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hugshughes · 6 months

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seven E. Edwards

Ethan Edwards x fem!reader

synopsis - you and Ethan, your best friend since you were seven, finally admit you're in love with each other.

wc - 5.7k :O

contains - so much fluff LORDDDDDDDD. curse words, eating/drinking, kissing, making out, reader has long enough hair for a braided ponytail, a little suggestiveness (twenty year old boy has dirty thoughts about his best friend sigh), underage drinking. oh reader has a late summer birthday (end of July-August), and two older brothers sorryyyyy. LMK!!!!

an - EDIT - that one paragraph that was in first person... why didn't u guys tell me. are we even friends anymore???? unedited. i'll do it tomorrow i promise. hey guys.... sorry it's been like almost 3 weeks, I love you I swear. there were midterms then halloweek so like I had to be studious then I had to be slutty so it was a long two weeks. also i wanna be fr friends with more fic writers on here yall r so cute. ANYWAY THIS WAS PROBABLY MY FAV SO FAR. i am an ethan girl to my core and it shows in this. people keep requesting behind my back pt.2 and i promise it's coming guys im just grinding this celebration then i'll be doing other stuff! may or may not have given Ethan and reader the same costume me and my man wore this weekend🤭. ANYWAYS ENJOYYYYYYYY!

please picture me in the trees. i hit my peak at seven. feet in the swing over the creek.

Lake Moraine, Alberta, Canada. Summer, 2009

You were freshly seven years old as you ran around the backyard of your family's summer house with your best friend, Ethan. It was the first summer you ever spent with the Edwards family, but it was perfect.

Your parents got along great, you both had older brothers who quickly became good friends. And you got your best friend for 3 whole weeks to ride on the boat, play tag, swim, make s'mores, and do anything else you wanted to with.

Your moms loved joking about how you two were destined to be married from the beginning. They saw the way Ethan was completely mesmerized by you even as a seven-year-old boy. He followed you around like a puppy and did everything he could for you. You wanted to play hide 'n seek? He was already counting to 40. You got scared of the summer fireworks? He held your hand and convinced you they were exciting and fun.

Your moms also saw the way you were obsessed with him. It was always 'Where's Ethan?', or 'Is Ethan awake yet?' all summer long. You didn't go anywhere without him. You pouted like crazy whenever he would go to play street hockey in the driveway with the older boys while you sat on the porch with your parents.

i was too scared to jump in. but i, i was high in the sky, with pennsylvania under me.

That summer was something you thought of often, it was perfection. Running around playing with your best friend all summer as a seven-year-old was the best thing you could've ever asked for.

When you guys were double your previous age, fourteen years old, you were still as close as ever. You went through it all together. The summer of 2016 was the summer when Ethan realized he had a crush on you. It was also, the summer you got boobs, but the two things were only semi-related.

Ethan found himself being insanely flustered by you and everything you did. When your hand brushed his while walking down the dock to the boat, when you kissed him on the cheek after he'd given you your birthday present, a silver necklace with a small solid heart pendant. It was a necklace you still wore today.

It wasn't until the next summer though that you realized you were heavily infatuated with the brunette. Something about him had changed, instead of him being this seven-year-old boy in your mind, he was fifteen, he had gotten muscles, and his hair was shaggy, and your hormones went crazy over it.

You and Ethan had a lot of fun that summer, you drank for the first time, which both of you ended up throwing up from in the backyard while your parents and siblings slept. Ethan had broken your heart for the first time the next year. He left the summer house 2 weeks early to go to a camp his new girlfriend begged him to go to. And him leaving 2 weeks early had him leaving days before your birthday, which hurt the worst.

You broke his heart even worse the next year when you brought your new boyfriend to the house. The house he fell in love with you in, the house you fell for him in. He hated that summer, he and the girl from the summer before had only lasted until the fall of that year, and Ethan realized he really was in love with you. But then your family drove up and you got out of the car with him, the guy that Ethan immediately made his enemy.

That summer was okay for you, and it sucked for Ethan. Your boyfriend left you unimpressed that summer, he wasn't the most polite guy, and was very much uninterested in the fun stuff you loved doing every summer. You remember how he went to sleep and left you alone watching the fireworks you had grown to love so much. You broke up with him over text the day you got back home. You weren't heartbroken after that, not like you were the summer before.

Neither of you had gotten into relationships since then. You'd both been too consumed by each other, you both knew no one else would fulfill you like the other would.

And so you were best friends, you hung out whenever you could, you went to all of his games, you went to proms and homecomings together, as friends. When Ethan committed to the University of Michigan, it became a school you were obsessed with getting into. Your application and essay had the most detail and took you the longest. You remember when you got an email in your inbox from the umich admissions office.

are there still beautiful things?

You couldn't open it. Not without Ethan. You grabbed your phone and moved your laptop off your lap and back onto your desk. You called him, your leg bouncing anxiously as it rang. He picked up after five rings.

"Hey Angel,"

Angel. He'd called you it since when you broke up with your first boyfriend, he told you that you were an angel and that guy didn't deserve you. And then it just stuck with him.

"My response for umich is here. Can you come over? I don't think I can open it without you here."

"Fuck yeah, give me like ten minutes."

You let out a deep breath, you were scared. You didn't think you would get in. You had the grades for it, and the extracurriculars, but you just had a pit in your stomach over it.

"It's gonna be okay Angel, alright? You're getting in. I love you, I'll be there in a little."

"Okay, I love you."

He hung up, you sat anxious at your desk, before closing your laptop and moving to sit on your bed. You heard his car pull in, the black jeep that brought you two to school every day, the jeep that drove you guys to the drive-in movies once every month, the jeep that you two drove to the lake last summer.

Your brother let him in, you heard him take his shoes off and run up the stairs, taking two at a time. He opened your door, smiling big at you before closing it behind him. You couldn't even smile at him, you felt like you were gonna be sick.

"Don't look at me like that. You need to stop acting like you won't get in."

"You don't know that though, Ethe. Tons of kids wanna go to Michigan, and tons of kids aren't gonna get in."

"Well we don't care about those kids, do we? 'Cause you aren't them, you're you, and you're perfect."

You just stared at him, you couldn't do anything else. All you wanted to do was kiss him, but again, you couldn't do that.

"Now where's this acceptance email at?"

You pointed to your closed laptop. He grinned and turned to grab it, climbing over you with his free hand to get onto your bed. He opened your laptop, typing in your password, and seeing the email at the top of your inbox. He turned and looked at you, his hand finding yours.

"You know it's gonna be okay no matter what, right? Even if you don't get in, which you will, but even if you don't that won't change anything. You'll go to Iowa and you'll love it."

You took a deep breath and nodded, squeezing his hand. You nodded towards your laptop, gesturing for him to click the email. You lean your head on his shoulder, heart racing as he moves your mouse to the email. He clicks the email, then the link included in it. He reads a sentence under his breath before stopping. You weren't reading it, you had your eyes closed. Ethan jumps, shouting and burying you in a hug, resulting in your laptop falling off your bed.

"You did it! We're going to Michigan together!"

You just hugged him so tight. You were so thankful for the admissions officer who had read your essay, which may have included Ethan's name a few times. Not because he was going for hockey, but because he was your best friend. You two both hugged for a moment, before running downstairs to tell your family.

sweet tea in the summer, cross your heart won't tell no other.

That was one of your favorite memories with Ethan. Now it was over three years later, you guys were juniors in college and you were still just best friends.

Tonight was the first night of Halloweekend, as you call it. You had a duo costume with Ethan, you were a referee and he was a hockey player. It was basic, you both knew that, but it was fun, and Ethan had no problem with how good you looked in your black little Lululemon skirt when you had tried your costume on for him. You guys had barely any time to get ready because of the game against Lindenwood earlier in the day. You were both getting ready in your apartment, so you could go to the party together.

You had only had your skirt and black sports bra on when Ethan knocked on your door, calling your name to let him in. You ran over to the door, excited to see Ethan and congratulate him on the huge win. When you opened the door Ethan's heart jumped, the sight of you in your incomplete outfit made his teenage boy hormones go crazy.

"Hi Ethe! I see you aren't ready yet."

You gave him an annoyed look, because he said he would be dressed when he got to yours.

"Well you aren't exactly in your full outfit either."

You blushed when you really realized you hadn't even thought about not having your shirt on when getting the door. You waved your hand and quickly turned away from the brunette, going back to your room, Ethan hot on your heels.

You quickly grabbed your shirt and sat back at your vanity, pulling it over your head and tucking it with your skirt letting it sag out a little bit. You quickly did your makeup, while Ethan sat on your bed and watched his phone.

"Ethe, if you don't start getting ready I will literally hurt you."

He looked up and let out a wannabe innocent gasp, claiming he "literally doesn't have to do anything but change his shirt". You shout at him again and he calls you by your mother's name, to which you gasped and threw your eyelash curler at him.

He finally gave in and started getting ready. Your eyes were practically stuck to him when you watched him pull his t-shirt off, his toned upper body on full display in your mirror. Your pupils were dilating while you stared at him.

Ethan wore his own navy Michigan jersey over a white sweatshirt, it was basic but he was happy he didn't have to do much. He laid back down on your bed once he was finished and watched as you put your hair back.

You'd gotten your hair in the ponytail, but you'd done the braid multiple times and it still just didn't look right. You sighed then looked at Ethan in the mirror, finding him already staring at you, then asked him the big question.

"Ethey, baby, can you please braid my hair?"

Baby. You'd called Ethan baby and he couldn't handle it. He quickly nodded, stuttering out a yes and jumping up from your bed to stand behind you at your vanity. He quickly separated your hair into three, looking at you for approval, like you hadn't taught him to braid your hair at 11 years old.

and though i can't recall your face, i still got love for you.

You smiled at him and slightly nodded, not shaking your head too much. He smiled a little bit back at you but was too focused on twisting your hair into itself to look in your eyes.

"Hair tie."

You smiled to yourself when he mumbled it to you, so incredibly focused on his work in your hair. Like it was the most detrimental thing he'd had to do today, like he hadn't played a big hockey game hours earlier.

"And... You're perfect."

He mumbled this as he tied off your braid, turning your head to show you in the mirror. You smiled at him grabbing his hand behind your back and rubbing your thumb over his, thanking him physically, since it was his love language.

your braids like a pattern, love you to the Moon, and to Saturn.

You stood from your vanity, sliding your sneakers on and grabbing your whistle to hang around your neck. You and Ethan both went out of your room and stood in front of the large mirror you had set up in the hallway. You deemed it time to take photos, but not before you unzipped the quarter-zip of your top so you could see your cleavage on pretty full display. The second you did so Ethan knew he was done for the night.

You guys took some photos and then you guys started walking to the party because it was only a six-minute walk from your place. When you arrived at the party, you guys were immediately pulled into a group of hockey players.

Ethan went to get you both drinks once he knew you were safe with his friends. You stood between Luca and Mark as you watched Ethan head off into the crowd.

"So, when are you two gonna admit you wanna fuck?"

Your eyes bulged out of your head. You turned and slapped Mark's chest, hard. He snickered along with the other boys around you.

"One, there's freshie ears around us, and two, we are never gonna do that, so shut the actual fuck up."

Mark shook his head, another laugh leaving his mouth as he pointed at Ethan, who was talking to one of his friends on the way back to your group.

"That kid is obsessed with you. Don't you think it's weird he literally hasn't gotten a girl yet, when he's got hundreds of girls here that would drop dead if he even said a word to them? He only likes you."

It was your turn to laugh, you knew that couldn't be true. You looked at Mark and rolled your eyes, it was honestly irritating hearing him say stuff like that at this point.

"Please, Mark. No chance. He's been my best friend since I was seven, if he liked me, he would've said so by now.

"Well you've liked him for forever and you haven't said anything, have you?"

You couldn't respond because Ethan was back, handing you a can of something. You thanked him and rubbed his hand, like always. He always received physical touch the best, especially as a thank you, it was funny to you because it was so incredibly similar to the golden retriever all of his fans called him online.

passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long.

You didn't stray far from Ethan for the first hour and a half, watching Rutger and Luca demolish in pong for a while. Then you saw some girls from your classes who you loved so you went to say hey to them and ended up talking for awhile.

After a little bit you and one of the girls you were with both had empty drinks so y'all got up to head to the kitchen.

"Oh my God babe, I saw your Insta story of you and your man, y'all are so hot together, and your costume is top tier."

You laughed at her, blushing madly.

"He's not my man! He's just my best friend, but thank you I picked our costume out."

She gasped at you, stopping abruptly.

"No way he isn't your man! He looks at you like he wants to tear your clothes off every fucking second!"

"Shut up! No he doesn't! He does not like me like that."

You both turned the corner laughing and you almost halted in your steps when you realized what you were seeing. It was Ethan, standing and laughing with this one bitch you knew, her name was like Diana or something. She had her hand on his chest as her head flew back at one of his jokes. All you knew is you'd seen her try to talk to all of the hockey players at parties since your freshman year, even though most of them were 3+ years younger than her because she was a grad student and at least 25. Then you realized what she was wearing, she was dressed as the fucking Stanley Cup. You wanted to die.

