, so there’s quite a few things in this section that stand out.

The first thing I want to mention is I love Ellie and Mason’s interactions. In a lot of Nancy Drew games, we get the characters interacting with Nancy, but not so much interacting with each other, so it’s always a pleasure for me when it happens.

Deirdre holds her title as one of my favorite characters in this series, so of course she’s going to get a mention here. The “TDPD” segment has me rolling on the floor, her comment about Nancy volunteering for a neurological study sounds exactly like what a lot of fans joke about, and her voice acting (major props to Meaghan Halverson) is equal parts snide and earnest, all without ever losing her edge or likability.

As anyone who’s been in the vicinity of these metas knows, I’m a huge fan of the Hardy Boys, and I love their inclusion here. The geeking out over Tesla, the brotherly camaraderie, the hints at Frank’s feelings, Joe teasing Frank about said feelings — it’s all here, and it’s all wonderful.

My favorite puzzle would probably have to be the whole fingerprint-melting-gummy-bear puzzle, just because — I mean, at the end of the day, that’s just cool. I did a forensic-science-style unit in my elementary years where we printed fingerprints and distinguished between whorls and such and this made me exactly as excited as I had been all those years ago. It’s fun, fitting with the story, and involves gummy candies — what’s not to like?

My favorite moment — and I’ve mentioned this once already in this meta, and in a different meta — is the moment that Victor shows up. Savvy players of this series would know that there’s no way HER would include a model of Victor just for a video call, so it’s not exactly a surprise, but it’s such a wonderfully scary moment without being a jump scare or a startle.

Victor’s appearance closes down Nancy’s snooping spots, removes a safe place for her, turns the last bit of the game into a sort of mix of detective and stealth game, and is a huge subversion of the usual “phone-client” formula, and I absolutely love it.

My last favorite thing about this game is when you realize that Victor hired Nancy due to her supposed incompetence, rather than her being, in Frank’s words, one of the best that there is. It chills you down to the bone and makes the whole game feel more antagonistic as a result, and is just a really nice writing moment.

The Un-Favorite:

There are, however, a few things that maybe aren’t so grand in this game, even with all its good points.

My least favorite puzzle is probably the chemical puzzle — with the beakers and the exploding water and such — just because it’s quite finicky, and it takes up time that I’d rather be doing other things with. I thought about the printing puzzle, but honestly even though it takes time within the game to do it, there’s plenty of other things to do with Nancy’s time that makes the time spent there not so big a deal.

My least favorite moment in the game is, quite frankly, the time spent talking to Ryan. I find all the characters interesting as characters, but Ryan is exactly the kind of Quirk that I don’t handle well, in real life and in video games.

Honestly, her remark of “I less-than-three them!” was enough to get me to stand up and walk away from the game for a minute the first time I played through it.

Had this game come out a few decades earlier, she would have referred to Niko as “totally tubular” and stuff like that, and it’s…it’s just a lot to handle for me personally.

The Fix:

So how would I fix The Deadly Device?

Honestly speaking, this is a game where there’s not a lot to do. I’d probably tweak Ryan to be a little less annoying and smooth out the chemicals puzzle, but those are more personal grievances than they are actual issues with the plot and writing.

Probably the only substantial thing I’d do is tie in the robotic cat plotline a little more. As it is, it’s easy to ignore and doesn’t have a lot of plot or thematic resonance, so I’d make it a little more important and noteworthy. And less scary looking.

DED is a game that sets out to tell a good story while subverting the usual Nancy Drew formula in big and small ways, and honestly it succeeds at both of those things with flying colors. It really feels like a setting where life went on before and will go on after Nancy leaves it, which is Valuable to me all by itself, and features some of the more colorful moments in the series — all while solving an actual murder for the first time since a Florida high school in the 90s.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #the deadly device #clue crew #nancy drew meta #DED #video games #my meta

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thedarkstrangeson · 4 years

Text

When you put one(1) Gay Panic in a laser tag arena

Read on ao3

Pairing: Roceit

In which: Roman, Logan, Patton, and Virgil have met up for laser tag. Roman spots a cute guy. Gayness ensues.

Warnings: Its laser tag so theres lots of fake guns, kissing, remus mention, let me know if there’s anything else I should put in.

Word Count: 1955

Simply put, it was a Friday. One of the best Fridays to date, in Roman’s not-so-humble opinion. This particular Friday was the last one of the month, which meant the big get-together with his friends! They hung out at other times, of course but tried to plan something a bit more exciting every so often. Last month’s was go-kart racing, in which Logan absolutely destroyed all of them, including the other walk-in players. Something about “racing lines”, was his explanation. Roman wasn’t quite sure, but he could respect Logan’s skill nonetheless.

This time around, they were going out for Laser-Tag. Roman was under the impression that he was good with a laser gun (a weapon wielded in the name of good would always bring him fortune), but that would soon be put to the test. Logan would be there to pick him up in only half an hour, and his makeup wasn’t even started yet. Never mind that laser-tag was in the dark, a prince has got to slay! He ended up playing around with his new white eyeliner, hoping the blacklights of the arena would make it pop. Too soon, the doorbell rang and they were on their way.

After picking up Patton, then Virgil, Logan pulled into the parking lot not a moment too soon. Roman was just about to burst from the excitement.

“Ready to defeat whatever foul foes may oppose us?”

“Ooh! Let’s make sure we are all on the same team!”

“Let’s try to get purple. I’ve never lost a game while playing on purple team.”

“Virgil, superstitions like that won’t help us win, it will be stealth and true aim that will lead us to victory. Those laser-blasters...”

Roman rolled his eyes affectionately as Logan continued to explain the best way to hold a blaster and use the mirrors situated throughout the course. This one was sci-fi themed, with everything lit up in neon greens, pinks and purples. As they walked into the lobby, the others still bickering about the pros and cons of various hiding techniques, Roman scanned the room to size up their opponents… and his gaze locked right onto another’s across the room.

He was tall, sandy blond hair just barely obscuring sharp green eyes. He leaned casually on the check-in counter, a friend beside him purchasing tickets. Twirling a quarter across his knuckles, he kept eye contact with Roman for a long moment before offering a sly wink and turning back around.

Roman finally realized he’d been staring, and blushed deeply at having been caught. So much for keeping his cool.

“Roman! Hey, you’d stopped responding whats-” Patton stopped, as Roman had now turned around, face still flushed, “-Oh!” Patton giggled. “Bit of a gay panic there, my friend?”

“-No,” he said, “He’s just. Attractive, is all. Its fine. I'm fine. Its fine.” Patton smiled indulgently at that, but Logan interrupted any further comments.

“We’ve got tickets for the 3:30 game,” he said, “Until then, you’ve each got 10 quarters.” Any laser-tag arena worth its salt had some arcade games to entertain guests before and after. This one had better games than most, so they had to play. Logan quickly passed out everyone’s quarter allotment, and then left to try the claw game. Logically, it was rigged and he wouldn’t win anything. But that made it the most challenging, so it would be fun to try.

Patton nudged Roman in the direction of the handsome stranger from earlier, now starting up one of the classic hunting style games. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Hey!” Roman tried to object, but Patton had already slipped off with Virgil to the opposite end of the arcade, leaving him with seemingly no choice but to try to strike up a conversation. He took a deep breath, trying to even out his frayed nerves before striding quickly over to the man.

“Mind if I join in?”

“Of course, you’re welcome to try to beat me,” his voice was silky smooth, the teasing leaving him just as flustered as before.

“You’re on.”

-----------------------------

They were interrupted about 5 minutes later with a call for the next game. Roman’s opponent hissed in frustration. Leaving the game like this would waste valuable quarters, but a better game was calling.

“Well done, for an amateur. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Roman faltered at the compliment. He had been beaten soundly, ending several thousand points behind. But eventually, words started to form again. “Uhh, Roman. And you are?”

“Ethan. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I trust I’ll see more of you inside?”

“Definitely.”

With a quick nod in response, Ethan swept away towards the beckoning attendant.

I’m screwed.

-----------------------------

Roman rejoined his friends for the safety presentation, finding that Logan had miraculously won himself a unicorn plushie from the claw machine. He seemed absolutely overjoyed at it, even as he tried to contain his excitement. Virgil quickly proclaimed it to be the team’s good luck charm and mascot, and Logan did not even try to object. They all sat as patiently as they could through the presentation, anxious to get into the arena. There was the explanation of the arena layout, the three different goals, power-ups, the colors on the vests, how to fire the laser how to put on the vest how to walk around and not run so you don’t trip… all that useless good stuff.

Roman found it all tremendously boring, and instead opted to sneak glances at the man- Ethan - across the room. He was determined to get the better of Ethan in-game. Call it revenge for being beaten in the Arcade or just really aggressive flirting, either way he was definitely intent on defeating his new sworn enemy.

The attendant led them into the prep room, the walls lined with glowing vests sorted by their color. Virgil made a beeline for the purple rack, waving them all over. Next came one of the arguably most important parts of the game: choosing your nickname. This particular establishment had all of the vests named after various superheroes. So, the best strategy was to check every gun for the best names and go from there. Logan didn’t bother with this irrational ritual, he just went for the first vest he picked up, Doctor Strange (He secretly found this to be absolutely perfect). Virgil ended up on Raven, because everyone needs to be an emo half-demon occasionally. Patton, very much out of the loop on superhero lore, found Mr. Fantastic to be his nickname of choice. Roman chose Captain America, because Superman was already taken and who doesn’t want to have America’s ass.

Across the room, Ethan was doing up the straps on his friend’s vest. The guy was practically vibrating with excitement, saying something about “shooting people’s heads off”, as though that was possible. Ethan just laughed, grabbing another vest from the green rack and buckling it in place on himself.

“Everyone ready? Let’s make a game-plan,” said Logan, always the strategist of the group.

“Spreading out is our best bet, so that not everyone can get tagged at once,” said Roman.

“Yes, but we get a 30 second grace period in the beginning, so I think we should dash to the green base first to take it all together,” said Virgil.

“Sounds good. We can spread out from there to cover the most area,” said Logan.

“How about we do pairs so we can watch each others backs at least?”

“Agreed. Is everyone in accordance with that?”

When everyone had nodded, Patton put his hand in the middle. “We’ve gotta have a team cheer!”

“Umm. Alright. Laser Tag on three?” Logan said.

‘Why not! One, two, three!”

A very much not-in-time chorus of “Laser Tag” rang out, leaving everyone involved vaguely confused but overall enthusiastic about the effort.

“LASERS!” A cry came very belatedly, from the green team’s side of the room.

“Remus, what the heck,” said Ethan, “You can’t just copy the opponents!”

Before the green team could get their act together to create a real team cheer, it was time for the match to begin. The attendants opened the door and 12 screaming adults flooded into the battlefield.

Purple team split off as one, taking a left towards the orange base. Logan took point, leading them purposefully into enemy territory.

“Here.”

They split to opposite sides of the path, concealing themselves behind walls and checking out the area for any other players. The timer on the grace period counted down the last 5 seconds.

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now!”

“Yeet,” said Virgil quietly, as he stepped out and dashed towards the base, firing continuously. The orange team was lying in wait though, so Virgil went down quickly. He stepped back to let his vest come back online, and his teammates went on the offensive. Trading shots, the purple team soon took over the base. 3 seconds of capturing later, the base went down to Patton’s blaster.

“Yes!” Patton pumped his fist in the air, before exchanging high fives with his teammates. “Time to split up.”

“Virgil, with me?” asked Logan.

“You’re on. See you at the end of the war, you guys!”

They departed quickly, leaving Patton and Roman to head off in the opposite direction. From then on it was a desperate clash of missed shot and curses, hits and cheers, everyone battling for the top. After one particularly hectic exchange, Roman found himself sheltered behind a wall for a moment to catch his breath, Patton nowhere to be found. Then, footsteps approached and Roman readied his blaster. A figure rounded the corner, but they had on purple lights. He lowered his gun, even as the figure solidified into an urgently moving Ethan.

“Wait I thought you were-”

“Shhh, there are people coming.” Ethan silenced him, and crouched close to get in behind the wall. Roman could feel him pressed close to his side, breathing heavily from all the running, and it took him a moment to get back focused on the game.

Some orange team players rounded the bend, but they hadn’t exposed Ethan’s and Roman’s hiding spot yet. The walked past, laughing, until Ethan stepped out behind them and cleanly shot them both in the back.

“What-”

“Let’s go!” Ethan grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, running off away from the now incapacitated orange players. Roman soon found himself dragged into another hiding spot, Ethan standing in front of him.

“Nice makeup. Doesn’t exactly help you hide though, does it?”

“I’d say it helps me slay the opposition.” Roman was quite proud of himself for that one, considering how hard it was to form coherent sentences right this moment.

“Oh, now does it?” Ethan chuckled, “Well, you certainly slay me.”

He leaned in, and Roman felt his breath catch.

“May I?” It was whispered, low enough for only him to hear.

“Oh. Sure.” That’s what he went with? Sure? You just said sure, Roman? Of all the idiotic-

His thoughts didn’t last long, because at that point he was pushed up against the wall and Ethan’s mouth was on his, hot and insistent. In just one moment, he was left breathless, what a surprise and starstruck, before Ethan was already pulling away.

The lights on Ethan’s vest changed, blinking green as his spy power-up timed out.

“Oh-” Roman came to the realization that he was, most definitely, screwed.

In one smooth movement, Ethan stepped back, raised his blaster and shot him, aiming right over his heart. He winked, barely visible in the dark, before turning on his heel and disappearing around the corner.

“I am so fucked.”

Back in the lobby, a new line appeared on the scoreboard.

“Captain America was shot by The Winter Soldier, 25 points.”

#roceit #ts sanders sides #deceit sanders #roman sanders #laser tag #dark strange writing

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wedreamerz · 4 years

Text

Roll You In Sugar

Follow Up to Buttons

Written for @mcukinkbingo

Square Filled: SugarBaby/Daddy

Pairing: Tony/Peter. (Peter is 18+)

Rating: E

Warnings: None

Tags: Daddy/Sugar Baby, Daddy Kink, Praise Kink, Smut, Fluff

“Good night, Daddies,” I blew a sleepy kiss to my guests before turning off the camera. It was a good show. The guests had been encouraging, their comments just enough to tip me other the edge. But I was disappointed when youknowwhoIam was mostly silent through the show. He’d thanked me at the end but other than that, he’d been quiet.

I fell back onto my bed, surrounded by discarded clothes and dildos, hoping he hadn’t been disappointed with my performance. A little chime sounded on my laptop, indicating a notification had come through. I stretched a groaned, not wanting to move, but curious, a little hopeful.

<youknowwhoIam> private: You’re stunning, Sweetheart. Where are you? Let me take you to dinner? Let me spoil you like you deserve.

~~~~~~~~~~

He wore a mask, black lace that obscured his features but did nothing to hide his beauty. I was hard, leaking and throbbing with need but I didn’t touch myself. This performance wasn’t for me, despite his cheeky Iron Man underoos.

The others talked to him, shouted commands. I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I wanted to whisper in his ear. I wanted to hear him moan when I touch him, open his tight little ass on my fingers. He deserved flesh, flowers, kisses, and silk - not those cheap nylon stockings that clung to his firm, pale thighs. I wanted to put him in the finest. And I wanted him all to myself.

Chest flushed, cock so hard in his fist, he came so pretty. I watched, breathless and aching when he let go, little nose scrunched, mouth open and ready for me to fill it.

God… did I want to fill it.

~~~~~~~~~

My heart raced. He wanted to meet me...like... actually meet me. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t meet a complete stranger I’d barely spoken to.

Could I?

<Underoos> private: How do I know you’re not a serial killer?

<youknowwhoIam> private: I’m not.

<Underoos> private: But how do I know?

<youknowwhoIam> private: I’ll prove it. Turn on your camera.

<Underoos> private: Why?

<youknowwhoIam> private Trust me, Sweetheart. All I wanna do is show you something.

I bit my lip, butterflies at war in my stomach. I was still naked and for a moment I considered staying that way. He’d already seen me come. But outside of the show, it felt strange, a little too exposed. So, I pulled on my Iron Man hoodie and zipped it up before turning on the camera.

The window popped up as usual. And I saw that youknowwhoIam was the only one in the chat. In the next moment, my screen flickered, and another window popped up, a black screen that scrolled with code for just a second before it lit up, revealing someone’s chest.

The software didn’t work this way. I couldn’t see any of the guests, only chat with them.

“What the…” I whispered.

A large hand covered the camera lens, distorting the screen for just a moment before it pulled away and…

My stomach dropped down to my knees.

“T-Tony Stark?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The boy had a point. I could be anyone. But I wasn’t. And the fastest way through that argument was revealing my identity. I had no qualms about it. I wanted him to know me, know who I was and what I wanted.

Friday hacked the system and with a quick adjustment to the camera, I got to watch that beautiful face light up with excitement and awe.

“T-Tony Stark?” he said, eyes wide.

“See, I told you, not a serial killer,” I said with a smirk, leaning back against the headboard.

“H- how did you…right...you’re Tony Stark. Of course, you hacked my computer.”

“Not yours. Your company’s. Just a little piggybacking off of their cam feature.”

He smiled at that, genuine and so fucking sweet. He shook his head and shrugged. “Why?”

“Because I want you to take me seriously. I want to take you to dinner."

He looked into the camera, bit his lip. "But why me?" he asked with a frown. "I'm just a broke college student trying to make a little money camming."

"Let's just say I don't like to share. I want you all to myself. Just dinner. No obligations. No strings. I'll fly wherever you are. And if you never want to see me again, so be it."

"I… I'm…"

He was looking for an excuse to say no. But he wanted to say yes; I could see it in his eyes.

"Come on, Sweetheart… what do you have to lose?" I said softly, careful not to swing his pendulum in the opposite direction. "Tell you what, let's just start at the beginning. What's your name?"

He glanced to the side at something off-camera - a door maybe? Was he alone? Did he have a boyfriend? I didn't care. He drew a breath and seemed to come to some kind of decision.

"Peter. Peter Parker."

~~~~~~~~~~

He sent a limo. A long, black stretch limo. A week after Tony fucking Stark hijacked my webcam, it pulled up in front of my apartment, standing out like the sorest of thumbs.

I had been waiting on the stoop, hoping May wouldn't notice. I hurried forward as a tall, kind of cranky looking man got out of the driver's seat and met me on the sidewalk.

"Peter Parker?" he asked, eyeing the row of apartments with only a touch of distrust.

"Um, yes." I gulped and shoved my hands in the pockets of my only good dress pants.

"Great. The Boss asked me to tell you he's sorry he couldn't be here to pick you up. He'll meet you at the restaurant. My name is Mr. Hogan. I'll be your driver tonight."

He opened the door for me, and I stepped back, second- no, fourth guessing this decision. What was I doing? I had no business meeting a client.

But it's Tony Stark, that thirsty voice in the back of my mind piped up. The one that had been there when I'd jerked off to the countless posters, magazines and leaked bootleg, cellphone porn videos. He was my celebrity crush, my goal. I wanted to be like him: genius, superhero, philanthropist. He made a difference.

But it's Tony Stark, that other voice spoke up, the one who never failed to notice the articles about the people he'd been spotted with.

"Come on, kid. Boss isn't gonna wait forever," Mr. Hogan said, nodding at the open car door.

"Right, uh, sorry," I said as I climbed in.

It was quiet inside, warm and cozy in contrast to the February chill. The only coat I owned looked horrible with the grey dress pants and a blue dress shirt I'd chosen. So, I'd ditched the coat and topped the outfit with the soft grey sweater May had gotten me last Christmas.

I didn't know where we were going or even if what I was wearing was appropriate. I mean, Mr. Stark was used to the best, the finest. I looked down at my pants, already wrinkled, and frowned.

This was a huge mistake.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'd done my research.

Peter Parker had graduated high school early and was at the top of his class, in his third year at Empire State University where he majored in Biophysics and minored in journalism. He was a photographer and had had several of his photos featured in The Daily Bugle just this year alone.

I couldn't help but be impressed. Not only was Peter the most beautiful creature on the planet, he was a fucking genius. But what made my boy truly fascinating was what he got up to in his spare time. And I'm not talking about camming. Imagine my surprise when I learned that my boy had a secret identity that had nothing to do with Underoos.

When the limo pulled up to the restaurant, I smiled and sauntered out from under the awning. I waved Happy away and he waved back in acknowledgment as I opened Peter's door.

He looked up at me, all wide-eyed and fresh-faced, like a fucking princess ready for the ball. His cheeks were flushed, lips bitten pink.

“Mr. Parker?" I said and extended my hand.

"Mr. Stark."

He smiled; a tiny thing that grew until his eyes lit with pleasure. His hand in mine wasn't something I was prepared for, the warmth, the want of never letting it go. Neither was his cheeky grin.

He looked up at the restaurant I'd chosen and chuckled. "Not quite what I was expecting," he said.

I eyed the little brick building and nodded. "It's my favorite Italian joint in Queens. They have the best -"

"Chicken parm, I know," he said. "We order from here all the time."

"Good. Unless you'd rather go somewhere else? Uptown? I have a jet; I could take you for real Italian food."

"Oh, no no no… I'm not complaining. I love this place. I just assumed…"

"That I'd take you to some big fancy Manhattan hot spot?"

Peter nodded and looked down at his shoes.

"Would you have been comfortable there?" I asked, gently turning him, tipping his chin so that he met my gaze. "Meeting me for the first time in the middle of that chaos?"

"No," Peter admitted.

"That's why I chose here," I said, not admitting to hacking his google account, looking through his Yelp reviews. "I wanted you to feel comfortable."

"Thank you. I... I was a little intimidated. I mean…"

"I know, Sweetheart. But you shouldn't be. You're young, sure. But I did my homework. You're brilliant. Come on. They're holding a table for us in the back."

~~~~~~~

Hand on the small of my back, he guided me inside. I melted, literally leaned into his warmth. I'd known he was beautiful and witty. But to have the full force of Tony Stark's undivided attention, to be swimming in that warm espresso gaze - it was more intoxicating than any amount of attention I could ever receive from the men in the chat.

I'd expected wooing, amusing anecdotes from his trip to Japan or the last Avenger's mission. But he continued to surprise me.

"So, tell me about your classes," he said after we had ordered.

"Oh, um… I'm studying Biophysics. But you probably already know that," I said.

"I know what you're studying and that you're top of your class. But I'd like to know what your plans are. What do you plan to do with your degrees?"

"I'm not really sure yet. I guess, whatever I do, I just want to make a difference," I said. "I want to do something to help people."

He listened. He didn't once look at his phone. He didn't interrupt me and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. Which was more than I could say for most guys my age. But then guys my age never did interest me.

