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cozage · 1 year

Note

Zoro, Sanji, Luffy, Law, and Ace with fem S/O with healing water powers. The catch is that whenever she uses those powers, she feels pain from the wounds she’s healing. And this isn’t a Devil Fruit ability. It’s sorta like water bending from Avatar.

A/N: I really debated on how to lay this one out, but I chose to have them find out about her power. If anyone wants a head canon follow up on how they act now that they know, send me an ask :) I maybe made this a bit too long, but those soft moments with each of these boys are my WEAKNESS. (Law may seem a little OOC but I truly believe that man gets tunnel vision when he sees you in pain)

Characters: F! reader x Zoro, Luffy, Sanji, Law, Ace

Cw: blood, pain, injuries, angst, all those fun things. Sanji’s contains slight spoilers for WCI

Total word count: 6.3k

The Pain of Healing

Zoro

Word count: 1.2k

“It’s only five more minutes until my Haki returns.” Luffy says between pants, trying to catch his breath.

“Then I have five minutes to help you. Sit down.”

Luffy collapsed onto the ground at your command, and you examined his body as he slept. It didn’t look good. His body was riddled with scrapes, scratches, bruises, and he was bleeding out from his side. Several minor injuries could be more painful than large ones, but Luffy had a mix of both. The best thing to do would be to focus on the large ones first, and if you have energy left, fix the small stuff as well.

You guided water out of your flask and started with the hole in his side. You were used to the pain that came with healing by now, but it still made you flinch every time you started. You had to grind your teeth together to keep from crying out, not wanting to wake Luffy. He needed rest, and you didn’t want him to see the repercussions of your decision to help heal him anyway.

After five minutes, you’ve taken all of the major injuries away from his body, and you managed to take a few small ones away from him as well. You wipe the tears from your eyes before you shake him awake.

“It’s time, Luffy. Wake up.” You put on the biggest fake smile you can muster before his eyes flick open.

“Aw man, that was the best nap in my entire life! I feel amazing!” You stay seated as he stands up, your body too riddled with pain to move.

“Go get them, Captain!” It hurts to even speak, but Luffy’s already up stretching, too hyped up to notice your exhaustion.

“Thanks for whatever you did to make me feel so great! Leave the rest to me!” Luffy calls back, bounding off to finish the fight.

Once he’s out of sight, you fold your head into your hands and weep. The pain was immeasurable, and every time you helped Luffy recover, you don’t understand how he’s still alive. You sit there for a long time, crying until there are no tears left. And then you hear cheers from the village nearby, signifying Luffy has won and your work paid off. Knowing that you helped him win makes you feel a little better, and you need to see everyone again.

You stand up, ready to go meet the rest of the crew, but your body seems to disagree with your movement. Your legs shake, and when you go to take a step, you can feel your body collapsing, falling to the ground. You brace for the impact of your worn body against the solid ground, too tired to do anything else.

It doesn’t come, though. Someone catches you as you stumble forward. Strong arms wrap around your back and your legs, scooping you up and pressing you into his bare chest. Zoro.

“Easy.” His expression is stone as he stares at you, but you can see worry underneath. “You gonna tell me what the hell you just did to Luffy?”

You avert your eyes from his gaze, running the tip of your finger along the scar on his chest. “I healed him.”

You can feel his body tense with your words. “That didn’t look like healing to me. And since when do you have a Devil fruit power anyway?”

You bite your lip nervously. Nobody had caught you healing someone before. It wasn’t something you flaunted, or even something you told people about. “It’s not a devil fruit power.”

“Woman, if you don’t tell me-” he breaks off mid sentence, and you look around for any sign of danger. But there’s nobody around besides the two of you. You risk a glance up at him, and you see his face is pained as he stares down at you with a form of understanding. “You took his pain from him, didn’t you?”

Your mouth falls open from shock. You’re not sure how Zoro was able to guess something so accurate after seeing your power one time. You nod, confirming his suspicions. “He’s got an incredibly high threshold for pain tolerance.”

“How are you still alive?” Zoro shakes you a little when he asks the question, which causes you to groan in pain. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll be more gentle. Do you want to sit? Stand?”

The thought of being upright makes you dizzy. “Can you just keep holding me for now?”

He nods, and returns to questioning you about your mysterious power instead. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Yeah.” It hurt to talk honestly, but you didn’t want to tell Zoro that.

“How often have you been doing this?”

“Only like three or four times for Luffy, I think.” You're certain it’s been more than that, but you can’t tell Zoro that right now.

“Three or four times?? For Luffy?” You can feel him trying to figure out the meaning behind your cryptic words.

“There’s been a few other people I’ve done it for too.”

“Have you done it for me?” He's scowling at you, like he already knows the answer you’re going to give and he's waiting to scold you for it.

“Maybe once or twice,” you lie, and you feel your cheeks burning. He squints at you, and you know you’ve been caught in the lie. But he says nothing, he just readjusts you in his arms to hold you closer.

He had been walking for a few minutes, and you had almost fallen asleep. He had managed to keep you mostly still while he walked through the destroyed city, and you were too tired to care if he was lost or not. “It’s a neat power,” he finally comments. “You gonna tell me more about it? Or do I need to keep asking questions?”

“Can I tell you later?” You mumble into his chest. Between the safety of Zoro’s arms, the warmth of the sun on your face, and the exhaustion that’s set in from all that pain, it's hard for you to stay conscious.

Zoro doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and you struggle to stay awake while you wait for an answer. He was never one for mindless chit chat, but you could tell that something was on his mind, so you decide to indulge him.

“It’s not a devil fruit. I was born with it,” You start, and you feel a heavy weight lift off your shoulders with those few words. You’re so relieved that you can finally tell someone about your secret now. “I was never supposed to let anyone see it being used. If the World Government knew…” You trail off, thinking of how the Navy would turn you into a weapon. You shutter at the thought, and continue on in your explanation.

“The power isn’t perfect, though. I feel the pain of whoever or whatever I heal. It’s not permanent, but if it’s too much for my body to handle at the moment, I might die. I’m really not sure, I’ve never tried to heal a fatal wound before.”

Zoro is looking off into the distance with a faraway look in his eye. “Just like Kuma.”

“Who?”

“Back on Thriller Bark we met a Marine named Kuma,” Zoro begins to explain, and you focus all your energy into listening to him. “He took all of Luffy’s pain and told me if we wanted to save Luffy, I had to take his pain upon myself. It was just after his big battle with the warlord Moria, and the pain…” he trailed off, and you knew he was reliving the moment in his mind.

“Does he know about your sacrifice?”

Your question brings him back to reality, and he looks down at you. He chuckles at your question, and bends over to kiss your forehead. “Does he know about yours?”

Sanji

Some light spoilers for WCI arc

Word Count: 1.2k

You didn’t realize that your ability was keeping Sanji up at night.

Anytime he had a cut, or a burn, or any other kind of injury, you waited for him to doze off before you pulled out some water and healed his hands. The injuries were never serious, and after a few times, you barely noticed the pain.

You didn’t mind, and you knew how much your boyfriend valued his hands. It was your silent act of love to him, something you wanted to give him but could never tell him about. One morning after you healed a bad burn, you found him sitting up in bed, staring at his hands.

“Is something wrong, Sanji dear?”

The cook was examining his hands thoroughly, flipping them over again and again. “I could’ve sworn I had a burn here yesterday.”

Your cheeks tinted at the thought of being found out. “Oh, well maybe you just have superhuman healing powers!” You laugh it off, trying your best to act natural.

“Yeah, maybe…” You could tell something was bothering him, but he didn't say anything further.

You caught him staring at his hands throughout the day, as if he was waiting for a bomb to explode. At dinner you noticed a particularly bad cut on the topside of his hand - a cut he must’ve gotten while chopping vegetables - and you made a note to heal it that night.

He stayed awake later than usual that night, and he seemed more wound up with anxiety than normal. You peppered his face with a few kisses, trying to get him to relax some.

“Sanji, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” He sighed, pulling you into his chest and laying down to finally get some sleep. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He fell asleep quickly with you pressed into him. His slow, even breaths signified he was finally unconscious, and you pulled out some water to cover his wound. It stung you a bit as his flesh stitched back together, and you let out a low hiss in pain, and you froze as Sanji stirred slightly in his sleep. This wound was deeper than his normal cuts and burns; he must’ve been really distracted when he hurt himself. He wasn’t usually so careless around knives, but you knew whatever was bothering him would be revealed when he was ready to talk to you about it.

With his wound healed and Sanji’s breath returning to normal, you curled back into place against him, and fell deep into sleep.

You woke to a string of curses falling out of Sanji’s mouth, his body tight and tense against yours.

“Hm? Sanji?” You rub the sleep from your eyes and open them to find him staring at his hands again. “Sanji, what’s wrong?”

“That’s impossible,” he mumbled, speaking mostly to himself. He looks panicked, staring down at the place where his cut was yesterday. “That’s not humanly possible.”

You feign innocence as you have in the past, but you can’t ignore the nervous look in his eyes. “What is it, Ji?”

“I had a cut here yesterday. It was deep.” His breathing quickened, and you could see that he was scared for some reason. “It couldn’t have healed overnight. It’s not…It can’t be…”

“I’m sure it’s just-”

“You don’t understand.” He cuts you off mid-sentence, something he’s never done before, and it takes you aback. He gets out of bed abruptly, his eyes never leaving his hand.

“Sanji?”

“I need to go. I need to get out of here.” He’s pacing the room now, his stress overflowing into the space between you.

“Go where? Sanji, calm down. Talk to me-”

“I can’t be here! I can’t endanger you! Or anyone else, for that matter!” His face is contorted with such pain you’ve never seen before. You don’t know what’s going on with your boyfriend, but his reaction to such a small cut is starting to scare you.

You jump out of bed and stride over to him. When you reach him, you clasp his face between your hands, forcing his eyes away from his hands and up to your eyes. His eyes are wide with pure fear, and his breathing is rapid and shallow. You can feel his body shaking as you hold him.

“Sanji.” You push down your own fear and speak to him in a soothing tone, trying to bring him back to you. “Talk to me.”

“I’m a monster, Y/N.” Tears fill his eyes, threatening to spill out as he speaks. “If my body is regenerating like this…I’m a threat to you all.”

“You’re not,” You whisper. “You’re not a monster, Sanji.” You stand on your tiptoes to try and kiss the space between his eyes, but he pulls away from you.

“You don’t know.” He backs away from you, fear returning to his eyes again. “I am a monster. And now that I’m-”

It’s your turn to cut him off now. “I healed you, Sanji.”

His brows furled in confusion, but his eyes looked less panicked now. “Wha..?”

“I have this power,” you explain. You walk back to the bedside table, gathering some water from a cup and suspending it in the air. “I can heal people with water. I’ve been healing your small injuries for a while now. I wanted to make your life easier, I swear. I’m sorry I kept it from you. I just…I wanted to help.”

You see him relax the more you explain your powers, which was not the reaction you were expecting. He watches you move the water through the air, and tears finally flow from his eyes.

“Y/N-chan,” he sobs, running over to you, embracing you in a hug. He’s holding you tight, smothering you into his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why did you hide it?”

Your face burns against him, embarrassed that you had kept it from him for so long. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, and I knew you wouldn’t want me hurting myself for you, but-”

“Hang on.” He pulls back from you, peering down at your face with a frown of concern. “You’re being hurt?”

“Just when I heal people,” you rush to explain, seeing his frown deepen. “I just feel the pain of the injuries I’m healing, it’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” he corrects, staring at you disapprovingly. “Promise me you won’t do it anymore.”

“Sanji-”

“Promise, Y/N.”

“No! Let me do this for you!” You’re pouting now, but you know Sanji won’t cave on this matter. You know he can’t let you hurt yourself at his expense.

“I appreciate that you want to help,” he says sternly. You can hear the love in his voice as he speaks, and you know you’ll have to agree to his request. “But there are other ways for you to help me without hurting yourself. Please-”

“Fine. Promise.” You give him a fake pout, but when he pulls you back into his chest and holds you tightly, you melt into him. “Are you sure you’re okay, Ji? You seemed scared earlier.”

“I’m fine, really.” He rests his chin on the top of your head, drawing in a long breath before he says more. “I just thought my past was coming back to haunt me again, that’s all.”

You all stand there for a long while, just enjoying eachothers closeness. You only break apart when you hear Luffy screaming for breakfast, and you give him one last kiss on each of his hands before you let him go.

Luffy

Word Count: 1.1k

“Stay still, idiot.” You held Luffy down, looking at his wound in his foot.

“I can’t! It hurrrtttssss!”

“That’s what you get for wearing sandals in the jungle!” You could tell from the way the stick speared through his foot, Luffy wouldn’t be able to walk easily, and you still had another half mile before you made it back to the ship.

You knew you weren’t supposed to heal people while they were conscious, but this was Luffy. He was the love of your life, and the Strawhats were your only family. If you couldn’t trust them, you deserved to be locked up anyway.

You sighed, pulling water out of your flask in soft, flowing movements. Luffy was still writhing in pain on the ground, overdramatic in his reaction to his current impalement. It was possible that you might be able to heal him without him even realizing it.

You surrounded his foot with an orb of water, and imagined the wound being stitched together, just like your mother had taught you. You saw his rubbery skin begin to mend together, and braced yourself for what came next.

Your grip on Luffy’s ankle tightened when the pain came. It was sharp and fast, and it took the breath out of your lungs. You squeezed your eyes shut, but kept your focus on the wound and the pain that came with it.

“Wooooahhhh!” You could hear Luffy’s sigh of amazement, and you knew he had caught you healing his wound. “That’s so cool! The hole is just closing up!!”

You didn’t speak, afraid that your voice would betray you. The last thing you wanted Luffy to know was that you were in pain because of the healing process. You could hear him freaking out about how cool it was that his injury was healing before his own eyes, but you did your best to ignore him and focus on the healing process. You kept your eyes closed the entire time, using the level of pain to guide how much longer you had to fix his injury. Finally, the pain dulled, and then disappeared. You dropped his foot and opened your eyes again, trying to ignore the lingering effects that your body was dealing with.

Luffy was examining his foot closely, looking at it from all angles to see if there was any damage. He stood up, putting all of his weight back on his foot, and jumped up and down a few times.

“It’s like brand new!” He shouted with glee. He came over to you and wrapped you in a hug. “You’re the best, Y/N!”