"See, not my man."

and i've been meaning to tell you, i think your house is haunted. your dad is always mad and that must be why.

Your voice got quieter as you said it, your stomach now had a pit and your eyes looked so disappointed. You don't know why you let Mark's word get to your head, because obviously there was never gonna be anything between the two of you. You left and told Bri you were going to the bathroom, trying to find an empty one.

Ethan saw as you quickly turned into the kitchen, disappearing into the crowd with your friend. He'd also seen the terrible look on your face. He was immediately worried, not even thinking for half a second about the, in his opinion, annoying fake blonde, practically pawing at him, that he ended up being intercepted by on his way to find you.

He quickly tried to follow you but was stopped by a firm grip on his wrist. He pulled his hand from her grasp roughly and gave her a bewildered look.

"Wait Ethey! Where are you going? I wanna take a picture with you, we're matching so cute!"

He didn't even look at her, trying to find the back of your head in the crowd.

"No, don't call me that."

"Ugh, okay Ethan. Well, come here let me take a picture of our matching costumes."

"No thanks I'm already matching with my girl, and we're not even matching. A college player wouldn't have a Stanley Cup, doesn't even make sense"

He mumbled it to her, still pushing away from her as he finally got her to get her hands off of him. He immediately pushed into the crowd of the kitchen, desperately looking for you. He finally spotted the black and white stripes of your shirt and the braid he had done swerving in between people. He followed you, knowing calling your name would do nothing in the loud house. He watched you walk into the bathroom of probably the only empty hallway of the house, and he waited outside the door for almost 10 minutes before knocking.

"Sorry! I'll be out in just a second."

Your voice sounded dull, he was definitely worried about you.

"No it's just me, just wanted to know if you were okay. Are you?"

"Oh Ethe,"

You opened the door from your spot sitting on the counter, letting him walk in.

"hey, sorry didn't mean for you to be worried about me."

You tried to smile at him, but he could tell something was wrong. He sat by you on the counter, your thighs pressed against each other as he looked at you, concern filling his face. You wouldn't look at him, your face would give it all away if you did, and you knew it.

i think you should come live with me, and we can be pirates.

"I can tell something's off. What is it? Did someone say somethin' to you?"

You laughed a little, and it confused him even further.

"You'd be surprised at what's got me upset. It's stupid anyway so don't worry your pretty little head, alright?"

Ethan planted his hand on your knee firmly, urging you to look at him with a 'Hey.' You looked up at him for a few seconds before looking around the dim bathroom to distract yourself.

"Just tell me, Angel. Nothing you say is stupid to me."

Of course, he pulled out the Angel card, he knew you would do whatever he asked if he called you Angel. You looked up at him with an unamused face raising your eyebrows for a second before sighing, looking anywhere but his brown eyes.

then you won't have to cry,

"Mark was just saying stuff earlier and then-"

"What did he say? Did he make you upset? I know he's my teammate but I don't care I'll-"

"Ethan Edwards! No, Mark didn't make me upset. It's different than that, it's a whole big thing, and I just don't know how to talk to you about it."

Ethan thought the worst immediately. Well, it probably wasn't the actual worst, but it was the worst thing that could've happened to him.

"Does Mark like you? Did he tell you that?"

Your eyes went wide, and you could've laughed at Ethan's obliviousness.

"No, Ethe. That is definitely not what he said."

He looked at you helplessly, he was so confused. He didn't know how to do the one thing he wanted to, comfort you. He sighed shrugging and shaking his head, he was getting irritable. He stood up from the counter, exasperated.

"Then what is it? Why are you so upset? Can you just please tell me Angel? We tell each other everything baby."

You were gonna scream, he called you baby. He called you baby and you were about to tell him you were head over heels in love with him. You took a deep breath, looking away from where he'd stationed himself directly in front of you, hands on either side of your thighs as he leaned close to you, still worried.

or hide in the closet.

"I just, I'm like, Ethan you're my best friend and I know it's terrible of me to do this but I really fucking love you, like more than that like I'm in love with you and I know I'm a horrible best friend-"

Ethan cut you off by kissing you. Ethan Edwards was kissing you. Ethan Edwards had his hands cupping your jaw, was tilting his head, and kissing you. You were stunned, you didn't kiss him back for a few seconds out of pure shock, and then you realized what was happening. Your hands were gripping his wrists as he held your face. Your legs opened so he could step in between them to be closer to you. His hands moved from your face to your hips as yours went to his neck when you deepened the kiss, it turning into a full-on makeout.

You pulled away, heavy breathing as you stared at Ethan, eyes wide and exasperated.

and just like a folk song,

"That was fuckin' great, Goddamn."

You closed your eyes and let your head fall to Ethan's chest when he said that, laughing at his stupidity. His arms quickly wrapped you into a hug, squeezing you tightly as he laid a kiss on your exposed neck.

"I love you 'like that' too if it wasn't clear before."

our love will be passed on.

"Really? I didn't notice."

He poked your sides at your sass, laughing as you wiggled and squirmed in his grip. Ethan then had a thought come to his head that peaked his curiosity.

"Wait, if that's what you were all stuck on then why were you so upset?"

You brought your arms down from their place around his neck, ready to talk through your annoyance with your hands.

"Ethey, seriously? I was walking with Bri and she was literally telling me we look like a hot couple and that you look at me like you wanted to tear my clothes off and then we turn the corner and I see you with that mega bitch with her hands all over you, acting like you're a fucking comedian."

please picture me, in the weeds. before i learned civility.

His eyes widened at your confession, his cheeks were dusted red when you told him about how Bri thinks he looks at you. He started laughing as you let your green monster out over the girl he didn't even know’s name.

i used to scream ferociously, any time i wanted.

"Angel, that got you all upset? That is crazy because that girl was the most uninteresting, fake, batshit person I've ever had to speak to. She kept trying to say that me and her were matching but we literally aren't, 'cause like why would a college player have a Stanley Cup? Doesn't make any sense. But, I told her I was already matching with my girl anyways, so."

"Your girl?"

You raised your eyebrows at him faking ignorance. He rolled his eyes at you and shook his head, his large warm hands rubbing back and forth over your hips and thighs.

"Well, now you're officially my girl. But baby, you've always been my girl, c'mon now."

i, i.

Your face was so hot and you literally couldn't even speak. You opened your mouth to speak but promptly closed it sucking in a deep breath. Your heartbeat was so fast. That was the sexiest thing you'd ever heard anyone say, and it had an effect on you.

You couldn't look into his eyes anymore, the mix between what he'd just said and the feeling of his hands rubbing over the tops of your thighs, sometimes 'accidentally' hitting the hem of your little skirt was too much. You hid your head in his neck while he smiled so big, it was almost annoying.

"Christ, Ethan."

"What baby? What's got you all hot 'n bothered?"

"Shut the actual fuck up."

He was laughing, hard, which made you blush even more. You pulled your head from his neck and brought your arms around his shoulders to kiss him again, a little bit needier than the first one. His hands stopped their movements, their placement underneath the edges of your skirt making you go crazy.

"Fuck, you're perfect Angel."

His words went straight to the pit forming in your stomach. You moaned into his mouth in response, and Ethan promised himself he would do whatever he had to do to make you make that noise again. Ethan was two seconds from pulling your shirt off of you when there was a bang on the door, causing you to jump, squeezing around Ethan's shoulders.

"Hun, are you alright? You've been in there awhile!"

It was Bri, you let out a sigh of relief, loosening your grip on Ethan and nudging him to the side, sliding off of the bathroom counter.

"Um, yeah I'm alright! Uh I'll be out in a sec!"

"Kay-kay!"

You turned around and gave Ethan a wide-eyed look, while he laughed at you. You turned from him and looked into the mirror, flattening your baby hairs and straightening out your outfit. You gave Ethan a 'you ready?' look to which he nodded and you unlocked and opened the door, halting when you saw Bri standing near the door waiting for you. Ethan bumped into you at your abrupt stop and when Bri looked up and saw two of you, she squealed.

"Oh em gee! Girl, I knew it!"

sweet tea in the summer, cross my heart won't tell no other.

She ran away from you two back to the house, most likely to tell your girlfriends. You two giggled at her and then turned to walk back into the party.

Ethan pressed his hand against your lower back as he guided you through the crowd and back to the group of hockey players now in a different spot than you remember. When Mark noticed you two, when he noticed Ethan's hand, he immediately lit up smiling.

"Hey guys, long time no see, huh?"

and though i can't recall your face, i still got love for you.

You immediately went red as Ethan smirked annoyingly. You both sat down next to each other, Ethan's hand lingering on your thigh while you guys conversed with your friends for another half hour or so.

Eventually, Ethan was getting bored and wanted you all to himself again. He leaned over and layed his head on your shoulder, whispering in your ear.

"You wanna head out baby?"

You turned to look at him, nodding and wrapping your hand in his. Ethan stood up first, pulling you up with him.

"I think we're gonna head out. I'll see you guys tomorrow, alright?"

The guys nodded, bidding you guys goodbyes and waving. Mark shouts an extra loud goodbye to you, teasing you about your conversation earlier, to which you stuck up your middle finger to him behind Ethan's back.

Once you guys stepped outside you immediately started shivering, dropping Ethan's hand to rub your hands over your arms. You were cursing yourself 3 hours ago for not taking a jacket. You didn't even think about the fact that it would probably be almost freezing when you left the party, and your referee shirt and little skirt weren't helping at all.

Obviously Ethan noticed, he always did. He immediately started stripping on the front porch of the house, and you were bewildered.

"Ethan! What the fuck are you doing?"

He was shirtless on the street, he tossed you his hoodie before putting his jersey back on, smiling at you.

"Gotta keep my girl warm."

pack your doll and a sweater, we'll move to India forever.

You gratefully put the warm sweatshirt on, snuggling up into the soft material. Then, you snuggled up into the side of your boyfriend. Your boyfriend. Seven-year-old you wouldn't believe you, she'd be so confused. Fourteen-year-old you wouldn't believe it either, saying you never had feelings for Ethan, he was just your best friend. But sixteen-year-old you? Well she would be squealing and kicking her feet because you were dating him, the only boy you'd ever really liked, loved. The one boy that made you happy. He was so perfect, and you'd known he was perfect since you were seven.

passed down like folk songs, our love lasts so long.

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lavendermunson · 6 months

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Gorgeous - steve harrington

chapter 1 of miss americana and the heartbreak prince

summary you are on a break from tour and all of your plans get wrecked by a lovely baseball player.

tags famous!singer!reader and famous!baseball-player!steve. each chapter will have it’s own warnings, none for this one except consumption of alcohol. just pure fluff. i changed the name of the chapter sorryyyyy!!!! no use of y/n

w.c 2.2k

masterlist | series masterlist | next chapter

You’ve reached the half of your tour, and Wednesday’s show was the most energetic. Now you find yourself yearning for some much needed rest during your month-long break. You can already picture yourself making a nest on your bed, doing nothing but sleeping and watching your favorite tv show.

Life takes unexpected turns, it’s Friday now, and one of your friends has invited you to a party. She said it wasn’t a ‘big thing’ but the house was full, the music wasn’t so loud and you wanted to thank the host for it. You miss your bed, and your cats, but it’s also nice to see some of your… friends. Not that you have too many, there’s always a struggle on trusting new people.

You try to relax your shoulders as you make your way to the kitchen to get a drink. On your way, everyone keeps complimenting you about the successful tour you’ve had.

Since you started making music, the growth of your career has been massive. Rich and famous people often prioritize numbers and records, focused on ‘who does it first’ ‘who wins the next award’ and tons of material shit you don’t care about. You wish someone would appreciate your music as you’ve always seen it, art. It’s an extension of you, a way to feel yourself free while being connected with your fans through truthful and poetic lyrics.

The kitchen is empty, only two people hang around kissing and touching each other like they are invisible. Something in your body aches whenever you get to watch someone giving affection to their partner. It’s inevitable, you yearn for that.

Being a successful person does not always mean you get what you want in your personal life. Sure, you’ve had dates with interesting people but no one sticks around to see the true you. Most of the time they only want to hang out with you, have a date or attend an event only to get their five minutes of fame.

Now that you think about it, maybe you don’t have time to settle down with someone and that’s disappointing, you really crave for someone to snuggle with and have a fun loving life. Dance around the kitchen, play around at the beach.

It seems everyone has time for love but you. Everyone does the best, or worst, time on dates while your dates always have paparazzi and people at home watching the pictures, focusing on who you are dating instead of what you do, what you feel, and who you are. It’s more exhausting than performing love songs about fictional people that you’ve created in your head.

You wish your personal life was getting better as your professional life, tour, and travel days are planned, you always get your favorite breakfast, and the love that radiates from the fans makes you glow. It’s a different story when you’re alone in a hotel room, you start to feel like the loneliest person in the world. How can someone perform for 30,000 people and yet feel so alone five hours later?