Dinner flew by so fast. When the waiter brought the check to the table, I focused on the slice of chocolate cheesecake we were sharing. I'd reluctantly agreed to dinner and now that it was over, I couldn't help but want more.

~~~~~~~~~~

The limo was waiting, a toasty warm refuge in the flurry of flakes falling from the sky. He'd agreed to dinner and fulfilled his promise, but I didn't want him to go.

Peter shivered and I frowned, noticing that he wasn't wearing a coat. I stepped closer and smiled.

"Thank you for coming to dinner," I said softly and stroked his cheek, not missing the way he leaned into my touch.

I wanted to push him into the limo, pull him to my arms - into my bed. I wanted so much more from Peter Parker than a one-night stand. I wasn't a jealous man. Morally, I had no issue with the way Peter made money. But the thought of the men in the chatroom watching Peter in his most intimate moments made me want to break things and I knew I'd never be able to handle it.

I wanted Peter all to myself.

"I had a good time," he said with a smile so sweet it made my teeth ache.

"Don't you have a coat?" I asked and he looked down, cheeks pink from more than the cold.

"It didn't look good with my outfit," he mumbled. I pushed down the possessive urge to wrap my arms around him and instead took my coat off and set it over his shoulders. It was too big, but he snuggled into the warmth with a grin.

"But now you're cold," he said.

I tipped up his chin. He didn't resist.

"Then come keep me warm," I said. "Come home with me, Peter." I held my breath, expecting an argument or excuses.

But Peter didn't pull away. He smiled and stepped closer.

"I'd like that."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Come here, Sweetheart," Tony purred and patted his knee. I'd never wanted to be anywhere more and moved into his lap without hesitation.

He ran his hands up my thighs and chest, then cupped my face.

"You're so beautiful," he said. "And smart. Peter, I'm so amazed by your mind and impressed with your tenacity and kindness. You should be proud of everything you've accomplished."

I loved the way he made me feel, all melty and out of my head. On camera, I was in control. In my day-to-day, I had to be very aware of my schedule, budget, and time management. But in Tony's arms, for the first time in I couldn't remember how long, I felt like I could let go.

Tony Stark thinks I'm amazing. I couldn't help but wonder what he would think if he knew that I had yet another secret identity. That I was the vigilante crime fighter for the people The Bugle had been going on about recently.

He rubbed his thumb over my lips, gently pressed between them when I opened for him.

"So fucking pretty," he breathed. "Can I kiss you, Sweetheart?"

I nodded, expecting him to swoop in for the kill. Instead, he slowly moved his hands down my back, cupped my ass and yanked me closer. He was hot, already hard, and smelled like a fucking dream.

I closed my eyes and moaned when he bent, not to my lips, but my neck. He nibbled up the length, pausing to bite and suck at my earlobe before tracing my jaw with his tongue. I tipped my head back and revelled in the attention. He took his time. nibbling and sucking his way to my lips. When he finally got there, finally took my mouth, I was ready to give him everything.

Demanding, luscious, his kiss was all-consuming. I let him take control, bent to his will until I was panting and rolling my hips, desperate for friction. He pulled back with a pop and then sucked my bottom lip between his teeth, biting just hard enough to make me moan. He pressed soft kisses to my lips and then across my face.

I whined when he grasped my hips, slowing my movements.

"Slow down, little Spider," he whispered. "I want to see you come apart in my bed."

It took a moment for his words to sink in, moving through the chemical cocktail in which my brain was swimming.

I gasped. Eyes wide, I met his gaze, suddenly shaking.

"Shhh, it's okay. Yes, I know your secret. But it just makes me want you more." He stroked my back, soothed my fears. "You're so amazing, Peter Parker. Let me show you how much. Let me spoil you. Let me ease your way."

~~~~~~~~~~

Peter tensed as the reality of my words sunk in. Yes, I knew he was Spiderman. Friday had found out while doing a facial recognition on the boy. A security camera had caught a few seconds of his face as he dipped down an alley to change. When Spiderman emerged a few moments later I put it all together.

"You're so amazing, Peter Parker. Let me show you how much. Let me spoil you. Let me ease your way."

"M-Mr. Stark...I--"

I had to be cautious. Peter was proud. And he should be. I didn't want him to think I was trying to take anything away from what he'd done on his own.

"I want you, Peter," I said softly, stroking through his curls. "Forgive me for prying -- it's what I do. But everything about you is a fucking wonder. Everything I learn just makes me want you more. But Sweetheart, I don't think I can share you."

Peter frowned, pouting just a little bit. My stomach clenched.

"What do you mean?"

"Watching you online...Jesus, you're fucking beautiful. Those men don't deserve you. Peter, I... when I say I want you -- I want you all to myself. I can't… I don't think I can handle sharing you like that."

Peter looked me in the eye and shook his head. "But I... that's how I support myself."

"Let me."

Peter shook his head and frowned. "Let you what?"

"Let me support you. Let me give you everything you need. Everything you deserve-"

"Mr. Stark, I'm not...I can't… I'm not gonna be some Sugar Baby. I work hard for-"

"Peter, just listen to my proposal, okay? Just listen to me. And if you never want to see me again, I'll have Happy drop you off at home."

"Happy?"

"The bearded man in the driver's seat."

Peter huffed a laugh. "Ironic. I like it. Okay, go ahead," he said after a moment's consideration. I thought it was a good sign that he didn't pull away or move from my lap.

"You're brilliant, Peter. And investing in your future would not just benefit you. I have to look out for me, too. And to that end, I need bright young minds like you in my camp. I want to offer you a full ride to your current or dream school of your choice. You study, spend your time being brilliant, graduate and then come work for me. I'd be an idiot not to snap you up before my competition gets wind of your accomplishments."

"But I still need to live. And Mr. Stark, you just met me. How can you even be sure that you'll want to continue seeing me?"

"You're right. I know, shit happens. There are no guarantees that you'll want to continue seeing me either. I mean, I snore sometimes and I can't fucking cook to save my life."

Peter giggled at my joke and I smiled. I wanted to pull him into my arms, but I knew I had more work to do if I was going to seal this deal.

"That's what contracts are for, Sweetheart. We negotiate, each party gets what they need, and we both go home happy. Or even better, we go to bed happy."

Peter bit his lip and looked at where my hands rested on his thighs.

"All this because you don't like to share?" he said softly.

"All this because I see so much potential in you. I want to encourage you; I want you to see that you deserve more than what you're settling for right now. You've done an amazing job. I am only offering to make it easier for you to achieve your goals."

Peter smiled and finally met my gaze. "And the fact that you wouldn't have to share me with the men in the chat room?"

"Consider it a bonus," I shrugged. “Besides, you’re fucking Spiderman. Imagine the things we could do together.”

Peter laughed and kissed me, soft and sweet and so fucking delicious. Then he scrambled out my lap and crawled over to the minibar. He grabbed a handful full of napkins and then climbed back into my lap.

"Do you have a pen?" he asked.

As we made our way out of Queens and headed toward the tower, Peter and I engaged in the fine art of negotiation.

~~~~~~~~~~

We left a trail of scribbled up napkins and clothes from the door to Tony's bed. Specifically, my clothes. He'd stripped me bare while he remained fully clothed in the most beautiful suit I'd ever seen - charcoal with a pale silver shirt and lavender striped tie.

Tony pushed me gently onto the bed and stood up with a playful smirk.

"Be a good boy," he said. "And watch."

I bit my lip as he slowly removed his jacket, breathless with anticipation.

"Per Article 2, Subsection 1 of our agreement, I'm now basically your Sugar Daddy. And I get to roll you sugar as often as I desire."

"I don't think that's how it's worded."

"Hmmm, but that's the spirit of the agreement."

Tony winked and moved over to his dresser. "In fact. I'd like to start right now."

I sat up, my feet barely touched the plush carpet as I perched on the edge of his bed, curious.

"I loved your outfit the other night," he said. "But my Baby gets only the best."

He handed me a flat, black box with a silver ribbon around the middle. I slid off he ribbon and squirmed with excitement. He'd bought me something before we'd even come to an agreement. I wasn't used to relying on someone else to buy me things. Sure, the Daddies on the chatroom bought me sex toys and underwear off my wish list. But none of those gifts had ever been given with such an expensive brand name on the box. It thrilled and terrified me at the same time.

My cheeks warmed; the flush spread down my neck as I opened the box to find a pair of real silk stockings. They were black with a row of tiny, silver spiders around the thigh.

"Daddy," I breathed, stroking the fabric. My body responded as I imagined how they would feel against my skin. I'd never owned a thing so fine and delicate.

"May I put them on you?" he asked.

"But… I don't want to rip them," I answered, looking up to Tony's eyes.

He smirked and cupped my cheek. "Baby, if you rip them, I'll buy you another pair."

I bit back a gasp. Tony chuckled as he devoured me with his eyes, watched as I hardened from just his words.

”Lie back," he said.

I did as he asked, heart beating wildly in my chest.

He took my foot in his warm hands, massaged strong fingers into the arch. When I moaned with pleasure and closed my eyes, he murmured, "That's it, Baby, relax. Let me spoil you."

Tony pulled one stocking from the box and scrunched it around my toes. He pulled it up, smoothed it up my thigh, and tugged the band into place.

"Exquisite," he said, stroking up and down my calves.

I peeked through lowered lids to watch him to the same with the other stocking and then press kisses up each of my legs. I loved the warmth of his breath through the silk.

"Perfect. See the way they fit you? Like a second skin," Tony said, rubbing his lips just above the band. "I only want the finest to touch your skin, Peter. And tomorrow, after class, we're going shopping."

I opened my mouth to argue but he pressed a finger to my lips. "Indulge me, Sweetheart."

My cock throbbed. The way he said even the most innocent of things made me wild, made me want to climb into his lap and please him.

"Okay, Daddy," I said, preening when he beamed at me.

"Good boy," he purred.

~~~~~~~~~~

I wasn't prepared for the way those words made me feel.

"Okay, Daddy."

Peter had said them on the video, talking to the men. And yeah it had been hot. But this time… this time those words were all for me and it was as if he'd given me the keys to Disneyland.

"Come here, Baby," I said, pulling him to his feet. "Show Daddy how you look."

Peter did a little turn, his cheeks on fire.

"You look so fucking pretty, Baby. You wanna show Daddy how much you like his gift?"

I was worried for a moment that I had taken it too far, that he'd be offended. But he whined and nodded before falling to his knees.

"That's it, Baby," I crooned, running my fingers through his hair as he undid my belt and pants.

"Daddy," he whispered, almost to himself, when he pulled my cock free. I smiled. He was so fucking adorable.

He wrapped his hand around my shaft and leaned forward to rub his lips over the tip.

"You're so big," he said, breath warm against my skin.

"You like it, Baby?" I asked.

He pressed a kiss to my frenulum and looked up at me with the most mischievous expression before parting his lips and taking me between them. He took me slowly down his throat and for a moment I couldn't breathe.

Peter closed his eyes and shuddered, pulled back with a little gasp. He smiled and looked up into my eyes.

"Fucking amazing," I whispered. He squirmed and smiled at the praise, nibbling little kisses up my shaft and around the head. He licked around the tip, little pink tongue flicking and teasing until I thought I might come like that.

"Fuck, Baby. Come here, I'm gonna come if you keep that up and I don't wanna come in your mouth this time."

He whined and pulled off my dick with a salacious pop. I wiped his chin and patted his cheek before pulling him to his feet.

I removed the rest of my clothes and sat down on the bed, scooting back to lean against the headboard. Peter scrambled into my lap as soon as I held out my hand.

"Condoms?" he asked, and I smiled.

"Good boy," I said and rummaged in my bedside table for the box and tube of lube. I handed them to Peter, and he smirked as he set them aside within reach.

"Fancy," he commented, eyeing the brand names.

I shrugged and gathered him to my chest, trailed a finger down his spine. "I told you, Baby. Only the finest touches your skin," I whispered and continued down between his pert little cheeks. "And that includes this sweet little pucker here."

Peter moaned, pushed back on my finger.

"Open me up, Tony," he murmured into my chest and stroked the sensitive skin around where the arc reactor had been.

He had to know what he was doing, had to realize what he traced. But he said nothing, only kissed the spot reverently and pushed back against my fingers again.

"Okay, Baby," I said and grabbed the lube.

Peter made the most delicious noises. As I fingered him open, he whined and moaned, rocked his hips in a languid dance that left me breathless. Our cocks brushed together with just enough friction to excite and tantalize but not tip us over the edge.

"M'ready, Daddy, please," Peter whispered, scooted back and reached for the box of condoms.

Watching Peter concentrate might be the cutest thing in the world - especially when he was concentrating on rolling a condom down my shaft. He took his time, little pink tongue between his teeth as he drizzled lube down my length.

Satisfied, he looked into my eyes and said, "How do you want me, Daddy?"

I pulled him closer, ran my hands over the swell of his ass, and squeezed. "Just like this, Baby. Ride my cock."

Peter wrapped his arms around my neck and rose up on his knees. He took me slowly, eyes never leaving mine. I moaned as he quivered around me, desperate to thrust, take his tight little hole. But I reined in my control and let him lead.

"Oh my God, you feel amazing," he breathed into my neck.