Over the next few weeks, Luffy offered up your services to others throughout the ship. You knew that Luffy was incapable of keeping secrets, and you had never explicitly asked him to keep that information to himself. You never minded healing your family though, and the injuries were always minor. Luffy sent Ussop to you when he got a burn on his hand, and Franky when he got a bad cut on his face. Chopper sent Zoro when he had a sprained wrist. It wasn’t until Nami came to you with a nasty cut on her shoulder that the secret of your healing was revealed.

You smiled when she asked, and pulled water out to start the healing process. You coated the wound in a bubble of water, and clenched your jaw to prepare for the worst.

You were aware of Nami’s eyes watching you. Everyone else watched their own wound magically heal, but her eyes remained on your face, watching for any signs of discomfort on your end. You had a feeling that she was suspicious of your powers already. She had been the most interested member of the crew from the start, asking about the stipulations and origins of your power from the moment she had found out about it.

You kept your eyes on the gash, trying your best to mentally steel yourself for the pain that would come. You knew it wouldn’t be easy to hide the pain, but you were determined to make it look natural. When the feeling of pain ripped through your shoulder to match her wound, you gritted your teeth and kept your smile, but you could feel your muscles involuntarily twitch.

If Nami noticed, she said nothing. When you finished, you looked back up at her and let out a shaky breath, smiling. She eyed you suspiciously, but thanked you politely and left you alone. Once the door swung shut, you collapsed back onto the couch you were on, desperately needing a nap after that performance.

Luffy was awoken by a smack on the head.

“What?” He asked groggily. “Are we at the next island?”

“Are you some kind of sadist,” the tangerine-haired girl scolded, shaking her finger at him. “Or are you just a moron?”

“What are you talking about, Nami?”

Nami rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, staring daggers down at Luffy. “Y/N’s power.”

Luffy rubbed his head, wondering if you could fix headaches. “What about it?”

“She feels pain when she heals people, you idiot. She probably feels whatever pain she’s healing.”

Luffy’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that she just healed my shoulder. And she was in some serious pain while she was doing it. She hides it well, but I could tell she was hurting.”

Luffy bit his lip, trying to think back to when you had healed him in the forest. But he had been so amazed at watching his own wound heal, he hadn’t noticed your reaction while you were doing it.

“She seemed kind of tired after mine, but that’s it. I felt great though, so I carried her back to the ship!”

“So you are just a moron!” Nami punched him again. “No more free healing! Stop taking advantage of her!”

You woke up from your nap to rubber arms wrapped around you and Luffy’s round eyes staring at you intensely.

“Good morning,” you groan, trying to pull away from him to stretch.

He let you go enough to stretch out, but kept a tight grip on you. “Does it hurt?”

You freeze mid-stretch, silently cursing Nami for her hyper awareness. “It just makes me tired.”

“You’re lying.” He knows you so well. You move your fingers up to his hair, twirling his locks around your index finger.

“Yeah,” you sigh the word out. You’re painfully aware of his gaze, transfixed on your face.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because Luffy, it’s not that bad.” Your eyes move back to his finally, and you can see the hurt and confusion that is held within them. “And I like doing what I can to help my family.”

He nods, accepting that answer, and snuggles up into your chest, holding you tightly against him. You let him lay there for a while, twirling his soft strands of hair around in your fingers. There are few quiet moments between you and Luffy, and you cherish every moment you can get like this.

“Nami said no more free healings, by the way.”

You laugh and give his forehead a quick kiss. “Guess I’ll have to charge you double.”

Law

Word Count: 1.2k

“Fuck.”

Law’s breath was ragged as you pressed into his stomach wound. Blood coated your hands as you tried to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t seem to be working very well.

“I just need to...” Law coughed, and you could see red staining his lips. A small blue orb began to form in his palm, but it flickered out quickly. He was too weak to use his devil fruit powers.

“Fuck.” You repeated. There was only one thing you could do now. It meant exposing your secret and showing your captain your biggest weakness, but you’d do anything to save him.

You pulled away from his wound, and let your hands guide water from your flask, maneuvering it through the air. “Don’t freak out,” you say, and you cover the wound in water. You let it sit for a moment, and then begin imagining the wound healing.

It started as a dull, throbbing pain in your stomach. You began to think you were getting used to the pain, but then it began to grow, turning sharp and stabbing. You flinched at the sudden change in pain, but held your focus.

Law watched you work for a few moments with wide eyes, unsure what was happening or what he could do. You wanted to scream from the pain that was growing rapidly, but you held your tongue, hoping he didn’t notice your facial expressions contorting into pain. Tears filled your eyes, and you finally felt Law move into action, his hand gripping around your wrists.

“Stop,” he demanded, trying to push your arms away from his wound. You ignore his demand, keeping your arms locked against him, continuing the healing process at your expense.

“Stop! Y/N-ya, Stop it!” His voice rose in pitch, and you could tell he sensed your pain. His efforts to push you away are getting stronger, proof that his energy is returning to him. You feel relieved in the fact that he is healing, even if it is exhausting you in the process.

He finally succeeds in pushing you off him, and you fall backwards to the ground and lay there, dazed and stunned from your work. He quickly straddles you and pins your arms to the ground to ensure you’ve fully stopped whatever you had started doing to him.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Law stares down at you, angry and scared of what you’ve done.

You know his rage is out of fear, and you give him a small smile, looking up at him through half-lidded eyes. “You okay now?”

He stares at you, baffled at your question. He has energy now, and his wound in his stomach is almost completely healed. He knows it’s due to you, but he doesn’t know how you’ve managed to heal him so quickly. Fear. Betrayal. Anger. So many emotions run through him all at once. He has so many questions that he doesn’t know where to start.

He tightens his grip around your wrists, keeping you pinned down. “Explain.”

“It’s a power I was born with,” you say, closing your heavy eyes. “I can heal other people’s injuries through water.”

Law watches you carefully, certain that you’re hiding something. He squeezes your wrists tighter until you finally open your eyes again, looking anywhere but at him.

You can’t make eye contact with him or you know you’ll tell him everything. You can’t afford for him to know your secret, it was bad enough that he knew this much.

“You were in pain.” He says it as a statement, not a question.

You squirm from underneath him, trying to get free, but his grip doesn’t let up. He’s determined to get to the bottom of what you just did. He needs to protect you. He needs to keep you safe from all harm, even if that means protecting you from yourself.

“Let go.” You say, still trying to get free. His grip is starting to become painful, and you try to pull your arms away from him again. “You’re hurting me, Law. Let go.”

His eyes stare down at you, unmoving from his current position. The more you squirm, the tighter his grip gets, and you know he won’t let go until he has an answer. “Y/n-ya, why were you in pain?”

“It’s a side effect!” You cry out in frustration, finally giving in. You suspect he knew the moment he saw it. “I feel the person’s pain as I heal them.”

In his shock, Law’s hands loosen their grip, and you finally pull free from him. You try to turn away from him, but he’s still sitting on your stomach, and you don’t have enough energy to push him off. You rub at your wrists, trying to get the sting from his grip out of your body.

Law is frozen, staring down at you with wide eyes. He grits his teeth, watching you massage your wrists. “I’m sorry,” he says, reaching for your hands again, more gentle this time. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

You let him grab one of your hands, and he begins massaging your wrists gently, whispering apologies to you. You close your eyes and try to forget that you’ve broken your number one rule about your power: telling other people. You focus on his wrist massage for a while, his own way to apologize for his outburst.

“Y/n-ya?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you save me?”

You sigh, opening your eyes again. This time, you meet his gold eyes, radiant against the sunlight. “You never want anyone to save you, Captain.”

“It’s my job as a ca-”

“I saved you because I love you, you idiot.”

You can see Law’s eyes twitch in surprise; his hands freeze against your wrist.

“You don’t get to decide what sacrifices I make for you,” you continue. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do to save you. That’s my decision. You’ve made many sacrifices for me, some extremely painful ones. Remember the incident at Low Sand Creek?”

Law doesn’t respond, but he slowly starts to massage your wrists again, which you take as a sign to keep talking.

“I don’t get to criticize your decisions on sacrifice. And you don’t get to criticize mine either. I love you, and I know you love me. Do I want you to risk your life for me? No. But that’s just something I have to live with. And so do you. Okay?”

Your captain says nothing, and you can tell he’s sulking over your lecture. It wasn’t uncommon for you to have to do this with him. Law was one of the smartest people you knew, but relationships weren’t really his strong suit. It resulted in you having to do a lot of explaining and voicing your needs.

“Law, do you understand?” You insist, needing to stand your ground. He had a tendency of not responding when he didn’t agree with something.

He huffs out an irritated breath. “Okay.”

You scrunch your face at him, shooting him a semi-fake glare.

“I understand, okay?!”

You twisted your hand to intertwine with his, and grabbed his other hand with your free one so that both of his hands were now holding each of yours. You locked eyes with him, and you could see there was something else there, something that was bothering him.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

He was quiet for a moment, as if he were working up the courage to admit whatever he was feeling. His eyes moved away from your gaze and focused on one of his hands instead, still intertwined with yours.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice comes out slightly choked, and you realize that you had forgotten to explain the most important part to him.

Your cheeks redden, embarrassed at your oversight. His eyes snapped back to yours, and now it was your turn to avoid eye contact.

“It’s… I was told to never tell anyone about it. Or let someone else see it.”

You can feel him staring at you, his eyes willing you to look at him, but you refuse. He waits patiently, and you know he’s asking you a silent question: Don’t you trust me?

“I trust you, I just…” Neither you or Law had really talked about your past much. You preferred to live for the now, for the future. The past was just too painful to think about. “People died protecting that secret. I didn’t want to add more names to that list.”

Law gave a dark chuckle at your response. “And after all that preaching about not deciding who gets to make sacrifices.”

Now it’s your turn to sulk. “That is not-“

He cuts you off, pulling you up to meet him, and his lips collide with yours.

He pulls back briefly, basking in your beauty. “No more secrets. Promise?”

“Promise.”

Ace

Word Count: 1.5k

Ace wasn’t used to being hit, and when someone made contact with him, it hurt. He grimaced as he limped from battle, blood dripping down his leg from the giant puncture wound in his thigh. You had your arm around him, helping him run, but his injury was slowing you both down, and the enemy was closing in quickly.

“Sit,” you commanded. “Let me help.”

“I just need to get back to Marco, he can help.” His breathing was labored, and you knew he was expending too much energy just speaking to you.

“I can heal too.” You helped him sit down, and you could feel his eyes staring at you, trying to understand your cryptic words. You chose to ignore him for now, and examined the wound. It was deep, but manageable. You braced yourself, and summoned some water out of your flask, covered his wound, and focused on stitching it back together.

Pain ripped through you, and you had to bite your lip to keep yourself focused. It wasn’t the worst pain you had felt, but the wound was deeper than you had initially thought, and you could feel your muscles tearing apart, just like Ace’s had when he was cut. You knew that it was just a phantom pain, no actual bodily harm was being done to you, but it was still pain nonetheless.

You could feel tears pooling at the corner of your eyes, but you refused to stop until the job was done. You watched his muscle stitch back together, and when it was finally completely healed, you sat back and closed your eyes, exhausted and riddled with aches.

When you opened your eyes again, you could see Ace in front of you, you could feel him shaking you violently. He was screaming something, but you couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying over the loud ringing in your ears. Slowly, your hearing returned, and you realized he was screaming your name.

“Ace.” Your words were slow. You were still trying to come out of the fog of pain that always came with healing. “Stop shaking me.”

He finally stopped, but his hands were still tightly gripping your shoulders. He was staring at you in terror, fear spread across his face.

“What were you doing?” His voice was loud and piercing, causing you to flinch. “How did you…What do…Where did…” He struggled to find the right words, and you stared at him with still-glazed eyes while he tried to form a sentence. You were struggling to refocus after the pain, and were thankful that Ace was tongue-tied for the moment.

Ace took a breath, finally able to form a sentence. “I didn’t know you had a devil fruit power.”

“I don’t.” Normally you let people believe whatever they wanted in order to guard your secret, but this was Ace. If you couldn’t trust him, you couldn’t trust anyone. “It’s just an ability I was born with. I can heal people with water.”

Ace’s facial expressions had always been easy to read. Even in your dazed state, you watched as his concern turned to shock and then to confusion. You waited for the inevitable question to come, and it did. “If you’ve had this power, why haven’t you used it more often?”

“I…” you hesitate. You didn’t want to tell him the weakness of your ability. Not because you didn’t trust him, but because you did. You knew that if Ace discovered the trade off of your powers, he would never want you to suffer for him or anyone else.

You had told Marco about your power when you joined the crew, and the doctor had forbid you using your ability except in dire circumstances. Marco trusted you to make judgment calls on what you could handle, but you didn’t think Ace would feel the same way.

You could hear the enemy's battle cries getting closer, and you take the opportunity to avoid the question. “Let’s go. We need to get back to the ship.”

Ace stands, and you follow to do the same. You take a bit longer to get to your feet, still light-headed from the trade off of healing Ace. His attention has shifted to the enemy pursuing you now, and thankfully he doesn’t seem to notice your sluggish movements.

Ace’s fist becomes engulfed with flames, and he stands between the enemy and you. “Go back to the ship, I’ll hold them off.”

“Idiot! That’s what got us here in the first place!”

“Yeah,” He smirked back at you like the devilish fiend you knew he was. “But this time I won’t lose.”

You can feel your knees start to go weak, but you’re not sure if it’s from exhaustion or from the man in front of you. You hate to leave him, but you know you’ll only be a liability in this fight. With Ace’s energy replenished and the ability to fight in an open space, he’d finish off the enemy easily now.

“You better not die.” Your words hang in the air, and you take off towards the Moby Dick.

As soon as you got aboard the ship, you went straight to your room. You didn’t bother giving a report. Ace would do that when he returned. Sleep was what you needed now.

—

You woke with arms wrapped around you tightly, and the warm body of Portgas D. Ace pressed against your back. You weren’t sure how long you had slept, but there was no longer any light coming in through the porthole in your room. You shifted, trying to get out of Ace’s grasp without waking up, but his strong arms tightened against you when you moved, keeping you close to him.

For a long while you laid in the silence, unsure if Ace was asleep or awake. He wasn’t snoring like he normally did when he was asleep and he refused to let you move away from his grasp, but his breaths were even and he didn’t speak to you. You didn’t mind the quiet, your body was still exhausted from the fighting and the pain of healing today, and Ace’s warmth was almost therapeutic against your tired body.