Being on tour is exhausting, but for a couple of minutes on that stage, you feel powerful. It’s the safest place you have, for now.

You are in desperate need of the strongest drink you can get. So, you reach for a bottle but as you reach for it, a hand is pressed against yours. You gasp at the sudden touch and look up to see who it is.

Famous baseball player Steve Harrington appears from out of nowhere. The touch feels warm, you blush as he looks at you with a grin on his face.

“Soft spot for whiskey? This is my favorite one too” he says, your lips parted as you feel the heat on your face.

Keep. Yourself. Together.

“Uh…” you didn’t even realize it was whiskey, I just grabbed the first thing I could find” you confess, biting your lip as you miss the warmth of his hand.

“You weren’t going to pour this fine whiskey on that red cup, were you?” a chuckle escapes from his lips. He is cocky, he grins like he is the king of the world, and you… you like it.

“I- I just wanted something stronger than this beer” You let the red solo cup on the table focusing on his movements.

“Let me handle this” he makes his way through the kitchen looking for a cup worthy of his favorite liquor. He manages to get one, it’s not the same one he hand-picked since the party started but he believes it’ll do the job. He adds a couple of ice cubes and pours the whiskey, just the right amount.

As he hands you the cup, your fingers briefly touch, sending shivers down your spine. You don’t know what’s got you so nervous, please, you are the queen of the world right now.

“Thank you,” you say, taking a sip of the drink. As the liquor travels through your throat, you can feel it burn. It’s a feeling that leaves you pleased, this is exactly what you were looking for. “Wow, it’s delicious”

“I know, the best whiskey in this state,” he says. “I’m Steve Harrington, by the way,” he gets closer to you, his hand reaching out for yours.

You shake his hand, your cheeks feel hotter than ever. “Nice to meet you, I’m-”

“I know who you are,” he whispers, winking with a grin. Letting go of your hand he finishes his drink in a sip. He wipes the corner of his mouth and grabs the bottle of whiskey. “It’s too loud in here, do you want to join me in the backyard?" The house fills with voices as someone else arrives and everyone goes to the front porch to greet them.

“Sure” you nod, now holding your drink between your hands. You follow him to the backyard, small and shy steps– far from your usual confident self.

“Here, I grabbed this blanket earlier. You can sit with me” He offers you a spot on a blanket, sitting down and getting comfortable.

You take another sip of your drink, feeling the whiskey fade the nerves away. “It looks like you had this planned out” You leave your cup on the grass, letting the ice melt a while, to make it less strong.

He laughs, looking at the stars in the sky. You get lost on his features. The way his nose is perfectly shaped, his eyelashes are long, the little freckles on his face lit up by the yellow little lights in the backyard. “I wanted some space. I have a game on Sunday and I got dragged to this party… I tend to just find a place for myself. It looks like you needed a break too”

You notice how his nose scrunches up when he mentions his game. You bet he didn't know that you were aware of his existence, but you did. It was impossible to dismiss him, he has been one of the biggest and most famous players since the season started. Your dad and your friends talk about him. On tour, some people on your team watch his games before the show since the games are early. His face covers some of the biggest places in the cities you visited on tour.

“Is it a big game?” you curse yourself, of course it is. But you know nothing about baseball so he lets it pass. He looks at you with a sympathetic smile.

“It is, the team we are going up against is one of the best. I don’t tend to talk about it days before or I will get nervous” he confesses, leaning his head to one side and looking at you like you are the most beautiful jewel in the world.

“I don’t believe you” you laugh, shaking your head.

“What?”

“You, getting nervous. Your team has won over and over because of you, people on my tour team always brag about how you are the best”

Steve blushes at your words. He is fucking blushing and lets out a nervous but cute laugh.

“Don’t tell me you don’t get nervous after a show” his cocky grin comes back, you reach quickly for your cup to take a sip.

“I don’t,” you say.

He leans back, eyes wide. His lips parted in surprise.

“You don’t? How?” he asks.

“I do the same every night. It’s all choreographed, the one who is always nervous is my tour manager. But me. I don’t know” You let your head fall to look at the cup, and you shake it slowly so the ice cubes make a sparkly sound. “When I get on stage my heart just fills with warmth and I know there are people who are having the best time just because of me”

“That sounds very romantic” he searches for your face, and you look at him.

“It’s the closest I will ever get to romance” you sigh, feeling a sense of shared understanding.

“Hey, cheers to that!” he says.

“Cheers!”

You clink your glasses together. The night slips away, accompanied by Steve, whiskey, and sharing stories.

He is sweet, he has a true passion for his job, loves his career, and his team. You didn’t like to talk about work, but what else would you talk about? Work consumes both of you, it's easy to realize that. He is in every poster, you are in every magazine. Social media is filled with pictures of you, good news, bad news, fake news.

“It’s comforting to know someone is as married to their job as I am,” he says, his words slurred from the whiskey.

“I don't like to call it a work, it’s more like…” you begin.

“A dream come true,” he finishes for you.

“A dream come true, yes” You agree, feeling your head already spinning, the bridge of your nose hurting and your back giving up after sitting on the grass.

“Can I just tell you.. You are not what people say you are, well, not entirely” he says suddenly, whiskey doesn’t make Steve confident, it makes him dumb.

“What do you mean?” you worry, your body tensing in anticipation. You’ve read all of the nasty things people have said about you, but it only hurts when it comes from someone you like or care about. Was he about to say something mean?

Steve could never say something hurtful. He respects people so he can be respected in return. He’s experienced the harshness of the media as well, he has somewhat of a bad reputation.

“You are an icon. But right now, you are just… you” he shrugs. “You look so unreal in those magazines and right now you look like a fire in a cold winter” he gets closer to you, and the gap between you disappears. “I mean, you are not just a record breaker, you radiate an energy that makes me... too comfortable for my liking”

“Are you…”

“I am serious,” he says, looking at your face, admiring all of your features. He knows you are cute, perfect, and talented. But now he realizes you are also sweet, you have a warm personality and a calm that surrounds you everywhere you go. “Talking to you made me forget everyone in the world knows my name, it’s like you are the only one who knows me”

“Like we know each other's little secrets?” you ask, reciprocating his feelings. Talking to him also made you forget about the millions of people who are listening to your music every night. That your face is on every little girls’ bedroom wall.

“Like we are each other’s secret” he whispers, so close his liquory breath tingles against your lips. “Can I kiss you?”

“Please” you whisper too, your entire body is burning. What you said earlier wasn’t a lie, you don’t experience romance very often.

“So cute and polite” he rests two of his fingers on your chin to bring you closer. Steve gently presses his lips to yours, moving them softly as you catch up with his movements.

The kiss is slow, but your heart is beating faster than ever. You only get this feeling when you are on stage, he only gets this feeling when he wins.

His thumb slides to your neck as his fingers rest in your cheek. Your face is between his hands, and you could swear you see stars, a glowing pink aura surrounding the two of you. This feels too good to be true.

When air is needed, both of you separate from each other. You touch his arm to keep him closer as he looks at your face, lips puffy from kissing.

“Guys! Pizza is here” someone inside the house screams, the scent of greasy food making its way to you.

“I don’t know about you but I'm really hungry,” he says, getting up and offering you a hand to help you get up.

“Me too” Your cheeks are still pink, he notices and almost falls on his knees at how adorable you look. You take his hand and get up, your chest bumps against his.

“There is one thing everyone says and it's that you are beautiful” he looks at you with his pretty brown eyes.

“Do you agree?” you ask.

“You are fucking gorgeous”

You laugh, getting on your tippy toes to leave a kiss on his cheek.

“We are each other’s little secret, remember?”

You nod in agreement, understanding the secret bond you now share. Steve smiles and drops your hand, disappearing into the house. You let out a big sigh, you are so going to make a song about this, but for now, it’s a secret you’ll keep locked away from the world.

I hope you like this series, feedback is appreciated! don't forget to REBLOG TO SUPPORT THE AUTHOR! . ♡

DISCLAIMER. you already know who inspired this, I want to clarify i mean no harm for the people in real life and what happens in this is just inspired by them, it's not based on true events. comment to be part of the tag list!

#꒰ leia writes ⊹ ㅤ꒱#baseball!steve harrington #leia’s MA&THBP #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington au #steve harrington x female!reader #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington x y/n smut #steve harrington x y/n fluff #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x fem #singer!reader #steve harrington x female reader smut #꒰ leia's steve ⊹ ㅤ꒱

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brisquad-unit-4402 · 1 year

Text

zombie au with ike ft. luxiem - In Pursuit to and from the Sun

(i think this submission got lost in the sauce and i can't find it but at least i still have this screenshot)

lmao sorry i went off the grid for a sec. life happens, you know, applied for some vsf programs, went on a classified operative excursion away from my post and got a new writing software. i actually wrote the last of this on a helicopter returning from the mission so that’s why i didn’t proofread beforehand sorryyyyy. but more importantly I TOUCHED GRASS. guys. i touched so much grass. i touched so much grass i could replant a garden. call me a topiary, i touched that much grass. is this what it’s like to work at a dispensary? bc i touched so much grass

a few disclaimers: this fic is ike centric but contains general luxiem angst as a treat and may be read in a platonic or romantic tone, whichever you prefer. it's also another 10.7k words long so if you want to read but don’t have the time, use a like/rb as a bookmark. most importantly: heed the tags for this one, i kind of went off the deep end here

tags: platonic relationship, hurt no comfort, angst, zombie au, no happy ending, gender neutral reader

⚠️ major character death, suicidal thoughts, gore, infection, arson, and apocalypse-typical violence

continued au notes and commentary here (spoilers)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Ever since the initial zombie outbreak, you’ve been running around the country with your best friend Ike and the circle of close friends you both share. You’ve made peace with the fact that it will always be hard. You and your band hop around from town to wilds, with no real objective other than to survive. Every location has something to glean, after all. It’s just that the zombies are always on your tail, and there’s only so much looting to do before the chorus of dead can tear you and your family apart.

It’s deluded to pretend you’re the invulnerable main characters, though. You and your friends are in a townhouse currently being ambushed by a strain of zombies. You swear they’ve gotten more intelligent since your last encounter. A dense herd of bloodthirsty undead is one thing, but a dense herd of bloodthirsty undead that have a chance of understanding positioning is another. Closing doors is barely a second of relief now.

You were lucky to be in a room with Vox when you got ambushed. He lived his post-apocalyptic life with a rebar rod in his hand, wrested from a collapsed concrete building early in during the initial outbreak. He claimed to be a trained swordsman once, and even though the rebar was more of a club than a sword, you admit you would’ve been worse than dead if you didn’t have him by your side. You’re sure he’d be screwed without you, too. Now that the world’s gone to the dogs, you stay prepared with a pair of climbing picks that can clobber in zombie brains just as well as scale walls. Vox shoved zombies out of the way while your picks cleared a path to escape from the house out through the window, Vox in tow.

You and Vox reunite with Ike and Shu outside. The former keeps various kitchen knives hidden under his no-longer white mantle, and defends Shu from stragglers while he digs into his backpack. You notice his weapon, an iron fire poker, by his feet along with a bottle. He rips sheets off of an old Millwall brick to stuff inside the bottle.

“Blowing the place up,” Shu says, in case you didn’t make the connection already. His breath is ragged. “Where’s Luca and Mysta?”

Like a stage cue, you hear the rocket of gunfire the second he says it. Your hope is crushed. Noise attracts zombies, and Luca was the only one with a shotgun. If he pulled the trigger, the situation was even more dire than you thought.

Shu grits his teeth and repeats himself, intensity barely restrained. “Where is Luca and Mysta.”

“I’m going back in,” Vox declares.

Ike drives a knife into the head of a fallen body. Destroying the brain confirmed they wouldn’t regenerate, and he minimizes the risk as precise as a surgeon. He made short work of the zombies that hadn’t overrun the house yet, but you could see them flood the interior. “Don’t be stupid, Vox, that’s suicide.”

“You heard the gun!”

“And I said that’s suicide!”

“Not if someone goes back in!”

“How are you going to find them without getting yourself killed?” Vox opened his mouth, but no sound came out, and Ike took advantage of it. “That’s what I thought. Luca’s our muscle and Mysta’s a clever guy, you’ve seen him outsmart the zombies so many times before!”

“They know basic organization, Ike!”

“All the more reason not to go back in! Have some faith in your friends!”

Vox grants him an unholy leer through his haunting yellow eyes. “How dare you lecture me about faith when I’m trying to save their lives.”

His glare was lost. Ike focuses on confirming the dead stay dead. His back is turned from the swordsman as he chops a skull in two with a butcher’s cleaver. “Because no matter what, they’re going to get out, and they want you out just as much as they’re fighting.”

But Ike’s words were just as lost to Vox; you barely saw the trail of his blood-splattered haori before he ran back to the townhouse, rebar in hand and fury on display.