"So do you, Baby. Now please, for the love of all that is holy - move."

~~~~~~~~~~

Filled and enveloped, I lost track of where I ended, and he began. Never had I been so consumed. The scent of his skin, the taste of his kiss - I took all of him into me in return.

"Daddy," I breathed.

"Don't chase it, Baby. Let it come to you."

He bit my lip and thrust up into me. I met him on the upstroke, sparks burst behind my eyes.

He caressed my silk-clad skin, hands skimming over my thighs, moving up to grip my hips.

"You look so fucking pretty in those stockings, Peter," Tony growled. "I love the thought of you in pretty things, perfect, beautiful things. Things that I buy just for you."

"Daddy," I cried out. "Please." I needed...I needed everything, wanted all of him. He reached between us and grasped my cock, gave it a squeeze that made the sparks return.

"So hard for Daddy. So ready to cum all over his new stockings."

"Yes."

"Yeah?"

"Daddy!"

"Come for me," he whispered, lips on my ear, hand around my cock. With a few firm strokes, I was there. He pulled me down to take all of him as he grunted his release.

I looked down to find my cum on my belly and thighs, thick white streams soaking into the fabric, into the pale skin that showed through a few tears. I shuddered and squirmed as Tony pulled another stream from my body before I collapsed against him, warm in the cocoon of his arms.

He pressed kisses to my temple and stroked my back as we caught our breath. Still hard, Tony moved just a little, slowing sliding deeper inside.

Into the silence that followed, I whispered, "I ripped my stockings, Daddy."

Tony chuckled. "It's okay, Baby. Daddy will get you a truckload of stockings. A pair for every single day."

I snuggled into his chest, rubbed my face into the soft hair, tracing the ridge of scar tissue with my tongue. I was unprepared for how utterly cared for he made me feel.

"And I'll wear them only for you," I said, meaning it. Why...how could I ever want anyone else?

Tony released a breath he seemed to have been holding. I smiled, charmed by his little insecurities.

"Just you," I said again.

He kissed my forehead and rested his cheek against my head.

"Just for you," he repeated my words. I knew them for what they were.

I giggled, sleepy now, light as a feather. "You gotta. You signed a contract."

Tony huffed a laugh. "Baby, I don't need a contract to hold me to that promise," I heard him say as I fell asleep in his arms.

#starker #tony x peter #peter x tony #mcu fanfiction

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tripsonflatground · 4 years

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Is it just me, or is it kinda capitalist that in order to get new superheroes, people kill off or age up the old ones and then put the new heroes in the same role/identity? Like, they killed Peter Parker to have Miles Morales. Bucky Barnes and Falcon/Sam Wilson both became Captain America after the death or age & retirement of Steve Rogers, depending on whether you’re looking at the comics or the MCU. Batman goes through Robins and Batgirls like it’s going out of style (and seriously, why does Dick Grayson let other people be Robin? That was a personal nickname from his birth family, right? Why would he give something so intimate away?). Replacing someone else and living up to their legacy rather than making your own path was a whole plot point/theme in Spider-man: Far From Home!

There are exceptions to this, like X-23 and Wolverine, who have managed to have some form of a father-daughter relationship in the comics (although, if memory serves, I believe he’s been killed in recent comics and she replaced him as Wolverine - though I haven’t read anything recent, so I might be wrong, and in the film Logan they killed him off). And things like Conner/Superboy from Young Justice being created with the idea to replace Superman doesn’t count in the same way because it was a villainous plot and Con didn’t end up following through. And there’s a new Ms. Marvel now that Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel, which is a much better alternative considering that Carol wasn’t using that identity anymore.

The idea I’m trying to get at, if it isn’t clear, is that the costume identity, AKA Spider-man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. seems to me the thing that’s given value while the person behind the mask is more recently being treated as expendable/dispensable. Which doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, because the person created the mask, and so much of themselves and who they are and what their goals are drove the reasons behind the creation of the identity and the way they behave in that identity. It’s like being a kid and trying on your parents’ clothes or getting hand-me-downs, even if it fits, you didn’t exactly choose it, and you look different wearing it. And I’m calling this capitalist because it feels like capitalism. If we equate being a superhero to a job, which in many ways it really is, especially if you are employed by an organization to do it like SHIELD, then the value is being placed on the role/job, and not with the labor. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit who’s doing the job and how they’re being treated as long as it’s getting done. Employees in the service/retail industry get treated like shit and don’t get paid enough but that will never change unless people have other options and aren’t desperate enough to accept those conditions and get something better. Recently, with the deaths and/or replacements of superheroes in order to have someone else fill the identity in comics and films, the individuals behind the mask, who are the real source of emotional connection and relatability, not the mask, seem to have become dispensable in the eyes of the creators.

And I do get that it’s a shortcut and an attempt to bring in new audiences by putting more modern characters into recognizable roles. But why does the original character have to *die*?

Yeah, superhero-ism is a dangerous occupation, sure, but doesn’t death seem like the most extreme option? It’s not as if there aren’t other possibilities:

1.Having characters be located somewhere else other than New York City or its fictional equivalent (Metropolis, Gotham, etc). There are other major cities in the US where crime happens, let alone other cities in the world. Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, Seattle, Philadelphia. Who doesn’t want to imagine a Spider-man or a Batman with a Boston accent? Wouldn’t it be a cool storyline if other Kryptonians not related to Superman escaped Krypton and eventually made it to Earth and moved to different cities and took up mantles and eventually the Kryptonian race could start rebuilding on Earth? Talk about a really interesting and positive way to show a diasporic community. And also, it doesn’t make any sense statistically that the majority of the world’s superheroes are in the US. Put some in Toronto, Paris, London, Cairo, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, Rome, Athens, Rio, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Seoul, Istanbul, etc. If the Olympics happen there, then there’s probably a lot of people that need saving and crime happening. It’s especially dumb with the alien invasion stories where they show the audience aliens popping up in places other than NYC and suddenly the heroes have to get other there, like unless you got super-speed or teleportation, it’s going to take a while, and how are you even going to communicate with the civilians if there’s a language barrier?

2.Having characters be from other dimensions. Marvel and DC have a history of playing with alternate timelines and multi-verse theory. Into The Spiderverse was a super-popular movie that inspired tons of people to make their own Spidersonas, and the lesson that can be taken from it is that you can take a character and make it still feel unique or individualistic even if you’re using similar themes. Maybe instead of the dimensions having evil versions they have to fight or being fucked up in some other way, make the new version of Wonder Woman or Iron Man or whatever be from an alternate dimension and end up in the main because of science/magic, or a dimension-hopping villain they’re fighting, or an accident, or to get help from other versions of themselves, or even escaping from an apocalypse/doomsday from their own universe. It’s so easy to either send them back to their own universe when you decide you’re done playing with them or keep them around if you want them permanently. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if the Captain America we’re familiar with met a Captain America from an alternate universe where he fought in the American Revolution or for the Union in the Civil War or even in WW1 or Vietnam?

3.Having female characters take on feminine versions of the identity, or vice versa, or non-binary characters find a way to have a gender-neutral version. This has been done with Hulk and She-Hulk, Superman and Supergirl, Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel back when Captain Marvel was a dude, Spider-man’s daughter May was Spider-girl at one point, Batman’s cousin or something is Batwoman. There’s also been some adjacents, such as AntMan and Wasp or Wolverine and X-23. There are definitely ways that you can use a familiar identity to put more female and non-binary superheroes out there. I mean, military titles (the Captains) or even names like Black Panther, Green Lantern, and Flash aren’t even gendered. You can feminize names if you want to, but I’m pretty sure the female Hawkeye is just straight-up Hawkeye. People like Thor I feel differently about because Thor’s an actual mythological character, not something Marvel came up with, but you could just use a different Norse god/goddess? And yeah, Dr. Strange is the man’s actual name so that’s also a little different, but if he had a daughter or a non-binary child who also got their doctorate, they are in fact entitled to call themselves Dr. Strange rather than something lesser. Not to mention, that whole alternate universe versions point I just made? Yeah, these can be characters from gender-bent alternate universes or a universe where humans are androgynous or something.

4.Have multiple characters use the same secret identity. This would be the perfect concept for twins or friends with the same build. The bank’s been robbed but A is on a date? B can totally show up at the scene! B got really hurt in their last fight? A’s got them covered. There’s a bit of risk to it, like if people recognize they have different voices or someone notices them at two different crises happening at the same time, but that’s just what makes the challenge of pretending to be the same person interesting. And it could get even more complex if you had triplets doing it, or four college roommates, or whatever. It’s also a great excuse to be able to write deep interpersonal relationships and identity struggles. Hell, can you imagine how much scarier multiple Batmans would be? They could play even more on the “you never know where he’s going to be next or what shadow he could be hiding in” thing, like, just when the crook thinks he’s lost Batman, another comes out out of nowhere.

And if superhero writers don’t want to do any of this, there’s also the C-List and D-List heroes that maybe got introduced in like the 70′s or 80′s or whatever but didn’t take or ended up being a blip in another character’s backstory. If you want more modern superheros connected to the major ones so you can use them in the same stories, it is totally valid IMO to try revitalizing these obscure concepts. I have a vested interest in seeing if Monica Rambeau shows up as her hero identity Photon in the Captain Marvel sequel. This idea is still using what you have, but it doesn’t capitalize the lives of the characters you have or make them expendable in any way. In fact, it’s also kind of like recycling, or the opposite of capitalism, because you’re trying to use alternative resources or all of your resources instead of very specific ones to the point of over-saturation.

Look, I’m just very tired of superheroes getting killed off to be replaced by someone else using the same identity or because it’s edgy or dark or whatever. Even a debilitating injury that leaves them in a wheelchair or blind or deaf is a hell of a lot more interesting. Once a character’s dead, they’re dead, there’s nowhere else you can take them unless you bring them back to life (which admittedly happens a lot in superhero universe) or have them hang around as a ghost or something. It’s boring, it doesn’t give the audience any closure and just messes with their emotions for shock value, and it promotes toxic capitalism.

#superheroes #marvel #dc #capitalism #killing characters #alternatives to killing characters

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a-secondhand-sorrow · 4 years

Text

maybe it could have been

(read on ao3)

this fic is inspired by this post about a reverse AU by @fiddler-unroofed - if you want to be surprised and aren’t familiar with the concept, i’d suggest looking at it after, but definitely kudos to them for this whole concept. thanks for sending that out into the world!

“This is…Connor…he wanted you to have this.”

For the first time in his life, Evan Hansen sat in the principal’s office. Not for the first time, he was at a loss for what to say, completely hinging his next actions on the actions of the people near him, studying them for some sign but unable to come up with much in the frantic, muddled place his anxious brain had become.

The woman across from him - Cynthia Murphy, mother of Connor and Zoe-suddenly reached out a hand. The paper she’d pulled from her purse only moments before was now held in her outstretched hand. It was a sort of olive branch in Evan’s mind. Larry, her husband, looked at Evan expectantly. He took it uncertainly, casted arm still pressed against his thighs to hide the ‘Connor’ scrawled across it. As the room stood still, Evan unfolded the paper, which had clearly been rumpled and unfolded and refolded several times.

Dear Evan Hansen, it began. The room flashed for a moment, Larry and Cynthia gone and a printer in front of him, this letter clenched in Connor’s fist, where he’d seen it before. But Larry’s voice cut through the silence and he was back on the couch, the old, rough fabric sensible even through his jeans.

“We didn’t…we hadn’t heard your name before, Connor never…but then we saw… ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’”

Evan shook his head, shaking the sound of a printer starting up from his mind. “He, um, he gave you this?”

Cynthia finally spoke up, dodging his question. Her eyes were too bright, too shining and sad and desperate, as they bore a hole between his eyes. “We didn’t know you were friends.”

“We didn’t think that Connor had any friends,” Larry parroted. “And then we see this note and it’s, it seems to suggest pretty clearly that you and Connor were, or at least for Connor, he thought of you as…” Larry gestured at the note in his hand, voice dying in his throat. He clearly wasn’t used to that happening. “I mean, it’s right there. ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ It’s addressed to you. He wrote it to you.”

“I’m sorry, but what - why - you think he wrote this to me?”

“These are the words he wanted to share with you. His…last words.”

“This is what he wanted to leave you with,” Cynthia said, voice shaky and uncertain. Something in it was desperately familiar to Evan.

“I’m sorry…his last words?”

Larry cleared his throat while Cynthia stifled a sob next to him. His eyes were the color of the wall behind him, drab and dark. The sound of a printer filled the air and Evan’s ears. Footsteps sounded behind him. Evan forced his eyes away from the printed letter to look into Larry’s eyes, those sad, dark, expectant eyes.

“Connor…uh…Connor took his own life.”

The computer lab was almost completely empty, save for a figure he’d barely given a second glance. It was empty enough for him, for his one goal of finishing this letter. He typed something out without paying much attention to what it was. It didn’t matter. Each clack of the keys startled him more than the last. He wasn’t thinking, only moving.

He clicked print on his document, immediately hearing the printer whoosh to life. It took a moment for him to stand up and move towards it, glancing at the first piece of paper to shoot out of the printer. He only stared at it for a moment before he heard footsteps behind him, heavy and expectant. The words flashed at him from the page.

‘Dear Evan Hansen’.

The footsteps stopped behind him. He froze, unsure of what to do. His pulse quickened, blood rushing through his ears.

Connor stopped just next to him, clearing his throat to command attention, and Evan’s head swiveled to look. “How did you break your arm?” He asked, almost monotone, like a kid forced to apologize by his teacher.

“Oh, I, uh, I fell out of a tree.” He finished, voice trailing off towards the end.

“You fell out of a tree?” Connor said, voice and face blank. He reminded Evan eerily of a voice in Google Translate when you clicked the speaker button - no breathing, little inflection, a robotic sense of detachement.

Evan nodded quickly, more of a jerk of the head than anything else.

Unexpectedly, Connor let out a laugh. The sound hit Evan full in the face, startling the still air. It felt familiar, almost. “That is just the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Oh my God.”

“I know.”

Something in Evan’s tone must have pulled Connor out of his humor-induced reverie. His eyes dropped to the cast on Evan’s arm. “No one’s signed your cast.”

“No, I-I know.”

“Guess I will, then.”

A swell of something rose in him. “You don’t - you don’t have to-”

“Do you have a Sharpie?”

After a moment’s pause, Evan reached into his pocket and withdrew the sharpie. Connor accepted it. He wrote slowly, each squeak of the marker and giant stroke that shaped the letters filling the silence more effectively than words could. “No pretending we have real friends, I guess.” He said, a dark note in his tone, as he passed the sharpie back to Evan.

“Good point.”

While Evan busied himself with the sharpie in his pocket, Connor reached for the paper in the tray. “Is this yours? It says “Dear Evan Hansen.” That’s you, right?”

“Oh, um, yeah, it is. That’s me. My name. It was a, uh, an assignment-”

But he couldn’t stop Connor’s eyes from dropping back down to the paper. “Because there’s Zoe?” He said, all traces of friendliness gone from his tone.

Another swell of emotion. “What?”

“You meant for me to find this, right? Because this is about my sister ? You wrote this because you wanted me to find this and freak out because of some creepy shit you said about my sister, and then you could tell everyone I’m crazy, right?”

“What? I didn’t - why would I-?”

”Fuck you,” Connor spat, and this time he wasn’t monotone. It was quiet anger - anger so great it almost shook, an anger that looked almost like sadness. He brushed past Evan, knocking his shoulder into him so that Evan fell against the printer right as it made another noise.

***

Barely three days later, Evan stopped short in the doorway to the principal’s office, heart already pounding out some uneven beat.

“Uh, is Mr. Howard…? I just, sorry, they said on the loudspeaker for me to come to the principal’s office.”

“Mr. Howard is, uh, he stepped out.”

Evan nodded, unsure of what else to do or why he was there.

“We wanted to speak to you in private. If you’d like to, maybe…”

The man on the couch opposite the only free chair was intimidating. A grey suit stretched across his shoulders, the fit perfect. His voice commanded a certain attention, even as he hunched uncertainly and fiddled with his tie. It was evidently a voice that was used to having people obey its commands. The woman next to him was easy to look past until you saw her, and then you would wonder how you missed her in the first place. Although she was quiet and still, she had her own presence, too, a kind of presence that came with money and assurance and all the confidence of the two. Her face was a mask super glued back together from some broken part of her, the cracks so obvious you’d wonder how you hadn’t seen them. They were people who knew who they were and exactly what they were worth, even though an obvious sorrow cut through their postures and controlled their expressions. They were pulled by invisible strings, strings they probably didn’t know existed until this sorrow arrived to weigh them down. The strings were probably the only reason they were standing.

Evan knew he should be intimidated by them, but he, himself, knew something about sorrow, and unlike them, he’d never had strings to hold him up.

As he sat across from them, the man cleared his throat. Larry, Evan remembered, and Cynthia. The names came from some dark shadow in his mind. He could almost imagine a voice saying them, but he was cut off by the voice of Larry.

“We’re, uh… we’re Connor’s parents.”

A flash of something in his chest, squeezing his heart. Letters on a page, the smell of sharpie and something bitter. Sunlight and fluorescent light at once. “Oh?”

Without warning, Cynthia began to pull her purse open to grab something out. Larry, an expression Evan recognized as desperation on his face, filled the silence with “Why don’t you go ahead, honey-”

Tone fraught, Cynthia cut him off. “I’m going as fast as I can.” They were decidedly not looking at each other, choosing instead to train their eyes on the coffee table and the wall, respectively.

Larry’s voice was measured and thin as he responded. It was clear he’d been through this conversation before. “That’s not what I said, is it?”

Cynthia ignored him. Evan counted the beats of silence in his head. For someone so terrible with music, he’d always been able to keep a rhythm. He’d reached five before Cynthia turned back to him, hand outstretched and letter between her tightly clenched fingers.

And Dear Evan Hansen was staring up at him again.

There was more silence until Evan was pulled out of his own head, and he’d lost track of how long he’d been in silence. He said something or Cynthia said something or Larry said something, or maybe it was all three and it just blurred together, the words on the page in front of him obscuring his vision even while he looked away.

“Connor took his own life.”

“His… last words.”

“Wanted you to…”

“It’s addressed to you.”

“...at least, he thought of you as…”

“Connor didn’t write this,” he said, coming back to the moment. He hadn’t properly looked at the Murphy’s before then, but with that choked out statement, he did. Evan hadn’t realized how his throat had narrowed and his eyes had burned until he had Cynthia’s eyes staring at him, all crinkled around the corners in a way that made his heart twist. “I wrote it.”

“What?” She said, it coming out as though it had been dragged from her throat - a raw, guttural noise. He dropped his eyes from her face.

Larry made a similar disbelieving noise - all instinct, no planning. “He’s in shock, he doesn’t mean-”

“He didn’t write it,” Evan said a little louder, voice verging on hysterical and suddenly very aware of the tears splashing down his cheeks. He shook his head, one hand shoving the letter back to the Murphy’s in some sudden urge to get it as far away from his as possible, to have it out of his hands, have it gone. Shock may have been what was coursing through his veins, but for what, he didn’t know. His other hand reached to his heart, tapping and massaging, before falling back to his shirt hem. “It was, it was a, a therapy assignment. I wrote - wrote it. We didn’t - Connor and I-” he’s choked off. “He took it in the, the computer lab, where I, that’s where I printed it-”

He could hear the printer clearly, once, then twice.

“I’m sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, I should-” he made to stand, dropping the letter as though it had scalded him, and he tilted a little as his vision became obscured by sudden vertigo. He couldn’t look at the Murphy’s, couldn’t even if he could see through his tear-blurred eyes, couldn’t see the disappointment in their eyes and grief in their faces, because he’d dashed their last hope of knowing their son, he’d ruined it, he’d-

A sob tore through the air. His own.

He stumbled on his feet, and suddenly a hand wrapped around his good arm’s bicep, strong even as the person it was attached to clearly had trouble getting the words out around tears. A business card with other writing scribbled on the back was shoved in his direction, and he grabbed it blindly before wrenching his eyes up to the person’s face. Larry stared back at him, an emotion so unprocessed on his face that it very nearly tore another sob from Evan’s chest. “Please,” he said, indicating the card with his free hand. “Come-come to dinner anyway, please.”

Evan nodded, knowing at that moment he’d have agreed to anything to get out of that office and finally breathe again.

Larry let go of his arm, his own hand dropping slowly to his side. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Cynthia, but he could hear her weeping from across the office. His hand wrapped more tightly on the card. Summoning some unknown inner strength, he turned and forced himself to walk away before he became frozen to the spot.

***

“They want you to go to dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? I mean, what good does it do to hang out with the kid their dead son had nothing to do with whatsoever?”

“God, Jared, do I seem like I know? Search me.”

“They’re crazy, probably.”

“That’s harsh.”

“What? They’re the Murphy’s. Connor’s parents. They must be. Why else would they-“

“Stop,” Evan said, and he was surprised by how harsh he sounded, especially given the fact that his eyes felt like they were burning for no reason. “They’re grieving. And Connor, he’s–” his voice trailed off.

“Yeah, no shit, dude. It’s just weird. Everyone’s acting weirdly now.”

“It’s a weird situation,” Evan said softly.

“You could say that again. Sabrina Patel was selling buttons at lunch.”

“ Buttons? ”

“Yeah, like, In Memoriam buttons? In remembrance or some shit?”

“That’s terrible,” Evan breathed.

He could practically see Jared’s shrug. “I don’t know. She’s just profiting, I guess. I thought of doing the same.”

Evan hung up before Jared could say anything else.

***

“Why did you say that about me?”

“Say-?”

“‘Because there’s Zoe. And all of my hope is pinned on Zoe.’ Why did you say that?”

Evan felt something tug in his chest, Zoe’s words striking something deep. He inclined his head ever so slightly in her direction.

He inclined his head ever so slightly in his direction, a smile spreading across his face as he opened his mouth to respond.

“I don’t know, you see, I just - there’s this, there‘s this little smile thing you do, when you’re playing guitar in jazz band? It’s like, your eyes kind of close and you get this tiny smile on your face like you’re totally content in that moment and you know what you’re doing, and it’s like, it’s like you’re letting us in on this secret without saying anything.” Her eyes meet his, brewing with confusion, and he taps a strange rhythm on his thigh, thoughts racing.

“You know your smile? It’s really nice. I never see it, it feels like, but when you smile, it’s like...it’s like everything is, hilarious, I guess, you know? Everything is, everything is good. It feels...like, like I’ve been accepted when you smile at me.”

He started again. “I went to your jazz band concerts, and there was something about your playing and your smile and all of it - there was something about it, something just really...something that’s really, really subtle, and perfect, and...real, I guess.” He swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. “It made me feel...wonderful.”

He smiles, and his heart skips a beat. “There’s something about a nice smile, I guess. If it is nice. If it’s nice, it’s really nice.” He pauses before he continues. “You know, she has a nice smile. I always feel really...wonderful, when she smiles at me. Even if I can’t show it.”

He doesn’t need to say who she is.

“Really?” She said softly, and Evan looked back up, her eyes startlingly clear and focused. He couldn’t quite read the expression on her face or the tone of her voice, but it had softened considerably, the freckles around her nose relaxing against the rest of her face rather than scrunching up in self-defense.

“Yeah,” he said, the corners of his lips quirking. “And...and I noticed how you’d scribble stars on the,” he pointed to her crossed ankles, and her gaze dropped to them, her cheeks tingeing slightly pink, from what he could discern, “on the cuffs of your jeans, see? And I’d see you in, in the library, and the hallways, and like, half of the time you’d be filling out one of those-those quizzes in those teen magazines.”

Her eyes flitted back up to his, still guarded. “Did you really?”

He nodded quickly, hand still tapping at his thigh.

The edge of her lip twitched momentarily, and Evan almost thought she was about to give him one of her thousand-watt smiles, but it became neutral a moment later. He hadn’t noticed until just that moment, but she’d been choosing and shaping her words so carefully before then - so clearly thought out, although he’d missed it. The next words were rushed and hurried, her lisp slipping in, syllables blending just ever so slightly more. He almost got lost in that different feel-how almost intimate it felt, to have her speak differently than he’d ever heard her, but he couldn’t escape the feeling it was more from desperation than comfort. “Did...did you notice anything else?”

Still caught up in his train of thought, it took him a second to respond. “About...about you?” He said, voice tilting up at the ‘ou.’

If her previous words had been lax, these were negligent: “Never mind, I don’t really care anyways, it’s just-”