“Your healing…” Ace's voice finally breaks the silence, making you tense from surprise. His voice was low and quiet in your ear. “It hurts you, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

You can hear the sadness in his voice, and you know that he’s figured it out. Whether he solved it on his own or if Marco told him, it didn’t matter now. You’ve always been a bad liar, and you could never bring yourself to lie to Ace anyway.

He squeezed you tighter, pulling you closer to him. There was another long pause, and you let him hold you while he processed everything.

“How bad is it?” His voice is level, but you can hear it beginning to grow thick with tears.

“It depends on what I heal. I just feel the pain of the injury.”

His forehead presses into the crook of your neck, and his breath becomes shallow and ragged. You can feel his emotions coursing through him, and all you want to do is comfort him. You squirm, trying to flip over so you see his face while you talk, but his iron tight grip refuses to let you move.

“Ace,” you speak gently, your hands pulling at his arms, and his grip loosens just enough for you to turn over onto your other side. You’re laying face to face with him now, but his eyes are squeezed shut. His freckled cheeks are wet with tears, and your heart constricts seeing his sadness.

You press your forehead against his, and use your free hand to brush some of his hair away from his face. You continue softly sweeping your fingers through his hair, soothing him as you speak. “It’s not so bad, Ace. But that's why I don’t use it very often.”

His eyes are still closed, but you feel his hands ball into fists against your back, gathering the fabric of your shirt in them.

“Why did you use it to save me then?” His voice comes out more of a demand than a question. It’s harsh, and you know he’s angry. Maybe at you, maybe at himself, probably both. His question makes you freeze, your fingers still entangled in his strands of hair.

You feel a slight prick of irritation at his question. You pull your head back and tilt his face up to look you in the eyes, but they’re still tightly shut. “Look at me,” you demand, your tone matching his from a moment ago. You feel him stiffen slightly at the intensity of your words, but his dark eyes open to meet your own.

Your hands find his cheeks, cupping his face, and you press your forehead back into his. Your eyes never leave his, and you can feel his grip against your back finally start to soften as he focuses on you instead of what you’ve done.

“I did it.” You pause for a moment, still staring at him. God, he was so stupid. You swipe your thumb across his freckles, wiping the tears from his sad, sweet eyes. “Because you deserve to be saved.”

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familyvideostevie · 6 months

Text

the meaning of it all

joel miller x reader

summary: Joel Miller, of all people, teaches you to ask for help.

word count: 13.6k

warnings: jackson au, post part i, joel and ellie worked it out! joel is soft! language, violence, fluff, learning to accept help and love.

a/n: this fic is a soft joel (think part ii joel but make it two years into jackson because he and ellie resolved everything <3) and a reader who is much more me than i've written before. i hope you like it! thank you again to @strangerfreaks who held my hand through this, i owe you my life.

___

Luck. God damned old-fashioned thank-fuck-for-that luck has kept you alive since the world ended. Deep festering rage and a near-constant state of fear have helped. But every bullet you've found, every undamaged can of food, every shot that landed in the right place so you were the last one standing -- that's all luck. Or a curse, depending on the day. Depending on how you're feeling about it all.

And Jackson? That's the biggest stroke of luck you've had in twenty years. A single woman on her own with plenty of working years left and no obvious red flags was probably a no-brainer for the community to take in but you feel like you've finally made it. After two decades of violence and horror and pain, you fucking made it somewhere safe.

You spend as much time as you can making sure everyone knows how grateful you are. You don't have any special skills, not really. You can shoot well enough, cook well enough, clean well enough. Young enough when all the shit went down that you don't have a trade or any work experience, you just go wherever they need someone in town.

Keeping busy means you're bone-tired most nights. Exhausted sleep means fewer nightmares, less time to wander the halls of your very nice but much too-big-for-you-home and miss everything you've lost. But picking up shifts wherever you can also means you don't meet many people beyond hellos and exchanging names. Farming is easy and you get to work with a lot of the kids in town, daycare much the same. You're lousy with power tools but you're able to carry materials wherever they're needed. Cooking is easy when it's stew for hundreds of people and doing dishes is even fun when someone turns on the radio. You're making it work.

Patrol is...patrol. You're able, so you're on the roster. It's not that you hate it, not exactly. Going outside the walls makes you feel like you're someone else. You slip back into the mask of fear and anger, the one that kept you alive for so long. And the worst part is it's comfortable.

You've done the training runs, the group patrols for three months. Infected still freak you out a little but you're smart enough to be more scared of people. All of the senior patrol members have cleared you for paired patrols and today is your first one.

Tommy meets you at the stables to check-in.

You don't really have any friends, though everyone is perfectly nice to you, but Tommy and Maria are probably as close as it gets. You figure they take a shine to newcomers like you, ones who come in alone, maybe to keep an eye on them as much as anything else. But they've both got a smile and kind word for you whenever you see them, always asking if you need anything. You always tell them no, you're fine, thank you.

"You ready?" Tommy says. "I've had them pull Apollo for you." You pat yourself one more time to make sure you have everything. Pistol on your thigh, knife at your hip, pack secure on your back. Hat and gloves tucked into your jacket pocket to account for the wind on the trails.

"I think so," you tell him. You blow a raspberry at your horse and he blows back, nudging your shoulder with his nose.

"After this, pretty sure you'll have done every job there is to do in this town. Pullin' crops, plantin' crops, cookin' crops. Kids, the library, cleanin', buildin' that ramp at Lenore's last month. You've been here, what, six months? And you've done it all."

It should make you feel good that he's noticed. It does, but only a little. You still feel like you could work every day for the rest of your life and not repay what he and this town have given you. To make up for the things you've done on the road.

"I'm the best floater in Jackson," you joke instead. Smiling makes people like you. You haven't had much cause to smile in recent years so you're still getting used to the urge. Tommy scoffs. "I don't do important council stuff like you and Maria, though."

He ignores that. "Y'know, pretty sure they call that a jack-of-all-trades. A real Ren-ai-ssance woman." You try to come up with a retort, eyes wandering to the patrol assignment board. Your name is under ELK CREEK and under it is --

"Quit harassin' her." Tommy rolls his eyes and flips off whoever comes up behind you. You turn around and see a man you know of but have never actually met.

"Joel," Tommy says. "I believe this is called havin' a conversation. You ever tried it?"

"Funny," Joel replies. He nods at you. "You my partner today?"

"Seems so." You introduce yourself, Apollo's warm breath at your back.

"Joel Miller," he says back.

You're a little intimidated, truth be told. You know him by reputation mostly. Tommy's big brother who came to town a few years ago with a little girl. They're both pretty much everywhere. Joel fixing houses and talking to kids in the street, going on patrols and always bringing back extra for whoever needs it. Ellie galloping around town with other teenagers and bringing home the biggest game. You've handed her books a few times at the library, too, seen her bright eyes and infectious energy underneath teenage angst that transcends even an apocalypse. And you've seen them together, heads down in the dining hall or pressed closed walking down the street -- heard rumors about why they came here, how they came here, too -- and one thing is clear to you: the Millers are beloved. By this town and by each other.

It's a miracle all its own in this fucked up world.

"You two ain't met yet?" Tommy says, pointing at the space between you. You snap out of your thoughts. "You've been here long enough to have met everyone by now."

"Guess not," you say with a wry smile. The younger Miller is too polite to call you out for not having a single friend in that time period, either.

"Well, here we are," Joel says. "Gonna keep us here forever, Tommy? Or can we do our job?"

Tommy claps him on the shoulder and winks at you. "Tone down the asshole for her first paired patrol, yeah?"

Joel snorts. He grabs a horse that was already tacked for him and leads it out of the stable. You follow with Apollo. The patrol coordinator hands out rifles and reminds everyone of the rules.

You hop on your horse. "You ready?" Joel asks, startling you a bit. "We'll gallop to the mouth of the river and then start patrollin'."

Something in you relaxes a bit at his clear confidence in you to handle yourself. You know you're with him for a reason -- he's one of the best. That, or maybe he just doesn't give a shit. Somehow you think it's the former.

You follow him up the hill outside the gates and through the tree line. The noise of the Outside is different than that of Jackson. Birdsong, snapping branches and dry brush under your horse, the wind rippling down the hill. You take a deep breath through your nose and feel a part of you come alive. It's funny how a world so beautiful can be so deadly.

Joel gallops a little ahead of you, strong and steady. You watch him, think about what you know. He's older than you, that much is obvious. Greying hair curling around his ears, lines on his face from more than just a stressful life. But he's strong, good at what he does. Those rumors come back to the front of your mind. How he and Ellie showed up, half-starved and bloody. How he and Tommy are the most famed patrol duo for Infected kills and otherwise. It makes you feel safe. It makes you want to learn from him. It makes you want to know more.

And he's got kind eyes. Somehow, he's got kind eyes.

"Alright," Joel calls back to you. "Route starts here." He slows his horse and you pull up beside him. He shifts in his saddle and turns his face to you. "Now, I know this is your first pair," he says. "I won't order you around or nothin' but my main piece of advice is that everyone has a different patrol style. Know how to adapt."

You dig your gloves out of your pockets and wiggle them on. Joel watches before his eyes snap back to yours. "Noted." You honestly didn't think he'd talk this much. "And let me guess. Yours is patrol in silence?" You punctuate the nervous quip with a smile.

Joel snorts. "Nah," he says. "Unless you're Max. Can't stand that fucker."

It startles a laugh out of you and any ice you'd imagined breaks for good. Max is one of the middle-aged men who probably would have been a lawyer or a politician based on the way he likes the sound of his own voice.

"Now," Joel says. "You done this route before?" His knuckles are a little red but he doesn't put on any gloves.

"Twice, I think. First log book in that old station, right?" Joel nods. "Second in the town?" He nods again.

"Color me impressed." His mouth tugs up at the corner into something you might call a smile. You try not to look too pleased with yourself. "Some of the dipshits on the roster don't even remember that much."

It feels like you've passed a test. His praise makes you feel nice. Noticed. Not something you often seek but you know yourself well enough to admit that you'd like a little more of it. Even if it's from a man you just met.

"Not that hard," you say softly. Joel looks at you for a moment longer before clicking his teeth. His horse starts to walk. You signal to Apollo to follow.

The patrol goes off without a hitch. Joel signs the log book in the station and you sign it in the tower. He lets you snipe two runners that he spots and doesn't scold you when you take three tries on the second one.

"Settlin' in okay?" he asks once you've rounded the town one last time and started back towards Jackson. "Six months, Tommy said?"

Despite his earlier words, you haven't chatted much this patrol. While you'd like to know more about him, want to get him to smile at you again, you're really just enjoying being out here with someone else, knowing that you're safe. That you've got somewhere to go back to.

"It's nice," you sigh. "I never imagined I'd find a place like this."

You really should pick up the pace to get back to town but he doesn't seem to be in any hurry.

"I know the feelin'," he murmurs. "Ellie'n me slept on the floor for a good two weeks at the start. Been two years and some nights I don't take my boots off."

"What a fucking life, huh?" That earns you a wry smile. "Having a house is...strange. All of the hinges squeak and I --"

"The hinges squeak?" You look over at him and Joel's brows are furrowed.

"Oh, I mean, it's no big deal --" You stumble over apologies. You don't want him to think you're complaining about a home his brother gave you when he sure as shit didn't have to.

Joel taps his thumb on the pommel of his saddle. "Can get that fixed, y'know."

You didn't know, actually. "Really?"

Now he looks at you like you're a little stupid. "Ain't you the one hauling shit to people's houses when they need a hand?"

He has a point and you hate it. It never occurred to you to ask for someone to come fix your hinges. They're just hinges, for fuck's sake. Other people have holes in their floorboards or leaks or need new rooms for family members. You're just...you.

Joel sighs. It feels like you've disappointed him and it swirls in your gut. "I'll take a look at it this week."

Your neck cracks audibly with how quickly you look up at him. "What? No, Joel, you don't have to --"

He says your name in a tone that you know means no arguing. "I know I don't have to. I offered."

"You don't even know me!" The words fly from your mouth before you can stop them.

He brings his horse to a full stop so quick you almost run into him.

"Look," he says. His gaze holds yours. Wow, he really can be intimidating when he wants to be. You can only imagine the things he's done, the things he's capable of. Anyone who has made it this long has blood on their hands. You've washed it from your own skin plenty of times. And yet, you feel completely safe. And you know that you'll probably do whatever he tells you. "I know how it can be."

Your gut swirls. "You don't know what I've been through," you say softly. It's not a jibe, it's just the truth. No one knows because you've told no one because it doesn't matter. You're here now.

"I've been alive for a while longer than you," he continues. "I've seen the world, just as you have. I've been out here. I was out here for a long, long time." He runs a hand through his beard, fiddles with his broken watch in what looks like reflex. "I know how hard it is to ask. To get back to something that makes any damn sense. But you can if you try."

The words linger in the chill around you. He's right, obviously. He's so fucking right that you want to be mad. You haven't asked for anything because you don't want to fracture the good thing you've got. Don't want to be too much, to be a burden they can't support, to make people think you don't deserve to be in Jackson. All things that don't make any fucking sense, not really, but you can't stop them. It's just how you're wired.

"So I'm comin' over this week to fix those hinges. Alright?"

"Alright." Something in Joel softens when you agree.

"Good," he says. "Good."

You finish the patrol in comfortable silence. All told it's been nice. To talk to someone, to feel like they give a shit about you even for just a few hours. You have no doubt Joel will be over to fix your hinges but you figure it'll fizzle out after that -- it always does. You don't know how to ask someone to stick around, anyway. But even this little bit of him will have been worth it.

Something both loosens and tightens in your chest when you get back to Jackson and through the gates. Goodbye beautiful, horrible outside world, hello safety, community, home. It's a trade-off. You and Joel hop off your horses and return your rifles. You're about to hand Apollo off to be brushed and returned to the stables when you feel a hand on your shoulder.

Joel says your name and you turn around.

"Good job today," he says softly. "Not too excitin' of a patrol, but you're good out there."

You blink owlishly. "I-- thanks," you manage. "Maybe we'll get to go out again as a pair." You're showing your hand but you can't help it. You want more of whatever this was.

Joel's mouth pulls up at one corner. "Maybe."

___

Two days later you drag yourself out of the house for community breakfast. Most mornings you're out the door and at your work detail for the day before you can pop over but you don't have anything assigned today. It's a rare respite and it has you antsy. You don't remember how to be idle, aren't any good at it. Sitting in your empty house means your mind might wander to the thoughts you try very hard to keep at bay. The loneliness, the regret, the fear. The loss. It's always there and you've gotten better at dealing with it after so many years but some days you really just wish you could talk about it to someone, could just bitch and moan about how fucking awful this life can be.