Shu shoves the remains of the Millwall brick into the cupholder of his pack, a battering ram for another day. He produces a box of matches instead. “It’s best to take them all out at once.”

You speak up. “But Vox just-”

“I know.” Shu’s lips purse. “And I’m not going to throw them. Not until I know they’re all safe.”

You watch as Vox speared through a living corpse, then threw its remains on the ground. The zombies are centered inside the house, but the windows are all covered. The door stays open as he passes through the threshold, but you can’t see a trace of him left.

Ike stabs through a brain close to you and Shu. You see him heft himself up, and the traces of a permanent dead remain on the ground. The head is split open with precision, and the brain blooms out from the skull. It leaks pink nerves and black rot among the blood, like a disgusting flower.

He passes by you, dead set on his goal. “You’re not going, Reader.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“And don’t expect to.” Ike’s words are emotionless, but not cold. As much as he pushes away Vox, you know he cares for everyone in your group like brothers. He’s the least risky out of all six of you- after all, he’s tearing apart zombie brains without a complaint while you catch your breath and Shu stands watch.

You draw your climbing picks and follow him to the field of dead. “Let me help you.”

You feel useless just standing there, after all.

Though the task of confirmation is much calmer than fighting for your life, it’s still unenviable, and you have to admire how Ike distances himself seemingly so easily from it. You try not to look at their faces, but that’s just as impossible. After all, the brain is right between the eyes. That’s the worst part.

You made the mistake of looking into zombie eyes twice in your life.

The first was your first fight of the apocalypse; a zombie had you deadlocked in an aisle of an outdoors store, and only when it was within biting range did you drum up the courage to grab the first thing you saw- two fluorescent orange climbing picks, never used- and drive them into the writhing heart. You bolted then, too focused on escape than freezing, and those climbing picks proved themselves to be your best survival tool in combat and exploration.

The second was the first time you confirmed the dead, and those eyes, that face- skin and bone but youthful, blue bleeding through the iris like a cracked yolk, remains of eyeliner and mascara along her deteriorated features- she was a person, so young, so beautiful when she was alive, like she knew she had decades to go- sometimes you swear she’s the face you see at night when you remember how human and how simply unlucky this world is now. It’s simply unlucky, and being unlucky is simply brutal.

(You held back your tears when you bashed her brain in. Later that night you pulled your best friend Ike aside, and cried in mourning of a woman whose name you never learned. He didn’t complain then, either, and you only sobbed harder when you realized as much as he comforted you, he could never muster up the vulnerability to grieve himself.)

You club a pick into the forehead of the fresh, putrid dead. The other pries it open, and a third swipe pulverizes with finality.

It’s messy. When you drive your weapons into the skull there’s a crack of metal against bone, and a thin gush of blood that spurts out to your arms. Especially large openings reveal nodules of black rot spotted through the brain. If you focus, you can see the moist, moldy texture seep through the wrinkles of the brain, and if you were any less jaded it’d be enough to make you turn your head and hurl.

But the deed is done in only three stabs, and you cling onto that fact. The more mechanical the task is, the easier it is to drive yourself to just get it done. Club, pry, pulverize. Club, pry, pulverize.

You pass by one of Ike’s carvings as you move onto another body. His work is premeditated from habit; he usually does this deed while everyone else recuperates. A standard chef’s knife is his weapon of choice when he faces against zombies, but he keeps a cleaver sheathed to his side when he has the time to get precise. One good slash goes through bone. Bone sweeps through the brain, and the work is done, and he carries on to the next, messy on his mantle but clean in the cut.

There are only a few more bodies left untouched on the yard where you hear heavy steps on the grass and Shu’s voice cry out. “Luca!”

You and Ike snap up. Luca’s blond hair is matted to his face with blood and rot as Vox runs beside him. They look like they ran through a blender of decayed flesh, and considering the herd of dead inside the house, perhaps that isn’t so strange of a metaphor. Even as Luca sprints, he turns to pump shotgun lead to the predators when they get closer, and each corpse’s fall is punctuated by hot gunfire.

Shu calls out his name again frantically. The men return, and so do you and Ike, five missing one. “Luca, where’s Mysta?”

“It’s bloody,” Luca simply says. His breath is short, and he wipes at the mess of gore and hair on his forehead. All it accomplishes is smearing black and red together along his face and in a blotch along his arm.

“But where is he, I need to know!”

“And it’s so much.” He trails off. He stares into the side of the townhouse and beyond the distance. Strapped to his back is his go-to weapon, a baseball bat littered with nails, each with residue dripping off the spikes from freshly killed zombies. “There’s a lot. Oh, I’m feeling kind of- kind of cold.”

“He’s in shock,” Ike says. He takes Luca’s hand in his, but Luca doesn’t even react. “Oh, Luca. What happened?”

“Kind of a lot?”

“Where’s Mysta?”

“He…” Luca’s eyes dart to the center of the townhouse. “He’s stuck, because of me, isn’t he?”

“Alright, lay off the man.” Vox intervenes. “We’re done asking questions. Shu. Your matches. Light it up.”

“What?!” Shu screams at Vox. You’ve heard him yell, but never once have you heard him scream. Especially not with Vox sounding so detached. “No, are you crazy? Mysta is in there!”

“Light it up, Shu-“

“I said, no! No! No way, not a- not a fucking chance!”

“Shu, listen to me!” Vox thunders. “I’m sorry, but Mysta is gone.”

Shu stands his ground. His features are tense, and his ultraviolet eyes burn holes through the earth. “Not a fucking chance.”

“Mysta is gone,” Vox insists, and you hear his bassy voice break even lower. “I saw it myself.”

“He is not.”

“It was too overrun, it’s miraculous Luca even got out.”

“Mysta,” Luca says, and closes his eyes. Ike holds him upright and rubs his arm, as comforting as he possibly can in the worst situation, as much as possible when his own face is just as distraught as everyone else.

“And I wish with everything that I have that I could’ve gotten him out,” Vox continues, more of his own justification than anyone else. “And I wish I was just a little faster, and that they were a little further away, and, God, that he wasn’t trapped, but he was, and I wasn’t fast enough, I wasn’t close enough…”

Shu is murmuring his own protests to himself at this point, and feeling the pit in your stomach yourself, you reach to hold his hand. He jerks away like you’re made of lava. You feel ill. “You’re lying to me.”

“And he got bit, and he knew that meant death. And he ran, ran upstairs, to draw them away from us, and there were more, and he knew, he knew, he knew he was dead but we weren’t.”

Luca lets his head fall on Ike’s chest. Ike becomes his crutch, and holds him. “Mysta.”

“His distraction saved Luca’s life. And mine if I was slow.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He was a hero,” Vox says.

“Stop.” Shu’s eyes shut. He looks like stone about to break, paralyzed in denial as the proper grief is setting in. His hands dive and clasp around yours. He’s trembling. You squeeze back. “Don’t talk about him like he’s dead.”

“He was a hero, and our brother, and the sun. Please don’t devalue his sacrifice like that.”

“Oh my god.” Ike interrupts, and his face is paler than the dead. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Luca, don’t look.”

With one hand, he buries Luca’s head into the fabric of his mantle, and with the other, he points to the tallest point of the townhouse.

You crane your neck up and squint. The townhouse has one window peeking out from the room along one small wall. When you recognize the shapes through the window your legs nearly give out. Startling, saturated, unadulterated horror grips you. You see his hat.

“He’s still alive,” you whisper. “Or he rose. But he’s still surrounded.”

With revived desperation Vox grasps Shu by the shoulders. “Don’t devalue his sacrifice, Shu, you know better than anyone he never wanted to fall victim to that curse. Let him and the rest of the zombies pass on properly, like a hero should. Light the match, please. Please.”

You absorb the chaos as if you weren’t there. You’re detached. Nothing feels real, not even as Ike strokes Luca’s hair, distressed and staring at the window, while Luca is just as distanced as you are. Vox’s heroic resolve shattered as he recounted Mysta’s last moments, and Shu, the smart one out of your group, can’t even function anymore. You knew everyone considered themselves each other’s family, but Shu and Mysta were especially close, and it tears you apart to watch Shu finally grasp the terror of the townhouse ambush.

Shu lets go of your hands to cover his face. Through the gaps between bloodstained gloves, you can see the sparkle of tears. He’s crying. “This isn’t possible.”

“Do the right thing,” you say. “Do what he would’ve wanted.”

Shu stands so still. He looks up to the sky, as if it could all go back just by an hour. The clouds just kept rolling.

He picks up a bottle and lights a match.

“This can’t be happening.” A teardrop nearly flicks out the match, but he gathers his strength, and places it by the newspaper wick. The paper flares alive in caution orange.

Shu breathes in. You see his face is scrunched up from crying even as he tries to aim, and it’s like he’s aged years in a matter of minutes. His face has never truly been clean of dirt or gore in weeks, just like the rest of you, but even under the orange fire his eyes go dull. There’s weight under his eyelids, and his mouth is forced into a tight, shaky frown as he exhales.

“I’m so sorry.” Even when it was a zombie Shu always apologized before killing. He treats it as a blessing of what they once were. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry it had to be this way.”

Shu throws the molotov.

You lose track of Mysta’s silhouette as the townhouse goes up in flames.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

The death of Mysta Rias was the death of the sun, and the world has been even drearier than the desolate land would have you think.

Everyone lives on edge frostily. It’s barely been a month since he passed, but the wound hesitates to close.

Ike is maybe the best adapted to your band of six now as five, but even then you can tell he’s not the same. He’s a champion of reservation. Every sweep of his knives into dead flesh are purposeful, every word spoken is calculated.

You think back on that night you cried in Ike’s arms the first time you confirmed the dead. You still haven’t seen him cry. Strange, since he was the type to get emotional at sappy movies and video games before the first outbreak. You’re worried, but he insists he can keep it together. To be fair, he’s doing an excellent job at not having a conniption, but the way that he acts so much more emotionally distant isn’t exactly inspiring confidence either.

But Vox, for all he puffs himself up about making sure no man gets left behind and all that heroic junk, hesitates far more than his honed swordsmanship would have you think now that Mysta’s gone. It hasn’t gotten in the way of surviving yet, but you have to wonder when it will. He’s gotten indecisive and requires time to think- great for planning, not so much for a live-or-die fight.

Luca’s the one that surprises you. You wouldn’t go so far as to call him happy when your band of friends started roaming the country together, but he was good natured, and was the first to pick himself up from a bad scrape. He had a sly, sideways curve to his lips whenever he laughed, but it’s been so long since you’ve heard it that you’re starting to forget the way his skin curves into smile lines.

He doesn’t smile at all, really. As optimistic Luca was, it was no secret Mysta was the other half of the laughter in your group, and now that Mysta was gone the morale was as well. Luca keeps up his positive attitude as much as he can but it’s rare, and it’s quiet when you see it.

You notice whenever someone lights the campfire, he’s never around to watch it, and no one makes him do it. You don’t think anyone’s ever talked about it out loud, nor has he ever let himself show it. But when he turns around to feel the warmth, Vox is always to his front, blocking off the bright blazes, and sits by him while he cooks game. You have a theory Vox hasn’t given up his hero complex yet, but for as tense as he gets by the fire Luca hasn’t had a breakdown yet either. Unless things change, you won’t bring it up. Your group has never experienced a loss quite like this in the zombie apocalypse, and all things considered, for as awful as the morale it could be much, much worse.

Speaking of much worse, Shu…

He was a wreck when Mysta passed away, and that’s putting it lightly. When you ran from the remains of the burning townhouse and into a forest, your footfalls were punctuated by Shu’s shortened breaths, and he held back hiccups as you left Mysta behind. By the time Vox figured you were safe from the horde and Ike’s feet gave out from exhaustion, Shu’s eyes were shut tight in disbelief.

You barely uttered a word to him before he fell back into sobs, and when you offered a hand he threw himself to you. It was disorienting. You always considered Shu the face of serenity and restraint even in your lives before the apocalypse, and after the outbreak he was always the one that could find the best path to follow for the greater good of all six of you. But now there were only five, and the grief was fresh.

But Shu howled. He clawed himself against your chest in inconsolable wails, and his face was contorted, sore and raw red in splotches of unmuted primality, nearly unrecognizable. There was an animal in your arms. Agonized.

“It’s not possible,” he heaved. His articulation was lost in his eruption. “It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be!”

You didn’t have any words to say, and clearly Shu didn’t either. He howled again as his bestial hands clutched around your arm. Nails dug through his gloves and into your skin, and if he clutched you any tighter he’d tear the flesh off the bone straight, a creature of despair. Screaming and howling, and soon enough he was choking on his own spit and the block of mourning in his throat, some ugly peals of tears and snot, and the remains of rot on his hands and blood against the hollows of his ghastly cheek; the ash left in his lungs and the smoke that lingered in his hair, and the flames that licked through his fingers and inside the bottle and outside the glass; the blazes that ate through the wood of the house, the very same hue as his brother’s favorite shirts, his hat, flickering a cycle of brightness and color and roiling heat until he knew the fire had swallowed up what remained of Mysta.