Maybe it was the way the guard immediately went back up in her eyes. Maybe it was the tone of what she said, the familiarity he felt at every moment of his life, the anxiety and disappointment and fear laced through the words. Maybe it was because she seemed upset more than anything. But suddenly he was rushing over everything else, to stop her from standing, from turning away, from slipping out of his fingers like on the first day of school.

From slipping out of his fingers that afternoon, a light hum and uncertainty hanging in the air, a glint in his eye he could understand but didn’t know how to interpret.

“No, I, uh, it’s just, there were more - many things, I’m trying to think of - trying to think of the...best ones?”

She didn’t respond, but she didn't leave, either, and so he forged ahead.

“Um,” his hand, which had been picking nervously at the edge of his cast, fell to his side as he finally thought of something. He ignored how his heart warmed at the memory, and he hoped she couldn’t see right through him. “I know that I, I thought that you looked really pretty-er, uh, pretty cool!-when you put those, um, those indigo streaks in your hair.”

“You did?” Zoe said, either genuinely not having heard his slip-up or graciously ignoring it. Something in her tone urged Evan to meet her eyes, and he identified it a moment later - hope, shining out from the uncertainty.

“Yeah,” he said quickly, giving her a half-smile. “And, and, I saw you dance - that sounds creepy, but in the cafeteria sometimes you’d kind of - grab your friends and make them dance with you funnily? And at school dances, you’d just dance - you’d dance like no one else was there. And it was like, you didn’t care what anyone else thought? Or if it was awkward and it was just - I thought it was - perfect? But I was too - I was always too scared to say anything-”

He’s cut off by her lips, pressed against his. They’d been leaning ever so slightly forward towards each other as he talked, and at some point, he’d gained the courage to meet her eyes again, and the skin just in the corner had crinkled in some complicated way, and her nose had scrunched a little, and he could see her lips work ever so slightly, and he’d never been close enough to see those little pools of lighter brown in her eyes, and then she’d closed the distance between them. Their lips were pressed together for maybe a second before she pulled away again, but it felt like simultaneously a lifetime and no time at all, the feeling of it played again and again on repeat, the jolt of the slightly rough feel of her lips had given him, the taste of chapstick and some fruity Seltzer, the way it felt as though they’d melted together for just that one moment. As she pulled away and his eyes opened again (he’d closed them?) everything seemed sharper and more in focus, like every one of his nerves had been zapped awake.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and her words were once again careless. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I - what the hell,” she added, almost under her breath, more to herself than him, he knew. She looked away from him quickly.

“Dinner’s ready!” Cynthia called, her voice traveling up the stairs. They both jumped up immediately. Zoe quickly made to move past him. He could’ve sworn her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“And you were-you were always nice to me,” Evan said. She paused, back still to him. The caramel brown of her hair contrasted against the white of her blouse in a way that made it quite easy for him to look at it. “Not just me. To everyone. Even when it seemed like everyone else-“ he cut off. “You weren’t. Even if you didn’t realize it. You are - you are good, Zoe Murphy. And that first day of school…”

“Tell them to eat without me,” Zoe said, and Evan knew for sure that the force obstructing her voice was tears. “I’m sorry, I, I can’t.”

His heart twisted as she hurried out of the door, her tear-choked voice hanging in the air.

“Guys?” Cynthia called, concern edging into her voice.

***

“Would anyone like more chicken?”

“I think you’re the only one with an appetite, Larry.”

Two days before Zoe kissed Evan, they sat across from each other at a dining table with five chairs. His was shoved hurriedly between Cynthia and Larry’s, and the one next closest to Zoe was simply (achingly) empty. He thought he could see a curved shadow in it for just a moment, but it was gone a second later.

“The Harrises brought it over,” Larry said, defensiveness creeping into his tone. Evan didn’t have to glance over at Cynthia to see the disapproving look she threw at Larry; he could feel it over his shoulder. He looked down at his plate instead, one hand picking at his cast. As his gaze moved downward, he couldn’t help but notice Zoe’s eyes on him, one hand sluggishly pushing her chicken around with a fork.

“We used to go skiing together,” Cynthia explained for Evan.

“Connor hated it,” Zoe bit out.

“Zoe,” Larry said, and that was the end of that conversation.

“I, um. I’ve never skied.” Evan said, desperate to fill the heavy silence between the Murphy’s. Larry nodded, but that was the extent of his interaction.

“Why did he sign your cast?” Zoe said suddenly. When Evan turned to look at her, her eyes were bright.

“Um-what?”

“Your cast.” She said, ignoring Cynthia’s death glare. “He signed it. In giant fucking letters.” (Larry interrupted with a scandalized ’Zoe!’, but she ignored him). “Why did he do that if you weren’t friends?”

Evan’s mouth twisted downwards. “He, um. He offered. In the computer lab. Said something about pretending we had friends.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Cynthia looked down and away from him, but Zoe at least seemed to understand where he was coming from.

“That makes sense,” she muttered. “You know, it’s kind of weird. The only time I ever saw you guys together was when he shoved you at school last week.”

“Connor shoved you?” Cynthia breathed.

Looking back at Zoe, something hardened in her gaze, in the corners of her eyes, Evan wondered how he’d never seen the resemblance between her and Connor before. Maybe he’d never realized just how bitter they could look, their shared expression of trepidation. He didn’t like hers leveled at him.

“I, um. I tripped.”

“He pushed you. Hard. I saw the whole thing. How’d he get from that to signing your cast?”

Evan closed his eyes, opened them again. The story sprang off of his tongue. “He was upset. Someone - someone made a rude joke. I coughed and he thought I was laughing at him. He pushed me.”

Cynthia frowned. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Well, Connor wasn’t very nice, so that makes sense,” Zoe snapped.

She must’ve known she crossed a line, but she didn’t seem to regret it at all. Cynthia shut her own eyes. Larry glanced up from his chicken sharply. The silence that settled over them was deadly. Evan was afraid to breathe for fear of breathing in the shrapnel coming off of their glares.

“Connor was a...complicated person.”

“No, Connor was a bad person. There’s a difference.”

Larry finally decided to intervene. “Zoe, that’s enough.”

“You agree with me. Don’t pretend you don’t,” Zoe said, her eyes flashing to Larry. He froze in his seat.

“You refuse to see any of the good things!” Cynthia shouted.

“Because there were none! What were the good things, mom?” Zoe returned her mother’s volume.

“There were-” Cynthia’s voice broke off, and her eyes cut to Evan’s face. Her meaning was clear. “Not here, Zoe. Not in front of our guest.”

“What were the good things, mom? Tell me!”

“There were good things!”

“Connor could be good,” Evan found himself saying. All three sets of eyes snapped to him. He couldn’t have handled watching Cynthia grow more distressed for another moment.

“What?” Zoe said. She seemed to regret how much edge there had been in her words a second later, but her eyes didn’t yield a single inch.

Evan hedged. “I mean. He. He signed my cast? And he was, well. He was the only person who did that. Or even wanted to, really. No one else noticed. Or, or cared, I guess.”

Cynthia’s eyes were latched onto him. Zoe looked away, back at her plate. He wondered if she could hear him saying no way, Jose just as clearly as he could.

“I think, I think there were a lot of those, um, those small moments,” he said finally.

His hand ghosted over a new scrape. “Where’d that happen?”

“Oh, I just got into a fight with a notebook.”

“There aren’t a lot - a lot of people who see those?”

“Are you sure you’re okay to be out tonight? You look tired.”

Evan shook his head a little. “He did, though. With everyone, I think.”

Cynthia seemed to be on the verge of tears again, but they were a happier kind of tears.

He was invited back to dinner as often as he wanted to come.

***

Later, he’d stand in front of the Murphys’ table. “The Connor Project,” he said, letting it sink in. Jared Kleinman and Alana Beck were on either side of him, makeshift pamphlets in their hands. Cynthia looked up from the pamphlet. For the first time, she seemed able to truly meet his eye.

“The...Connor Project?”

“Yeah,” Evan said. “Something to make sure that no one else feels like Connor did. To, to preserve his memory.”

He was aware of Zoe’s eyes on his face. He didn’t think they’d ever left, but he couldn’t be sure.

“There’ll be a massive online presence,” Jared said from his side. “Resources, hotlines, chats that are heavily monitored, those types of things.”

Alana, after offering her condolences to the family, picked up her part of the pitch with great enthusiasm. “And a fundraising drive, so we can hopefully create more resources and do something in honor of Connor. All of it started with an all-school memorial assembly.”

Evan’s gaze angled to Zoe. She seemed surprised that he could even see her; she’d been entirely quiet in this din of noise. “Maybe jazz band could do something.”

She nodded after a moment, seemingly caught off guard. “Yeah, maybe,” she said quietly. He couldn’t quite read the emotion on her face.

“I didn’t realize Connor meant this much to people,” Larry said. Like his daughter, he’d barely said anything before. His thumb rubbed over the faux pamphlet, his mouth twisting into a deep frown.

“Oh, Evan, this is wonderful,” Cynthia said half a second later. He was startled but not surprised to see tears sparkling in her eyes. She stood and crossed the kitchen in surprisingly short strides, her arms enveloping Evan in a warm hug for a minute. She hugged Jared after him; Jared didn’t seem to know what to do, caught off-guard by the sudden affection. Alana was next; Cynthia whispered something to her, and Alana whispered something back, but Evan had no idea what either said. They each smiled a moment later. Evan’s gaze fell back to Zoe. She’d seemed to shrink back into herself at the table, but when he met her eyes, one of the corners of her lips tugged just the barest hint outwards. He was sure he was the only one to catch it. For whatever reason, to everyone but him, Zoe Murphy may as well have not been in the room at all.

***

He’d stand in front of their kitchen table again, head ringing and tears imminent, Zoe so far from smiling he’d wonder how she was even functioning.

Everyone would see him again, and they’d see her, too, but there would be something else to see, too. Someone. The Connor Project in its entirety, at its ugliest, at its core.

***

But Zoe smiled at him, over but not because of the Connor Project, and he could see her and she could see him. That was a pretty big deal, in and of itself. Sometimes that’s all we need to feel like enough, one person seeing us. Sometimes that’s all we need to think that someone else is enough to make us feel human again.

***

“Whatever happened when you fell from the tree?”

The question fell from Zoe’s lips where they rested just above his shoulder. Her head was resting on it while they sat outside one of the outer walls of the school. Her arm was wrapped tight around his waist, and his hand held hers with practiced ease. The way their fingers laced together still sent butterflies through his stomach at the first touch but quickly settled him afterward. Holding hands with Zoe was starting to feel as easy as breathing. He let his head drop to rest against the top of hers.

“What?”

“I mean...who found you? Your coworkers? Random park goers? It just sounds like it must’ve been a terrible fall.”

For a moment, he remembered the feel of a different hand in his and the catch of light on brown hair. But another second later and it was gone.

“No one,” he said. “I had to go find my boss.”

Zoe took in a sharp breath. Her arm drew him even closer to her, and her head dropped more to press a kiss to his shoulder. He felt his heart warm and widen at the movement. More than anything, he just felt safe and content with Zoe next to him.

***

He shared what happened when he fell from the tree.

“Good morning, students and faculty. I would, um, I would just like to say a few words to you today about...our classmate, Connor Murphy, on behalf of the, um, the Connor Project community.”

He felt like he was going to choke. Like the lights would drown him and he'd disappear forever, lost in all but the minds of the entire school in front of him. The entire school.

“I didn’t know Connor that well. But Connor was always there, whether we knew it or not. Whether we acknowledged him or not.”

His cards nearly fell from his hands. He choked on a building cough, but he kept going.

“I wish Connor were still here, because then maybe I’d know him enough to give a proper speech about him. Maybe I’d know him as more than the boy who was kind enough to sign, um, sign my cast when no one else would.”

He flipped a notecard.

“Good morning, students and...um, uh.”

This was his worst nightmare, coming to life. He shuffled through his notecards. He may have heard a laugh building up in the crowd, but he couldn’t be certain.

All of the cards went flying and it was so silent you could hear a pin drop.

Instead, he dropped. He went to the ground, hands flying to pick them up. It was useless. He couldn't grab them. He looked up towards the sky, the lights, whispering um s that barely made it out of his throat, choking on tears of frustration and sorrow. He was trapped under those lights, harsh and unnatural. Why not sunlight over the horizon? Like when he broke his arm. These lights were artificial, but weren’t they the same as the outside? Wasn’t he the same person he’d been then?

He wanted to disappear, swallowed up by the light he could see as far as he looked. Why couldn’t he just disappear?

Evan swore he could feel Connor’s gaze on him, the weight of his giant sharpie name on the cast on his arm.

Light on the horizon. Sharp pain in his arm. Connor saved him, right? (Not literally, of course. How would that be possible?) He wished everything was different. He wished someone noticed him. Them. The two of them. They shouldn’t disappear into background noise, the deafening silence of a crowd of people waiting for him to fix things in their minds.

And after a deep breath, he stood, notecards forgotten on the ground. His eyes dropped to the first row of chairs, where he could swear a pair of eyes stared back into his like they did across the Murphy’s kitchen table.

Connor.

With a quick nod from him, a plastic, detached version of the real thing in the computer lab that day - with his robotic voice and jerky movements - words sprang off of Evan’s tongue.

“ I, uh, I broke my arm this summer. Obviously.” A chuckle went through the crowd, hesitant, uncertain, probably because of the tears still drying on his cheeks.

“Um. I was working at Ellison State Park. It was the morning, and it was just - it was so beautiful. I loved it, really. No one else was there. I was so-so lonely. All summer, really. I was, uh, I was invisible.

“When I fell from a tree, I thought it would be better. Maybe, like maybe I’d be gone for good?”

There was a deafening silence, then.

“But I just broke my arm. I was still there. No one, no one really saw me, still. Through the rest of the summer. Until-until Connor signed my cast, first day of school. He wasn’t the person to find me that day I broke my arm. But in a roundabout way, he found me eventually. Just by being there, and being open to someone he barely knew. It was enough to feel seen.

“I wish I could’ve done that for him. Made him feel seen. I wish we all could have done that. And I hope that’s what we do in the future. Provide some way for us all to be seen. We should all be found by each other. We will find each other, and we will help each other. We need to at least try.”

He almost ended it there, but then he said, “There should always be someone to find you. Even if it looks like there isn’t, keep your eyes open. Someone will find you when you fall from a tree and think there’s no tomorrow. Someone will find you.”

The lights swallowed him up, and then they were gone. He was lying in the grass for a moment before the sunlight - no, the stage light - cleared from his eyes. The sound of applause was deafening, and when he searched for Connor in the front row he came up short.

He was just relieved to be done speaking, but that would be far from his last moment with that speech. The next morning, he’d be on almost every major news source, thanks to a video of his speech Alana posted on the Connor Project social media. He’d rush to the Murphy’s, stand in front of their table, try to understand their gratitude at what he’d done. He’d get a rush of Instagram followers. He’d immediately start filming more videos with Alana. He’d learn to see the outpouring of gratitude for his words, learn to share more as time went on.

His mother would see it, and she’d barge into his room, face pale, and pull him into her arms. She’d hug him close and whisper apologies he said she didn’t need to share, and she’d tell him just how proud she was of him, how fantastic he is, her smart, brave boy who managed to say all of that in front of everyone.

And he’d find Zoe in her room, watching his speech on her laptop. She’d shut it as soon as he walked in, all of her attention focused on him. And she’d start to say something, maybe, to thank him, to thank him for trying and for doing this all for her family and for making her realize the impact of his words, but he’d kiss her and pull away a second later. And before he could run, she’d kiss him back, and some small, selfish corner of his brain may think that this made all the other parts of his speech worth it, just to feel Zoe Murphy’s fingers twined through his hair and his body pressing against hers. But deep down, he had a feeling it would come to all of that anyway, that he and Zoe were meant to be this version of themselves. Together. Larger than life, an emotion so strong he couldn’t begin to imagine it.

***

For once in his life, Evan was more than just Evan.

(Once? a tiny corner of his brain said, a pair of eyes across from a table, a hand grasping his right hand with a fierce protectiveness and steady squeeze.)

It was so unspeakably nice to have the knowledge that, outside the four walls of his room and the screen of his laptop, people watched the videos he and Alana filmed. With every “Hello, Connor Project Community!” he became just a little more seen, and even though Alana talked over him half of the time, there were a few time their eyes met in the webcam and they just smiled, because they’d done something. It was the same with Jared; no more assertions of family friends, but then spent together working in a comfortable silence.

He never hears from his father as the weeks go by and his cast comes off. (“Zoe must be happy, huh? Must be a real turn off, trying to get it on with her dead brother’s name giant on your cast.” That didn’t sit very well in his stomach.) But when Larry offers to go through stuff in the basement with him - and Cynthia and Zoe roll their eyes in exasperation - he really is happy to listen. Larry told him partway through that he was a really good listener, and he couldn’t help but feel his chest inflate a bit with pride. He doesn’t know anything about sports, doesn’t even care. But it’s so nice to have Larry joke with him, show him his years and years of collecting, give him a glove like there’s nothing in the world he’d rather be doing then spending the afternoon with Evan Hansen. That’s a nice feeling, the knowledge that someone wants to spend time with you.

And there’s Zoe, of course. But she can barely be captured by words. Perhaps more than anyone else, she’s the one that makes him feel least like just Evan. Because they are a pair, and it feels so nice to have someone else on his side, making the good parts of life seem fantastic and the bad parts seem inconsequential. When they make eye contact and laugh to themselves across the garage, or when she grabs his hand at school or after, or when they just sit next to each other, heads leaning onto each other, he doesn’t feel like solitary, lonely Evan. He feels - knows - that he is part of a pair, and the other side will always be there so they can hold each other up.

***

“We don’t need to talk about the Connor Project.”

“Oh,” Evan said. “Okay.”

“No, I just...I want to know. But I also want...I want to have this time with you. Just for us.”

“For our kegger?”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “Obviously.”

“Oh, good.”

After a pause, Zoe continued. “My brother...he had so much of my life. So much of my time. I feel like everything in my family...it was his. And I really just need something...for me.”

Up this close, Evan was pulled in, again, by the look in her eyes, the freckles on her cheeks, the curve of her lips, the affection and determination in her eyes. The space between her eyebrows furrowed just the slightest bit, and he reached out and grabbed her hand. His heart jumped a beat into his throat. He swore he could count the stars in her eyes if he tried enough. She reached a hand up to cup his cheek.

“You don’t have to impress me, Evan. You’re enough. You’re more than enough. You’re...everything. You don’t have to convince me of anything, okay? I know who you are. I know what we’re in the middle of. Ignore that doubting voice in your head.”

He smiled at her, and her eyes softened. In the soft lighting of his bedroom, he felt she was an angel come to save him, the floral pattern of her dress caught in the reflection of the daylight and the sleeve of her denim jacket rubbing against their entwined hands. She’d taken all of the anxious energy that normally followed him in waves and she’d thrown it out the window with a flick of her wrist. She’d stolen the air from his lungs and ignited every nerve in his body. She’d steadied the air around him, made him comfortable with the curve of her calloused fingers on his. He only hoped he could do the same for her.

“I know you, Evan Hansen. And I know you outside of anything else. You’re...you’re mine. And I’m yours. It’s just us, okay? Nothing to live up to. Nothing to worry about.” She smiled. “Just us. Zoe and Evan.”

“Zoe and Evan,” he echoed, unable to stop the grin on his face. A pair. A matching set. “I could get used to that.”

Her hand dropped from his face to his shoulder. “I plan on making you get used to it for quite a long time, actually.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

When she kissed him, he swore he could have lifted the stars from the sky and brought them down to her simply with the sweeping wave of affection and joy and love he felt for Zoe Murphy, for every constellation splashed on her cheeks.

***

“Because I know what it’s like to feel invisible just like you did!” Alana said, her hand curling around her backpack strap. Evan chose to focus on that rather than the way the floor seemed to have bottomed out beneath him. “But you don’t seem to understand that that’s why I’m doing this.”

He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “I get it,” he said. “I’m sorry, Alana. I understand. I know. I know that feeling.”

“I think you might have forgotten that other people do, too. That Connor might have. That’s why we’re doing this.”

“I know! I know!”

“You’re not showing that, Evan. You’re not.”

“I’m…I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. I’ll do more.”

Alana just sighed. “Please, Evan. We’re trying to do something here. We’re trying to help people. Raise money. I’m not sure about your story, and neither are the community.”

His stomach flips unpleasantly, landing about six inches higher than it should.

“Do me a favor, from one invisible person to another,” she says. Something in her tone forced his eyes to meet hers. “Don’t let someone else go forgotten, okay? Just...I’d prefer you didn’t lie to me, but God, at least admit everything to yourself.”

***

Evan wasn’t quite sure when he first saw Connor. It may have been in the audience at his speech, or maybe curled into his chair in the Murphy’s kitchen at one of their countless meals.

In his mind’s eye, he fell from a tree.

“Oh, that’s a nice story. You let go?”

But with the fragments of his and Alana’s conversation from the week before echoing in his ears, Connor was more present to him than he ever had been. Actually speaking instead of just staring.

“Yes. Yes, I let go. I wanted to…I wanted to…”

“Did you let go? Or did you fall?”

"At least admit everything to yourself.”

“I…I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Is it true that no one came to get you that day?”

“Yes! I was…I was alone. Just like I told Zoe.”

“I don’t give a shit what you told Zoe. What happened?”

“I was alone.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Evan. You can’t even tell the truth to yourself.”

“Admit it to yourself.”

“It’s the truth! I don’t…”

“Oh yeah?” Connor, the fake and cleansed one, suddenly leaned in close to where Evan’s face was as he sat on the bed. “Maybe you should think again.”

Something wrong struck Evan just then. It turned over a dog eared page in his head, but he shook it rapidly and squeezed his eyes shut to keep it down. Shadows flicked at the edges of his vision and colors exploded against his eyelids with the force he closed them.

one two three

***

He had never thought of himself as a person of habit before, but he became rather attached to his new routine with the Murphy’s. His mother was home for dinner Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he stayed home those nights unless he could claim a Spanish project and say he needed to go to Jared’s. But most nights, he walked to the Murphy’s with Zoe and stayed for dinner and sometimes slept over. He was used to that routine, and that day wasn’t any different.

Looking back on it, Zoe, perhaps, seemed a bit bouncier than usual on the walk home, tugging Evan forward by their joined hands a bit more persistently than normal. And maybe he’d noticed the extra car parked down the street, but he didn’t look closely enough to see that it was his car before Zoe wrapped a quick squeeze around his waist and bounced forward to her front door, leaving Evan to trail after her like a lovesick puppy.

And then they walked through the entryway and into the living room, and Evan felt his entire body jolt to a stop without planning it. His mother perched on the edge of a chair, a wine glass held in her hand so delicately he wondered if she wanted to be holding it at all.

Zoe smiled even more broadly, bounding forward and holding out a hand to shake as she was so wont to do. Heidi shook it with an air of confusion.

“This, um, this was your idea?” Evan heard himself say. He wanted to smile at the look of joy on her face, but the overwhelming sense of confusion on his mother’s made it impossible. He had a creeping feeling of foreboding in his gut.

Evan sat in a free chair and Zoe perched on the armrest. He could feel his mother’s eyes on him, but he was truthfully on autopilot. He could feel himself curling into himself, trying to take up less space, but he didn’t stop it. He knew, in his gut, that it would end poorly.

And then Larry and Cynthia offered to pay for his college tuition.

His first thought, stupidly, was of those printed-out college essay contests sitting in a stack on his bedside table. He’d barely glanced at them, but his mother had gone to all that work to print them out.

“No. No thank you,” Heidi said firmly, already standing to leave. “I appreciate it, but I assure you, we can make it on our own.”

That was the first time she’d referred to Evan as part of the family unit in a while. Most of the time she placed all of the responsibility on herself whenever finances came up, but now she included Evan in the ‘we.’ It felt almost like she was trying to assert a claim over him, like she thought the Murphys were trying to use him as a proxy for Connor.

“Of course, no, I’m so sorry. We simply meant….well, Evan has been such help with everything. We wanted to repay him some of his kindness,” Cynthia said, so earnestly no one could doubt it. “That won’t be necessary,” Heidi said, her eyes flicking over to Evan. “But thank you. We appreciate it.”

“Do you know how humiliating it is? To see that your son has joined a new family and you didn’t even know? To have someone offer you something I could never give you? Do you know that, Evan?”

“If you’re sure,” Cynthia said softly. “But I hope you recognize that it’s an open offer, anyways. For anything. We mean it.”

“I feel like you aren’t telling me the whole truth, Evan, and that scares me.”

“I can’t tell myself the truth!” He heard himself shout. ”I don’t know what’s real anymore, mom, but I know that you’re never here. That’s enough for me to understand about you.”

He didn’t really mean any of it, not the way that she meant her words. But hers weren’t as harsh, while his cut deep. They were at a standstill, and neither knew how to proceed.

“I’m trying my hardest,” she said eventually, her jaw set and words measured. ”I am trying my best. Shit, Evan. I am trying to give you the best life I can. I’m sorry I can’t give you what they can give you.”

“At least they don’t think I’m some-I’m some broken thing, some burden, just need to check on the meds and you’re-”

“Shit, Evan. I am your mother! It is my job to make sure you’re happy, you’re okay, and I - you’ve been there all year! I didn’t know! I can’t-” and here her voice sounded sad rather than angry, “I can’t protect you. But I can make sure your meds are set. That’s - that’s all I can do. That’s all I do all day. Shit, I need to do it for you.”