But everyone is carrying their own shit and you don't need to add to it. You don't want anyone to have to carry yours, too.

Breakfast is quiet this morning. You settle at a table with your toast and your eggs and your potatoes and smile back at anyone who smiles at you but no one sits with you. If they did you don't know what you'd say.

But then the air changes. Your neck feels a little hot and you slowly look around until you see what's caused it -- Joel and Ellie are here. He's already looking at you when you meet his eyes and he smiles a little, a half-moon curve of his mouth, and nods. You wave.

Ellie waves back, which you don't expect. She says something to Joel and he frowns, rolls his eyes. She punches him in the arm and he flips her off and grabs two plates, starts to fill them. You smile down at your own food.

"Man, are the potatoes that fucking good today?"

You look up and find Ellie in front of you. You're pretty sure she's 16 or thereabouts, still growing into herself based on the way she shifts on her feet. Her right forearm has the outline of something floral. She notices you looking at it and crosses her arms, looking unimpressed. Ah, teenagers.

"Pretty okay," you tell her. "I don't know if we've met yet --"

"We kinda have," she interrupts. "I know your name and you know mine, so. And you're at the library sometimes when I check shit out."

This still does not explain why she's over here talking to you. You can see Joel in the breakfast line still, glancing over his shoulder every so often to see if she's still in the room. You try not to catch his gaze because you're a little afraid of what Ellie might read in it.

"Can I do something for you, Ellie?" you ask, not unkindly. She scrunches up her nose and then sighs.

"Joel told me not to bother you but I wanted to ask if you could look out for a book for me. At the library." Her words get faster as she reaches the end of her sentence. She takes a look at you, sees that you're not telling her to fuck off, or something, and keeps talking. Some book about the history of comics or something.

"Oh," you say. You feel a rush of affection for her and the fact that she can hold the record for headshots on a group patrol and still want to read about something she loves in her free time. "Yeah, I'll look for you. I don't have a library shift until tomorrow but I'll look and put it aside if I find it for you."

Ellie tugs on her fingers. "Don't you need to write it down or something?"

You smile at her. "No, I'll remember." You recite the title and author she just told you back to her and it seems to satisfy her. It's like a switch is flipped -- her earnest expression morphs into something you can only call mischief.

"So Joel's coming over to fix your doors, or whatever," she says. "How'd you crack him?"

"I--what?"

"You patrol with him once and he's coming over to your house," she says. "It took him like, weeks to laugh at one of my jokes. And I'm fucking funny!"

You have no idea what to say to that. Patrol with Joel was your first time talking to him and while he's a bit intimidating, sure, he never came off as anything other than...good. But you'd bet he wasn't always that way in this world. Maybe this girl in front of you had something to do with it.

And honestly, you're sure he just feels a little bad for you. He's nice enough to worry, to make sure everyone in town can do their part and you'll take what you can get even if it's temporary attention.

Part of you knows Ellie is just giving you a hard time because she's a teenager and you're kind of connected to the guy who looks after her so you're fair game, too. But she's talking to you like she wants to which is throwing you for a loop. And you're realizing it's been a long time since you actually wanted someone to like you. Well, Joel aside.

"You want to tell me one?" you ask. She looks surprised and then delighted.

"Oh, fuck yeah. Okay, let me think." You take another bite of your breakfast. "Okay, okay, I got it. What did the mermaid wear to her math class?"

You give it a few seconds before you shrug. Ellie grins. "An algae-bra."

Your laugh makes her grin bigger. "See? Fucking hilarious." She holds out her hand for a high five and you oblige. "Anyway, Joel's gonna come over tomorrow, I think. Seriously, dude, I don't know how you did it. He never used to be this nice!" She looks over her shoulder at the man in question. He's sitting down at another table. "He's getting soft."

Her voice is fond and you're pretty sure she doesn't notice. "You should go eat your breakfast, Ellie," you tell her.

She sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. "Yeah, I'm fucking hungry. Let me know if you find that book!"

"I will," you call after her. You can't help but watch as she barrels back to her table with Joel and immediately makes an attempt at his bacon. He fends her off with his fork before surrendering a piece with a scowl.

He looks up and catches your eye again. You stand with your tray and nod at him, turning around before you can see his expression. Stupid, so stupid to be caught looking like that. But you can't help it -- looking at the love still alive in this shitty world and wondering what it feels like.

___

You run into Joel on your walk home from the next day's shift at the library. You spent probably far too much of it looking for the book Ellie wanted but it was worth it because you've got it tucked under your arm. It feels like a small miracle but you're not one to question it.

Maybe it's the good mood you're in, but when you see Joel from behind you call out his name. He doesn't stop walking but turns his head like he heard something. When he spots you he does stop, waiting for you to catch up.

"Hi," you say, suddenly a little less brave.

"Howdy," he replies, amused. "I'm headed your way."

"You --" He lifts a toolbox you now realize he's carrying. "Oh, right. Hinges."

"I can come by another day if it's not a good time."

Joel could knock on your door in the middle of the night and it would be a good time. "No, ah. Now's good." He motions for you to lead the way even though he clearly knew where he was going. He must have asked Tommy.

It seems like everyone waves as you two head for your street. They call out Joel's name and he knows pretty much everyone. You feel a little self-conscious being seen with him like this -- you, pretty much a nobody in town through your own doing and Joel, beloved by all.

It doesn't stop until you're almost at your door. "You're popular," you say, trying to make it sound teasing. Instead, it sounds awed.

Joel runs his free hand through his beard. "Don't remind me," he grumbles. "Can't go for a walk without a damn conversation."

You pull out your keys and unlock the front door. There are plenty of people in Jackson who don't lock their doors but you can't shake the need. "Sounds difficult."

He chuckles and you feel it zing up your spine. It's nice to make him laugh. "Yeah, yeah. S'pose it's nice." The front door opens with a creak and you look at him sheepishly. His eyebrows touch his hairline. "They all like that?"

You nod. Joel whistles. "Christ," he says. "Alright." He follows you into the house. You try not to think about what he sees. You've tried to make it your own, just a little. Posters you traded for, books you've collected. You cleaned the whole thing top to bottom when you moved in but somehow it still looks a little un-lived in. You're working on it.

"Don't let me bother you," Joel says, getting on one knee with a grunt and prying open his box. "Probably need 'bout an hour to get 'em all. I'll holler when I'm done."

That's your cue to busy yourself with something, anything, but you don't want to. You want to talk to him, to watch him do whatever he's going to do, to soak up this time with Joel before he walks out the door and you go back to being acquaintances.

"What are you going to use?" you ask. He looks up, a little surprised, before pulling out a spray bottle and a rag. He shakes it at you.

"It's some sorta homemade shit one of the younger guys cooked up," Joel says. Somehow he manages to sound self-deprecating, like he thinks he should've thought of it first. "I think it's...soap? And cleanin' stuff? Fuck, I don't know." He huffs a laugh. "I know it works, though. Back in the day we'd use shit you could buy on the shelf." He stands with a grunt. "You old enough to know that?"

That gets you to laugh. "Yeah, Joel," you say. "I'm old enough to remember the hardware store."

His gaze feels a little different than before, like he's allowing himself to look. "Hmm," is all he says. "I'll just --"

You don't know how to justify shadowing him as he oils your hinges -- there's a joke there's somewhere -- so you don't. You grab a book from the shelf and settle on your couch and try your best to read but your mind wanders.

It's pretty clear that you have a crush on Joel. You've spent one patrol with the guy but somehow he's gotten under your skin. It's inconvenient but also...nice? A crush at the end of the world. The fact that you can still feel something so sweet, so juvenile after all you've seen and all you've done is almost laughable. And it's not like it's going to go anywhere -- you're sure Joel thinks you're too young for him, too green, and he's probably tripping over admirers in town. But you can let it be something to keep your days interesting until it fades.

It was hard enough to love yourself before the world ended for reasons anyone could understand. Societal pressures, stupid comparisons, things that don't matter at all now. Who has time to think about being loved when you're constantly faced with death? Feeling desired, feeling loved, feeling looked after isn't exactly top of mind. You're not even sure you remember how. You put one foot in front of the other and that's enough.

But wouldn't it be nice to be on the receiving end of affection from a man like Joel?

"All finished." You startle and realize you haven't turned a single page of your book. If Joel notices he doesn't say. He wipes his hands on a rag and eyes you. "Pretty sure I got all the doors."

You hop up from the couch and try to find your words. "I -- that's -- you're --"

"Thank you will do just fine," he says with a smirk. He tucks the rag in his back pocket and crosses his arms, leaning against the wall.

"Let me cook for you," you blurt out instead. "In exchange." You can make a few things fairly decently and making him something is another excuse to talk to him like this, to be on the receiving end of those eyes. "I can make chili. Does Ellie like chili?"

"Don't have to do that," he says kindly. "Helpin' you ain't a business deal. S'what people do here." He stands straight and heads for your front door, picking up his toolbox on the way.

"Joel," you say, snagging his sleeve with your fingers. You pull them back quickly and grab the book you brought home, holding it out for him. "Ellie asked me to look for this. Could you give it to her?"

He looks at the book the same way he looks at his kid. It's tenderness so raw you look away. "I will," he says softly. He tucks the book under his arm like precious cargo. "Thank you for findin' it for her." He clears his throat and looks at you, smirk back in place. "Wasn't so bad, was it?" he asks. You don't follow. "Havin' someone help you," he adds.

Your face feels hot. "I'll still cook for you," you say, opening the door. He shakes his head.

"You let me know if you need anythin' else, alright?" A quick smile and he's down the steps and back into the street, strolling back to his own home.

"I will." You say it to yourself and almost mean it.

___

You patrol a few more times over the next month but never get paired up with Joel. If you were a little braver you'd ask Tommy or the kid he's training to take over the schedule to put you two together but you don't. Instead, you wave at Ellie when you see her, nod at Joel from the other side of rooms where he's always talking to someone else. You let yourself enjoy the way your heart picks up at the sight of him and the thrill you feel after he smiles at you. It's a nice change to the boring, lonely routine you had before.

The doors in your house open and close silently.

Being outside is fine. You don't like it any more or any less, it just is what it is. Life at the end of the world continues on.

Until you have a bad patrol.

It's no one's fault and no one gets bit. You and your partner, Astrid, are tailing a buck that's wandering along your route. If you can shoot it you can load it on one of your horses and ride back together on the other. Winter is on its way and any extra meat helps.

You follow protocol. You're lining the deer up through the scope while she keeps watch. Just as you prepare to pull the trigger you feel it -- the pull of your gut telling you something isn't right. That feeling has kept you alive all these years so you lower the rifle and turn to Astrid just in time to see a stalker lunge out of the brush.

Its broken and jagged nails catch your shoulders and you go down hard enough to bruise. You can't hear anything over its snarls and the blood pounding in your ears but you do your fucking best. You wedge your forearm under its chin and try like hell to keep its mouth away from you. Your other hand somehow makes it to your belt and unsheathes your hunting knife and in one swift movement, you shove it into the soft jaw of the infected. Hot blood spurts over your face and you keep your mouth closed, shoving the corpse off you.

A gunshot has you whirling around and scooping up the rifle. You've got it ready to fire but you only find Astrid standing over a stalker corpse of her own, forehead bleeding and revolver smoking.

"You clean?" you ask her, eyes on her forehead. She nods.

"Shoved me into some thorns. You?"

"Yeah. Can we go home now?"

Your hands don't shake until you get back to Jackson. They tremble when you wash the blood from your face, your hair. You wish for just a second that you had someone to hold them, someone to tell you it's alright. Someone to talk to about how shitty your day was and how scared you were and how sometimes this life is so fucking exhausting and just when you think you're safe you're reminded that no one is safe anymore.

Maybe this is the kind of thing Joel was talking about. Asking for help.

The thought fades quickly. You can deal with this. You're just out of practice. You just got comfortable.

You go to bed as early as you can bear, closing your eyes and hoping for dreamless sleep.

You could only be so lucky.

You're no stranger to nightmares. Hell, who isn't? Usually, it's the same old shit -- people you've lost, fucked up things you've done, horrors you've seen. You know how to deal with it.

But this is the first time in a while you've got new nightmare fuel. The hot, rancid breath of the stalker and the agonizing sound of its moans. Your own choked gasps as you try with all of your strength to keep its rotting teeth away from you. Unlike reality, your dreams don't allow you to grab a hold of your knife and instead, you feel it take a chunk out of your neck, hot blood splattering your face and you have to just lie there as it bites and bites and bites --

You jolt upright with a small gasp. Necessity has taught you to wake silently.

"Fuck," you say to the empty room. No way you're going back to sleep after that. You swing your legs over the side of your bed and put your head in your hands. "Breathe. Breathe."

The sky is black through your windows. You have no idea what time it is but you stand before the lingering panic can take hold and make things worse. Fresh air will get the iron smell out of your nose. You dress in the dark in more layers than necessary but you want to stop shaking.

Jackson at night is quiet but there are always a few people around, always someone else who can't sleep. The sky is clear and the moon is bright and it smells like woodsmoke and the unique earthy feel of the valley. This is your home. So long as you have this you can get through it.

Your feet take you through the streets of houses, most of the windows dark. Just another lap around town and then you'll go home, try to sleep again.

Then you hear something. The gentle strum of an acoustic guitar weaving with the night air like a dream. A song from before, a song you recognize but don't know the name of, don't know the words. You wrap your arms around yourself and follow the sound down Rancher Street. If you find whoever is playing it you'll wave and walk slowly home.

Your breath catches in your throat when you see whose house it is. Joel is on the porch, rocking slowly and head leaning back, eyes closed as he strums. How did you not know he played guitar? It only makes sense that the hands that are capable of such violence can also make something beautiful. He can ruffle Ellie's hair and pull the trigger and fix your doors and do this.

Something in your chest tightens.

Joel's eyes open and land on you immediately. You realize how it looks -- you standing in front of his house in the middle of the night, watching him. But he stops his playing and calls out your name.

"Hey, you alright?" he says. You hover between taking a step forward and a step back.

"Couldn't sleep."

He shakes his head. "Can't hear ya," he says. "C'mere."

Step forward it is. Up the stairs and onto the porch that creaks a little under your boots. There's only one chair and a small table with a lantern on it. Wind chimes dangle over the railing and you drag your hand through them on instinct like a child with a toy.