Shu had no choice but to scream. When his throat took away that privilege he mustered up what he could of his vocal chords and churned. All his mouth went dry but he still smacked his tongue against his gums and huffed out seethings and surges of thin breath through gritted teeth, more akin to wheezing than anything else he’d howled but the pure distress gone untouched.

He eventually exhaled himself into an uneasy sleep, but even in sleep his face was still struck with suffering. Rest was more like a pause to a realized horror than it was a reprieve. You and Ike cleaned him up and laid him sideways on the ground for the night- after all, it had been an awful day, and as the moon rose in the sky you know you wouldn’t be getting anywhere after the horrible events, much less with an unconscious Shu.

Luca spent the rest of his day detached from his own experience, even after the shock wore off. When Shu’s composure broke, Vox had attended to Luca, and they quietly wept together while Shu bawled. By the time Shu began to rest, Luca looked into the ground, water bottle in hand.

Vox approached you while Ike started a fire and prepared some rations for the rest of the group. “He’s not taking things awfully, but I’m concerned for him,” he said. “Luca, I mean.”

“I know you mean Luca,” you responded. You couldn’t hide your own exhaustion from the day either.

“As much as I hate to say it, Shu freaking out was to be expected. He and- and Mysta- those two- they were so close. And Luca, too. I thought he would freak out like Shu, but hell, Reader, I cried more than him. I know I get emotional and he’s better at keeping it down than me, but…”

Vox’s eyelids fluttered as he looked up at the dark sky. His eyes were red. “I’m just concerned, that’s all. It’s not like him.”

“Well, living without-” Your exhaustion dragged down your sentence before you could finish it. You thought you were well-adjusted to the death, but your voice caught before you could utter his name. You cleared your throat. “Living like this. There’s going to be a lot of weird changes, and everyone mourns differently.”

“I suppose you’re right.” But Vox didn’t look too pleased to hear that. “We need to protect him.”

“He does plenty of protecting himself. And we look out for each other regardless.”

“Then we should look out for him especially.”

“Of course. I don’t want him to get overexerted.”

“And let’s tap out of any interaction if we can, including looting. Last thing we need is to get into another big fight with the zombies, or worse yet, other survivors.”

“Avoiding fights has always been our M.O.” A chilled breeze ran through the forest. Vox fiddled with his haori. You stared right through him. “Sorry if this comes across as weird. But do you really think laying low is a good idea?”

“It’s dangerous to let anything interfere with us.”

“We’re in the zombie apocalypse, Vox, everything is dangerous. It’s not like I can just wave a wand and poof, we’re immune from the plague. Besides, we’re just two out of s- out of five. We’ll figure it out when it’s not so late, and Luca and Shu are in working condition.” You squinted. “Hey. Enough about them for a second. Has anyone ever asked you if you’re okay, Vox?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Is now. How are you holding up?”

“What, do you want me to lie to your face? No one’s doing well.” He averted his eyes, and you knew he was averting the question. “I could ask you the same thing. Shu was intense.”

“Tired,” you said. “Just plain tired. I don’t even think I have the energy to properly grieve.” And just like the man standing before you, you averted your eyes as well. “I don’t think I want to either. I don’t know. I miss him a lot, but I don’t have the time to miss him. Not when the apocalypse is literally unfolding in front of us and there’s people taking the brunt of the loss way harder than I am. I wish I could give him the remembrance he deserves.”

Vox nodded slowly. He didn’t say anything in response, and the silence made you feel like you aged hundreds of years in his presence.

“You’re very observant, Reader,” he finally said. “And you spend a lot of time making your own conclusions before you act. That’s smart. But knowing too much prevents you from action, full stop.”

Campfire smoke curls around the chilly air and by Vox’s face. His head was still angled up to look at the sky, and the orange glow against his sharp features weathered him into a dreary oil painting. There was a gash between his cheek and ear where a tree branch hooked him while he evaded a zombie’s grapple, and the light illuminated the soft pink flesh exposed under the cut of skin. The corner of the gash met his thoughtful frown. “Every moment of life teaches you something. I’m wondering when it’ll be too much and we simply can’t go on the way we used to.”

“Might be soon.”

“Today definitely sped it along.”

The fire crackled. You and Vox sat there unmoving, too focused on the blaze and how controlled it was compared to the townhouse.

Even as the tinder burns, your thoughts were still so awry now that the group got smaller. Vox had a point about Luca. You needed to keep an eye out on him in case he’s putting on a brave front. Even then, you didn’t like how Vox deflected your concern, but prodding him would only make it worse, especially when the loss was so fresh.

Your thoughts drifted to Ike, and how you haven’t managed to share a word with him at all since the townhouse burning. He hasn’t cried, you recall, not a single time since the first outbreak. You admired his composure but now that Vox admitted his own fears for the others (and neglected to tell you the ones about himself), you can’t help the unease that settled into your stomach. What were his thoughts like? Everything went off the rails whenever you tried to collect yourself, but if Ike was able to keep it all under wraps, then his mind must be a storm.

Speak of the devil. Ike hands Luca a small can of beans, but the blond stayed by his lonesome. Your best friend took the empty seat beside you, and gives you and Vox your dinner.

You thanked him, and after savoring what little you had of your portion, you asked how he’s doing.

“Just gotta get through another day,” Ike responded.

Then he tipped the last of his beans into his mouth and stared at the fire, just as you did after talking with Vox. He was unreadable as ever, but the only thing you could glean from him with confidence is that he had just as much on his mind as you thought. Maybe even more.

You wished he would just tell you.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

But grass grows over graves, and even if Mysta didn’t have a proper send off, time waits for no one.

Once Shu woke up, his face was a mess of bleariness and exhaustion. Something in his bright eyes froze over during the night. Amethyst faded to plastic.

“We’ll keep moving,” he declared, and his voice chilled you to the core. He called out the order as a leader, not a friend, without the care or delicacy he always granted to your group. His emotion died with Mysta.

(And you saw Vox ready himself to refute, but once he met those purple eyes filled with something unearthly, he shank under Shu’s presence.)

Days pass. All of them are spent on the road. The group spends as little time resting as possible just to get a few extra miles out to your next destination.

Shu and Luca say it’s to get away, but they end the sentence differently. Shu says to get away from the zombies. Luca doesn’t finish his thought at all.

It’s no surprise that Vox opposes it. The more distance between the group and the townhouse, the more he speaks his mind.

But Shu is determined to go further, just as much as Vox is convinced everyone needs to lay low.

And in all the time you’ve known these men, you’ve never seen any of them fight against one another quite like this. Vox always concedes, but not before Shu spits venom and he flings it right back. Their words are always about the plan, their future, where the group is going and why don’t they wait out the zombies instead of these hourly skirmishes on the road; but everyone can tell there’s more lying in subtext than the literal argument. You’ve seen the way Vox grits his teeth and musters up his courage whenever he’s about to tell Shu off, and you know that disgusted glare Shu gives Vox whenever he brings up hiding from the zombies.

Ike usually ends up being the one to break up their fights. One dismal evening while he lectured them both about teamwork and other platitudes, you and Luca sat next to each other. He’s a big guy, but he’s lost a lot of weight from rationing, and his expression looks like an abandoned dog more often than not these days.

He talks quietly, but plainly. “Shu hates me, doesn’t he?”

“What?” The bluntness startles you. “Luca, listen to yourself. He could never.”

“He could.”

“He wouldn’t,” you insist. “He’s gone through a lot, and he’s not taking it well, but I know it’s always because he wants to protect you. All of us.”

“So is Vox. But he just shuts him down without a thought. You ever wonder why, Reader?”

“To get away from the zombies,” you recite. That’s always his reasoning. Staying put in one place just means more time for zombies to gather at the scent of the living.

“So would finding a secure shelter, like how Vox says.” Luca sits with his knees close to his chest, and watches from a distance at the quelled fight. Vox says something, and you can see Shu’s face contort even though you can’t hear what he says. “But he doesn’t even listen to him. He doesn’t even listen to you, Reader, when you try to break it up.” He holds his legs closer to himself. “I don’t know if he’s ever listened to me. Or anyone.”

“He would if you told him you feel like that. He’d understand.”

“Would he really?” You nearly answer that before you realize the question is rhetorical. “You’ve got eyes, Reader. Be attentive like how I know you always are and look at how he looks at us. Me and Vox.”

You try to follow Luca’s request but Ike is speaking, and Shu’s eyes close.

He elaborates. “It’s not a nice look.”

“He’s stressed.”

“Then why doesn’t he ever look at you like that? Or even better, why does he listen to Ike only, and how come it never seems to stick?”

“He’s going through a lot.”

“We all are.”

Across the camp, you watch Ike run a hand through his hair. Shu is still talking, and Vox sighs.

“I think he blames us.”

You grab Luca’s arm. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s obvious anyways.”

“Because that’s our friend.”

“He hasn’t acted like one for a long time.”

“Because he’s lost so much.”

“We were all friends,” Luca snaps. “We lost just as much. Hell! I was in the house! We were together! And then we got separated, and unlike someone Vox actually tried to help him out until- and I should’ve- we saw him get bit, and I couldn’t- I just, I-”

Luca shuts himself up. Your hand falls from his arm to his palm and squeezes. No life returns your gesture.

You sit in the stagnant silence.

“I’m sorry.” Luca lowers his head. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Get it off your chest, Luca. I won’t hurt you.”

“No, I don’t think I should.” He unwraps his legs, and stands up from the ground beside you. “I’m not going to say it and be an awful friend, even if he’s acting like one.”

Before you could ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, Luca already turned his back, and you sat alone from the argument as he walked away from everything.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Despite all their bickering, Shu and Vox lead the group through travel. It’s more likely that the bickering is the exact reason why. The fire iron and rebar push aside the greenery, until Vox stops with his rebar casting the brush aside. “Fucking finally.”

You catch up and look across the hill. Buildings. This used to be a small rest town in a clearing between the hills before the outbreak, but now the bright signs are dimmed out and dirtied. Not a soul lurks in the abandoned town, including the dead.

“We’re not stopping,” Shu says.

“Piss off, Shu. I’m tired.”

“You’re never going to be well-rested.”

“Then how does safe sound?”

“Not possible no matter where you go.”

“But safer than on the road-”

“Guys,” Ike interrupts. “Quit acting like toddlers.”

Vox pouts and Shu squints. None of the three want to get the next word in.

So you speak up instead. “We’re running out of supplies. If we don’t find any more food soon, then we won’t even be able to continue on the road.”

“Reader has a point,” Ike agrees.

Shu’s expression sours. “Fine. We’ll look around, but make it quick. Camping out here is a great way to get robbed.”

“Then we’ll move together and keep watch for one another,” Vox declares, and he smiles. “Welcome to the correct side, Reader, Ike. It’s good to have you on board.”

Ike rolls his eyes. “Don’t drag me into your petty fights.” You fight the urge to quip he’s already in the mess as the mediator.

But the group traverses the hills and enters the remains of the town. The ground is littered with garbage strewn about in the haste for its citizens to flee town- or for the ill-fated, become the corpses dragging along the cement.

The zombies here shamble along independent from one another. That’s the best you could ask for. The only consistent thing about zombie behavior is their danger when in swarms. Alone, they’re nothing but fetid flesh barely clinging onto the skeleton, ready to fall into a hundred pieces at one strike, but when accompanied by others? Fodder makes up for each others’ weaknesses, and no matter how competent or skilled you are, one human is nothing to a crowd of zombies on the warpath.

The zombies of this town haven’t synced up with one another, and you’d like to keep it that way. While on the road, you’ve had plenty of skirmishes with small groups of zombies, but the last time your band faced off against a proper herd, you lost one.

A single zombie clambers to the front of your group. You hear metal against fabric as Ike pulls out his cleaver from its sheath, ready to do the deed, but before he can advance Shu already has his fire poker in his hands and the business end driven through the eyes of the zombie. He twists, assuring the brain is too punctured to allow the body to rise again, and the poker is back at rest. He barely even apologizes to the body as everyone trudges on.

Behind his back, Ike resheathes his weapon. He squints through his glasses, and you can read the confusion between his green eyes. Ike doesn’t meet your glance, but his expression is welcome, as unfortunate as it is. At least you’re not the only one that noticed how out of character Shu has been lately. You’re getting a sinking feeling about him.

However, the moment passes as soon as it appeared, and you and the rest of your friends rove onwards until you come across a set of stairs erring into the earth, surrounded by a dirtied glass entrance.

“Who would’ve thought?” You wonder aloud. “I never would’ve guessed this little town had a subway system.”

Vox raises his hand along the cool glass. “This could be good. The entrance is camouflage pretty well considering the damage of this town, and there might be some preserved food in vending machines. All we need to do is break ‘em.”

“And if there isn’t any food, it’s still a big area,” Ike adds. “Plenty of space and a roof over our heads.”