He shook his head, crossing the room to burn off anxious energy. “I’m not a job over there. I’m not broken. I’m not part of a job.”

Ice crowding out fatigue in her voice, she found words again. “It must be nice to have the luxury of forgetting responsibilities. But I don’t have that.”

He shook his head again. Neither of them knew what to say; they weren’t good at fighting, especially not with each other. They weren’t used to it. But there seemed to be nothing else left to say, so he went to his room. Heidi didn’t follow him.

***

four five

After five precise beats Evan opened his eyes again slowly, looking back up at Connor. There was still something removed to him, plastic, almost, yet after a moment it melted away and Connor leaned in to squeeze his arms around Evan’s shoulders.

Suddenly everything sparked.

The computer lab was almost completely empty. He typed out some meaningless message, creating something veneered to show his therapist. Each clack of the keys startled him more than the last. He wasn’t thinking, only moving.

He clicked print on his document, immediately hearing the printer whoosh to life. It took a moment for him to stand up and move towards it, grabbing the first piece of paper to shoot out of the printer. He glanced at it for a moment before he heard footsteps behind him, heavy and expectant. The words flashed at him from the page again.

‘Dear Evan Hansen.’

He froze, unsure of what to do. His pulse quickened, blood rushing through his ears. The footsteps stopped behind him.

Connor’s arms were still around him as he pulled back slightly, looking into Evan’s eyes, suddenly as real as his own.

“I don’t deserve to be forgotten, Evan,” Connor said softly, and that déjà vu hit him again.

He hadn’t written those words.

“Please,” Connor said, and Evan had had this conversation already, had sat like this with Connor’s arms around him, had heard each word puncture his soul like this before. “Please don’t let me fade away.”

Evan shoved him away, suddenly and harshly. Connor staggered back, posture melting back into something half plastic.

Evan didn’t know what to do.

He looked up at him, expression already fading. “What about my parents? How can you do this to them?”

He only shook his head, feeling his throat narrow.

Connor persisted, even as he tensed more. “After everything they’ve done for you? You could help them.”

“I-they don’t need me.” Evan hated how choked his voice sounded.

He scoffed. “Yeah, they don’t need you to keep lying to them.”

“They don’t need my help!”

“Do they seem like a pretty happy family to you?” For a moment, Connor seemed to regain expression, his cheeks flushed with anger, words infused with the famous Murphy venom. He broke eye contact with Evan for only a moment, and he was surprised by how uneven Connor’s voice sounded when he continued, eyes filled with steel. “What you’re hiding from them, it could be the only thing to keep them together.”

He couldn’t look away from Connor, even as his eyes watered. He shook his head, feeling his pulse elevate.

“What about Zoe?”

“Zoe said, she just…she wants me.”

“Right.”

“She likes me for who I am.”

“Sound familiar?” He didn’t respond, and Connor’s voice melted somewhat. He could’ve sworn he smelled the acrid scent of burning plastic in the air. “You didn’t happen to tell her, everything you’ve said about how you felt-it was all one big fucking lie.”

“It wasn’t!”

Scathing, sarcastic. For some reason, his heart twisted as he heard it in something that felt eerily akin to nostalgia. “Oh, that’s right. You left that out.”

Connor’s face shifted again, starting to change before a buzz startled the air. Evan turned away from him to fish his phone out of his pocket. It was Alana, a video chat.

He turned back to Connor, but he was gone, and before he could really recognize it he pressed accept.

“Hello, Evan,” Alana said, words clipped short, before Evan could even say hello.

“He-”

“We’re still a thousand dollars off from our goal.”

“I know, Alana. I’m sorry. I’m going to-I’m going to do something. I’ve been a terrible co-president. But I’ll do whatever it is. I’ll-I’ll film more videos, yeah? I’ll get it done. I want this to work.”

“What’s the point, Evan? You’ve already made it clear to me that you’re not invested in seeing the Connor Project grow. Why should I trust you now? We need something that will captivate our audience. You don’t have anything.”

“I-” He saw Connor across from him. He shook his head, his forearms rested on his knees where he crouched on the floor.

“Don’t, Evan,” he said. He knew Alana couldn’t hear Connor, but Evan wished she could hear him for just a moment.

“I don’t know, Alana. I’m-I’m the one who came up with the idea, I talked to the Murphy’s, I - I wrote a note they thought was his!”

Connor dropped his head into his hands.

“What?” Alana said.

“He - I wrote it for an - for myself. And Connor took it. He had it with him when, well. He had it. And that’s how this whole mess started.”

“You wrote something indistinguishable to a suicide note that Connor just happened to take and keep in his pocket?”

“Yes. I did. I can - I can send it to you!”

Which he did.

“Evan,” Alana said. Her voice was gentler than it had been the entire time. He finally brought his nervous eyes back to his screen rather than just on the blank patch of the wall behind Connor. “Did you really write this?”

“Yes.”

“Connor, he had it on him when he was found?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t write it?”

“No!”

“He just...happened to have a note that you wrote on him when he was found. A note like this…” She shook her head. “That’s quite the coincidence, Evan.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Alana shook her head again. She seemed wearier with every passing second. “I don’t know. I’m not entirely certain it is. I feel like there are too many inconsistencies. I’m not so certain you’re telling the truth.” She smiled ruefully, continuing before he could even process that. “I could publish this, I guess. It might spark some interest. Show people how far you’ve come.”

He couldn’t ignore the wave of panic that overcame him, starting deep in his stomach and cresting up above his head. “No, no, no.”

“Isn’t that why you gave it to me?” She said.

He shook his head. “No, that’s not why-I just. I wanted to. To show you.”

Her eyes studied him for one long moment. She shook her head back at him. “Okay, Evan. I have another thousand dollars to raise in less than twenty-four hours. I suggest you start deciding what you know is true. Get back to admitting it to yourself, yeah? I might post it. I might not. But until you actually make up your mind as to how involved you’re going to be - how honest you’re going to be, with me and everyone else - I can’t help you. You can’t even help yourself.”

And with those words, Alana was gone. He dropped his phone into his lap. He hunched forward, leaning his elbows onto his knees. His head fell into his hands.

He felt rather than saw Connor’s body closer to his immediately as the call ended. Judged on feeling alone, Connor was only a few inches away. Evan, still struggling to really breathe properly, lifted his head. He met eyes with Connor again.

He was in the computer lab, holding a note addressed to himself that he wrote, and Connor Murphy was angry because of his stupid crush on his sister, and the steps behind him slowed and hung hesitantly in the air, and Evan never wrote this note, he’d never seen the words on the page before. He picked this up from the printer thinking it was a therapy letter, but no, it’s not his, it’s-

Connor-suddenly real, again, alive if only in his mind-leaned forward and pressed his lips to Evan’s.

Evan’s pulled back to the present, to the feel of Connor’s mouth against his, and suddenly the page is flipped over and sunlight breaks through every crack in his brain and the orchard spreads out in front of him, Connor laughing just next to him. They’re racing up a tree, breathless and full of wonder, Evan pausing just for a moment to see the sky. It’s an expanse of blue that stares right back at him, and he’s full of hope, he’s full of wonder until a branch snaps right under him and the air is rushing around him and he’s in free fall and just as he hits the ground his feet root to the concrete below him and the printer shoots out another sheet of paper and

“Is-is your arm doing better?” Connor said, not quite meeting his eyes. There was a point where Evan would be able to dissect every layer to Connor’s voice, but he’s unsure now. He’s not even sure why Connor would talk to him after what happened in the orchard, in the car and the hospital afterwards. A flash of a pair of lips at the corner of his mouth was so heavy he could almost feel it.

“It’s better,” he said. “Would you - would you sign my cast?”

Connor nodded and accepted the sharpie Evan held out. He wrote slowly, each squeak of the marker and giant stroke that shaped the letters filling the silence more effectively than words could. “No pretending we have other friends, I guess.” He said, a dark note in his tone. The paper still hung loosely in Evan’s grasp.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted for no reason. “For everything. And not…not trying to reconnect.” Connor looked at him and nodded, looking like he was on the verge of saying something but never quite saying it. Finally, he settled on “I’m, um, I’m sorry too, I owe you a giant apology-”

“No you don’t,” Evan assured him, not quite sure he knew what he was saying. He opened his mouth to say more but was left grasping for words as they were all swallowed by the sound of another piece of paper coming from the printer. Connor grabbed it quickly, eyes skimming over it quickly. His face instantly morphed into panic, and he looked up at Evan. He looked down towards his hand, the paper it loosely clenched, and Evan realized those weren’t the words he’d written.

Dear Evan Hansen,

It turns out this wasn’t an amazing day. This won’t be an amazing week, or an amazing year. Because, why would-

Connor made a grab for the paper, swapping the one in his hand for Evan’s. “I think that’s yours,” he said, and Evan was left too blindsided to properly respond. Before he could process Connor was moving away from him again, shoulders hunched without so much as a goodbye.

“Hey-” he started. “I know we lost all this time this summer, but, you know, that doesn’t mean we have to lose more.”

Connor turned back towards him, some foreign expression plastered on his face. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we don’t.”

“Want to hang out? I have therapy today but after-”

“No, I uh-” Connor moved his hand enclosed around the letter to his pocket. “I can’t hang out tonight.”

There was something odd in the gesture, but Evan couldn’t quite place what it was. “Okay, then. I guess - I’ll see you around?”

Connor nodded, a little too exaggeratedly, before turning on his heal again. Evan looked back down at his own letter, veneered and plastic.

Dear Evan Hansen,

Today may not have been an amazing day, but it was still great because you were at school and you didn’t try to be not you. You had a conversation with Jared, and one with Alana, right? Even if not many people talked to you, you were you. You didn’t try to be anything else. That’s something, I guess.

Sincerely,

Evan pulled away from Connor, immediately feeling the Connor in front of him weaken back into a less real version of him. He reached his hands up to grip Connor’s upper arms.

“Please,” Connor whispered, voice gruff, and as Evan dragged his gaze up to meet his eyes he disappeared entirely, leaving him grasping thin air with his fists and staring into nothing, a phantom touch still lingering on his skin.

“No,” Evan muttered, hands barely moved a centimeter, eyes straining as though he could find Connor in the space he just disappeared into. “No, Connor, I-”

A sob tore through his chest. One hand reached to just above his heart, and he started the old song and dance of tapping and massaging it, trying to calm it from its unsteady beat. He stumbled up to his feet, reaching for his laptop blindly. It was still open from sending Alana the letter, but he ignored it and navigated to some part he’d entirely forgotten, a little airplane icon in the corner of his desktop.

***

Again, he stood in front of the Murphy’s kitchen table. But no one stood there with him. There was just him and a thick stack of papers in his hand, but he didn’t think the Murphy’s noticed that. Not around the sounds of their phones buzzing and beeping.

Alana had posted his letter. She’d texted him barely thirty seconds later when he’d already been hightailing it to the Murphy’s, a simple if you’d like to know, I posted it. As though feeling the need to justify it, she added hopefully it’s the push we need. If this works maybe it’ll be enough.

The thought of the letter out in the open for everyone to read sent a chill up his spine, but he barely had time to think on it before he was in the eye of the storm, the Murphy’s frantically shooting ideas back and forth to each other. The Connor Project community had turned surprisingly violent with the posting of the letter, and suddenly no one was on the side of the Murphy’s. It was framed as a note that Connor had read on his last day, written by co-president Evan Hansen. Nothing that should force people to turn against each other, but they were, and viciously. Claims that the Murphy’s were exploiting Evan, or forcing him to do something when his mental health was obviously poor. Claims that Evan was manipulating them and forcing his way into the story by faking suicidal thoughts. Threats of violence against the Murphy’s, posting their numbers and their address and supposedly personal claims about how awful they were.

And Zoe. Zoe, whose phone started ringing the moment he walked in the door, something she’d shut down with a “have fun with your miserable life, bye.” The community seemed torn in two directions with her: a small minority of people who thought that Evan was manipulating and stalking her before their relationship began, putting too much trust into her and unfairly impacting her, and then the large majority of people who blamed her. For what, Evan wasn’t entirely sure. Not seeing Evan before, for not magically giving him more hope like it seems Evan wanted within the words of that page? Her comments were the nastiest. He met her eye from across the kitchen, the corner of his mouth upturned in apology. Her own turned down as if to say it wasn’t his fault, but her eyes were glassier and harder than he would’ve liked. Not hardened for him, but hardened against everything else. He got the unmistakable urge to sweep her up into his arms and try to solve every last one of her problems, or at the very least make her forget about them. Instead, he broke his eyes away from hers, trying to forget the genuine edge of fear in the lines between her forehead.

In his mind's eye, he saw Connor hurry from the computer lab and somehow through the doors of the kitchen where he stood now. He circled for a moment, stranded in space, before he pulled the note out of his pocket once more. He held it tight, eyes scanning it. Evan removed the same letter from his sweatshirt pocket. Connor hovered nervously over the table before disappearing from his line of sight.

For the briefest moment, Evan thought he saw Larry jump, eyes fixed to the spot where Connor had been, but a moment later he was sure he had imagined it.

Cynthia and Zoe’s budding argument brought him back to the present.

“-tell them, Evan, tell them, you wrote this, you know what it means!”

“I didn’t,” he whispered, eyes dropping again to the note.

“Don’t, mom. It’s not his job.”

“Evan, please,” Cynthia said.

“I didn’t. I didn’t write it,” he said again, just a little louder, but it seemed like only Zoe may have even heard him. Their eyes met again, and her frown deepened. He wondered if she could read it off of his face. He wondered, offhandedly, if this was what Connor felt like. If he was dead and gone, and Zoe was the only one who could see him. Is that what that felt like?

“Evan?” Cynthia said once more.

“It wasn’t me!” Evan practically shouted. He tossed the letter to the table. The kitchen was silent, then.

“What do you mean?” Cynthia said, her voice small.

“I didn’t write the note. He did.”

Larry finally spoke. “He...you mean, he…?”

“Connor wrote the note.” Evan felt tears rising in his throat. “I lied about it being a therapy assignment. I didn’t write the note at all. I wrote, I wrote different letters for myself. But that wasn’t one of them. I didn’t, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say that he-”

“No,” Cynthia said. She was choked up, her cheeks already turning red. “no, Evan, you wrote this letter, you-”

“But I didn’t,” and here a sob tore through Evan’s chest. “Here-” he tossed the stack of papers onto the table. Zoe reached for them first, her mouth set in a taut line. “We-we emailed. A lot. Secret email accounts. He didn’t,” Evan bit his lip, working through another sob, his hand tapping and massaging his heart again, the other at the hem of his shirt. He was shaking his head, or maybe his head was just shaking. He met Zoe’s eyes. She looked up from the papers. The genuine look of confusion and betrayal in her eyes made him choke a little more. She lifted one hand to her face, brushing over the freckles he knew so well. Her touch was light, and her hand was shaking. He wanted to fix that. He wanted to cross the kitchen and trace her freckles and hold her hand until it no longer shook. “He didn’t want people to know.”

“He knew you went through his emails,” Zoe said, to either Larry or the table, Evan wasn’t sure. Larry said nothing in return.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I - those are all of the, all of the emails. And I’m, I just couldn’t, when you came to see me, I couldn’t possibly understand, I had no idea what to, I couldn’t believe - I couldn’t believe that it would be to me .”

He swallowed around another wave of tears. “I couldn’t imagine that he was-” He shook his head. To Zoe, he said “he was there. He got me. When I broke my arm. He was the person.”

“But you said, so you and he, you would-” Zoe finally seemed to be at a loss for words. It made Evan’s heart break. She shook her head, and through his own tears, he could see tears sparkling in her eyes. She let out something akin to a laugh, but a hundred times sadder and smaller. “You loved him, you were-you were best friends, and you were mo-” she cut off. “So he said that about me. Not you.”

Evan nodded. ”Some - some of it, yeah. I heard from him.”

When Zoe’s sob came, it was quiet and pained; her head dropped forward into her arms, emails in her lap.

Cynthia was crying with full abandon now, having snatched up the note. Larry’s head was shaking firmly, and his lips were moving in either a curse or in prayer.

Again, Evan felt rather than saw Connor’s presence behind him. His sobs came from him in violent bursts, all at once hit with the full force of Connor’s death and the weight of what he’d done. As it slammed into him, just below his throat, he felt the last whisper of a touch against his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Connor said, for once sounding just like he used to. All of Evan’s breath left his lungs. “Thank you, Evan.”

And with that, Connor was gone for good. His best friend stood, choking out sorry’ s. And his family sat at the table, in various states of distress. A house broken, filled with sniffles and sobs so violent they shook furniture.

Evan dropped to the tile floor. His head felt dizzy from lack of air.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Zoe’s voice was stretched thin and prone to crack at any moment. When he looked up again, her eyes made his own full with even more tears. They were red and sore looking. She continued, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me, Evan?” It was barely more than a whisper, but Evan was sure he would’ve heard her voice across a thousand miles or a million worlds. A tear fell from her right eye. “I killed him. I killed him. They’re right. It’s my fault.”

He shook his head desperately because if nothing else, he needed her to know that it wasn’t her fault. Connor didn’t blame her.

“Didn’t you hear me before, Zoe?” The words were so choked with tears he would be shocked she could hear them. “You were the one thing. The one thing he could rely on being good. Beyond me, beyond - anything. I wasn’t enough. God, I wasn’t enough. You were. You were everything to him. But he couldn’t, didn’t know how to say it to you. I couldn’t measure up, I couldn’t - couldn’t make him feel okay. I couldn’t blame him for it, Zoe. Because you’re-” another sob racks his words. “You’re perfect. Can’t you see that? He wasn’t blaming you. He couldn’t blame you. It wasn’t you. It was me. It was my fault. It-it was my fault. He was my best friend. It was my job, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it.”

Zoe shook her head. Some hair slipped from behind her ear. “I didn’t see. I couldn’t tell. I-I blamed him . I could’ve—” she cut off, choosing instead to hide back in her arms.

“Stop,” Cynthia begged. The sound was drawn from her lungs just as it was that day in the principal’s office, pure primal sadness. “Please.”

His entire body shaking with the force of his sobs, he couldn’t help but comply with her request.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Larry said. The thickness of his words scared Evan. “We needed to know that. That’s just what we needed.”

Evan shook his head wildly. “I couldn’t let myself know that he was - that I had failed, that he had wanted me to know that. I couldn’t face it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Things fell silent again, but no one left the kitchen. Zoe’s phone dinged again.

“I’m sorry,” Evan whispered.

“Oh, do you think that the old plane is still down there, Larry?”

“I’d doubt it,” Larry replied. “They probably cleared the whole lake out when they reopened.”

“Is the lake still here, even?”

“I don’t know,” Larry replied. “Shall we check?”

Alana did it, somehow. Maybe it was the push of the letter, or maybe the money would have come to them anyway. Either way, the Connor Murphy Memorial Orchard was a reality at the end of May of that year. With graduation around the corner, Evan and the Murphy’s decided to take a trip together. Heidi was set to show up after her shift ended that afternoon, but until then it was Zoe and Larry and Cynthia back in a place from the past. And Evan, of course. Evan was included in everything to do with Connor, and maybe a little bit more.

Cynthia took Larry’s extended hand and stood to step off of the picnic blanket, following him as he led her towards where Evan supposed the lake used to be. Their hands stayed linked together even as they simply ambled along to their destination. The sight made Evan smile. They were a far cry from the couple in the principal’s office, next to each other but not looking. They seemed like they could finally look each other in the eyes and smile doing it.

At some point, Evan stood up from the floor. He couldn’t seem to cry anymore. He slid into the seat across from Zoe, the one where the shadow of Connor had been before.

“Where did it happen?” Zoe said. She lifted her head from her arms. Her face was surprisingly blank, as though she was resigned. Though she didn’t clarify, he knew what she was really asking.

“We went to the orchard. Autumn Smile,” he said. “Connor-” he almost choked on the name. “Connor made fun of it. The letters had worn off so it said ‘Aut ile.’” He shook his head. “I don’t know why he thought it was so funny. But he did. And we went inside, even though it was closed down. Insisted we-we climb a tree, and everything. Since it was. Um. My hobby, or so he thought, I guess. And I fell, and he got me. Stayed with me through the hospital, and everything, the whole time. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he weren’t-well.”

“The orchard,” Cynthia whispered. The tear tracks on her face glistened. She stood suddenly and surged towards Evan, and for one ridiculous moment, he thought she might hit him. She had every right to, in his mind. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. She wrapped him in a hug so motherly he felt tears resurge in his eyes.

Of course, later, he’d go home and receive a hug like that from his own mother. He’d explain the full truth of everything, and she’d apologize and he’d apologize and he’d finally stop pushing her away. But for then, receiving a hug like that from Connor’s mother was enough to make the pain of loss feel so new and raw that it was like that unadulterated feeling in the principal’s office, the one that choked him until he forced out a lie. It scared him, but he couldn’t ignore the part of him that said he deserved to be afraid.

Wrapped up in that hug, along with all of the new grief and gratitude and relief in Cynthia’s sob, it felt like a bit of forgiveness, maybe. Like it could become forgiveness.

Zoe reached out to him while her parents talked and began to amble away, and her fingers brushed the back of his hand. He turned his hand automatically, lacing his fingers with hers. She squeezed his hand gently, and he squeezed hers back.

“They were talking today about how they want to come back for stuff like this,” she said, her voice low to ensure her parents didn’t hear. They probably wouldn’t have heard around their ensuing chatter, anyway. “I think this might be the best thing for them yet.”

Evan shrugged. “I hope.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m glad to be here with you.”

She smiled, one of her thousand-watt smiles that always filled his chest with a kind of warmth. From further away, he could hear Cynthia giggle, happier than he’d ever heard her. The sun warmed his cheeks and his knuckles where his hand lay intertwined with Zoe’s. It had been a far from easy journey to get there, but he thought it was worth it. The last months had been new, different, painful in a previously unknown way. But with the truth out, he could finally grieve properly. Learning to do that, with his mother, with the Murphy’s, with Zoe was more of a gift than he could have possibly given them.

Zoe leaned her head onto his shoulder. “Me, too,” she whispered, and he knew she was telling the truth.

He closed his eyes against the light as he had on stage all those months before. But the light seemed to ebb through him anyway, leaving him feeling nothing but content. Of course, nothing was perfect. His trust with the Murphy’s may not have been completely rebuilt, nor would it ever probably be. He still felt an emptiness directly to his right, in the pit of his chest, on the edge of his shoulder where a black-polished hand used to lie (and at the corner of his mouth where a pair of lips had once, ever so briefly, ever so destructively, brushed under a hot summer sun, that had driven them apart), but it was far from the gaping hole it had been when he'd convinced himself it hadn’t existed. His mother had fewer shifts and he attempted to communicate more, but they still only really connected once a week at most. He and Jared and Alana had finally begun working together again, but all their conversations were a little awkward and uncertain. And he and Zoe, though they touched at the hand and the head and shoulder, were stuck like that indefinitely, despite conversations and attempts at more or at less.

He didn’t need perfect, however. Better - better was more than fine. He’d convinced himself, once, that he only needed one thing or one person to feel like enough. He might’ve been right, but maybe what he needed was several things, several people and several experiences. Not whole things and not half things, either, but things and relationships and experiences that were slowly, steadily, always growing better and stronger. Marching on towards better, into the sunlight dipping over the horizon. A possibility of new growth and a possibility of dead ends were both fine to him, and the possibility that it might stay the way it was then, in a park with people he cared about deeply - people who cared about him despite all of his flaws and mistakes and pushed him to do better in the future - didn’t scare him at all. It was better than he’d ever hoped for. (Except for the idea that Connor was truly gone forever. He would’ve given anything to change that.)

Zoe squeezed his hand, and he smiled against the sun, thinking he might just disappear into that feeling.

15 notes · View notes

royallyprincesslilly · 5 years

Text

Title: I Love You Two {1}*

Captain America Vs. Superman Sequel

Chris Evans X Reader X Henry Cavill

Warning: Fluff, Plot, MFM Coupling, Lite Smut

Word Count: 3.7K

Note: Guyyyyyyyyys! So, I have not been able to get this out my head. I really wanted it to be one and done but, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I had a “hypothetical” convo with some friends and my brain said hol’ up, hol’ up, hol’ up. 😊 Hope ya’ll can rock with this.

Summary: It was meant to be a one-time thing maybe twice so you could get it out your system, but seven months later and things are still going strong and have transitioned into something much more than any of you could have expected. In a world so hell bent on conventional how can you maneuver this unconventional love you’ve stumbled upon?

Previous Parts:

Captain America Vs Superman 1 | Captain America Vs. Superman 2***

**Loosely edited**

**Loosely Proofread**

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was insane to think what a difference a few months could make and how drastically our lives could change in such a short period of time. You could be down on your luck one day and completely lost unable to find a way out and bam the next you’re in a completely different situation, one you never imagined. Or one day you could be single only thinking about work and your next step professionally and then the next you’re completely swept up and in love with no care in the world but seeing the source of your affection. Life was unpredictable. That was where you found yourself now, rocking with the unpredictability of life.