"Sorry," you say softly.

"Only got one chair," Joel says. He's got one boot resting on his knee, guitar slung across his lap. He looks tired. "I'll go get another --"

You wave him off. "No, please," you say. "I'll stand. I'm too antsy to sit, anyway." If you sit down in a chair next to Joel Miller you might never get up.

He frowns but settles back into his seat. "You alright?" he asks again.

His gaze is a little too much. You feel silly all of a sudden, not sure how you got here. A fucking nightmare? God, you're ridiculous. You cross your arms and lean back on the railing and look anywhere but him.

"Couldn't sleep." Joel hums.

"Heard that one before."

He strums some more and you relax again despite yourself. "Sounds nice. Do you play a lot?"

"Sometimes," he says. "Old habit."

"It's a nice one. Better than walking the streets in the dark." Your tone is harsher than you mean it to be and Joel frowns.

"It's safe to," he says, as though your wellbeing is his personal concern. "Bit cold, though."

"Why are you out here then?" You're frustrated with yourself and taking it out on him just a little bit. The smell of blood fills your nostrils again and you press your fingertips into your crossed arms, hard, and close your eyes. Your breath stutters in your chest.

"Nightmares," Joel says wryly. There's some shifting, the scrape of wood on wood and you open your eyes. His are fixated on your fingers and you stop squeezing. The guitar is now leaning up against the house and he's got his elbows on his knees like he's about to ask you a serious question. The lantern light makes his hair look darker, less silver, but it also makes the lines on his face look deeper. You wonder what kind of shit he's seen. What things he has nightmares about.

"Had this conversation with Ellie a million times," he huffs, rubs his hand through his beard in what you now consider a familiar gesture. "You don't need to talk if you don't want to. But can't hurt."

Is he asking you to talk about your nightmare? Does he actually want to know? Do you know how to talk about it?

"I take it you're a fountain of emotional sharing, huh?" Again, the misplaced frustration. You don't know how to turn it off.

His eyes flash but he just leans back in his chair and shrugs. "Depends on the day."

The low-level hum of your infatuation with him flares and your traitorous brain bats it down right away. You want to see all sides that he can offer you, want to make him frustrated and angry just to see if that'll make him sick of you.

You run your hand through the wind chimes again, watching your fingers move through the air. You remember what the knife felt like in your hand, the way the blood was hot as it dripped down your wrist and onto your face.

"Tough patrol," you say. "Messiest since I got here." Joel says nothing and you don't look at him. "I...it was fine. We got jumped by some stalkers and it was fine but...close. And I -- I didn't realize how badly I wanted to come back here until then. How badly I wanted to go home at the end of it. Does that make sense?"

You finally look up and Joel's knuckles are white on the arms of his chair. When he sees you looking he crosses his arms. "Sure," he says, clears his throat.

The urge to try to explain more is overwhelming. "I mean, we've all done fucked up shit. I've been up to my elbows in infected guts and still come out on top and slept like a rock the night after. And all of a sudden I can't fucking handle a stalker getting in my face. It's like I've never had to get my hands dirty before and what if it means I'm going to fuck up next time --"

"Hey," Joel says firmly. You feel a hand on your forearm and realize you've been pacing, arms flailing as you rambled. He gives it a squeeze and then releases you. "Feel like I gotta say fuck now to catch up with you."

A wet chuckle works its way out of you. Where did that come from? Are you about to cry? On the porch of the man you have a stupid, stupid crush on? This is embarrassing. And his touch. People touch you all the time, all things considered. A tap on patrol indicating silence, a hand on your arm to get your attention, to brace you as you lift something. Children in town who don't know the horrors outside the walls give affection freely. Hell, Joel touched your shoulder after your patrol. You're not touch starved but you feel like no one has touched you with tenderness and meant it in years.

"Sorry."

Joel tuts. "C'mon," he says. "I asked."

"I don't think I feel any better."

He stands and grunts as he does so. He's so much closer than before, so close you can smell what you can only describe as Joel: wood shavings and gunpowder, laundry soap and leather. It's a little dizzying. He leans on the railing next to you.

"Bet when you go back to bed you won't dream," he says. "Usually what happens."

"Here you are again," you sigh. "Helping me out. I promise I get on just fine on my own."

"I know," he says. His eyes are warm and so, so deep. "Don't have to, though."

Joel, for all his kindness and popularity in town, is a man just like any other. A person who has seen and done shit that no one should have to see and do. You know he's got his fair share of secrets, of things he won't talk about. You all do. You know he can be unflinching and maybe even cruel, dangerous and deadly. Whatever is happening here -- this openness, this desire of his to help you out -- is hard won. You think about what Ellie said and let yourself have a dangerous thought: maybe he's this way with you because he wants to be.

You sway into him just a little before catching yourself and standing up straight. "I should go try that dreamless sleep," you say softly. "And you should, too." It does not escape your notice that you haven't talked about Joel's nightmares, whatever they are. You don't think he'd be that open. A piece of you imagines a world where you ask and he answers.

"I might," he says. Neither of you move.

That small piece of you would stay here all night. That small piece of you tries for the next best thing.

"Will you let me cook for you now?" you ask. It sounds a little desperate to your own ears. "Please?"

"Persistent, ain't you?" He taps his closed fist on the railing once, twice. "Well, if it's that important to you. Chili, you said?"

"I can have it done by sundown tomorrow. I'm on greenhouses but we always finish early. You can come by and get it. I'll do enough for you and Ellie for a few days." You're rambling but finally he's going to let you do something for him. Hinges, nightmares, it's too much. Maybe you can somehow cook out this affection for him, get rid of it with your own hands if you try hard enough.

"Alright," Joel says. He puts his hand on your shoulder lightly and squeezes once. You feel it all the way down to your toes. "Now get outta this damn cold."

He doesn't offer to walk you home. You'd say no if he did. You need the time to sort out the mess in your mind. You give him the most earnest smile you can manage and he watches from his porch until you turn out of sight.

Joel is on your mind all day. More so than usual, which is saying a lot. The crush has turned into something...more. Something that makes you hope and that something is dangerous. It's just setting yourself up to be hurt through no fault of Joel's when it goes nowhere. Because why would he be thinking about you?

"You're smiley today," Dina says. She's a sweet girl and you're paired together on greenhouse shift today. She's always got a story to tell about plants she and her sister saw in New Mexico or some weird mushroom she found on group patrol. You love how positive she is and you try to absorb some.

"Am I?" you say lightly.

She tugs on one more cucumber, putting it in your shared basket before wiping her face. She gets dirt on her nose. It makes her look young. "Got big plans?"

Your face feels hot. "Just cooking for a...friend." It's the first time you've said that out loud. It's probably true, right? Acquaintance, at least. Joel is important to you and it's taken an alarmingly short amount of time for it to solidify. That's just how the world works these days -- you never know how much time you have so everything moves faster. You care harder despite years of proof that nothing good comes of it. You can't help it. You were made to leak love like an open wound.

"A friend," Dina teases. Teenagers. You remember that she's friends with Ellie and it's very possible she knows exactly what you're talking about but she's too kind to say anything more.

"Yep," you say, popping the p. "Do I have to start teasing you about Jesse or are you going to cut me some slack?"

"Well, hey," she laughs. "I think it's nice to be excited about something. You're so serious all the time."

"Am not," you mutter.

Something you appreciate about Dina is that despite her age she knows when to leave it. "Whatever you say," she says primly.

Once work is over and you're back home the cooking goes quick. You focus just enough considering you want this to actually be good and for Joel and Ellie to like it. It's thank you chili, it's you are important to me chili, it's I want to see you every day for the rest of my life chili.

Well. It's thank you at the very least.

And food, especially in this world, means something extra. There's enough to go around in Jackson, more than enough, but anyone taking the time to fix something with their own hands means more. You know how different a meal can taste when someone makes it with care.

And to say you care is a bit of an understatement.

The chili is simmering and you're about to start on the dishes when there's a knock on the door.

"Shit," you say. You wipe your hands on a towel and pad down the hall in socked feet. When you open it you find Joel bathed in the golden light of the sunset. His hands are tucked in his pockets, the collar of his coat turned up to protect his neck from the chill that's settled in for the season. His face softens at the sight of you but his shoulders are still tight. Is he...nervous? No, you're projecting.

Here he is on your doorstep again. If you're not careful you'll get used to him being there.

"Sorry for bein' a bit early," he says at the same time you say, "I was just thinking about you ."

The tension melts out of him and he smirks like a man with a secret. "That so?"

Your eyes are wide as you find your words. Hopefully ones that aren't embarrassing. "Come in," you say. "I'm letting the heat out."

He follows you to the kitchen. "Smells good," he says.

"It's not quite done yet but that's a good sign, I guess." You stir the pot before rolling up your sleeves and taking your spot in front of the sink. "Sorry it's a bit of a mess, I was about to start on this --"

"Now I know you ain't about to do all that yourself," Joel drawls. It's a syrupy tone you haven't heard from him, not really. Is he...flirting with you?

"I...what?"

"Scoot," Joel says. He steps beside you in front of the sink and gently bumps your hip with his. "Seriously."

"Joel--"

"Does it look like I'm kiddin'?"

He keeps his eyes on yours as he shrugs off his jacket, tosses it on this island, and rolls his shirtsleeves up to his elbow. You look away from him so you can watch.

"This is getting ridiculous," you tell him even as you hop up to sit on the counter closest to the sink so you can see his face. He turns on the tap and starts on the various things in the sink even though some of them are clearly not from cooking tonight. "You'll be sick of this chili before I can pay you back."

"I told you it ain't like that," he scolds. "So quit it."

There's no real bite to his tone but you do as he says all the same. You kick your feet out a few times and do your best not to stare but fail miserably. The fall sunlight seems to have followed him into your house, pinkish-golden beams falling across his face. You can see a triangle of chest at the top of his shirt, a few dark curls teasing the hair on him. The scar on the bridge of his nose is much harsher up close, much deeper than the countless other ones that dot his forehead, his temples. He doesn't look as tired today. Maybe he got some sleep after all.

So did you. You didn't dream.

"How was your day?" you ask. Joel's eyes flick up to yours for just a breath before he looks back down at his task. His mouth pulls up at the corner.

"Fine," he says. "Had to fix the water heater at Ellie's place."

A piece of hair falls in his face and you shove your palms under your thighs so you don't brush it back.

You tap his denim-clad thigh with your socked foot, almost like a compromise with yourself when it comes to touching him. "And that took all day?" Damn, are you the one flirting now?

Joel seems amused in a grumpy way. "Well, no," he says. The faucet is on so he speaks a little louder. "Did some house chores. Worked on a guitar. Took a nap."

The image of Joel sprawled out on a couch is clear as day. You bet he looks relaxed in his sleep, the lines on his face not as pronounced, his breathing steady and even.

"Busy day," you say softly. He's about to say more, lips parted to ask about your day, maybe, but you're not about to admit that you spent all day thinking about him so you keep talking before he can. "Does Ellie like living in the garage?"

"Think so," he says. "She spends a night in the house every so often but I think she likes havin' her own space. S'important to me to give her that."

This is uncharted territory. You desperately don't want to step in shit, to somehow make him bring his walls back up. Everyone is protective of the things they love in this world and for good reason and you're pretty sure there is nothing and no one Joel loves more than Ellie.

"She's a good kid," you offer. "Everyone in town loves her."

Joel smiles down at his hands, that soft, raw smile you've seen a few times when talking about her. It makes your chest ache. "She is," he admits. "Pain in my ass, too."

You want so badly to ask him the details. How did they meet? How did they get here? How did they become so devoted to one another? And what happened in the last twenty years to get him to right now, washing dishes in your kitchen?

But you haven't earned that stuff yet. Maybe you never will.

"Does she like Jackson?" You remember what he said about them settling in, sleeping in the living room with their shoes on. You imagine he kept watch for weeks, maybe months, before deciding it was safe.

He nods. "S'good for her to have friends. And havin' school is good for her. She's real smart." He clears his throat. "And you? D'you like it?"

"Well, I like it much better now that my hinges don't squeak."

Joel laughs. "I'll bet you do." He's almost done, everything from your chili-making washed and set aside to dry. He's doing your dishes from breakfast but shows no signs of stopping."Do you cook like this a lot?

Your brows furrow. "I-- no, actually," you admit. "It's just me, so. Not worth putting in the effort that often."

He turns off the tap and grabs a towel and starts to dry. You should offer to help but you feel frozen to the counter. If you get any closer to him you might snap. His jaw is tight.

"When Ellie and I --" he stops, takes a moment to focus on the bowl in his hands. Joel, you've noticed, doesn't tend to say things he doesn't mean, at least not to you. It's like he knows that every word counts in a life as unpredictable as this. "We had a bit of a rough patch last year and we didn't talk for a while. I was damn near eatin' canned veggies on days Tommy didn't drag me to the community meals." He sighs and sets the bowl on the counter ever so gently. Violence and tenderness go hand in hand with him. "Just didn't have it in myself to try cookin' if she wasn't there to eat it."

It's the most vulnerable thing he's said. He keeps doing this -- offering you pieces of himself that you want to hold close, that make you think maybe he wants you to know him.

"Joel--"

"I guess what I'm sayin' is it's easier to take care of yourself when you're also takin' care of people who matter to you. That make sense?"

"Yeah," you breathe. "It does."

The whole scene is so...domestic that your chest aches. Joel in your kitchen doing your dishes. He's helping you yet again but this feels different. It feels like he wants to be here, talking to you. It feels real.

He finishes his task and dries his hands on a faded towel. You hop down from the counter to check the chili. "Should be done," you say. "Do you want to try it? Make sure it's worth it?"

"Oh, it's worth it," he mutters. You work to keep your face neutral. What does that mean? "Sure."

You pull a spoon from the drawer and while it would make more sense to just hand it to him you don't. Instead, you dip it into the steaming liquid and hold it out for him, your other hand cupped underneath to catch any spill. Joel stares at your offering for a few seconds and you wonder if he can hear your heart beating.

Then Joel reaches out slowly like he's afraid you'll bolt if he goes too fast, and lightly wraps his hand around your wrist. It's the first time he's touched you skin to skin and you know immediately that it's a mistake.

You'll never stop wanting him now.

His palm is warm, callused fingertips pressing gently into your skin and he tugs, bringing the spoon -- and you -- closer to his mouth. Everything moves in slow motion for a few moments and it's like you are the only two people in the world. Your kitchen fades and it's just Joel. His lips part and he slides the spoon into his mouth at the same time as his thumb strokes the inside skin of your wrist.