Luca looks down the staircase. It’s dark, but not unnavigable. The edges of the sidewalk are lined with yellow paint stripes, and features small lights along the walls from a backup generator, most likely. “It’s a good hiding place,” he says.

Luckily for everyone, Shu can already tell he’s defeated, and doesn’t put up much of a fight before you all descend down the stairs.

Not even ten minutes later Luca found a vending machine and smashed it apart with his spiked bat. Vox unwrapped a pack of Oreos with a smug smile.

The subway was no longer in operation and the trains themselves were abandoned, but you found a sign with a map of the station. The subway connected the major areas of the town together, and could be used as secret passages through the ruins.

And most interesting, there were even less zombies underground than under the sun.

“I wonder if the stairs confused them?” Luca says to himself. “Surely a few of them figured it out, since we killed some since we entered the subway, but it might be too complex for herds to come through. Or the architecture itself is confusing.”

You weren’t about to question it. This was one of the most peaceful environments you’ve entered since the outbreak, and there was no way you would ignore the moment to catch your breath, even if you can still cut through the tension with a knife.

You enter first watch with the drifting bond between everyone on your mind, and when Ike relieves you for his watch, you fall asleep in record time.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

An arm jostles you awake. “Reader. Wake up, zombies.”

You curse, albeit a little groggily, but in a flash you’re on your feet. You thumb under your sleeping pad and grab your climbing picks. “I thought we were safe?”

“Not at all.” Your eyesight adjusts after you start walking, but you can already recognize the voice as Ike. Out of the corner of your eye you can spot Shu trying to shake Luca awake, and Vox gathering everyone’s things together. “They’re flooding in fast. Herds of them. Like they’re all on the same wavelength.”

“Like the townhouse.”

It dawns on you and you say it without thinking. Ike’s shoulders freeze over. “Don’t say that. Not so loudly.”

“Fine. What do you need me to do?”

“Get your things together. They’re not here yet, but they will be soon, around the corner we came.”

Vox approaches halfway through zipping a backpack together. “We should take the next right corridor. I remember that leads to a different exit.”

“You sure it’s not the same one the zombies are coming in through?” You ask.

“Positive.”

“We need to stay ahead of the herd,” Shu said, Luca in tow. “No fighting unless absolutely necessary. If we get started now we should be able to get away without overexerting ourselves. Ready?”

No words need to be exchanged. You leave the clearing just as you found it.

A collected groan follows behind you, and a chill runs down your spine. You’ve never heard so many zombies, and never so man all in harmony. The moans arrange together in the cavernous halls, bouncing off the cement and down the station.

The urgency rises once the cries grow closer. Vox breaks out in a run, then Luca, and Shu behind him.

“Right,” Vox calls, and dives at the turn. A zombie greets him. He drives his rebar into its head and flings it away without a second thought like a lancer.

The zombie smashes against a sight with arrows to different stations. Ike swerves out of the way. “Fork ahead, where now?”

“Right? I mean-” He goes one way to view a sign, then sprints the other. “Straight! Straight!”

The dead sing. You can’t think to look back but the smell of rot is suffocating.

Your foot falls under the concrete ground in time with your family, and in time with the stumbling zombies approaching faster than you’ve ever felt before.

Luca halts in his tracks, and you thump against his back. Your mouth parts to speak but your eyes fall upon the exit.

Or rather, the lack of exit.

Boulders of broken concrete hide the stairwell from daylight.

Hot breath strangles you, and you turn with your picks in hand. Swathes of the dead are fixated on your group.

Ike runs straight-on to the choir. You scream out as one reaches for him before he turns at the last fork in the road.

You cut your scream off halfway when you follow him without a second thought.

A hand covered in dirt and mold grasps against the sleeve of your jacket. You swivel and sink your pick into the limb, and the wrist pops off under your blade. The hand goes limp and falls from the fabric.

You hear footsteps behind you, and when Luca speaks up you’re full of relief even if only for a moment. “What now?”

“Just run,” You say back, more of a guess than an order.

Shu drifts in front of you. “Where are we?”

“Give me a moment, I’m trying to think!”

“We don’t have time, Vox!”

“I know, Shu, shut up!”

“Going left!” Ike shouts, and you all move without question.

But you realize only after the zombies cut away the turn that the station turns more decrepit on this side. The tunnels are lined with debris and the floor crumbles away along the painted stripes.

And before you can find a new route, you see a puff of dust from the ceiling.

“The roof!” You shout. You’re gasping to breathe now, and your words stumble upon the exhale.

Shu’s eyes roll up to the flickering light, and you both see the elongated crack above your heads. It’s been in decay for years. How unlucky. How simply, brutally, lethally unlucky.

“Hurry!” He pleads. He’s at the front of the pack, followed by Vox and Luca alongside each other. Ike trails behind you.

The crack in the roof follows your every footstep even as ancient instinct kicks in. Adrenaline shoots through your veins and pushes you forward, accompanied by bits of debris tangling in your hair. The flooring turns from concrete to tile, and with the dirtied mosaic comes a glimmer of hope. Surely you must be going the right way.

The zombies’ cries are loud, but the squeak of your shoe against the tiles is louder. There must be something beyond.

But the ceiling splintering out is the loudest of all.

It all happens at once:

The way that Shu turns at the sound and can’t even get one of his own out before he sees your face-

The powdered cement turning to hail in the blink of an eye-

Your war cry through gritted teeth as you launch off, the fastest you’ve ever run before-

A knife unsheathed in in warmth and frigidity in your midst-

Luca, hated, blamed, petrified.

Your brain catches up through the curtain of scrap. It’s all because of Luca. Even at his most vulnerable, you’ve never thought of him as weak. Nonetheless, his eyes are dead purple crusted against his ghost-white face, and his lips force open while a vein along his neck strains to scream out your name, but he lets out just one small, throaty heave. A miserable noise.

It silences you.

You know it, and he does too. A chunk of ceiling drops mere inches from your last step. Vox approaches, calls out your name before he’s even comprehended the truth before him. You see the dark in his pale eyes tighten into a thin reptilian pupil and he reaches out in desperation.

The last of the ceiling shatters. A broken crag hammers into his palm instead. All you hear is Shu finally get out the scream before the remains of the underground roof shuts you out from your family.

The dead rises in volume. The glimmer of hope evaporates.

You force yourself against the barricade, but your weight is no match for the pile of rubble, and you watch the zombies shamble forward with your back against the wall. The only person you have left brushes plaster away from his eyes with one arm and brandishes a knife in the other.

Ike Eveland looks like hell alive.

It would almost be hilarious if you weren’t facing a subterranean grave. His face is dirtied with mud and rubble, and the legs of his trousers are matted in blood, rot, and dirt, but even then, this is still your best friend. The years you’ve spent alongside him blend together. His once-delicate hands now bear countless scars from travel and fights, but the contours of his face are recognizable even through the dust that mars his skin.

This is an unwinnable situation. You’re locked in checkmate, but Ike stands next to you.

You speak. “No more exits, right?”

Ike swipes at his face again, and the sleeve of his mantle comes back grayer than before. “I think we both know how this ends, Reader.”

“Yeah. I do.”

You both watch the leading zombie shuffle one foot forward, and each of its followers mimic the motion.

You notice Ike’s hand against his face out of the corner of your eye. Then how his shoulders jerk up for a moment, before setting themselves in place, stony and rigid.

His words break your heart. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Me neither.”

“I wish I could refuse all this- all this-”

He sniffs.

You move without thinking, and your mind is set. You wrap your arms around Ike.

He doesn’t even raise his hands. He just leans against your shoulder lifelessly, and lets the tears fall.

You rub his back as he hiccups into your shirt. How long has he been keeping this locked up? You ache for him and all his repression as his body goes limp against yours, the only thing keeping him standing.

“It’ll be okay.” That’s only a lie you can hope is the truth. “After all this. We’ll be okay. Shu and Vox and Luca, too. It’s a straight shot now that all the zombies are on us.”

“I’m going to miss you. All of you.”

“We’re together.”

“I’m sorry this is how it ends.”

“We still have options.”

He scoffs, even as his voice cracks through his quiet crying. “We’re trapped, Reader. There’s no way out.”

“We can still go out on our terms,” you say. You place your hand over his, the one that holds the knife. “Once we’re gone, the zombies are going to search for the other three.”

You squeeze one last time, and break away from the hug. You look upon the wave of dead flesh and rot, and draw your weapons. “I don’t want them to fight any more than they have to.”

“That’s hopeless.”

“It’s all I can do.”

“How are you so calm about this?”

“I’m not sure myself,” you admit. “It’s just that right now, I know I’m in a losing battle, and I accept that. But I don’t accept just laying down and dying like that.”

Your climbing picks cross together as you ready your eerily still mind. The blades scrape against each other. Metal sings. “And I just want to handle things calmly. After all this time, I learned that from you.”

“I don’t know how you can just remember things like that when we’re about to die.”

“I suppose I only die on my own terms. Hey.”

Ike stumbles to his feet. His knife is pointed to the ground. With a tranquility that evaded you all throughout the apocalypse, you steady his posture and guide the blade up to the dead beyond.

Your hand rises up his arm as his eyes close, and he silently murmurs to himself. You rub his shoulder. “You good?”

Ike exhales. His body lowers as he does, and with the breath comes a relaxed posture. This is the most at peace he’s been since the outbreak strangled the past world.

His eyelashes rise. Stormy green seas focus upon the staggering zombies.

“No.” Ike’s lip trembles. But he’s set on the zombies ahead, and a bolt of lightning crosses through his eyes. “But I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good man.”

“There’s about five of them leading the pack in that corner. We can pick them off and get some more breathing room.”

“Understood, Mr. Tactical.”

“Don’t call me that.” Under the exhaustion and the fear and the grittiness that comes with crying, you hear some of that classic, joking exasperation. You snicker to yourself, but the bittersweet smile remains.

“Mr. Eveland, then.” Your sight hones in on one zombie to your right. Its jaw slides apart as it follows the scent of the fresh living. “It’s been an honor, Ike.”

“Likewise, Reader, we’ll do what we can.”

“Let’s go.”

At your command, you both launch off, laser-focused on the individual dead.

Ike kicks a corpse down to knock it prone, then rakes his knife into the skull, and that’s all you can see before you throw yourself into the fray.

A one-on-one is simple. The zombie in front of you holds out a decrepit hand, perfect for your climbing pick to detach. It stumbles at the force and grants you an opening to clobber its brain in.

Rinse and repeat.

You dive between the steps of your latest kills to divert attention in time to slay another and stay moving. The trick is to use gravity to your advantage. They aren’t smart enough to stand their ground, and when they inevitably fold from the pressure of your picks, it’s like the zombies present themselves for you can finish the job.

The next target swipes at you. You jut one pick down upon the corpse and one more meets the brittle skull. This gives you enough time to duck under a lunge, sweep the leg, and aim to kill.

Something grabs your leg before you plunge the pick in. A body, dismembered from the waist up.

You yelp as yellow-black teeth rise, and frantically kick. The zombie holds on tight, but when you regain your senses, it doesn’t even see the blade incoming before the soft brain squashes in. Splatters of gore and bits of chunky nerve endings sprays against your frame while your sweat mixes in with the stench of rot and muddy mildew.

You step back to reposition. Ike’s clothing is covered in blackened blood, and you watch him plunge his knife into the chests of whatever unfortunate beast approaches next. He twists and yanks out, then goes in for a final blow between the eyes. He has a rhythm established despite the shades of rot against his mantle and shirt. It almost looks routine.

His next victim’s head rolls to the ground and breaks apart like porcelain. The brain is still in place, but the elongated gash through the nervous system confirms it would never rise again.

But one gets the jump on Ike while his back is turned, and he yells out as he thrashes. He swivels on his heel. The zombie maneuvers around even as his hands push back in a fierce gridlock. It snaps its broken jaws in Ike’s face as it snarls, and sinks its claws in. Gunk travels through its saliva.

“I got your back!” While Ike retreats, you trip the dead that crawls in front of you, and dash to his side. You drag your picks into the nape and back of the zombie’s head, and the creature goes limp just in time for Ike to shove it against the wall.

Ike catches his breath, brushes his hand against his arm, and meets your concerned look with a nod in silent gratitude. “They’re gaining on us,” he says. “You don’t need to kill all of them, disabling them is fine!”

“Got it!”

But even that is easier said than done. There are so many zombies in the herd, it looks like you haven’t even left a dent, and your space is getting limited. You hack through the edges of the herd and pray that your wild swipes cut through a limb or two.

“We’re losing turf!”

“Yeah, and I- gaah!”

Ike heaves. Your switch flips from ‘kill zombies’ to ‘check Ike’.

You follow his rasp to the corner of the room, where the ceiling crashed down. His back is pressed against the tiled wall, and he struggles to peel off his mantle.

You don’t even need to ask. His hand clutches his arm, and the chunk of flesh missing from it.