You moaned and stretched. Your joints cracked and muscles elongated. It felt as if you’d been in one position for hours. You moaned again and slowly rolled around in the soft coverings that you were wrapped in. You opened your eyes slowly, and the sun was the first thing you saw. You closed your eyes again and slightly shifted before you opened them again. When you did, the sun was obscured by the wood and palm leaf roof that was above your head. You could hear the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the birds squawking overhead. You took a deep breath in and sighed, loving the scent of coconut, flowers, sea salt, and sunshine. You stretched again and finally sat up. The sheer linen blanket that was wrapped around you pooled around your waist, allowing the cool, dewy glow of the sun to caress your bare breasts.

You slid to the edge of the bed and stood on the wooden planked floor and walked to toward the sheer curtains that encompassed the bed. Standing there you could see to the private beach and the sea it was beautiful. The setting sun illuminated the sea and cast an ethereal beauty in the sky. It looked like a breathtaking painting. You hadn’t taken a real vacation in almost three years, so this was a long-overdue pause from reality. You stood there for several more moments, just enjoying the slow setting sun and the warm breeze.

With a soft, satisfied sigh, you took up the linen blanket and loosely wrapped your naked body. You followed the wooden floors from the outdoor bed you preferred to sleep in on the nights the sky was clear and made it to the main house. As you walked inside, you heard the mellow music and smelled the delicious scents wafting through the air. You followed your nose and the smells to the doorway of the gourmet kitchen and leaned on the door frame and watched the two perfect male specimens move about the kitchen.

They spoke about some soccer game and debated over who scored the best goal. Like always they couldn’t agree. You were surprised they’d lasted this long as friends without some major dispute threatening their bond. They both stood with their backs to you completely unaware of your presence. Chris wore a men’s tank and a pair of swim trunks, and Henry wore a polo shirt and some cargo shorts. You slowly walked into the kitchen, taking effort to ensure your bare feet made no sound at all. As you approached the kitchen island, you zeroed in on the bowl of freshly prepared salad and snuck a ripe, red cherry tomato and popped it into your mouth. You leaned onto the island and continued to watch the only entertainment you’d ever need.

Your eyes slowly traveled down Henry’s body, taking in his full stature. He was built for pleasure; from his broad shoulders and bulging biceps and his trim waist down to his defined but taut ass and not to mention his amazing thighs that looked like they could both give you life and take it all at once. As you continued to snack your eyes turned to Chris. He was built for sin. His tall frame and equally broad shoulders always made you go googly eye. His strong back and impossibly built arms complimented his slim waist and toned ass.

You thought you had a type before both of them and that type was tall, black and fine, but they proved it wrong, now your type was them and none other. You walked around the island to the side they were on and quietly hopped onto it. After a few moments, Chris looked back and was the first to see you. He smiled and turned to give you his full attention. His turn prompted Henry to notice and look back also. When he saw you he smiled and turned to face you as he continued to mix something in a bowl.

“Well look who finally woke up,” Henry stated.

“Finally, how long’s it been? Four hours?”

You snorted at Chris’ exaggeration.

“No, I counted close to five,” Henry responded with his crisp British accent.

“Ha, ha you both are really funny. It was barely three hours.”

They smiled, and both their eyes longingly looked over your barely covered body.

“Who can blame you for being wiped out. Must be hard keeping up with two stallions,” Chris piped. You couldn’t help the loud laugh that escaped your lips.

“Stallions? Oh my god, yes stallions indeed, my two white stallions.”

As you continued to laugh, they both approached you. Henry put the bowl he held to the side and touched the top of your knee while Chris softly grazed your arm. Your laughter slowly died down until you were looking at both of them just openly gawking at your body. Henry toyed with the edges of the linin blanket that rested at your inner upper thigh. His fingers every so often lightly teased your skin sending goosebumps up and down your leg.

Chris trailed his finger up to your collar and flicked the blanket you loosely held over your breasts. You looked to Chris and saw amusement in his cornflower eyes. He slowly licked his lips before he lowered them to your collarbone. You took a deep breath in and looked to henry. He smiled and leaned into you, connecting your lips. He kissed you softly. It wasn’t a kiss of urgency or one meant to lead anywhere; it was a teasing one, a gentle one, one meant to make you show him how much you wanted him. Chris’ lips moved to the space where your neck and shoulder met. You moaned bit down on Henry’s bottom lip forcing a moan from him before he intensified the kiss.

Chris then moved his lips up your neck to your ear where he nibbled, licked and sucked it. God, it felt good. As your tongue danced with Henry’s and Chris’ lips teased your arousal higher. You felt Chris’ fingers trail down your exposed spine awaking new goosebumps and a new desire. His lips moved to your cheek, then your jaw. Sensing his movements, Henry broke the kiss and Chris took over as Henry attached his lips to your neck. He sucked your skin into his mouth and bit down. You groaned loudly and arched your back, feeling an overwhelming need for more. You groaned again and took the lead kissing Chris. In response, he gripped the exposed flesh of your buttock and pulled you closer to the edge of the island. Henry moved his hand from your thigh further up and under the blanket until you felt his soft fingers skim your sex. You moaned again. Henry’s thumb connected with your already pulsating bud then moved it in a circular motion. You bit Chris’ lip and sucked on his tongue. You heard him moan on you right before you felt Henry slip one of his thick digits inside you. You tore your lips from Chris’ and moaned loudly.

“Mmm, wow. This escalated quickly.”

You pulled away from both their touch and hopped off the island. Your knees were weak, and you were wanting.

“Mmm.”

“Where ya’ goin’?” Chris asked, leaning on the counter with a smirk.

“Uh, well ya’ know–,” you trailed off.

Henry sucked the finger that was just inside you and moaned before he spoke.

“Tasty.”

You almost dropped the blanket and bent over the counter, but you knew this was a game of who could seduce who. You crossed your legs and swallowed. They both smiled and walked to you. You leaped back and scurried behind to the other side of the island.

“Running now? Interesting,” Chris began.

“It is isn’t it. Never the mind I like to chase.”

They both made a move to the side of the island you stood. You moved to the opposite side again and around you went once more ending in the same place you began.

“Do you remember those words I said to you when we first got here?”

You pinched your lips because you remembered quite well.

“Nope.”

“Let me refresh your memory. I said be careful, before the end of this vacation you will be running for space,” Henry said. You smiled widely and held firm to the blanket.

“I am not running for space.”

Henry and Chris looked to each other before they both went in opposite directions around the island. You backed away giggling like a child. As they approached, you backed to the doorway holding your hands out in front of you.

“Wait, wait. Hold on.”

“I’m hungry now,” Chris responded.

The butterflies in your gut took flight and made your core clench.

“Jesus. I need a shower. I’m covered in sand, salt, and various other fluids.”

They both looked at each other again. You rolled your eyes; you were getting tired of how they’d gotten so good at nonverbal communication.

“Okay.”

“Ha, I wasn’t asking. You forget I run this,” you cockily informed. Again they glanced at each other and advanced for you. You slinked back and laughed.

“Nope. Shower. You two can stay here and continue cooking for me.”

You winked and turned, making sure to allow the blanket to fall from your body to reveal your skin to them. You felt the heat of their gaze on you as you disappeared down the hall. The last three weeks had been amazing. Paradise was an understatement for this place, and what made it all that more perfect was it was one hundred percent secluded. The three of you’d taken a private jet to the tarmac, then a separate helicopter to get to the charter that brought you to the shore.

After your hedonistic night together, it happened again and again for the entire weekend. Then you all went back to reality. You went to your typical seven to seven, and they each flew out to other work obligations. While you kept in touch, all of you felt that things were different. You didn’t know what and neither of you could put your finger on it, but something was different. They were gone for a month, and during that time you worked, spent time with your family and friends and even went on a date or two. Still, none of them felt like before. The men were attractive, yes, and the conversations were enriching, and everything seemed to go well, but you couldn’t connect. Your mind often wandered to them and what they were doing if they’d met anyone, if they were working themselves raw or if they were hooking up with set assistants or fans, your imagination went wild, and you usually wouldn’t care either way, but now, you cared. None of you talked about it though.

When they came back, everything fell into place. You spent time together as usual, dinner here and there, lunch, movie nights, nothing was forced, and nothing felt weird. It was as if your night of fun was just that. Then one month, when they were away and happened to be in the same city for press, you surprised them. One accidental hello kiss to the both of them sparked the fire you’d felt that night and before any of you could stop you were naked, sweaty, and completely breathless on the bed several hours later with not a care for anything besides round two, three and four. When they came back to town a few weeks later, they didn’t expect to see you on a date. Neither of them looked happy about it, but they didn’t say anything.

It wasn’t until three months after the first night you spent together that tensions flared for Chris after he showed up to your office unannounced to find you in a very flirtatious situation with one of the guys who worked with you. You could tell he was pissed, but when your office door shut, he let it slip that he didn’t like seeing you flirt with other guys. You were shocked and speechless, so you didn’t speak, and that pissed him off more because he stormed out of your office and left that night to some comic convention.

When you showed up to the convention on the second day you were ready to apologize although you didn’t know what you were apologizing for. Before you could, you were accosted by an actor you’d worked with in the past where he permitted to proposition you for a night of fun. You didn’t know Henry and Chris were both in earshot of the entire conversation and that they’d heard you not shut down the invitation. That night the three of you argued, and they confessed they didn’t like the idea of you flirting with other men and didn’t like knowing that you were dating. You didn’t know what to say because you didn’t like knowing you were dating. Hell, you didn’t even like thinking they were dating. You laughed and laughed long and hard. They didn’t like it and looked even angrier, but when you stopped, you expressed your feelings, feelings they echoed. That was the easy part. You then had figure out what it meant and how you’d maneuver it.

In the beginning, it was easy. You’d established that you had more than platonic feelings for them and they also had those same feelings for you, but not for each other. You’d confirmed you enjoyed spending time together no matter what you were doing and really enjoyed spending time in bed together and all the delicious things you found out about each other’s bodies. There was nothing complicated about your friendship/relationship.

You quickly developed a routine, during the week you worked, and when you got off, you went home. Usually, by ten, they would both make it over where they stayed the night, and you did the same thing again the next day. On weekends you spent one night at Chris’ house and the other night at Henry’s where you enjoyed staying inside away from the stress of the world or the press. When they weren’t in town your life was again back to normal, you worked during the day and times you could you met on facetime and talked about your days and watched some tv show together. It was perfect.

After several months of this routine, the times you spent apart increased, and their schedules got busier and busier. You missed them, and they missed you, but you each knew what your lives entailed. So, when Chris suggested a vacation, you jumped at it and so did Henry. You turned off the water and wrapped in your towel. You walked to the mirror and stared at your reflection. You loved this bathroom it really brought the tropical vibes of outside in. You began your beauty and hair care routine, opting to just do the main steps to your hair as the entire process would take hours and you had much better plans than doing your hair the whole night.

So, you took the time to painstakingly put it into a cute but protective style. Once finished, you inspected and nodded your satisfaction and went to the bedroom to complete your routine of lathering your skin with your own newly concocted body butter mix. You took your time with this because over the last few months you’d noted a few things about your two new paramours. Chris seemed to really love delicate floral scents while Henry liked spicer, more exotic scents. So, before you left, you made a new recipe that consisted of jasmine, gardenia, and rose for Chris and added in a touch of patchouli, vanilla, and sandalwood. When you finished, it smelled like a tropical smoothie and a botanical garden all in once, and the first night you wore it the response was much more than you’d anticipated.

Once you’d finished lathering your skin and setting up the bedroom just the way you wanted you threw on a cute but sexy top and a maxi skirt and went in search of the two people you’d come to seriously not see your life without. As you approached the kitchen, the smells wrapped around you and your stomach growled from hunger. You hadn’t eaten in hours–well food at least. You’d ingested plenty of other things for the day. You peeked into the kitchen, but it was empty. You looked around you wondering where they’d disappeared to. You walked in the opposite direction to the living room expecting to see them sitting watching some soccer game deep in conversation or argument over who was the most valuable player. They rarely agreed on anything which made it a miracle their friendship lasted at all.

When you rounded the corner the living room was empty as well.

“What the hell?”

You went through the rooms of the luxury villa the three of you rented for the last few weeks, and each one you went in you were disappointed when you didn’t find them. When you’d first gotten here you marveled at how spacy it was and didn’t see the spread-out floorplan would be a problem; you stood corrected. You spent the next few minutes roaming through each room on the first floor before you thought about the back patio. As you stepped out, you saw rose petals scattered on the floor. You smirked and followed the path. The soft petals softly crunched underneath your bare feet, and each step the scent of roses wafted more into the air. Once you reached the edge of the patio, you saw more petals leading out across a lantern-lit path across the sand to where you saw both of them standing at the end of the trail. You smiled and walked down the steps onto the sand and to them. As you walked the soft breeze flirted with the hem of your dress and carried it up into the air.

The closer you got you paid attention to the butterflies in your stomach. This was something new for you, something you’d noticed the last few weeks, something you were beginning to understand. You took a few breathes, hoping to calm your raising anxieties. Once you stopped in front of them, your smile grew to the size of Texas.

“What in the world is this?

“Well, we’re officially in countdown mode. We thought why not make tonight a special night,” Henry began.

“As opposed to the other sixteen nights?”

He nodded, grasping the sarcasm in your voice. They’d made you feel special every night of the last near three weeks. They stepped aside to reveal the square dinner table propped into the shallow waters at the shore. It was decked out with candles, flowers and three steel dome covered plates. You smiled again and looked at them in awe. They were perfect, so perfect you felt the prickle of the tears as they stung your eyes. You cleared your throat and stepped to them.

“This is amazing; thank you.”

You kissed Henry’s lips, and what was to be a soft kiss deepened upon contact. You moaned and placed your hand on his chest, loving his warmth. You slowly pulled away and turned to Chris and kissed him as well. His lips were soft and warm and tasted like caramel. You smiled on them and moaned.

“Caramel, huh. I take it caramel is for dessert. Or is it the bedtime snack?”

Chris smiled and kissed you again before he steered you to your waiting seat.

“Play your cards right it could be both,” he said before he kissed your neck and moved to his seat on your right and Henry to your left.

“So what’s for dinner?”

Henry lifted the metal dome to reveal your favorites. You smiled again and looked between them wondering how much more incredible they could get.

“Bon appetite,” you said before you began eating.

Dinner was delicious; you’d always known they were great cooks you’d sampled their food time and time before. As time stretched, you fell deeper in love with your surroundings. You loved the beach, and they knew it; this was the perfect vacation, and it was made even more perfect because you were there with both of them. You loved the warm water, your feet were dipped into and loved it, even more, when your toes dug into the wet sand. Every time you looked at Chris, he was already looking at you with a soft smile and a glint in his eye that made a warm heat brush against your spine. Then when you looked at Henry that heat traveled further down and around to a completely different body part.

By the time dessert finished, the three of you were sitting at the table laughing, sipping bourbon and holding hands. You toyed with their fingers while their free hands roamed the skin of your arms, elbows, shoulders, and knees. When their hands met your thigh the bottle of bourbon was gone, and so were any pretenses that you weren’t going to bust it wide open for them. You finished your final glass and stood from the table and looked at both of them. Their eyes were glossed but clear as the night sky. You held out your hands to them, and without hesitation, they took what you offered. You walked through the water holding firmly to their hands. You led them back across the sand to the house. As you made it to the bedroom door, you turned to them and smiled.

“I’m not running now.”

They both looked to each other and smiled. You walked ahead into the bedroom and patiently waited for them to join you. It was going to be a long night.

***I tagged everyone who was tagged in Captain Vs. Superman. If you would like to be tagged, let me know.

Tag List:

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#I love you two fic #chris evans #henry cavill #chris evans fanfiction #henry cavill fanfiction #chris evans x reader #Chris Evans X black reader #chris evans x you #chris evans smut #chris evans x reader x henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x black reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill smut #fluff fanfiction

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txladyj-blog · 4 years

Text

This Time Around - Chapter 26

A Daryl Dixon x OFC collaboration written by @xmistressmistrustx by request of @txladyj-blog

Rating: Explicit

Relationship: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character

Tags: Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Awkwardness, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Crush, Fluff and Humor, Angst and Humor, Mild Smut, Strong Language, Eventual Sex, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Some Canon Scenes and Dialogue

Chapters 29/?

Of all the choices she made, Jess could not choose what happened in her head when she slept. Humans needed daydreams as goals, aspirations and escapes, but nightmares are also dreams and part of what makes them so terrifying, is their origin and creation in a person’s mind. A vivid nightmare has the potential to stay and fester for hours after waking, some are sometimes never forgotten. Daryl was her knight up against the reoccurring foe of her vivid dreams and his presence gradually pushed it away, weakened it and solidified her refusal to surrender. She would recover, she would get over her trauma, as long as Daryl was by her side.

An impromptu night spent by her bedside after she’d fallen asleep reading a book meant that Jess slept soundly with nothing more than a hand rested on her wrist when she’d stirred once and Daryl’s protective instincts kicked in. He watched her eyelashes flutter and her lips murmur until she fell back into a still and undisturbed sleep.

He remained in the chair opposite the bed during the dark hours and occupied his time in between glancing up at her sleeping form with the various books she kept on her bookshelf. All arranged alphabetically and by genre, like a bookstore or a library. When daylight shone through the gap in the barrier on the window and cast a bright, searing light in one spot on the floor, Jess groaned and Daryl rose to his feet, creeping across the rug and kneeling beside her bed. He curled his fingers around hers and gently kneaded her hand.

“Jess?” He whispered steadily, seeing her eyes open before her eyelids flickered and she groaned again. Her hand was slid out from his and she crumpled her face up, peering at him with one eye open.

“Oh god.” She moaned.

“Actually…” He smiled “It’s Daryl. But that’s close enough.”

Jess couldn’t help but laugh, one of her hands rising up to rest on his shoulder and her cheeks turning rosy. It was rare to hear such a comedic remark from him but in those rarities came gratitude from Jess that she was the only one that was blessed with seeing such a side to him.

“You didn’t have to stay here all night.” She told him.

“I know. I wanted to.” He assured her. The truth was; the prospect of being in his room, alone when he had the opportunity to stay by Jess’s side was not an appealing one at all.

“Did I-?” She started

“-No bad dreams.” He said with an element of triumph.

“You are the chink in the armor of my nightmares.” She grinned.

Not knowing how to respond to something he didn’t know he needed to hear so much, she huffed shyly and bit down on his lower lip.

“I’ma head back, get a couple hours sleep. I’ll meet ya at the gate” He affirmed.

The need to scavenge was becoming more urgent due to Aaron and Daryl’s recruiting success. More mouths to feed meant more food and basics were needed and therefore, Daryl’s tight hold on Jess’s supply run area was slowly being relaxed. He let her join more runs with little argument, provided he was going along for the ride too and she hadn’t failed to notice his insistence on being near her all the time, following her into buildings and keeping her in his peripheral vision.

On that particular day, both of their schedules were full. They would hunt in the morning and join Michonne and Glenn for a supply run in the afternoon and in preparation for their trip, Jess spent the two hours that Daryl had used to sleep in the grounds of the Fairground, practicing with her new Compound bow.

Their kiss in the doorway of her home was still at the forefront of her mind, never leaving for more than a few minutes at a time. She thought of how she could definitely get used to being silenced by such methods, if only she knew the real intentions behind it all. A week had passed since and, in that time, their conversations bordered on flirting and Daryl’s confidence with her was notably bolder. He tested her, dropped hints and watched her blush with a quiet satisfaction, all the while remembering what he’d heard her say to Aaron at the vegetable patch that day. Despite their playfulness, there had been no more covert kisses no matter how many times they were left alone or Jess decided to chance her luck by babbling.

Growing increasingly confused by his actions, she found herself pinging back and forth between elation when he shot her a knowing smirk and anger when he allowed yet another day to go by without affording her an explanation. Caught between feeling as though he only had eyes for her and like a toy that he could throw away when he got bored of it, she began to wonder if she’d dodged a bullet for her entire life in staying away from what was the complicated world of feelings and relationships. But now she was caught in a web and endure she must with gritted teeth and able to revel in the delight that was his lips on hers, while it lasted.

So enamored was she with her new bow, that she was soon racing through the woods towards the gate, having lost track of time and realized she was late to meet Daryl for hunting. By the time she’d arrived, he was nowhere in sight and she quickly accepted that the morning hunt would be a lonely one. She set off through the trees with her bow held at her side and a quiver of arrows on her back and before too long, she’d taken down four squirrels but lacked anything with any substance.

She pressed on, shoving bushes aside and squinting at what appeared to be tracks on the ground. Footprints, but too organised and linear to be from a Walker. Figuring she may well be gaining ground on Daryl, she carefully tracked him and eventually discovered from the hoof prints in the dirt that he was following something larger than a squirrel. He’d managed to find a deer.

Finding him partially obscured in the bushes and reloading his crossbow, she checked the area in front of him to find nothing but trees and untouched foliage. He did a double take at her, expecting her to be a Walker and quickly feeling relieved when she grinned at him.

“Hey” She chirped.

“You after my deer?” He asked, standing up and lifting his crossbow with one, toned arm. Jess shifted her gaze to avoid the urge to drool at him.

“It’s my deer too now, Stinky” She remarked.

“Think you’ll find I started tracking it first n’ since I was on time, It’s my deer.” He commented. His tone was mocking and Jess loved the way he poked fun at her. Subtle, but so characteristic of his nature when he accompanied it with a badly hidden smile.

“Didn’t know you were such a stickler for timekeeping.” She said with a roll of her eyes before shoving him in the arm. She wasn’t about to lie to herself, she’d done it on purpose as an excuse to touch him.

“Wanna team up?” He offered.

“As long as your light-footed enough.” She said breezily as she scanned the ground for the track marks.

“You forgotten who taught you huntin’ basics, girl? Don’t make me laugh '' He scoffed with a brief glance around at their surroundings. His forehead glistened with sweat in the morning heat and he wiped the back of his wrist across it, sticking a few strands of scraggly hair to the side of his face.

“I can’t. That’s quite the challenge, apparently.” Jess quipped.

“Uh?” He grunted, confused by her comment.

“Making you laugh. It’s nigh on impossible.” She knew her statement wasn’t entirely true as she’d been witness to Daryl’s sense of humor many times, but she’d been unable to resist a small jibe at him after him pointing out the fact that she’d been late to the hunt.

“I laugh.” He argued.

“No, you don’t.” She countered, flicking a hand at him and wandering off in the direction of the tracks. She could hear him walking just behind her and toyed with the idea of mentioning the need to be light-footed again.

“Maybe folks just ain’t funny enough.” She heard him mutter. She stopped, turned to him and raised both eyebrows.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am hilarious. An absolute delight,” she told him.

“Whatever.” Was his only reply.

Jess couldn’t put her finger on exactly when it had happened but in a split second, the atmosphere between them changed and a spark ignited. It was the same spark she felt with his kiss on her doorstep and her heart began to race. Daryl was still, his eyes fixed on hers with an intense stare. A thick silence passed between them and he noticed her chest rising and falling under her reinforced clothing. She wanted to speak, wanted to ask him what was happening and if he felt the spark too but when she opened her mouth, the words vanished quicker than smoke on the wind.

“D-Daryl?” She stammered.

“Yeah?”

To her surprise, he took a couple of steps towards her and her body surged with anticipation. She waited and it felt like the longest few seconds of her life, so much so, she was unable to wait anymore and her impatience took over. She took a stride towards him and then, there was no space left between them. Her hands lifted and the bristly sensation of his jawline under her fingers was soon forgotten because she wanted to kiss him. And so, she did. It wasn’t like one of those close-mouthed, awkward kisses like in eighth grade. It wasn’t even hesitant or unsure like the previous two. It was a full on, open-mouthed, almost sexual kiss and Daryl loved it. He exulted in the way her body melted into his and the way their lips fit together like two missing puzzle pieces. She relented when he played with her hair, winding a few strands around his index finger. She felt a moan rising from deep inside her and like a tidal wave, it crashed and rolled to the precipice. He smiled into their kiss, unable to hide his satisfaction at her reaction.