It's very possible that you gasp a little.

He closes his eyes and you're torn between watching his face and his throat as he swallows. You could look at him forever, you think, and never get enough. The set of his brow, the hard line of his jaw. Lines around his eyes and mouth from years of terror and violence but also from laughter and smiles. You want to learn every inch of him if he'll let you.

"Christ," Joel says. His eyes fly open and find yours. "That's good. That's real good."

"You're just saying that," you say weakly. He hasn't let go of your wrist and his thumb strokes once again. You wonder if you realize he's doing it.

Something in his face changes, something so small that you only notice because you're watching. It feels like he has decided something and you wish you knew him well enough to say what. You dare to hope it has to do with you.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm a good liar but I ain't just sayin' that."

Sweetheart. It echoes in your ears, burrows its way into your chest and takes root.

You're so fucked.

But there's something in Joel's gaze, in the brush of his thumb across your skin, in the fact he's just done all of your dishes and talked to you like he wants to be here that gives your traitorous heart some ground to stand on.

You send him home with as many glass containers of chili as he'll take. He argues that you won't have enough for yourself and manages to convince you to keep a few. You don't tell him that what you really want is to sit next to him at a table and eat it, knees bumping under the wood and his smile making your empty house feel warm.

"Tell Ellie I say hi," you say once he's out your door and on the porch. "And let me know if she likes it."

"Will do," Joel says. You hug your arms around yourself against the chill. He frowns slightly.

You wonder if he'd touch you if his hands weren't full.

"And thank you for--"

He shakes his head. "Not acceptin' thanks," he chides. "Not from you."

You don't know what to say to that. Joel seems to realize he's rendered you speechless, not for the first time, and nods his head before heading home.

"See you around, Joel," you call after him. It sounds half like a question and half like a wish.

He turns. "Countin' on it."

___

You do see him around but not as much as you'd like. Things pick up around town before the seasons can change and send Wyoming into winter. You find yourself in the kitchen most days helping seal jars for the community food stores, hands chapped from the hot water and heart light when you think about Joel. He nods at you from across the dining hall, opens the door of the library when you're going in and he's coming out, and tells Ellie to tell you how good the chili was when you share a shift at the stables.

"Fucking amazing," she says.

You sleep fairly well, going to bed each night with a little bit of lightness in your heart that you allow because why not? There's no way out short of Joel telling you to fuck off and you don't think that'll happen. If only you could get over yourself a little more and actually do something about it.

As much as you want to keep telling yourself that this -- glances across rooms, smiles from a distance, memories of his hand on your skin -- is enough, you're not sure that it is. The force of your want is destabilizing considering the most that's happened is maybe a little bit of flirting. But maybe this is you taking his direction to ask for...no help, not exactly, but to ask for something. To ask for him.

Today you're going on patrol. You decide as you mount your horse that you're going to ask Joel if he wants to get a drink when you get back. You want to talk to him again, let him under your skin a little more. Maybe tell him some things about yourself. Sometimes he's milling around the gate or on wall duty but you don't see him as you and your partner -- a fairly new kid in his twenties -- take your rifles and head out. You're on an easy route today, just clearing out the town over the hill and the highway exits near Jackson. Shouldn't take you more than a few hours.

It goes to shit fairly quickly.

The kid -- Conner? Charlie? You can't remember -- is rambling about the infected he's killed for some reason when you realize something isn't quite right. You can't hear any birds. Apollo snorts and it sounds panicked. You motion for the kid to stop talking but he either ignores you or doesn't see.

He sure shuts up when the clicker bursts out of a house to your left. Apollo startles and rears at the moment you reach for your gun and you can't grab hold in time.

You go flying, bouncing off a rusted-out car and landing hard on the broken pavement of the street with a popping sound. There is a pain in your shoulder so intense your vision whites out. The kid is shouting, the clicker is making that awful sound, but then you hear two gunshots and nothing else.

"Holy fuck," he says, rushing over to you. "Fuck, are you okay?"

Well, for a talker, this kid a good shot.

"Get the -- horse --" You roll onto your back with a groan and he grabs Apollo and settles him.

"What happened?"

You stare up at the sky, blue turning purple. It'll be sunset soon and you very well might be fucked if this is what you think it is.

"I think my shoulder popped out," you say through gritted teeth. Your head doesn't hurt like you smacked it and your side is only a little sore. Maybe some bruised ribs. Your hands are scraped, blood beading on the heels of your palms. "Help me up."

"Holy shit." He helps you sit up and then stand, your left arm hanging limp at your side. You hiss through your teeth as it gets jostled and lean heavily on the car. "You don't look so good," he says. "Can you ride? We should only be a half hour out of town."

"I...don't think so." You're pretty sure you'll pass out from the pain and this kid doesn't look like he can handle that. You don't want to fuck up the joint any more than you have to. "You're going to have to go back and bring someone to set it for me, okay?"

"But the rules say --"

"I know what the fucking rules say," you snap. Don't let your partner out of your sight. Your shoulder is throbbing and you might cry but not until this kid is on his way back to town. "That's why you're going to go as fast as you can, alright?"

"We should at least clear a building first so you can --"

"No time," you say, looking at the sky. "If we want to be back before nightfall you need to go now. I'll handle myself."

You really should know his name. He sets his jaw in a move that reminds you of Joel which causes a pang in your chest so intense you want to rub it away. "I'll clear that garage, okay?" He points behind you and before you can stop him he runs towards it with his gun out.

Lucky for both of you it's clear. You take Apollo inside and slump against the wall, pistol in your hand. The kid closes the garage door behind him and you hear the clop of his horse as he gallops away.

"Fuck," you say into the empty room. It's dusty and full of cobwebs and not much else. Empty metal shelves, a rusted-out lawn mower, some tarps so ratted they're useless. Apollo snorts. "Not your fault, buddy."

Death has been nipping at your heels for twenty years now. You've always expected it. And you're fairly certain you won't die out here. Maybe end up spending a night on this floor, having to walk yourself back to Jackson tomorrow morning. But you can't help the fear that rises in your throat. You know how an injury like this means so much more in this world. You won't be able to work for weeks. You won't be able to patrol, to pull your weight.

You're going to need a lot of help.

You close your eyes against the stinging tears and thud your head against the wall.

The pain dulls the embarrassment you feel when you catch yourself thinking of Joel. You wish he was here. If you'd been on patrol together this wouldn't have happened. You wonder what he's going to think of this.

What you'd really like is for him to hold you and tell you it'll be alright.

A few tears slip down your nose. Apollo noses at your knee.

There are no windows so you don't know how much time has passed. You start to question if this was the right call. Maybe you could have made it back on horseback, or at the very least slung across the back of Apollo like a sack of flour, arm be damned.

Your traitorous brain is about to remind you of all the things that go bump in the night out here when you hear something.

Someone is calling your name. Yelling it.

"Here!" you scream. Apollo whinnies. "I'm here!" You have no idea if they can hear you. You press your good shoulder into the wall behind you and try to push yourself to your feet but just as you do the garage door is hauled open and there stands --

Joel.

A sob bursts from your throat and you will yourself to pull it together. Behind him the sky is much more orange than it was when you first sat down.

Joel's eyes look you up and down once before cataloging the space and locking on some milk crates. He stacks two of them.

"Sit," he says. His voice is tight.

"Joel --"

"Sit."

You do as he says. He kneels at your feet and rummages around in his bag. His horse stands munching on some overgrown grass on the driveway. Did he come alone?

"How are you here --"

Joel cuts you off with a glare. His eyes are blazing, jaw grinding as he holds out a length of bandage.

"Hold this." He stands and his knees crack. "Kid said it's your shoulder. Anything else?"

The throb is still deep, still intense, but his arrival almost made you forget all about it. You shake your head.

"Didn't hit your head? Crack ribs? Nothin' like that?"

"No, I don't think so --"

"Need you to sit up straight," he says. There's no warmth in his tone but it's a little softer now that he's taken stock of the situation. "I ain't gonna lie to you, this is going to hurt like hell." He digs in his pocket for something and pulls out a square of leather. "Need you to bite down on this."

He squats so that you're just about face to face and holds out the leather. It feels like being in your kitchen, you holding out the spoon and fighting your desire to touch him. Except this time he won't look you in the eye. You open your mouth and he gently places it between your teeth, thumb catching the corner of your lips and trailing along the edge of your chin before he pulls away and stands up.

"I'm going to reset it on three, alright? Bite down hard on that." He finally meets your gaze and you nod and close your eyes. He puts one hand on your shoulder and the other on your wrist and you wince even though you feel incredibly safe in his hands. "Alright. One...two --"

Joel jerks your arm up and around before he hits three and you barely hear it pop back into place because, as he said, it hurts like hell. You bite down hard on the leather which also serves to muffle your scream.

Someone is talking to you."I know, baby, I know. Good job, you did a good job."

You open your eyes and wipe away a few tears with one hand and pull the leather from your teeth. Joel looks pained but his face snaps back to neutral when he sees you watching. His eyes narrow.

"Where did that come from?" He gently grabs your wrist and looks at your palm and you both find it bloody. "Got it on your face."

"Scraped my hands when I fell," you say hoarsely. He clicks his tongue.

"Give me that bandage." You don't even get a chance to hand it to him because he plucks it from your lap. "Gonna make this into a sling for this arm. Try not to move it much. Then we'll clean those hands and head home. Get you to the clinic for some meds." He gently positions your arm, which hurts a lot less than before but is still throbbing, and ties a sling so it's bent close to your chest. You can feel his breath on your neck as he does the knot.

And then he's back crouching in front of you.

Joel Miller on his knees for you so many times in one day makes you a little dizzy. Or maybe that's the adrenaline.

"Are you angry with me?" you ask softly as he wipes clean your palms and cheek with firm touches. The muscle in his jaw twitches again and his hands freeze for a split second.

"No," he says. "I ain't mad at you. I just can't believe the fuckin' kid left you here."

"I told him to."

"Can't believe that either. You know better."

"It's fine, Joel," you say. "It doesn't matter. I would have just walked back in the morning if no one came --"

He pulls his hands away and tosses the rag to the floor. "Damnit, it does matter," he curses. "'Course it fuckin' matters. Cut that shit out."

Now you're confused. It sure seems like he's angry with you. "Joel, I don't understand --"

His hands cradle your face and the protest dies in your throat. "You matter to me," he says thickly. His eyes are wide but his stare is steady. "Ain't it fuckin' obvious?" Anger and desperation are dripping from his words. "It matters."

For one long second you think he's going to kiss you. Now that might kill you.

You wrap one hand around his wrist and lean into his palm. A thousand thoughts swirl in your head but you focus on one. Joel is here which means you're safe. Joel is here which means he's going to take care of you. Joel is here. Joel is here. Joel is here.

"Oh," you breathe. You turn your face in his palm and press your lips to the center of it. His breath hitches and it feels like something big between you shifts, slots into place. "Okay," you say against his skin.

He pulls his hands away and stands. He works his jaw a few times before shouldering his pack and holding out his hand. "Let's go home," he says.

You stand with his help. "I think you'll need to help me get on my horse."

"Not a fuckin' chance," he growls but you can still see tenderness in his eyes. "Can't hold on well enough with one arm. We're ridin' together."

This Joel is one you haven't seen. But this is what you wanted, right? You want to see every part of him. Something molten and heavy sits in your stomach at how tense he is, how his hands remain gentle despite his harsh words. How he just told you that you matter to him. Maybe this is all a dream.

He helps you on his horse and then gets on behind you, tying Apollo's reigns to his so you won't lose him. He wraps one arm right around your stomach, mindful of your arm.

"Ain't gonna be comfortable," he says in your ear. "But it'll be over quick."

You lean back into him. Hell, it's all on the table now. If your arm is going to hurt you might as well enjoy your time pressed against him.

"Oh, I don't know," you say. "This isn't so bad." He snorts and snaps the reigns.

He talks low and steady in your ears as you gallop, his palm firm on your abdomen to keep you as still as possible though it's a hopeless venture. Your shoulder aches, sends sharp tendrils of pain through your entire arm with every stride.

He tells you that he was on the wall when your partner came back alone. That he knew something was wrong with you as soon as the kid came into view. He'd seen the patrol assignments and knew you were paired together. Kid didn't know what flag to use to signal his approach because you're not supposed to leave behind your partner.

Joel tells you how he hopped down from the wall and asked the kid where exactly he left you. Demanded to know how hurt you were, if you'd been bit. He was on a horse before anyone else could get their shit together, told them to get Tommy and have the clinic ready for you. Started hollering your name as soon as he got to the street, rifle ready for any infected to show up.

"Damn miracle when you yelled back," he says just as Jackson comes into view. You're sweating and dizzy from the pain, practically all of your weight slumped back into his chest. "Almost there, sweetheart. Doin' real good."

The rest of it is a blur. Joel takes you to the clinic where he becomes increasingly agitated that he set your shoulder wrong until one of the staff says he did it just fine. They give you a real sling and one painkiller to take if you hurt really bad, despite some harsh words from Joel in an attempt to get you more.

"Don't move it above your head for two weeks. Keep the sling on for that time, too. Ice it today, start moving it back and forth a few times in a few days. You got someone to help you for a bit?"

Before you can open her mouth Joel answer for you.

"Yes." The nurse hides her amusement well. She lets you go. Joel keeps his hand on your back as he walks you to your house.

You stop him when you get to your front door. "Joel --"

"If you're about to argue with me, so help me God, I'll --"

"I was going to ask if you need to go check on Ellie." You pull out your keys and after a second hold them out for him. Maybe letting Joel help you is helping him, too. You can handle that. You think.

"Told Tommy to when I left. I'll go home once we get you settled."

We.

"Okay," you say softly. He unlocks the door and motions for you to go in. You sit gingerly on the couch and Joel brings you a glass of water.

And then he paces. He looks at the books on your shelf without seeing them and rubs his thumb against his first two fingers over and over. And all of a sudden he won't look at you.

"Joel, sit down or something," you grumble. "You're making me nervous."

He stops. "Fine." His tone has a bit of bite to it that makes you close your eyes. There's an armchair in the room but he sits next to you instead. He presses his knee to yours, almost in apology.

The adrenaline has faded by now and all you feel is the ache of your shoulder and ribs and rawness of your palms and heart. The shoulder hurts like hell but in a way all of this hurts deeper, harder than that. In the way you know love, or the beginning of it, can hurt.