“Holy shit, Ike!” You can’t even mute yourself. Millions of warning bells go off in your head. The internals are coated in a dark membrane from where it meets the oxygen in the air, less red than it is purple, and his veins beside the mutilation rise in an ugly green.

You reach your hands out as you rip off a cut of fabric from your sleeve. “No. No, this can’t be happening-“

He slaps your hand away before you can begin to bandage the blood loss, and immediately crumples. “Don’t do that! It’s the virus!”

“There’s no way it spreads that fast-“

“It will. I don’t want you to have that.” Ike sucks in air through his teeth as he sinks to the floor.

“How did you even-“ you cut yourself off. “It was the zombie that jumped you, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even notice the pain when it happened.” He curses in his native language. The green in his veins rise, and branches sprout from the veins under his graying skin, like tree bark. The rapid decay of the outbreak. “Oh, that’s not good.”

The din of the battle behind you is entirely forgotten as you focus on the uneven flesh, the imprint of the bite upon his mangled arm, how nearly every level of the wound has turned to the same rot of the zombies.

Ike’s breathing is labored. The center of his shirt is soaked with the rot of those he killed, and rises and falls shakily.

He smacks his lips, and you’re struck with the realization that talking is a strain. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

You crouch by his side and nod.

“The sheath, on my belt,” he says. “Can you unfasten it?”

You comply without question even through your blurring eyes. I can’t refuse a request from a dead man, you think, and then the weight of your thought slams you.

Ike’s unscathed hand rises from the wound, coated in slick purple gore, and brushes against the handles of his knives. The membrane pools together into beads along the handle. His fingers stop at the last slot in his sheath, and the tip of the cleaver is dyed in the beginnings of the rot.

You think you’re about to vomit your heart out.

“No.” Your voice wavers. “No. No, I can’t do this.”

“You can,” Ike comforts you, and you feel even more like trash. You should be the one comforting him instead. “I trust you.”

And that’s what gets the tears to spill out from your eyelashes. “But I can’t kill you.”

“You said it best earlier. Dying on your own terms, right?”

“But I can’t kill you.”

“I don't want to be one of them,” he admits. “Look around, Reader, we’re surrounded, and we both know there’s no way out. And being one of them, it’s unnatural. It’s just messed up. If I’m going to die, I want to know I’m at rest. None of this- whatever all this is.”

His head lolls to the side. “And I want to see Mysta again.”

The chorus of the dead accompanies Ike’s heavy breathing and your weeping. You are a helpless child.

“I’ll help you,” Ike adds. “I’ll tell you how I usually confirm the dead. You’re my best friend. I trust you.”

It sickens you.

You let out a puff of air as you draw your palm over your eyes. The gore across your face smears over with your tears.

You take the cleaver in your hands.

“Thank you.”

“You deserve better than this.”

“It’s the best we can do. I’m glad.”

“This is so fucked up.” You draw the cleaver with both hands, as if that would end the shaking. Even as you shut your eyes, you can’t get your resolve in place.

“The trick is to be fast,” Ike says, and it disgusts you at how easily he says it. It disgusts you even more when you know the decay is spreading as he speaks, all the way into his raspy voice. “It’s all in the wrist. That’s what keeps it precise instead of clumsy. It’s where all the force is. Don’t swing wide. Just center it where you want to hit. How are you doing?”

“Not good.” Your breathing deepens, a last-ditch effort to remain calm. “I’m scared.”

You force your eyes open. The world floods in white, then falls into the blurred grays of the subway station.

Ike is already so much worse for wear. The bite is entirely blackened, and the discolored skin stretches from his arm to his shoulder, creeping along what little you can see of his neck.

His eyelids are shut, gentle aside from the furrow in his brow.

“Me too.”

Even with his feigned nonchalance, there is so much sorrow laced between his words.

“I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll be safer,” Ike says, and even he doesn’t seem so convinced by it. “Thank you for everything. I’ll miss you too.”

“You’ll always be my best friend.”

You raise the cleaver.

“Please tell Mysta I’m thinking of him. We all are, always.”

“We’ll be watching.”

Ike’s head is lowered, but you still see his attempt at a smile.

You black out as you swing.

There is no memory left of his last moment. It’s all too much to bear.

You cover your face, because looking at him is simply- just- too- much. Blood mixes in with your eyelashes, and you taste metal on your lips.

You don’t even have the energy to scream, or cry, or do anything. You are a husk, and you do not hear Ike’s cleaver clatter to the floor. There is nothing.

Your body moves without your command. You step back, and even though you refuse to look, you know you’re backing away from Ike. Your heart hammers, and so do your limbs. It spreads in droves, this pressure of heartbreak, constricting you and squeezing you apart.

Daggers fall into your skin. You snap out of your stupor.

But once you identify the daggers as teeth, you wish you didn’t.

You tear your hands away from your face as a glob of rot (his rot, you realize, and you can’t even begin to wrap your head around that) flicks out in an arc. The hammering- it’s claws raking against your flesh and tearing you apart like meat.

While you accompanied Ike in his last moments, the outbreak stopped for no one, least of all you. You are no invulnerable main character. You blocked out the roaring chorus as he lay, but it continued outside of your little bubble, and with your back turned they absorbed the last of your free space for a perfect siege.

You veer your head away out of instinct when the teeth pull away, and takes a bite of muscle out with it. The pain is blinding hot- you finally regain your voice in time to screech, but it drowns out through the zombie moans.

A second set of jaws snaps you up. Already your head is spinning, and when you see the sinew from the corner of your vision you resist the urge to faint. If you take a look at the broken skin and extruding vine-veins again, you know you’re going to black out again, and never wake up.

You force your sight to anything else.

You make the mistake of looking into zombie eyes for the third time in your life.

But this time you don’t retain the memory, either. Because for as little time you have left, how could you live knowing that your best friend’s peaceful green eyes snapped open in terror in his final moment?

You choke out, and whether it’s from pain or grief or pure fear, you can’t even tell. Just that it all mixes together into a toxic blend, the poison of your undoing.

And to think, you had the gall to meet such a grisly end head-on minutes ago.

On the ground, next to his limp foot, the steel edge of Ike’s cleaver winks at you.

It’s all in the wrist, he told you, and your blood burns into dust. But Ike is gone, now, and for as horrified as his melted remains were, he was certainly watching your every move.

And the infection is unnatural, and climbs along your shoulder, and there is no agony in the world like this fate.

And you wanted to see Mysta again.

With the last of your strength you regain your legs, and kick off one zombie from your leg. It topples and gives you enough time to shake off another that has you grappled.

The weight shift combined with your blood loss makes you hit the ground hard, but you scrape at the floor nonetheless. You are so weak, and you struggle, so focused on the glint of the blade that you ignore your skin crack apart like mud in a drought.

You reach, bloodied and battered, and so close to rest.

The washed light shines off the cleaver. Its reflection teases you as a monster snatches your foot and send you back into the horde like a toy.

You emit your final scream, and that too dies as hundreds of hands hold you back. Your body and blood is swallowed by the herd of dead.

When you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, the dark in your mind rearranges to replicate the cleaver. Then it flattens, and you see the haunted remains of Ike Eveland between it.

The only sound left is teeth meeting bone.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

#ike eveland x reader #ike eveland #ike eveland angst #luca kaneshiro #mysta rias #shu yamino #vox akuma #luxiem x reader #luxiem #nijisanji x reader #luxiem angst #4402 writes #bsprites #STEALTH PROTOMEN REFERENCE BABEY #this is a bit clumsy but i'm glad it was over 10k words i wonder if saying so much is just my style now #how much of a coinky dink is it that i was binging luca's twd streams and a bunch of southern gothic music when i was writing this #i'll post the full au notes i had operating tomorrow i think

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dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies · 7 months

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I’m pretty sure I’m super late and I wasn’t tagged but I just wanted to do this!

rules: bold the ones that are true and tag 15 people to do it.

appearance. i’m over 5’5” // i wear glasses/contacts // i have blonde hair // i prefer loose clothing to tight clothing // i have one or more piercings // i have at least one tattoo // i have blue eyes // i have dyed or highlighted my hair // i have gotten plastic surgery // i have or had braces // i sunburn easily // i have freckles // i paint my nails // i typically wear make-up // i don’t often smile // i am pleased with how i look // i prefer nike to adidas // i wear baseball hats backwards

hobbies and talents. i play a sport // i can play an instrument // i am artistic // i know more than one language ( not sure if it counts but i can understand gujarati and Hindi and im learning French) // i have won a trophy in some sort of competition // i can cook or bake without a recipe // i know how to swim // i enjoy writing // i can do origami // i prefer movies to tv shows // i can execute a perfect somersault // i enjoy singing (doesn’t mean I’m good at it) // i could survive in the wild on my own // i have read a new book series this year // i enjoy spending time with friends // i travel during school or work breaks // i can do a handstand

relationship. i am in a relationship // i have been single for over a year // i have a crush // i have a best friend i have known for ten years // my parents are together // i have dated my best friend // i am adopted // my crush has confessed to me // i have a long distance relationship // i am an only child // i give advice to my friends // i have made an online friend // i met up with someone i have met online

aesthetics. i have heard the ocean in a conch shell // i have watched the sun rise // i enjoy rainy days // i have slept under the stars // i meditate outside // the sound of chirping calms me // i enjoy the smell of the beach // i know what snow tastes like // i listen to music to fall asleep // i enjoy thunderstorms // i enjoy cloud watching // i have attended a bonfire // i pay close attention to colours // i find mystery in the ocean // i enjoy hiking on nature paths // autumn is my favourite season

miscellaneous. i can fall asleep in a moving vehicle // i am the mom friend // i live by a certain quote // i like the smell of sharpies // i am involved in extracurricular activities // i enjoy Mexican food // i can drive a stick-shift // i believe in true love // i make up scenarios to fall asleep // i sing in the shower // i wish i lived in a video game // i have a canopy above my bed // i am multiracial // i am a redhead // i own at least three dogs

No pressure tags: (I couldn’t muster up 15 I’m sorryyyyy) :@astraeasparrow @literatureisdying @lalallorona @tellme-o-muse @leaskisses444 @zzzzzzzzzee and anyone else who wants to do it <3

#Soo sorry if any of you have already done it #tag game #:)

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allaganexarch · 2 months

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wip whenever ♥

thank you so much @thevikingwoman for the tag!!

i've been pretty busy/just barely not burned out so I haven't been able to write anything new recently BUT this is a perfect excuse to share more of original thing! this is a reasonable organizational system right

part 1 || part 2

sorryyyyy i am once again doing a cop out and saying anyone who wants to pls share your wips and tag me!

Although she knows it’s for nothing, Tamsin still tries her best to sneak back into the house with care. She imagines, perhaps fancifully, that Mrs. Burkow will take more kindly to the situation if she is awoken gently than if she starts out already angry with Tamsin.

Terror grips her heart afresh, however, when she sees a light coming from the sitting room, and knows full well that she did not leave it burning.

Tamsin leads the way around the corner to where the wall sconce burns a deceptive invitation. Mrs. Burkow is sitting in her usual chair with her knitting in her lap. The soft click-click-click of the needles might as well be the only sound in the world.

“All finished with your business?” she asks coldly.

“Mother—“ Tamsin tries.

“You did a fine job of it, too,” Mrs Burkow ignores her. “Must have taken you a long while to clean the kitchen up all nice so I’d wake up and think, ‘oh, what a good and grateful daughter I have.’ I do hope it didn’t interfere in your plans.”

For the second time in one night, Tamsin’s limbs begin to go numb with fear. “I didn’t mean…”

“Did you catch a glimpse of your precious witch, Tamsin?” Mrs. Burkow sneers. “Was it worth the trouble?”

“Shall I assume you are referring to me?” Althea speaks up.

Tamsin startles. The click-click-click of Mrs. Burkow’s needles comes to an abrupt halt.

Althea pulls back the hood of her heavy cloak. Even in the warm light from the sconce, she looks deathly pale, and this is only accentuated by the striking darkness of her hair. Her hair is so dark it is almost black, but the sconce’s light reveals its subtle highlights. She wears it in an old-fashioned style, a long, heavy plait that spills over her shoulder without the aid of the cloak’s hood. Her eyes are more blue than grey in this light, and her lips are drawn into a thin smile.

For the first time, Tamsin can fully appreciate the sharpness of Althea’s features, the cut of her jaw, the high cheekbones, the slightly hooked angle of her nose. Tamsin considers that Althea really does look like a witch, if one were to attempt to approximate such a fantasy. At the moment, Tamsin can’t decide whether this is a good thing or a bad thing—namely, whether Althea’s looks alone will inspire fear or fury in Mrs. Burkow.

“And who might you be?” Mrs. Burkow asks. Her tone is somewhere between the false sweetness she affects with strangers and the barely-restrained hostility Tamsin knows best.

Althea affords her the same regal greeting she gave Tamsin. She brings a hand to her heart and curtseys low. “Keeper Althea Blackthorne, at your service.”