She must be outside her mind to keep doin’ this with me.

His body hummed with desire when he slipped his tongue into her mouth and sensed her deepening the kiss. It was a risk he didn’t have time to talk himself out of but it paid off and instead of pulling away, she grabbed at the front of his leather vest with her fists.

Woah. I was not expectin’ this. Huntin’ sure is gettin’ interesting.

Jess slowed things down, c’hanging her mind, she loosened her grip on his clothing. Nerves were starting to rise in her chest and she knew that she couldn’t continue with such an almost perfect moment without some context. She gently pulled back from his lips, but his hands still held her in place with one holding the back of her neck and the other at her waist pinning her to him with a firm grip.

“What…what are we doi-” She tried to ask breathlessly between.

“-Shh…don’t.” He replied, finding her lips once more “no talkin’.” He insisted. He attempted to kiss her again, to prolong what had been a stunning and passionate encounter that he was sure would deprive him of sleep in the small hours, but she resisted and managed to step out of his grasp. He immediately clamped his teeth down on his bottom lip and awkwardly looked down at the floor, then back up at her, clearing his throat.

She hid behind her hand, her fingertips running over her moistened lips and her eyes darting about everywhere. She swallowed hard and bravely raised her vision to find him picking his crossbow back up from the ground. She hadn’t even noticed he’d dropped it, the sound melting into the electric pre-kiss atmosphere. Then, it occurred to her that she’d dropped her own bow and rapidly swooped down to collect it as though she’d been caught in the middle of a mischievous act.

“That deer is mine” he mumbled as he turned on his heels and stomped further into the woods.

“I think we’re going to have to learn to share.” She sighed.

Houses and residential settings were ideal for picking through during the end of days. Food was stashed all over the place, even almost two years after everything ground to a dangerous halt. With a little imagination, even the smallest of finds could blossom into something huge. Seeds, fertilizer, gardening tools and cuttings from bushes and trees enabled the community to be more self-sufficient. While dried herbs, salt and flour were requested for cooking and attempts at making sustenance that was not only necessary, but a little taste of that which everyone missed from before.

The group were looking for foodstuffs and items that would go a long way now they had more people to feed and while they were out, Deanna also requested that they bring back any clothing and bed sheets that had managed to avoid the inevitable decay of the apocalypse and it went without saying that any kind of weapon was going to be a good find.

Daryl teamed up with Jess without a word of acknowledgement from Glenn and Michonne, who both swapped a smile when the grumpy archer announced his plan upon jumping from the truck and heading for the door of a large house at the end of a dead end. Jess dutifully followed behind with her new bow armed and ready. She didn’t say it out loud for fear of coming off as mentally unstable, but she secretly hoped they would find Walkers inside the house so she had the chance to take one down with her new archery skills.

The interior of the house was reasonably still intact, the wallpaper was rotting and damp was seeping into the corners, creating a dense and pungent smell that made Jess wrinkle her nose. But it was not the stench of death like most of the houses she’d searched had possessed and so, she was able to pass through the hallway and follow Daryl as he ascended the stairs and checked the coast was clear.

Having two capable fighters behind her and another in front of her meant that being in the middle was the safest place to be. Taking advantage, she began scanning the bright shapes on the walls where family photos must have once existed. She wondered why anyone would think to take photographs with them when given the choice of packing up and leaving. But when she remembered the love of her own family and the many pictures they’d taken, her heart ached and she suddenly understood; she would give anything for just one photo.

At the top of the stairs, Jess noted that Michonne and Glenn had broken away from one another to sweep a room each and Daryl was inching his way into the master bedroom. Jess decided to take the other side of the stairs and soon found herself standing in a barbie pink bedroom with walls covered in unicorns and princesses. She slowly padded over the thick, carpeted floor and kicked open the closet. It was clear of Walkers and of clothing. Socks and a light purple sweater were all that was left. From behind her came a slight shuffling noise and her entire body froze on the spot. Her ears strained to listen and she concentrated so hard she could hear her heartbeat in her head. The longer she stood there, the louder it seemed to get without even increasing in volume at all and after a few seconds, Jess knew that there was a Walker on the other side of the room somewhere. It’s bubbling breathing indicated that its lungs were brimming with mucus but it was immobile enough to have either failed to notice her, or it was incapacitated somehow.

She turned and saw nothing. Adrenaline drove her forwards, out of the closet space and back into the main room where she approached the bed and peered over the edge. On the floor, slumped against a chest of drawers, was an elderly, female walker who instantly lifted a bony arm and began to claw at the air in Jess’s direction. Falling from her fingers, was a crumpled-up child’s drawing and it occurred to Jess that she may well be looking at the dead grandparent of the children that occupied the house. Clearly unable to move far due to her crushed legs, Jess didn’t consider her to be much of a threat at all, but she still saw it as kinder to put the dead down when she could. To end whatever might be going on in their brains. Even just sparks of instinct or chemical reactions. She couldn’t know for sure that they didn’t feel pain and the sight of the pallid, skinny and sad dead woman on the floor of the little girl’s room was enough to encourage her to raise her bow and release an arrow into her soft skull. The thud was quiet enough to evade everyone else’s attention and Jess sighed, tilting her head to one side before taking the quilt from the bed and covering the Walker up.

When she left the room, her attention was focused on the next room and she began to make tracks towards it when Daryl’s voice cut through the air from across the stairs.

“Woah”

Changing direction and letting curiosity make her choices, she followed the sound and pushed open a door with a brass plaque screwed into the glossy paintwork that boasted one word.

‘Office.’

She rubbed her nose absentmindedly as she entered the room, maneuvering her large compound bow through the doorway and slowly looked up.

“Wha-Oh good lord that’s a lot of Records” She blurted out.

Daryl was stood just in front of her, staring at a long, narrow room full of shelves on either side that reached from the ceiling to the floor. At the end of the room was an oval topped window that filled the space with sunlight and a desk that was scattered with paperwork but also housed an expensive-looking record player.

“Whoever lived here liked their vinyl.” He muttered as he started to wander along the packed shelving, squinting at the letters that protruded out between the records.

She mirrored his movements and joined him in scanning the collection, eventually smiling widely.

“They’re alphabetized. That pleases me.” She said.

Daryl stopped walking and looked over his shoulder at her with his eyebrows pinched together. He was less and less surprised by her quirky ways but sometimes she would make a comment that reminded him of the Jess that he met at the quarry.

“It does?” He questioned.

Her eyes widened and she hooked her bow over her shoulder before making a sweeping gesture from the top to the bottom of the perfectly cataloged records.

“How does this not please you? Look… A-Z. It’s beautifully organised!” She cried in disbelief at his ability to see the satisfaction in such a thing.

“Right” he grunted. Then, he remembered the books in her home. All stacked onto a bookshelf in genre and alphabetical order in true Jess style. He could see the pride in what she collected, the passion for which she did it, but he was baffled by how amazed she appeared to be by the huge collection of music in the room.

“I collected T-shirts and dragons, among other things. Organisation is key for a decent collection.” She informed him with a wag of her finger.

“Yeah, forget how much of a nerd ya are sometimes.” He commented. If she had missed the glint in his eye, she would have presumed it to be a derogatory comment, but she knew Daryl and she knew that slight glimmer of playfulness he possessed and refused to show to anyone but those he held dear. Those he could count on one hand.

“Probably for the best.” She shrugged.

“Why?”

“Maybe I’m not that girl anymore. That’s gotta be a good thing.” To Jess, it wasn’t just losing half of her body weight that was the huge change, it was the ability to look after herself, becoming independent and capable in the apocalypse that was the main change. She still liked the same things, sung the same songs in the safety of her home and wished she could watch her favourite films of TV shows during downtime. But she felt like she’d shed a lot of the old Jess when she embarked on her solo journey and she only saw that as a good thing.

“More her than ya think” he mentioned with a shake of his head in disagreement.

“Nobody liked her” She argued.

There was a momentary silence from Daryl, who side eyed her from where he was standing. Thinking she’d irritated him somehow, she glanced at him and moved her sight line back to the records in front of her, sliding one halfway out from its space, nestled neatly in-between others by the same musician. She could feel his eyes on her and couldn’t resist another peep at him. When she did, he finally spoke.

“Shut the hell up, Jess.”

Despite his choice of words, she sensed his tone was soft and tinged with sadness and for reasons unbeknownst to her, the low opinion she had of herself was something that bothered him. She considered that it wasn’t so far off from the way he saw himself and concluded that he was being mildly hypocritical, but she wasn’t about to enter into a debate about it.

Looking over her shoulder at him, she saw the same expression on his face that he wore in the seconds before they indulged in their woodland kiss. Serious, cautious yet laced with a hunger she had no idea she could instill in a person. She could hear Michonne and Glenn talking downstairs and for some reason, their voices now sounded a lot louder than they did before.

Daryl circled around her as if he was ready to stand in her path should she decide to bolt. He cleared his throat and looked over at her intermittently before placing his hand on the back of the door and closing it with the gentlest of clicks. Breaking eye contact with her, he lifted his crossbow and draped the strap over his shoulders, freeing up both of his hands, which he then used after crossing the room, to push her hood back, drag her mask down and cover her hips. The contact made her flinch and clench her jaw but it was soon dispelled when she saw the affection with which he looked at her. Her big, blue eyes were questioning him, urging him to make a move and he couldn’t resist.

He pulled her closer to him and brushed his lips over hers, the front of his hair tickled her forehead and the faint smell of smoke and leather filled her head and sent her into a helpless delirium while she waited for him to kiss her. Taken aback by him walking her backwards, she gasped when her shoulder blades pressed against the lovingly maintained record collection.

He tested her with tender kisses and soft flickers of his tongue over her lips and a fleeting thought crossed her mind.

How many other women has he done this with? Dude is a good kisser.

It made her question her own skills but so far, she’d not heard him complain during yet another tryst that neither of them had tried to stop. Her stomach hummed with nerves and excitement when he slowed everything down and unhurriedly enjoyed the sensation of kissing her. The movements of his lips and tongue were deep and leisurely but passionate and sensual and she started to feel things she had never felt before. Her breathing was turning heavy and she wanted to do this forever but between the electrifying excitement coursing through her veins and the simmering nervousness in the pit of her stomach, she could hear someone walking up the stairs. She broke away from him, her chest heaving and her lips glistening. Daryl just stared at her silently, as if she’d committed a crime by backing off. But he relished her flustered demeanor, knowing it was because of him.

She’s gettin’ brave. Might be the sexiest thing I’ve seen in my whole damn life.

With mere seconds to spare, Jess whirled around and began plucking Vinyl’s from the shelving as the door opened. Daryl quickly jolted the window, ripped his crossbow from his body and adopted the guise of keeping watch out of the window.

“Guys, why is the door shut?” Glenn asked as he casually walked in, knife in hand.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Jess thought. Be cool. I can be cool. I am cool. Nothing to see here. I just had something in my eye. Yeah. That’s right. Daryl was helping me out. Oh my god, seriously?! Glenn is not going to believe that crap. Ugh. Daryl, the one time I wish you could read my mind! Fly casual, Jess, you can do this.

“Oh, it must have closed on its own while Mr. Grouchy over there was bird watching and I was busy perusing the homeowner’s music taste. Check it out” She slid a vinyl from the shelf and held it aloft with a wide grin on her face “The Beatles! My favorite!”

Glenn shuffled closer and smiled at her. “Nice! This is a good one” he expressed, taking the record from her hand and turning it over. He scanned the track list and nodded in approval.

“Yeeeaaaah! Rubber Soul. Totally agree. A masterpiece” Jess chirped, pleased at her quick thinking and concealment of the true happenings in the room.

“Checked the perimeter? Sure I heard somethin’ outside.” Daryl grunted, interrupting them.

Ooh, somebody is not happy about being disturbed. Jess considered.

“I did, but I’ll go down there and check again.” Glenn offered, turning to Jess “Michonne’s almost done downstairs. We’ll meet you outside?”

“Yup. We’ll be right down. We’re just making sure we don’t miss anything, double checking, chilling. Y’know…flying casual.” She babbled with an overwhelming urge to cringe at her own words. She hoped with everything she had that her face was not echoing the sheer panic that was going on inside her.

Stop talkin’, Jess. Daryl willed from his spot at the window.

“Did you just make a Star Wars reference?” Glenn asked with a grin.

“Yes. Yes I… did?” She answered warily.

“Huh. Cool. See you downstairs.” Glenn responded casually.

He handed the record to Jess and she slotted it back into place and waited for him to leave before hazarding a sly peek at Daryl, who was nervously peering at her through his hair. He appeared shy and almost boyish in his bashful observation of her. She tried not to fixate on the unmistakable pink shade that glowed from the tops of his ears and across his nose. He was embarrassed and although everything in her wanted to point it out, just like he did to her, she refrained and opted instead to take a snapshot of the moment in her memory. The moment Daryl almost got caught kissing a girl in an abandoned house and blushed furiously.

‘Nice save” he offered in a thoughtful and quiet tone.

“Thanks. Here I am, taking life one panic attack at a time.” She sighed, crossing the distance between them and joining him at the window. She glanced outside, seeing the leaves of the trees fluttering in the breeze and the front lawns of the other houses in the street, littered with trash and abandoned vehicles. “I’m a good girl, we both know I’m a shitty liar.”

After her successful attempt to steer Glenn away from noticing anything incriminating, she was feeling rather proud of herself. So much so, that she didn’t even think before she curled her fingers around the lapel of his leather vest and pulled herself to him so she was able to catch his lips with hers and steal a small kiss. When he moved back slightly and looked down at her with his eyebrows furrowed, a flash of pure fear darted through her.

Aaannnddd here we are again with your mixed signals. Cut me a break here, Dixon.

He briefly turned to the window and squinted in the sun, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. Jess held her breath when he slowly looked back at her waiting and anxious face.

“Standin’ on my foot.” He finally smirked.

“Oh. Shit. Sorry.” She rolled her eyes and sighed at her clumsiness. Scolding herself internally but secretly happy that he didn’t back off because he didn’t want what she was giving him. Daryl clocked the self-berating look that flashed across her face and instantly felt regretful for saying anything. Without thinking, he raised a hand and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She inhaled sharply and he could see her muscles go completely still while he steadily traced his fingers over her skin, meeting her chin and dragging his thumb across her lower lip. His face displayed a kind of fascination and seriousness that told Jess his actions were very deliberate and so was the sexually charged way in which he had executed it.

Her eyelashes fluttered and to his surprise, she batted his hand away and crashed against him. The sound of her jacket slap against the leather of his vest echoed through the room. With her left hand, she gripped his bicep and with her right, she eased his crossbow from his grasp. He yielded and it clattered to the floor but the thick, lust filled intensity between them was too great a distraction for either of them to notice. Daryl sensed her hand work its way inside his leather vest, smoothing over the buttons of his shirt from his chest to his abdomen. He grunted but it wasn’t from the impact or the shock, it was from desire and Jess felt like all her birthdays had arrived at once.

Was that for me?! How am I doing this? There are Walkers out there that are sexier than me!

She was pleased, even proud of his reaction and as she continued to kiss him and ignore the slight nervousness and doubt that bubbled through her body. She was overwhelmed by how alive and safe he made her feel and got the impression that she did the same for him when he flicked her jacket open and held a hand to the middle of her chest, fingertips grazing the crook of her neck, sending an explosion of tingles to her limbs as he slowly drew the neckline of her T-shirt down. She was relived at the lack of panic and terror that she sometimes still felt from her close call with the group that attacked Alexandria. It was Daryl, not the hands of a stranger with ill intentions, not a life and death situation, no pain, no violence, just Daryl. But her anxiety at such a progression was still simmering below the surface and as much as she loved what was happening, she wasn’t sure exactly how far she was comfortable with taking things. Eventually, after journeying down the middle of her torso, he caught her belt loop with his finger. She gasped against him when he pulled at her jeans sharply.

For Daryl, such a spark between him and another soul was unheard of. Never in all his years did he expect to feel something so profound for someone else. It was exposing, revelatory and scary but with her fingernails dragging up and down his arm, her velvety lips working his and the warmth of her chest against his hammering heart, he could swear there and then that he didn’t want it to stop.

Locked in a state of pure bliss, the sound of voices outside miraculously caught Jess’s attention and she immediately thought of Michonne and Glenn waiting for them downstairs.

“D-Daryl…I…heard…” She tried to say, but his tongue dancing with hers silenced her and she didn’t have the willpower to resist. He groaned and the sound sent a powerful craving through her nerve endings.

Quit talkin’. Can’t hear ya with all those fuckin’ clothes on anyways.

As the situation accelerated, so did the sensation in his pants and his imagination was a vivid blur of lips and flesh and delicious curves. It had been a long time since he’d experienced such thoughts and although he couldn’t ignore the flicker of guilt in his mind for thinking of her in such a way, he was male and a red-blooded male at that. He struggled with the urge to whirl around and clear the desk in the middle of the room. But he quickly talked himself out of it for fear of scaring her or pushing her too far, too soon and try as he might, he couldn’t shake the fact that she had just tried to alert him and his gut told him something was amiss. He opened one eye just in time to see Glenn through the window, he appeared at the corner of the house in the yard below and was seconds away from seeing them.

Jess felt as though she’d been hit by a truck when Daryl shoved her away from the window and against the shelving on the opposite wall. Her eyes snapped open and she gawped at him, terrified that she’d done something wrong. Noticing her reaction, he quickly slipped a hand around her waist and placed himself back in her close proximity, resting his forehead on hers. Her breath tickled at his skin and he could hear the increase in her breathing. Not only did he have to take a moment to get over the panic of very nearly being caught again, but he also needed to allow the raging testosterone in his body to simmer down. He closed his eyes as he held her.

“W-what was that?” She whispered.

“Glenn.” He uttered “Almost saw us.”

She didn’t know what she was supposed to say or do. Between the two of them she figured she was the master of words and he the master of action. But in that moment, she had nothing, not a single idea that could uncloud the foggy, complicated issue of their secret encounters. She was defenseless in his grasp and with Michonne and Glenn wandering around and waiting for them, she struggled to decide if she was angry at the lack of clarity or delighted despite it. While she tried to find something to say, it was Daryl that finally spoke.

“Maybe you ain’t such a good girl” He rasped before tearing away from her and leaving the room. Jess released a long breath and thudded her head back against the records. Things had moved on more than she ever thought they would and all in the space of a few minutes. Her head was spinning and she could still feel him on her lips. She shook her head, terrified, exhilarated, astonished and worried. Worried about what it all meant, if it could be snatched away and if it wasn’t, worried about where it was going.

Having made it safely back to Alexandria without being caught out, Daryl and Jess headed to the Grime’s home where they bid Glenn a goodnight and watched as Michonne lifted Judith into the air and snuggled at her neck and face. The small child chirped and giggled with delight before Michonne set her down and she ran to Daryl, who was seated next to Jess on the porch. He reached down, hoisting Judith to his lap with considerable ease, as if she were as light as a feather. Jess set her boots on the fence in front of her and listened as Daryl opened up a book and began to read.

“Alright, kid, bedtime story time, listen up.” He began, shuffling back in his seat and wrapping an arm around Judith’s middle. She pawed at the book, eager to see the pictures. “Once upon a time, there were these thee lil’ pigs. They wanted money, like everybody else n’ his dog. So, off they went to find their fortunes. Before they went, their mom, she said to ‘em ‘whatever ya do, do your best because that’s how we get along in the world’. I dunno ‘bout you, but I’d say the ol’ girl was pretty good with advice. Anyways…”

Jess was grinning from ear to ear at Daryl’s rendition of the classic tale. Judith was already fascinated and by that point and was staring, wide eyed, sideways at Daryl with the fingers of one hand hooked into her mouth.

“The pigs, they built their houses. The first one? He built it outta straw ‘cause it was easy. The second one used Sticks ‘cause it was stronger n’ the third one used bricks. He was the smart one, ya can tell, right?”

Judith giggled at the question and Jess couldn’t help but laugh quietly as she watched the man that was once so unpredictable, so abrupt and rude, so angry and brash telling a tale to a little girl who looked at him like he was her favourite person in what was left of the crumbling world.

“Then, there was this wolf” he continued “We don’t like the wolf. The wolf is a bad guy ‘cause he likes to eat fat, little pigs. Can’t blame him, really. Bacon is real nice and one day, when you’re old enough, you can try pigs feet.”

“Wollf!” Judith cried, throwing her hands in the air.

“Wolf, yeah. So, this wolf knocks on the first pig’s straw house door and says ‘Little pig, little pig, let me in’. The pig, he’s all scared n’ n’ stuff he says ‘not by the hair of my chinny chin chin’. The wolf, he just laughs, ‘cause he’s an assh-a bad wolf. A very bad wolf and he huffs and he puffs and he blows the pigs house in. Then he eats him. Mmm, fresh bacon.”

“Daryl!” Jess chuckled. He looked up at see her beaming at him with great amusement.

“What? She don’t know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.” He argued.

“She will remember more than you give her credit for.” She told him.

“Alright, alright. So then, the wolf goes to the house made of sticks n’ he says all the same shi-stuff, I don’t need to say it all over again. He eats that pig because he’s just as dumb as the first one. Then he goes to the brick house. Now, that’s where the smart pig lives. He’s got a college degree n’ all that. The wolf says he’ll huff n’ puff and the Pig tells him to go to hell-”

“Daryl!” Jess exclaimed again, nudging him in the arm and feeling a rush of affection when he smiled back at her.

“He’s out there, givin’ himself a panic attack because he just can’t blow this damn house down n’ the pig is inside watchin’ the superbowl with a beer and bag of potato chips. He ain’t got no worries, ‘cause his house is made of bricks.”

Jess snorted and continued to laugh, she thought it was most definitely the most modern, redneck version of the three little pigs ever told and she made a mental note to go back to the fairground and write it down in her journal to make sure she never forgot it.

Judith wriggled on Daryl’s lap and he reached forward, flicking the pages to the end of the book.

“Now, listen, this is the good part. That wolf? He’s almost as smart as the pig n’ he decides to climb up to the roof and slide down the chimney. Seems like a good idea so he gets on in there and starts to climb down the hole. The pig is a smug motherfu-motherhugger n’ he lights a fire at the bottom and puts a pot of boiling water over it. The wolf gets to the bottom and gets his furry ass well and truly boiled while the pig points and laughs at him. What a douche bag, huh?”

“Kids going to be cussing like a sailor by the time she’s ten.” Jess remarked between laughter. Again, Daryl looked over Judith’s head at her, one side of his mouth lifting into another smile that she knew she was lucky to see. She was almost certain that she could count on one hand the amount of people that had been allowed to see Daryl smile so genuinely at them.

“The pig’s mom, she went to see the pig in the brick house and she said ‘just like I told ya, ya gotta do things the best ya can’ and the pig learned that lesson. But she didn’t ask about the other pigs, the ones that got eaten, she was all about the smart, smug pig n’ yeah, he did good. But the others, they were still her pigs too n’ they tried. Sometimes, even if ya ain’t got much, ya ain’t got the smarts or the money, all ya gotta do is try, kid.”

While Judith pestered Daryl for another modified story, Jess took a deep breath and looked out across the darkened town in an attempt to quell the raging, churning ball of feelings in her heart. She’d often thought that he’d done all he could to surprise her and that there wasn’t much else to him that she didn’t already know, but she was continually wrong and on that night, she unearthed his ability to be the best uncle he could to Judith and seeing him tell his story, with his own moral told her that one day, Daryl Dixon would make an incredible father.

The door clicked open behind them and Rick emerged dressed in a white T-shirt and sweatpants. After a manly high-five handshake between him and Daryl and a nod to Jess, He scooped up his daughter and took her inside.

“That was quite the story. I enjoyed that as much as she did” Jess commented with a smirk. He huffed and selected a cigarette from his pack, squinting as he lit it and expelled the smoke from his lungs. He thumped his boots up on the table and slid down in his seat, perfectly reclined and comfortable.

“Be good n’ I might let ya have one.” He said quietly between drags.

“What?” She questioned.

“Bedtime story.” He replied with a quick check of her expression.

“Oh” she wasn’t sure why, but shyness had crept in and was festering under the surface. From her earlier actions and bravery to push herself into getting what she wanted, she managed to muster the courage to throw a quick reminder at him and try her hand at flirting. “I’m not allowed. Apparently, I’m not such a good girl.”