You sniffle.

Truth is you're overwhelmed. By what happened, by Joel coming to get you and saying all that shit. By him touching you, by him being here, by your own heart beating so quickly at his nearness. Even though you dared hope he felt something close to your affection for him it's a shock to realize he cares about you because you're you, not just because he's a good man. You've always wanted love that came from a place of purpose, which feels selfish on the best of days. You should just accept whatever kindness comes your way in this cruel world.

But, fuck, you've always wanted to feel chosen. Like you matter.

And you do. Right here, you do. From his own lips he's said you do.

You don't even realize you're crying until Joel curses softly and one wide, warm palm is on your face again.

"What's wrong? You hurtin'?" His thumb swipes at your tears. "Talk to me."

"I'm fine." You press your face into his shoulder and he holds you, hand soft on the back of your head. "I'm just -- I'm just really glad you're here, Joel."

"Course I'm here," he says into your hair. "C'mere."

There's nowhere for you to go considering you're already pressed against him. But his arms come around you fully, mindful of your shoulder, and your fingers fist in his shirt.

You should be embarrassed. On the scale of fucked up shit that's happened to you, today is remarkably low. But you let yourself have this. You breathe him in and let him hold you.

"I was going to ask you to get a drink tonight," you mumble. His chest vibrates with laughter.

"That so?" he says. His hand rubs up and down your spine. "Reckon I'd say yes."

You pull back just enough to see his face. This close you can see how his eyes have a bit of gold in them. "Really?" Even with proof of his affection right in front of you it's a little hard to believe.

"Am I readin' this wrong?" he asks. "It's okay if I am--"

"No," you say quickly. "No, you're not."

"Thought so." His lips pull up at the corner just a bit. "But, still. You've had a real rough day, and --"

"Joel," you breathe. You free your good arm from your embrace and put your hand on his jaw. He's touched you plenty today and you want to give it a try yourself. His face is warm, his beard gently rubbing against your skin. His eyes flutter close for a breath before he opens them wide and leans into your hand just a little.

"Alright," he says softly. Then he says your name, just once, ever so tenderly. It sounds like a prayer.

Joel Miller kisses you in the middle of your living room. Despite the affection you've been nursing for him over the last little while you never allowed yourself to imagine what it would be like to kiss him.

It's like this: the first press of his lips is soft like he thinks you'll pull away. When you don't he takes your lower lip between his and presses a little harder. Your hand slides into his hair and he palms your hip with one of his and cups your face with the other. His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open for him, let him lick into your mouth. You sigh into it and tug on his hair just a little. Joel makes a sound deep in his throat and then pulls away.

You're both breathing heavier than before, both smiling. Joel presses his lips to your forehead, your temple. He holds you against him and you breathe against the skin of his neck.

"Will you let me take care of you?" he says into your hair.

"For my sake or yours?"

You think he'll laugh but he just breathes. "Both," he says. "Hell, you know what's goin' on here. I showed my hand. Been showin' it." He pulls away so you can see the honesty in his face. "I told you in as many damn words as I know how."

He did. He did and you make yourself believe it. Love in this life is worth holding on with both hands. Whatever this is, whatever this is going to become, you want it. You want to let this man continue to teach you to ask for help. You want to learn from him, maybe teach him a few things of your own.

You want to love him. You think you could sooner rather than later.

You trace the line of his brow, run your fingertip over the scar on the bridge of his nose.

"Can you kiss me again?" you ask.

"What a fuckin' question," he says. "C'mere."

thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, general masterlist here!

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fluff #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction

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iovesia · 11 months

Text

HIS BONNIE ON THE SIDE.

𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔. being in a relationship with dark!john wick through the years.

warnings. toxic relationship. nsfw. corruption kink. emotional manipulation. canon typical violence. gaslighting. not proof read.

pairings. dark!john wick ⠀𝒙⠀fem!reader.

josie’s note .⁺ ˖ ⌒ i love doing these little hcs (and also i've had no inspo for full length fics unfortunately </3). anyways, this is for my all my toxic!john wick enjoyers — hope you enjoy ♡ !!

#. requests are open. ⠀masterlist.⠀keanu reeves masterlist.

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑.

dark!young!john wick is so much more impulsive, especially when it comes to you. even though he’s only in his twenties, his name is rapidly spreading throughout the crime world. john's known for his ruthlessness and ambition— and you get to be the first to fall victim to both, and live.

john is a bit of an adrenaline junkie— loves the thrill of the chase. whenever you try to escape from him, he’s hot on your tail. this game of cat and mouse only makes catching you so much more fun.

his jealousy is worse when he’s younger (although it never really gets better). having been raised in the ruska roma (a desolate home, completely void of love and feelings), he’s projecting all his emotional turmoil onto you.

again, john was taught to wield the sharpest blades, and wield the heaviest of guns— but feelings… heart to hearts? he’s almost emotionally inept.

"thought you were too tired to go out," his voice makes you jump as you nearly drop your keys from your hands. you turn around, noticing him hiding behind your entrance door, lurking.

"i-i just went for a walk," you stammer. john's footsteps echo in your tiny apartment when he comes closer. towering over you at 6'1, you gaze upwards at your lover.

"yeah, i know. i saw you.. and him."

he’s fuming watching you get cozy and comfortable around other people, even if it’s just platonic. john wishes you were like that around him, and not so guarded and fearful.

and heaven forbid one of your male friends tried anything— anything. you’re devastated to see their photo splashed on the morning news the next day.

he’s possessive as all hell. working in crime syndicates and doing hits for the mob heightens his paranoia of something happening to you, so whenever possible, he keeps you under constant surveillance.

you frequently get into fights about this. even if you bring up the subject nicely, he damn near freaks out.

“i just want some space. i'm not even sure you trust me at all!” your hands flop to your sides frustratedly, eyes fluttering with exhaustion at the tiresome loop of this conversation.

“i'm not going anywhere, ever. you can be sure of that.”

young!john is so quick to react, too quick. your arguments can get ugly very fast. seeing him so explosive and agitated with you in contrast to his usual charming and cool nature grounds you in reality— he's a cold blooded killer, and he could if he wanted to...

speaking of killing, because of his job, he randomly disappears for weeks or months at a time.

you miss him so badly, but it’s not like you could call him or talk to him in any way, so you spend many sleepless nights wondering what the hell he’s doing. if he’s even alive.

don't even try to break up with him, or ghost him. younger john is not above kidnapping you— and even worse, pretending like it's your fault. you've been a bad girl, and now you've forced his hand :(

dark john wick is a manhandler! i'm speaking my truth! he’s just so much bigger than you, and stronger than you, sometimes he doesn’t even realise the brute of his strength against you.

he grabs your arm when dragging you somewhere, throws you over his shoulder, or when he’s feeling particularly passionate, just presses his fingers into your cheeks and pulls you in for a rough kiss.

"it's you and me, till the end. i meant it, you know that right?" john asks softly, his forehead gently pressed against yours, his dark irises searching yours for any semblance of understanding. you slowly nod, and try not to cry when he locks his lips with yours.

⠀⠀⠀

𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑.

dark!older!john wick is silent but deadly. having (somewhat) emotionally matured into his middle aged years, he’s more calculated, and logical when it comes to you.

less explosive and controlled by impulses, his ability to fill your innocent little heart with guilt is almost impressive.

“i’m sorry, john, please,” you wrap your arms around him from behind, your chest pressed against his back as you rest your chin on his shoulder . “i-i do trust you, i swear. how can i show you i do?”

while john’s face may well be presenting a hurt facade, he can’t ignore the growing bulge in his pants. your glassy doe eyes, quiet sniffles, and desperate need to want to be in his good graces again— who is he to pass up the opportunity?

even older, he is still so fiercely protective over you. he’s the infamous baba yaga, he’s not taking any chances. you’re damn near suffocated from how tight a leash he keeps you on.

when you keep resisting his “protection”— john is determined to make you see how much you need him. he’d probably hire someone to scare you a little bit, or even do it himself, just to have you driven back into his loving arms.

“i’m here, honey,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around you, enclosing you in his warm embrace as you sobbed into his chest. thankfully you miss the small eerie smile on his face. “i’ll always keep you safe.”

he has a little bit of a corruption kink. you're this sweet little thing, and john's ready to completely smear your rose-tinted view of life. while he doesn't give you all the gorey details, whatever he does tell you just adds onto the emotional manipulation that you need him. that you can't live without him (when it's practically the vice versa).

he's so unbelievably devoted to you. it's actually unhealthy, you're constantly on his mind. normally, he can keep underwraps how sickly in love he is with you— but during sex is when his darkest thoughts come out.

“i’ll kill them,” his lips against your ear, a hand gently holding your throat while the other is pressed against your button, vehemently rubbing circles.

he continues rutting into you, deliciously stretching your small cunt with his large cock. the tip gently kissing your cervix as you let out a strangled moan, completely overwhelmed with pleasure. “I’ll kill them all for you, every last one.”

he’s kind of condescending in a way that he thinks you need his help for every little thing. at first it makes you feel small, and stupid— hey, you may not be the world’s most feared assassin but surely you don’t need his help with walking to work in the morning!

he's always right (or at least he thinks). having been put on a pedestal by the crime world, it's no wonder john develops a slight superiority complex. john likes to let you "win" fights— but deep down, it's his way or no way.

*cough* he's a stalker *cough*.

either way, younger!john or older!john perceive you as the angel among his demons. the one thing in his life that could cleanse his soul— or taint yours.

﹙ ♡ ﹚─ taglist: @desoolate @sughcashsaiki @vezuiv @br-2408 @beansricejc @emosludge @nwheregirl . . !

let me know if anyone wishes to be added/removed. ∗ ୧ ‧ ₊ ˚

#dark.josie #keanu reeves x reader #keanu reeves imagine #john wick x reader #john wick imagine #john wick #john wick x you #dark john wick #yandere john wick #tw toxic relationship

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tobylovesspence · 6 months

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Late Night Talking

Content: Your poor boyfriend Reid just has to talk about how he feels. Reverse comfort! He's such a sweetheart :(

Working with the B.A.U. really was a tole taking job. Even more so when you got told you were a room down at the hotel. "You can room with me if you want." It was Reid's quiet voice next to you, "I don't feel much like sleeping so you can have the bed." He gave you that tired smile, the small one that had you knowing that he really didn't feel like sleeping.

Even after you'd both settled in the room and sat comfortably on the bed you could tell he wouldn't sleep so you laid down first. "Lay down." you mumbled and he did so, albeit awkwardly but he laid beside you. "Do you think I'm strange?" it was quiet, an almost unnoticeable whisper. "Strange? Why would I think that?" You could see from your peripherals that Reid was messing with his hands, anxiously thinking. "Talk to me, Spence."

At that he was quiet for a moment. "I just know I'm odd. I use words like betwixt and I know what ballads are. I seem to talk too much and never notice that people don't like what I'm talking about. My favorite shows are nerdy and I always explain them to people who don't care. I go on and on about things the team finds creepy or weird. Derek says I'll never get a date if I keep being this way and I'm starting to see his point, I'm lacking in the boyfriend department and I can't even make friends. You know, the team tells me their secrets and I think it's because they know I have no one else to tell. Did you know J.J. collects butterflies? Or that Derek secretly likes The Smiths? Or that Hotch is fond of chocolate flavored sweets? Emily likes deathmetal. Penelope's favorite television program is Vampire Diaries."

Reid turned to you as he spoke, looking at you as if he might cry. He felt so estranged compared to everyone else, you seemed to be the only one who listened. You didn't even talk when he was done, letting him continue. "I just know all this stuff about everyone, and I feel like no one knows me." You nodded softly and finally talked after a beat of silence. "Chocolate frosted donuts with rainbow sprinkles." Reid was instantly confused by this, raising a brow. "Excuse me?" '

You chuckled, "Your favorite donut. Emily told me." A small smile graced his lips at this. "And Derek said you really like chicken tandoori." His smile only seemed to widen. "And you put three whole tablespoons of sugar in your coffee according to J.J." You seemed like you weren't going to stop anytime soon and he looked so contented he didn't want you to. "And Hotch says you like pretzels and rice crispy treats. Pen says you grew up with horses and that you adore Halloween and all its traditions. Gideon told me you loved classical music and chess, he even saw you play piano once. And you're never lacking in the boyfriend department because you've been nothing but perfect. You're the sweetest man alive and I wish you'd ramble to me every second of the day because your voice is lovely."

He seemed about ready to cry as he moved his hand to touch your cheek. "You're too good to me," he whispered, kissing your forehead, "Thank you. I feel much better sweetheart." You give him a small smile and a kiss. "That's good, now let's get some sleep you look exhausted."

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfiction

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distantdarlings · 6 months

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THE SECONDS BEFORE // e. berkshire

RATING: R / 2.2K WORDS

Enzo Berkshire x Reader Insert (no gender-specific details)

+ SUMMARY - Just before the infamous Battle of Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall makes the decision to keep all Slytherin students housed together in the dungeons. The night before the Battle begins, you can’t sleep. You wake a friend to keep your mind occupied. (Romance, Angst if you squint)

+ WARNINGS - Heavy kissing, language, heavy petting, implied sexual material

+ MUSIC (listened to while writing) -

My Love - Sia

Your eyes found the ceiling as if waiting for something to happen. Perhaps if you stared long enough, it would burst into swirls of color and light—or maybe it would fold back and reveal the stars that you so desperately wanted to see. You felt like you all had been in the dungeons for years, wasting away. Every time you looked at one of your friends, you felt as if they looked older. Like they'd aged while down here. The odd exhaustion painted bruises beneath their eyes and tore their lips.

You sighed and tapped your fingers on your stomach, attempting to entertain yourself. All of the boys were asleep and there was no way in hell you were going to be joining them anytime soon. Something about this whole situation set your teeth on edge. You weren’t sure if it was the fact that half of the people the castle was currently at extreme odds with were some of your closest friend’s parents and family or that you all weren’t allowed in the dorms, so you hadn’t changed in a day or two, or something else. But you knew you were getting tired of being here. When Professor McGonnagal had suggested using the dungeons to house the Slytherin students until they were sure you all were safe, you thought it sounded smart and would be a good way to keep everyone together and alive for a little while. And it was, it just felt off for a lot of reasons. Nobody but the house elves had been down here in two days. You wanted to know what was going on out there.

You rolled over, tucking your arm beneath your head to remain comfortable. Your eyes found the older boy that slept peacefully beside you. You wondered silently what the boy might be dreaming about and how angry he'd get if you woke him up. There was a pretty large chance considering how the boy felt about sleep, so fifty-fifty?