Mrs. Burkow stands slowly, as though entirely against her will. “Gods preserve us,” she murmurs. Her gaze flickers to Tamsin, cold accusation in her eyes. “What have you done, you stupid girl?”

Tamsin cowers on instinct. Althea doesn’t miss a beat, but she steps forward slightly, as though placing herself between Tamsin and Mrs. Burkow.

“I pray you’ll forgive the intrusion,” says Althea, as though the atmosphere were perfectly friendly, “particularly at this late hour, but I’m afraid the matter I have to discuss with you cannot wait even until morning.”

Mrs. Burkow laughs breathlessly. “And what matter could that possibly be?”

Althea inclines her head subtly, a lightning-fast and near-imperceptible observation. “Perhaps you’d like to sit down?” she suggests kindly. “This may come as quite a shock.”

But apparently Althea’s status as a witch prevails over Mrs. Burkow’s usual need to play at social nicety. “I’ll stay standing, and so will you, thank you very much,” she points an accusing finger. It is strange to notice that her hand is trembling. “Say what you have to say, if it’s so urgent.”

“Very well,” says Althea, unfazed. “Your Tamsin is possessed of the Gift. At least, that is the parlance I would use. Here in your Gods place, I expect you might call her a witch.”

Mrs. Burkow throws down her knitting. “You dare come into my house and speak such nonsense?” she blusters. “What proof do you have? What nerve!”

Althea holds out her hands, still unbothered by Mrs. Burkow’s display. “I mean no offense,” she says. “I only wish to demonstrate the urgency of this matter. Tamsin cannot stay here. I have seen with my own eyes what will become of her.”

“Horrid old bat!” Mrs. Burkow shrieks. She is trembling all over now. “You won’t do this to me! She has a future!” She jabs her finger in Tamsin’s direction. “She’ll be married to a nobleman on the weekend! You can’t do this to me!”

This, of all things, seems to surprise Althea. She turns to look at Tamsin. “Married?” she wonders. “Forgive me, but aren’t you a bit young?”

Again Tamsin gets the feeling she had when Althea first appeared before her in Teddy’s barn. Althea must be an angel, sent by the gods to save her from her miserable fate. If Tamsin is not dreaming, then this is the only other explanation.

Mrs. Burkow scoffs. “And how would you know? You come in here with your crooked ideas meaning to tear this town apart, and you want to claim you know best about everything? A fine trick. Seeking out a girl stupid enough to believe a word you say.”

Althea returns her attention to Mrs. Burkow. Her serene exterior remains undisrupted, but her words are carefully chosen. “I think I’ll have to insist that you not cast aspersions upon the intelligence of my student,” she says. “You’ll understand that such things can be most detrimental to the learning process, and there is so very much to learn, you see.”

Mrs Burkow laughs coldly. “Oh, I might’ve known. Sure, play the kindly savior if you must. But just you remember—“ and this she directs to Tamsin. “Remember who took you in off the streets. Remember who put a roof over your head, who fed and clothed and washed you. Remember who has always protected you from harm, always!”

Mrs. Burkow is angry, but there is a note of sorrow in her voice, too, and her eyes are shining with unshed tears. “You may not like it, Tamsin, but I am looking out for you. What do you know about this woman? Are you really going to throw your life away like this?”

Tamsin averts her gaze, so deeply ashamed that she thinks she might weep.

“Please, there’s no need for dramatics,” says Althea. “And frankly, there’s not much of a choice. The Gift will not be denied, not for long. If you are truly looking out for your daughter, you will see reason. Do you want to see her put to the flame?”

“Oh, you wretched thing!” Mrs. Burkow cries. “Who’s to say you’re even telling the truth at all? How can Tamsin be magical? She’s nothing! A nameless orphan left to die on a church doorstep. It’s cruel, filling her head with false ideas like this. The sooner she accepts who she is, the sooner she’ll see how good she has it.”

Tamsin can feel Althea’s eyes on her, and her shame only grows. She feels hot tears upon her cheeks and ducks her head low in a vain attempt to hide them. If this is a dream, she hopes she can finally wake up now. Of course she isn’t special. Of course she doesn’t have any kind of Gift. She knew this from the beginning. What could Althea possibly have to gain by humiliating her like this?

“Please,” Tamsin murmurs. “Please just go. Whatever you saw in me, it must have been a mistake. I don’t want to waste your time.”

“You heard the girl,” Mrs. Burkow crows.

Althea looks from Tamsin to Mrs. Burkow and back, quiet and contemplative.

“I assure you,” says Althea carefully, “my eyes do not deceive me. Tamsin has the Gift, make no mistake, and so my directive is clear. I cannot allow her to remain here.”

Tamsin looks up, stunned. Mrs. Burkow, too, is cowed into silence.

“She will come with me willingly, or she will come with me by force,” says Althea. “Obviously I would prefer the former.”

Mrs. Burkow lunges. Tamsin screams. But the confrontation is over before it begins. Althea curls her fingers, and Mrs. Burkow is suspended in just the same way as Teddy Page, as though held up by invisible ropes emanating from Althea’s hands.

“Likewise,” Althea continues, as though nothing at all had happened since last she spoke, “you may cooperate, or remain incapacitated until Tamsin is gone. I expect you would prefer the chance to say goodbye to your ward?”

Mrs. Burkow watches her with wide, furious eyes. But eventually, near-imperceptibly, she nods. Althea lets her go, and she crumbles to the floor.

“I’m so glad that’s settled,” says Althea lightly. She turns her attention to Tamsin. “Now, there isn’t much time for goodbyes, so I suggest you choose wisely. You won’t need much for the trip, and nearly everything will be provided for you once we reach the Academy. Pack as you please, but I beg your consideration. I’m afraid you’ll have to share my horse until we reach the next town.”

Tamsin glances uncertainly between Althea and Mrs. Burkow, who is still recovering on the floor. Everything is happening so fast, and she herself still hasn’t fully accepted the truth of Althea’s words.

“It really is true, then?” Tamsin asks her.

Mrs. Burkow speaks, her voice low and cruel. “Sell you into slavery, like as not, you stupid child.”

This, of all things, elicits a crack in Althea’s composure. She raises her eyebrows subtly, somewhat taken aback by Mrs. Burkow’s accusation. “I confess,” she says, “I hope you’ll be so kind as to regale me with the kinds of stories your people tell about the Memory-keepers.”

It feels like a joke. On any other day, perhaps Tamsin could have found it in her heart to laugh.

“Is there anyone you’ll want to say goodbye to before we set off?” Althea prompts her kindly. “The hour is late, but you’ll be gone a long time, and so I’m certain your friends will understand.”

Tamsin picks at her skirt self-consciously. Part of her wants to say no, that nobody will even miss her, that even Mrs. Burkow is only sour about losing her scullery maid. But if this really is happening, if she really is leaving, then there is one person she ought to talk to first.

“Well,” says Tamsin, “I suppose I’ll have to break off my engagement.”

Mrs. Burkow lets out a wail of genuine sorrow. “Oh, you wretched girl! You wretched, horrible thing! You’re happy to do it, aren’t you? You’re happy to do this to me!”

Althea glances in Mrs. Burkow’s direction. “Shall I give you two a moment alone?”

“No,” Tamsin replies quickly. Then, quietly, “Please don’t.”

She doesn’t know what will happen if Althea leaves. She cannot imagine what Mrs. Burkow will say. But more importantly, she fears that the second Althea slips from her sight, she will disappear forever, and Tamsin will be left here in her miserable reality, with nothing but a foolish dream for company.

Althea nods her understanding, and she keeps watch over Mrs. Burkow while Tamsin packs. Tamsin can hear Althea trying to comfort Mrs. Burkow, but of course everything she says only makes it worse. At one point, Mrs. Burkow starts complaining that Tamsin is stealing from her, to which Althea implores that she be reasonable, that surely a loving mother wouldn’t send her daughter out into the cold night air without so much as a jacket.

A part of Tamsin still twists uncomfortably each time Althea speaks. The idea that she is leaving this place, that it no longer matters how upset Mrs. Burkow might be, still seems unfathomable to Tamsin.

Still, there isn’t much for Tamsin to pack. There isn’t much she wants to take. She brushes out her hair and ties it back again, more to calm herself than anything. She puts on a pair of trousers under her skirt, remembering Althea mentioned a horse, and packs a change of clothes into her bag, along with a few things from the kitchen that will keep for a few days. She’s never been out of Godsplace, and has no idea how far the next town is, or what traveling actually entails.

“All set?” says Althea.

Mrs. Burkow has not worked her way up off the floor. Tamsin approaches, meaning to help her up.

“Don’t touch me, you wretched thing,” Mrs. Burkow spits.

Tamsin picks at the strap of her bag. She feels a little sorry for Mrs. Burkow, in spite of everything. “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” she asks quietly.

“Good riddance,” says Mrs. Burkow. “You’ll be lucky if you survive the night.”

Tamsin backs away, strangely hurt, even though it’s hardly the cruelest thing Mrs. Burkow has said this evening alone. “I suppose I’m all set, then,” she says, in the general direction of the floor.

Althea pats her shoulder gently, surprising Tamsin into looking up. But Althea is only urging her forward, and Tamsin is only too eager to take her leave of this place.

It’s gotten colder since they arrived, but Tamsin sucks in a deep breath, relishing the burn in her lungs.

“So,” says Althea, tucking her heavy braid back beneath the hood of her cloak, “where is this, ah…fiancé of yours?”

Tamsin remembers with sudden fondness what Althea had said earlier, and her spirits lift considerably. “It’s a bit of a walk, I’m afraid,” she says. “It’s not about the marriage, though, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just that we’re friends. I think he might be the only person who’ll even notice I’m gone.”

“It’s no matter either way,” says Althea. “If you lived somewhere a bit less…archaic, I could afford you more time. But I doubt your would-be assailant will keep his peace. If you’re accused of witchcraft, things could…escalate, shall we say.”

“You think I’d be put to the flame that quickly?” Tamsin asks, gripping the strap of her bag tightly.

“Oh, goodness, no!” says Althea. “I’d never allow it. But it would be best to avoid antagonizing the whole town all at once, don’t you think?”

Not for the first time this evening, Tamsin is stricken by a profound feeling of security. She knows she has no reason to trust Althea, and yet in the brief course of their acquaintance, Althea has done nothing but save her, over and over and over again.

“I owe you my thanks,” says Tamsin. “In fact, I think it’s a debt I can never really repay. I can’t help but feel you’ve saved me a hundred times over, just in this one night.”

Althea affords her a flash of that soft, subtle smile, but she seems otherwise largely unaffected by Tamsin’s outpouring of emotion. “Rest assured, you owe me no debt,” she says pleasantly. “It is nothing short of my sworn duty to seek out and aid young ladies possessed of the Gift on their journey to the Academy. If anything, I failed the young lady in your Town Square earlier today, and I am the one who owes a debt.”

Tamsin shivers involuntarily at the memory. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a young girl is still screaming. “I don’t think you should hold yourself responsible for that,” she says. “You’d go mad with grief if you tried.”

“I saw you in the Square,” says Althea. “The young man you were walking with, is that the one we’re visiting?”

“Mhm,” says Tamsin. “He’s from a noble family. That’s why Mrs. Burkow—I mean, my mother, was so upset, I think.”

“Forgive me if I belabor the issue, but are you not a bit young to be married off?” Althea wonders.

Tamsin almost laughs. “I’m grateful you said so, because it’s what I thought, too. It’s common for girls of noble birth to have their marriages arranged early, and then the wedding doesn’t happen until they’re sixteen or seventeen, but I’m a nobody. I never thought I’d have to worry about that.”

“So you’ve said,” says Althea thoughtfully. “You don’t know when you were born, then?”

Tamsin shrugs. “Sometime in the summer. That’s when the Burkows found me.”

“I see,” says Althea. “So, sixteen, then? Since the wedding was to be this weekend.”

“Oh. Yes, sixteen,” says Tamsin, embarrassed that she hadn’t understood Althea’s question more quickly. “Will I be…I mean, when do people usually…?”

“Usually sometime in the teen years, fifteen to sixteen being the most common,” says Althea.

“There’ll be others just starting, then?” Tamsin wonders hopefully.

Althea hesitates. “Yours is a…small class,” she says carefully.

“Oh,” Tamsin’s hopes deflate. “Is that…unusual?”

Another long pause. “Somewhat unusual, yes.”

When Althea does not elaborate, Tamsin decides to drop the issue for the moment. She can’t imagine why the number of girls starting at the Academy would be a sensitive subject, but then again, she knows next to nothing about Althea’s world. Perhaps there are any number of sensitive subjects she’ll have to learn to watch out for.

#exciting tag for writing things #personal #it's fun rereading this bc i wrote it in a fever dream several months ago so i've forgotten some stuff LOL #fresh and new content to my addled brain #maybe soon i can devote some more time to continuing it #but since i did it for nano there's a lot to draw from for sharing purposes

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