He slowly turned his head to look at her, the both of them gradually lured into a restrained and knowing laughter while they glanced intermittently at each other. Jess had never seen him laugh in such a way before and as his shoulders juddered, he held his hand in front of his face, partially obscuring his chuckling. Smoke filtered up from the white stick between his fingers into a grey slither and Jess could see the faint tint of pink across his nose once more. They were interrupted by Carol stepping out onto the porch and noticing them grinning at one another.

“Am I interrupting something?” Carol inquired.

“No” Daryl responded, twisting in his seat and raising his eyebrows at the single, blueberry muffin she held in her hand. Straight away, Carol could see the change in him, how happy and relaxed he looked, it was a world away from how he presented when they’d first arrived in Alexandria and for that, she had to credit Jess. He swiftly plucked the muffin from her grasp and sniffed it.

“You had one this morning! That is for Jess.” Carol announced as she reached out to take it back from him. He dodged her and brought the muffin to his mouth, licking across the surface area on the top of the baked treat. Carol’s mouth dropped open while Jess stayed in a stunned silence.

“Daryl!” Carol scolded

“Snooze ya lose.” Daryl shrugged. “I licked it so, it’s mine”

“Someone wasn’t listening when I mentioned sharing this morning.” Jess commented.

“I’ll make you another” Carol assured Jess. She could tell by the dynamic between them that their friendship was closer than it had ever been and a big part of her hoped that Daryl had been brave enough to admit how he felt about his best friend.

“No need.” Jess assured her “The payback will be sweet enough.”

Clouds were rolling in and the sky had turned a dull pallet of grey on the following afternoon. Jess glanced around after entering the main gate and briefly stopped to talk to Abraham while she fastened the straps on her gloves. Daryl observed them from the living room window as he sipped piping hot coffee and tried to ignore Judith’s defiant screaming, a frequent reminder that baths were not on the top of her list of favorite things. On the street outside, Carl ambled past with Enid by his side although neither of them spoke. Enid held a backpack in her arms which she was busy sorting through while Carl was evidently trying not to give away his true feelings by staring at her too much. For the first time in his life, Daryl could relate.

He released an amused breath and took a sip of his coffee, his eyes finding Jess again and his Jealousy rising when she allowed Abraham to wrap her in a bear hug during which they both swayed back and forth. Despite the fact that he was almost completely convinced that she had not been kissing anyone else, he just couldn’t stuff down the envy he felt every time he was witness to the strong, overly friendly dynamic between her and Abraham.

Carl and Enid reached the corner of the street by the gate and Daryl noted Jess wave at them. They both returned her gesture before Enid broke away from Carl to run to another teenage boy who took her hand, kissed her cheek and led her away, leaving Carl swapping a defeated glance with Jess. She shrugged at him and said something that Daryl couldn’t make out. He finished up his coffee, slid the mug on the kitchen counter on the way out and headed straight for the gate.

Jess was making tracks to training when Daryl caught up with her. At first, no words were spoken and all that transpired between them was a brief smile and a lingering look. Jess thought about how she wished she knew what he was thinking, what he thought of her and what else could possibly happen behind closed doors. During the night, she’d woke with a start, coated in sweat and hyperventilating, trying to forget another nightmare that left her feeling fearful and vulnerable. She wished Daryl was there to hold her hand, to soothe her back to sleep and tell her it was all in her head. But the empty space beside her only seemed a lot bigger than usual. He was her safety, her security and her haven. If he wasn’t there, her demons could creep back in and take over.

Assuming he was accompanying her to training, she kept quiet and slowly ambled around the buildings to the training grounds at the back of the compound.

“S’gonna rain.” He mentioned out of nowhere.

“Mmhmm. Probably” She hummed.

Then, a hand was positioned on her arm and she was stopped. He eased her around to face him.

“Train with me.” He said.

“What are you talking about? We’re going to training?” She clarified, a little confused by what could have easily been mistaken for an order rather than a suggestion.

“Gotta learn to fight in all conditions, right?” He reasoned. He had a point; she’d only ever learned to fight and defend herself in bright sunshine and on ground that was dry and solid. Who knows when she would have to face an adversary that launched an attack in the middle of a storm or even worse, snow?

“Uh yeah?” She agreed.

“So, skip class n’ train with me”

Jess tilted her head to one side and regarded him with an air of suspicion. It was unusual of Daryl to be so demanding and so open about it and the way in which he carried himself appeared to be different on that particular day. He was somewhat determined and his hand that was still gripped around her forearm indicated that he was actually bordering on being pushy.

“Thanks, but I really should go to class. You should just come along too. We can talk to Deanna later about using the weather to time the next lessons. Get some variation in” She suggested, expecting him to give in and release her arm. But he didn’t, he held on firmly and quickly checked around them for any onlookers. Stepping closer, he slipped his hand further down her arm, reaching her glove, which he pushed past to her fingers. The skin where the fabric of her fingerless gloves stopped, lit up with the touch of his fingertips and Jess was well aware that if anyone were to appear at the corner of the houses on the way to training, they would see Daryl holding her hand as though they were a real couple.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say ya just don’t wanna be alone with me” He commented. He didn’t have a plan and his actions were more impulsive than ever after seeing her with Abraham and being driven to cement a wall between them. Ownership wasn’t something that Daryl wanted to impose on her, he knew he had no right due to his lack of explanation for the way in which their relationship had progressed, but it didn’t stop him thinking of her as his. She’d been his since the quarry when they’d sit on the RV or train in the woods and she was still his when she laughed and joked and enjoyed embraces with a bigger, bolder and more confident man. To Daryl, no one would compare to her and he told himself while in the throes of overwhelming jealousy, that Abraham may get to hug her, but he was not the one that got to kiss her when they were alone.

“Good job you know better.” Jess smiled thinly.

“So, you do wanna be alone with me?” He smirked. Her shy responses and awkwardness when faced with his mildly flirtatious remarks were something he knew he would never tire of. She brought out a surety in him that he didn’t know was there before he’d met her and if he was honest with himself, even if he did know of it, he would never have dared if he hadn’t overheard her admission that she liked him. The extent of his conversing with women before the turn only covered a basic greeting, the buying of a drink and enduring Merle’s incessant, graphic remarks to goad him into taking a female home. Now, he had control and he was going to do it his way.

What has gotten into him?! Jess thought. What is with the flirting?! I can’t flirt! Asshole is doing this on purpose.

“I…didn’t say that.” She corrected.

Finally, he let go of her hand as a young woman stepped into view and greeted them as she passed. Jess recognized her from training classes. When she was out of sight, Daryl moved closer still, until he was looking down into her blue eyes.

“Train with me.” He repeated.

She had to take a deep breath and compose herself before she could answer. The smell of leather and smoke only reminded her of the way he kissed her in the office of the house the previous day and it made her feel drunk on him. Having to keep a check on her feelings for him was proving to be quite the task when with every move he made, he confirmed to her that she was completely in love with him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had an ulterior motive.” She chattered as casually as she could manage. “Your persistence is a little surprising”

“Maybe I do.” He shot back “Maybe I don’t. Go to the fairground with me n’ find out. Train with me.”

His use of the same phrase over and over and with such a steady resolve caused her to ponder the notion that he could be referring to training while meaning something totally different altogether. The idea had her torn. One the one hand it was exciting but on the other, terrifying.

If you are not willing to discuss what is going on here then I am not willing to consider anything past some enthusiastic smooching and the occasional wandering hand. No explanation, no entering the castle for you, buddy.

“Repetition will get you nowhere. You have no power over me, Stinky.” She dismissed, stepping back and continuing on her path.

“You sure about that?” he called after her.

When she glared back at him, her mouth involuntarily fell open at the sight. Jess constantly thought Daryl to be the most attractive man she’d ever seen and she spent so much time with him it was almost becoming normal that she ogled him and checked him out when she thought he wasn’t looking. But there were single moments throughout her day when the air would expel from her lungs and she caught herself suspended in a kind of trance while her mind went blank and she could only blink at what she considered to be the finest form of a man stood before her.

His hands were pushed into the pockets of his jeans, his exposed arms baring the ripples of his muscles in the cloudy daylight. One eyebrow was lifted and his lips were curled into the slightest of smiles.

Hooooot damn. I might just be looking at the sole reason for global warming, right here. I’d be a fool to say no to this.

“Fine.” She spat with a flinch and quick shake of her head. “But only because this broken record act is tiresome already.”

She stormed towards him, giving him the impression that she was being incredibly put out by his request. She lifted her mask to partially cover her face, knowing that the thought of rolling around in the mud with Daryl was already making her cheeks burn.

The seat padding of a chair made for a decent punchbag and Daryl, knowing not to underestimate Jess’s gusto and enthusiasm, was still taken a back by how much power and effort she put into her training. She was improving at a faster rate than he could ever have imagined and he could only put it down to her attack and her disinclination to find herself in the same horrendous situation for a second time. If she kept training the way she was and practicing enough, he would be looking at someone who’s fighting prowess rivaled his own. The only issue he could detect that held her back, was her own self-doubt.

She lunged at him, the heavy, relentless rain making her quest even more difficult. She kicked the padding with a loud, wet smack of her boot and sent him stumbling backwards, unable to recover quickly enough to withstand the series of punches that followed. He grunted and put all of his weight behind the pad, trying to drive her back but she kept going, finding the strength and fortitude from the memory of the attack and the subsequent nightmares to fuel her rampage. Her feet skidded in the thick mud of the saturated ground and her pants stuck fast to her legs.

Daryl began to duck and swerve her punches, confusing her and throwing what had morphed into a routine completely off balance. So much so, that she missed two kicks and opened herself up for a hefty bash from the padding. He blinked the rainwater from his eyes and flicked his hair from his face with a nudge of his head.

“Losin’ ya focus, girl.” He provoked from behind the leather, chair cushion.

Inside her own head, Jess’s focus was quite clear; use the confusion and helplessness that came with falling for someone that kissed her and refused to acknowledge it, and channel it into energy that was dispelled through controlled violence. It wasn’t just the attack that made her angry, Daryl made her angry too and along with that anger came a multitude of other emotions that left her with so much to think about, training was the only way she could use it to her advantage.

“C’mon, Jess!” He cried “Hit it harder…faster.”

With that, Jess paused with her hands balled into fists in front of her. Rain soaked her clothes and stuck the front of her hair to her forehead. She didn’t bother with her hood when it became so laden with surplus water that it was easier to concentrate without it. She tilted her head to the side and replayed his words in her head.

“Easy, Daryl. Are we still talking about fighting?” She questioned brazenly.

His eyebrows shot up and his lips curled at the edges. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, she hit the pad with an uppercut that was delivered with all her might and resulted in him stumbling a lot more significantly than before. He huffed and prepared himself before charging at her. Thinking quickly, Jess moved into a sideways stance and ran back at him, barreling into him and growling as she forced him back. His boots left dragging tracks in the mud which rapidly filled with water and he considered that if he wasn’t too occupied with her witty question, he would have been better prepared for her onslaught.

Clever girl.

The two, short words were all he had time to think before he was barged further backwards, eventually ending up on his back in the mud. Jess seemed to carry on, tripping over him and hitting the concrete path with a loud scuffing sound as her body crumpled and she let out a piercing scream. Daryl flipped over and crawled to her as fast as he could, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Jess?! Jess?! Ya okay?!”

“M-My shoulder. Oh my god!” She croaked while clutching her upper arm and rolling onto her back. Her hair sank into the mud and she fought to catch her breath through the astonishing pain that radiated from her shoulder.

“Don’t move, don’t move.” He told her as he gently unzipped her jacket and tried to lift one side to get a look at the damage. She screamed with each slight movement as though her arm was being ripped off and Daryl had to grit his teeth to be able to soldier on through seeing her in so much agony. He coaxed her hand away and wrapped his fingers around hers. “I need to see. Alright? Squeeze my hand.”

His request was soon accepted and he almost regretted it when she gripped his hand like a vice and threatened to snap his bones with the strength born from her pain. She yelled at the top of her lungs as Daryl lifted her jacket again and peered inside at her deformed shoulder. He didn’t know if the water around her eyes was from the rain or tears but he suspected it was the latter when he sat back and refused to let go of her hand despite the discomfort it caused.

“Okay…it’s dislocated. I gotta get you inside the diner n’ outta the rain and I gotta do it fast. It’s gon’ hurt like hell, but you can do this, alright?”

Her eyes blinked continuously in an attempt to see through the rain and she nodded solemnly.

“Running at you was n-not…big or clever.” She quipped through her pain.

“Knocked me on my ass though, I’ll give ya that.” He mused.

The short distance to the diner felt like a marathon for both Daryl and Jess when he carried her through the slippery mud and heavy rain to the sound of her bellowing which did not cease until he bashed through the door and set her down on the rug in front of her bed.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. I gotta go see Denise. Pop this bad boy back into place.” She panted.

Her face, hair and almost all of her clothing was caked in a thick layer of mud and the rug around her was slowly developing a wet circle of rainwater around where she was sitting.

“Nah, no time. I can do it.” Daryl quickly responded.

She looked up at him as he shrugged his wet and dirty leather vest from his shoulders and left it on the diner’s counter top. Rolling his ripped shirt sleeves up halfway, he noticed her uneasy expression.

“How do you know how to do that?” she wanted to know.

“Told ya before, been in a few scraps in the past.” Was his mumbled and vague reply.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” She pressed.

His shoulders sagged and he let out a long breath, leveling his gaze at her in the dull room that was lit only by lanterns hanging on the wall. The weather outside meant that any gaps in the window barriers failed to let in much light and Jess had to reply on other means of light when she was home.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“Yes.” She answered without hesitation.

“So, let’s not waste time. C’mon, lay back.” He ordered, clapping once and pointing to the floor beside her.

“Wait…wait…You’re not going to make it worse? What if you do it wrong?” She argued.

Daryl pulled a wooden box across the rug and sat down in front of her, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands together, rubbing them slowly and thoughtfully and choosing his words carefully in the knowledge that the last thing he wanted to do was lose his temper with her.

“Jess, the longer ya leave this, the worse it gets. I’ve done this twice for Merle and once on myself with no fucker to help me.” He explained. So please, lay the fuck back n’ let’s get this done.”

Her breathing was still labored, the discomfort was etched on her face and yet, she somehow managed a wry smile.

“That’s confidence. I bet you do crossword puzzles in ink, too.” She commented.

He shot her a baffled look and knelt down beside her with a hand at her back. He eased her down gently and tried his best to ignore the trembling of her limbs from both the dampness of her clothing and the throbbing in her shoulder. She hissed an exhalation through her teeth when he took hold of her wrist with one hand and her elbow with the other.

“Ready?”

“Mmhmm”

He took a second to focus and gradually started to pull on her arm. Hauling the joint back into place bit by bit. Jess screamed until she was hoarse and her throat turned raw.

“HOOOLYSHITMOTHERFUCKER!”

“Almost there”

“FUCK! STOP! I cantfuckingtakeitohmygod!” she breathed.

“Don’t be a pussy, Jess. Just a little more” he insisted.

“Shitohshitohshit!”

It took less than a minute but to Jess it was a lifetime before her shoulder finally clamped back into place and she stopped yelling. Relief flooded her body and she was shocked at just how swiftly the pain diminished. Despite its absence, she still needed to collect herself and remained on the floor in the aftermath while Daryl got up and began rooting around her home. A loud ripping sound meant she dragged herself into a sitting position and noticed him tearing up a T-shirt.

“Hey! That is a Bucky Barnes shirt, you animal!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, yeah. Quit complainin’.” He muttered to himself, setting to tying a knot in the ripped shirt and holding it up to survey his efforts. He did a double take at her helplessness on the floor. The mud on her face was drying and cracking and he figured from the state of her skin that when she hit the floor and skidded, dirt collected and was shoved inside her clothing, covering her chest and arms.

“Ya look like a chocolate sundae.” He remarked.

“I’ll wash it off.” She sighed, pushing her fingers into her hair and making a disgusted face at the sheer quantity of the grainy substance that was coating her scalp.

“Ya can’t. Not by yourself. You gotta keep that arm still.” Daryl protested.

“I can do it with one arm.” She reasoned casually, confident of her abilities even if she did only have one, working arm.

“Can’t risk makin’ it worse, you could have pulled muscles n ripped tendons n’shit. I’ll help ya wash it off.”

Panic descended upon her and she stared down into her lap. Her mind was racing and her skin prickled at the thought of having to get undressed in front of the one man whose opinion meant everything to her. Being so exposed in front of another person was not something Jess had experienced much in her life and the thought made her blood run cold.

I can’t. I can’t do this. Please don’t make me do this.

“No. It’s okay. Really, I’ll be fine.” She tried to assure him.

“Jess, I know it feels better now but when ya get up n start movin’ around, it’s gonna hurt like a sommbitch for a while. Ya can’t sit around caked in dirt for days until it heals n’ you can get Aaron’s place for a shower. Shoulder’s all tore up on the top, too. Need to clean it up. Just let me help ya.”

Jess’s self-consciousness went way beyond her awareness of herself and reached into the realms of how others saw her. Having lost so much weight and during the end of the world, her need to concern herself with the opinions of most people had faded, but Daryl was the one that mattered and having him think less of her for her appearance was a notion that made her feel nauseous. She still had curves built into an hourglass shape and was a long way away from a supermodel. But he wasn’t giving up. Standing over her with his eyes locked on hers, he wasn’t about to yield and let her have her way. He cared too much about her to leave her to struggle with one arm, an open wound and so much mud to contend with.

“I don’t want to… get naked” He admitted quietly.

She heard him let out a breath that sounded as if he’d been holding it in and he sank back down onto the wooden box with a careless thud.

“Ya ain’t gotta. I’ll help ya take off the first layer, get that shit outta ya hair n’ clean that scrape on the front of ya shoulder.”

She mulled it over, trying to see in her mind’s eye what the scene could look like. She thought back to when she’d dressed and what she’d selected as her under layer of clothing and if it was substantial enough to cover her most disliked parts. It wasn’t, but he did have a point. Making her shoulder worse was not an option when she had hunting to do, supply runs to join and training to commit to. She hadn’t lied to him; she did trust him and that trust was about to be put to the test.

“I ain’t gonna touch ya like that. I promise.” He suddenly said from nowhere. Jess’s face hardened and he pointed at him with her good arm.

“No!” She snapped “You are not to say things like that, remember?! I know you wouldn’t do that.”

He rubbed at his face, clearing some of the dirt that had dried there and leaving a single, large smudge across his left cheek.

“Then what are ya worried about?” He asked, receiving nothing but a dramatic sigh in response. It was the closest thing he’d had to an honest conversation addressing anything further than their friendship and although it made him highly uncomfortable, the topic was necessary. “I’ma be real straight with ya here; ya shouldn’t kiss me if ya ain’t comfortable around me”

Not comfortable with him? I am. I am comfortable. Aren’t I? He’s the only person I can be me around. He’s the only one I’m a total dork with and he doesn’t judge me for it. He’s the one I kiss. He’s the one I fell for. I am comfortable with him, I’m just not comfortable with him thinking less of me because I’m not perfect. I’m just… me.

“Oh, shut up. I’m only comfortable with you. You’re like the sweatpants of my life” She scoffed. “Okay, fine. Let’s do this. There’s water in the back. The stove works, we can boil it.”

He nodded and leaned down to her, wrapping his arms around her ribs and lifting her to her feet. In the back of the diner, the kitchen area was vast and filled with shiny, metal surfaces that had obviously been cleaned by a house-proud Jess. The air was cold and Daryl made a mental note that his task was going to have to be performed swiftly as well as accurately to avoid her freezing half to death.

She stood silently in front of him as he set a large pot of water on the stove and switched it on. Both lips were sucked into her mouth and she felt dread in every part of her body and her fingers frantically drummed on her thigh. He turned to her, seemingly unbothered by the unusual nature of the situation and unbuckled her belt. He then popped the button on her pants and lowered the zip. Moving to her jacket next, he peeled it from her shoulders, she winced and cried out in pain when she had to remove her arm from the sleeve and backed away, shaking her head and catching her breath. Daryl let her be and could see from her screwed up face that she needed a minute to ride out the wave of pain. He didn’t expect it, but she soon came back to him, readying herself mentally for the removal of what was the key layer of clothing. He avoided her gaze while he lifted her vest top from her torso, over her uninjured side first and discarding it on the counter. Her top half was now only covered by a thin, spaghetti strapped, black top and a sports bra with straps that were now stained with dirt. Her skin was cold and boasting goosepimples already and a shiver shook down her spine.

Daryl slipped his index fingers into the waistband of her pants at her hips and pulled them down. She gingerly stepped out of them and felt her skin flare from the cold exposure as she stood there in her black panties with her head turned away from him. He didn’t ogle her, didn’t let his eyes linger for too long or on one spot, nor did he treat her with anything other than respect and dignity.

“C’mon.” He uttered, taking her hand and guiding her further into the diners kitchen, closer to the pot of hot water and the sink. In his pocket, he carried the ripped shirt she had told him off for ruining. He paid it no mind, confident that she would get over it quickly enough when she got to wear it as a sling.

When he switched the stove off just before boiling point, Jess snatched up a sponge from the sink, dunked into the water and began a valiant attempt to clean herself off with her good arm. But Daryl put an abrupt stop to it by clamping his hand around her wrist and halting her.

“No. Let me. The less ya move the better.” He expressed.

Taking the sponge from her grasp, he took a deep breath to quell his own nerves. Nerves he hadn’t expected to feel but that were there nonetheless. On the inside, his head was jumbled with thoughts but on the outside, he was calm and collected.

She’s nervous as a turkey at thanksgivin’. But she trusted you with this and that’s a big deal so don’t fuck it up. Don’t look at her too long. She's pretty as all get out but you ain’t no creep.

He ran the sponge along her arms and across her neck and lessened the pressure when cleaning the grit from the angry scrape along her collarbone and shoulder. Jess said nothing but he could hear her shaky breathing as if it were broadcast through a megaphone.

“Ya covered in it.” He muttered.

Mud had entered her jacket through her neckline and her throat was encrusted before Daryl rid her of it and paused his work. Not giving her a choice, he moved closer, wrapped his arms around her middle and hoisted her into the air as if she weighed nothing. She gasped at the action but conceded, allowing him enough trust to do as he needed.

“Lean back a little?” he asked.

She used her stronger arm to anchor herself and did as she was asked, dangling her hair over the sink. Dunking the sponge back into the water, he squeezed it over her hair and watched as the mud turned everything a murky color, leaving a residue in the sink behind her. She couldn’t help but hold her breath when he ran his fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp and if she wasn’t half dressed and vulnerable, she would have wanted the sensation to last a lot longer. His touch was soothing and she wanted to sigh in delight, to revel in the moment but her lack of clothing and the ache in her bones stifled her enjoyment.

Moving in front of her, he wiped mud from her hairline and she involuntarily caught his eye. Unable to tear her vision away, she realized that he too was paralyzed and stuck staring at her. He swallowed hard and his lower lip quivered subtly. After having shown so much trust and allowing herself to be looked after while being so vulnerable, Daryl could not quite believe how far their friendship had progressed, or if it even was a friendship anymore. Maybe it was stuck somewhere in-between because the look in her eyes told of her unwavering faith in him and that made his stomach flutter and his heart race and he was sure that he had never and would never feel something so strong with anyone else.

You got beautiful eyes, girl.

A small flinch from Daryl broke the atmosphere and he continued with his mission, soon clearing her hair and skin of mud and helping her dress in warm, clean clothing. She’d snorted with laughter when he delicately positioned her arm into the tied up Bucky Barnes shirt and immediately forgave him for butchering one of her T-shirts.

“Thank you” She whispered at him as he adjusted her sling.

“Stop.” He grumbled.

She didn’t need to ask him to stay that night, a knowing stare was all it took to transfer the message that he didn’t want to leave her and she needed a night without the possibility of a nightmare in order to get some decent rest for her recovery. He arranged her pillows and helped her to settle into a position she was unlikely to move from and sat up beside her, not drifting off himself until he was certain she’d slipped into a deep sleep.

In the middle of the night she whimpered and his eyes snapped open. Unable to move her, he chose the next best option which was to shift closer and onto his side, his body flush with hers and his lips next to her ear on the pillow. His fingers found hers at her side and her restlessness began to subside.

“You’re safe with me. I got you. Always.”

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@lilred254 @woundmetender @lonewolf471

#daryl #daryl dixon #the walking dead daryl #twd daryl #daryl fanfiction #daryl x oc

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