"Enzo," you whispered gently so as not to startle him. "Enzo, wake up."

When the dark-haired boy did not budge, you resorted to shaking him a bit, hoping the heavy sleeper would wake. You were bored out of your mind and figured that someone should share that boredom with you. If there was one thing anyone knew about Enzo Berkshire, it was that his late-night talks were a world of comfort. His deep, raspy words hit you like a truck, bruising your body. It was an odd feeling with nothing but scratchy phrases and the moon for comfort, but you loved it.

"Enzo!" you hissed, giving him a light slap. At this, the sleeping boy jolted awake. His eyes found yours quickly, giving you a look of disdain. You knew he’d be mad for waking him, but it was too late to go back now.

"Hey, what is it? Are you okay?" Enzo asked under his breath, propping his elbows up behind himself.

You were taken by surprise. You’d honestly more expected Enzo to punch you in the arm rather than ask if you were alright. It wasn't like you were complaining, it was just strange. Something about the domesticated look in his eyes when he was worried about you made your cheeks flush a bit. You’d always had a bit of a thing for Enzo, this much was obvious. Coming to terms with it was the hard part.

"No, I’m fine, Enzo," you whispered, avoiding eye contact. You were a bit embarrassed now. "I just wanted to talk to someone."

"Oh," he exhaled, a tone of relief blowing against your hair. He let his head fall back in a small stretch, his hair tickling the spot between his shoulder blades. You watched the older boy's throat stretch against his flesh and shift as he swallowed a deep breath.

"Did you have a nightmare or something?" he asked, pushing himself into a sitting position and crossing his legs.

"Actually, quite the opposite," you replied, pulling your knees up to your chest and wrapping your arms around them. "I can't sleep."

"Ah, I see," he spoke. "Is there anything you'd like to talk about—I mean, to turn your brain off? Maybe that's what’s keeping you up, your mind's running too much?"

"Maybe," you sighed. You could only bear to glance up at the older boy every once in a while. The way his brown eyes pierced into you and threatened to steal every secret from your brain . . . It was tantalizing. You let out a small huff of air, hoping that Enzo would make better conversation. The silence was deafening and you had nothing to say.

"So . . . do you think Draco and Pansy are fucking?" Enzo asked. You nearly choked.

"What?" you squeaked, your voice sounding prepubescent. Out of all the things he could have said, that was it? "Oh, um, I don't know?"

"Hmm, I didn't mean to spring that on you, I was just wondering what you thought."

"Well, I mean I suppose they could be," you shrugged. You really didn't want to talk about your friends having sex with each other.

"Yeah, I think they are—they're always hanging out with each other, you know?" he said, running a hand through his hair.

"What, friends can't hang out with each other without fucking?" you chuckled lightly.

"That’s not what I’m saying, you know what I mean," he said, pointing at you. "I know you've seen them, they're so touchy-feely with each other."

"So what if they're fucking? There’s nothing wrong with that—"

"I never said there was, I’m simply observing . . . I know what sexual tension looks like," he spoke a bit quieter. You wondered what made him add that little line onto the end. Maybe he was trying to hint at something? Or maybe you were looking too deeply into a casual conversation? It was likely the latter.

More silence ensued, creating even more tension in between you two. It soon became so thick, it was just waiting for one of you to slash it with a knife. You prayed that he would just do something, but you were almost positive he was not interested in you, like you were him. And god knows you weren’t going to make the first move, because what if he truly had no feelings for you? Your friendship would be wrecked and your self-esteem would be down the drain.

"Hey—"

"I like you,” you choked out.

"What?"

You took a deep breath and calmly repeated yourself. "I like you . . . like, a lot, Enzo."

More silence—a different kind that made your head feel all fuzzy. Your eyes were facing the ground so as to avoid him who had been shocked into submission by your words. You wanted to beat your own head in with a broom. What the fuck were you thinking? You had spent your entire life knowing Enzo, swearing you’d never tell him, not unless he said something first. And what did you do? Fucking tell him. Merlin, you were so stupid.

"Every time you sit there and joke around with Theo or Pansy, I feel like I’m suffocating. And I never knew how to tell you that, so I became desperate for your attention, figured that I was too needy, and started ignoring you. I was hoping you'd catch on but you never did, and, Merlin, Enzo, I’ve never wanted someone so fucking badly . . ." you vented, pressing your fingertips into your temples. You had started to feel a bit more confident when the words had started spewing out but now you felt like you were on a stage in front of the world and Enzo’s silence was only making it worse. Why didn't he say something? At least turn you down or punch you or something.

"You want me?" Enzo breathed, his voice cracking under the pressure of a whisper. You glanced up from your lap and looked at the older boy. His eyes were glued to his hands as he seemed to be processing some things.

"Fuck, I need you, En."

His eyes found yours. The dark-haired boy leaned forward, on hands and knees, and crawled ever so slowly over to you. His eyes were trained on yours until they slipped down to your lips. You shuddered as the boy balanced himself on his knees, towering over your small, huddled frame. He slipped his lower body between your legs and pushed the both of you back. He hovered over you, feeling your heavy breaths mix. Your eyes were dilated and half-closed, waiting for the other's touch.

"You need me?" he spoke barely above a whisper, the gravel in his voice sending shivers up the younger's spine. Your head dipped down to let your nose gently bump against his throat. He could feel your breath there, letting it tease his flesh.

"Please," you spoke, the pitch of your voice had an effect on Enzo like no other. He imagined the way his lips would feel on your skin just before he did so. You weren’t sure if the boy above you would live up to the fantasies you’d created in your mind but it seemed impossible for him not to. The boy's inexplicable scent and the way it filled your senses, his gently cracked lips and the way you’d imagine them scratching along your throat and chest. Everything about him made your heart leap into your throat.

He didn't give you a chance to take a breath before trapping your lips with his own. They were skilled and tasted like the orange soda you both had before bed. You closed your eyes at the taste and feeling of the boy over you. He was everything you could have imagined and more. The built arms that balanced on either side of your head and the way his tongue slipped against yours.

"You sure?" he whispered when your lips disconnected for a breather. You nodded, catching his breath with deep exhales.

He reconnected your lips with no regard for your border-line asthmatic symptoms. You placed a hand behind you and pushed yourself into a sitting position, gently backing him onto his knees. He captured your waistband in his hands and tugged you onto your knees as well, loosening the fabric in the process. Nimble fingers tugged on the tie of your sweatpants, lightly brushing against the core of your body. You hissed into his mouth at the feeling, your lips faltering a bit. You could feel him smirking.

He laid the two of you back down, now much more convenient that your pants were loosened. He trapped your lips again, catching the bottom one gently in his teeth. His hand traced your stomach before slipping between your flesh and the waistband of your underwear, slightly rubbing against the most sensitive part of your body. You moaned aloud at the sensation, feeling his free hand slide over your mouth to hush you up. There was a possibility the other boys and students would hear but you didn't care, all you were concerned with was Enzo’s skin moving against yours.

The black-haired boy severed his lips from yours and found comfort with the skin of your throat. The hand stuck beneath your pants and the one on your mouth never once faltered, staying astutely in place. The sounds spilling from your lips and muffled by his hand only tightened his jeans, making it a bit hard to breathe.

He pulled his hand from beneath your waistband. You struggled to catch your breath as his hips lowered down to yours. Your hips bucked up to meet his, his breath hitching in his throat, his lips faltering on your neck. It was your turn now.

You pushed your hands beneath his tee shirt and splayed your fingers against his warm back. The tips of your fingers traced down his spine, your nails catching his skin every once and a while. His lips on your throat never faltered, his tongue brushing against your skin gently.

You traced your hands down the rest of his back and curled them around his hips to the front of his sweatpants. The tips of your fingers trailed lightly over the small growth of hair just beneath the ties. His lips shuddered against your skin as your hand slowly, slowly slid between his pants and skin. His skin was hot and sharp, your fingers cold and soft. Like snow falling gently against his skin, it being like fire and melting it immediately on contact.

“Please, baby,” he begged, his lips brushing the shell of your ear with every pant he took.

The very tip of your finger brushed over his most sensitive area—a whisper of a touch. He choked out a groan into your ear, his hand tightening in your hair, pulling tightly against your scalp.

A shrill scream pierced the pair of your ears. You flinched at the sound, pushing Enzo back as quickly as you could. The two of you stared, wide-eyed and panting.

“The Death-Eaters are here—they’re outside the school grounds!” A young, terrified first-year pushed through the hallway leading into the common-room where everyone slept.

You lept to your feet. Enzo slipped a hand into yours and squeezed tightly.

“Guess we’ll have to finish this later,” he joked, his cheeks and lips still flushed. You rolled your eyes but when he looked at you, you both smiled nervously. It would be okay.

#enzo berkshire #creative writing #fanfiction #writing #fanfic #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #oneshot #reader insert #slytherin #hogwarts fanfiction #harry potter smut

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violentdelightsandviolentends · 1 year

Text

Time.

You get shot in Colombia. Frankie, Benny, Santiago and Will all have their own ways of helping you heal.

Pairing - Santiago Garcia, Frankie Morales, Benny Miller, Will Miller x female reader

Age Rating - 18+

Warnings - Cursing, mentions of blood, gunshots

Word Count - 4329

Author's Note - hi lovely people. i loved writing this one so much oh my :( those four boys in one movie together is a dream. and i don't know if you noticed, but i have a real soft spot for will. and yes, i did photoshop ben afflecks character out of that picture. more than happy to write for any of the triple frontier boys individually - just send me an ask! as always, lots of love x

my other triple frontier fics - Tethered, Tranquility and Home Is Where The Heart Is.

Masterlist. Requests.

It’s been 6 days since you were shot.

6 days of blood, pain, sterility, stitches, hazy memories that float into your consciousness like smoke in the air.

You somehow remember it both clear as day and blurry as night.

The metallic taste of copper in your mouth, clear as day.

The searing, burning pain in your side, clear as day.

The panicked looks on the boys faces, the yelling, the frantic scrambling – clear as day.

The rest of it? Blurry as night.

You can’t remember getting home. One minute you were bleeding out on the ground in Colombia, and the next minute you’re back on US soil, lying in a bed in Houston Methodist Hospital.

You can’t remember your discharge. You fell asleep on those sterile, crinkly white sheets, and woke up in a soft bed, wrapped in a navy blue comforter that smells like Will.

All you’ve known for the last 6 days is sleep. That molten sleep that moves like molasses, warm and slow and sticky. The sun rises and sets, and you’re none the wiser. Floating aimlessly through unconsciousness, just you and your dreams.

Unbeknownst to you, you haven’t been alone for a minute since you got home. The boys have taken turns sitting by your bedside, heart rates rising whenever you stir. All of them silently processing what all of this means, for you and for them.

It was damn close. Too much blood. Pints after pints after pints of it. Pouring over Will’s hands, soaking into Benny’s jeans, slipping beneath Santiago’s boots, choking the air around Frankie where his forehead was pressed to yours, begging you to stay awake. All of them wondering the same thing – where has all of this come from? Surely one person can’t have so much blood in them. It can’t all be from her.

The Doctor said that you got lucky. Any more blood loss and you’d have lost your life too. Your surgeon said that you owed your life to whoever stopped the bleeding.

William ‘Ironhead’ Miller. He’d shoved his hand straight into the wound, applying as much pressure as he could without breaking any ribs. It was the worst thing he’d ever seen, but he was in fight or flight mode. He knew it had to be fight. He hoped you were making the same choice as you were lying there, breath rattling in your chest like pennies in a tin can.

Some would call it a miracle. Divine intervention, perhaps. You shouldn’t have survived. Scientifically, statistically, you should have died right there on that floor, in a mission gone wrong. Tragic accident. Caught in the crossfire. Collateral damage.

But you didn’t. Now, you’re half conscious in Will’s guest bedroom, enveloped by his scent. Warm, cozy, safe, and alive. You’re struggling to stay awake for more than ten, fifteen minutes at a time. It’s all catching up to you. You had to fight so hard to take each breath, that now you’re exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that sleep can’t fix. No, it’s settled into your gut, wrapped it’s limbs around your bones. It keeps you weighed down and heavy, a reminder of the trauma. You’re alive, but you’re tired. So tired.

The boys are worried. Worried beyond belief. When the Doctor told them she was happy to discharge you, reality hit the four of them like a high-speed freight train. How do they navigate this? You can’t go home. You can’t be by yourself. They’re all back on Texan soil, which means work, and family, and bills to pay, and routines to carry out. How do they factor in the woman they call their best friend, who’s currently in the deepest sleep of her life with a healing bullet hole in her side?

“I’ll take her,” Will had said. “She can stay with me, in my guest room. You guys can come over whenever you want. I have the most space, anyway.”

That was true. Santiago and Benny live in apartments, bachelor pads really, and Frankie’s second bedroom is his daughter’s room. She was only with him on weekends, but she needed a place to sleep, so that was him out of the question. Having you stay with Will made the most sense. They all agreed to come and sit with you in shifts, so Will could go to the grocery store, or for a run, or to take a shower. The Doctor never actually said that you needed twenty four hour surveillance, but the boys thought it would be best. Just in case.

So that’s exactly what they did. You’re on bed rest, and they’re all happy to play nurse for a few hours during the day, and to leave you with Will during the night. He’s been sneaking in to sleep in the armchair next to your bed. His room, a mere ten feet away, feels too far. He wants to be able to hear if you need his help. Just in case.

None of the boys quite know how to treat you. They don’t want to act any differently around you, but it’s hard not to. They haven’t seen you like that before. You, a force to be reckoned with. The backbone of the group. You, with your sharp wit, quick humor, blinding smile. You, who always seems to be a step ahead of them. You, a pillar of strength, proving yourself just as capable in this world designed for men. Lying on the ground, painted crimson, you looked fragile. Small. Frail. You looked so… innocent. So afraid. That was the scariest part for all of them – seeing the fear in your eyes. They’ve never seen that before. They never want to again.

So, they all take their different approaches. They cope the best way that each of them knows how.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

When Frankie visits, he always brings a book.

Cracking open the door, he pops his head around the frame, smiling as he sees both you and Will asleep – him in the chair, you cozy in bed. He gently squeezes the blond man’s shoulder, whispering as he wakes.

“I got her for a while. You go do what you need to do.”

Will shoots him a grateful smile and stretches his arms above his head, before padding out of the room, softly shutting the door behind him.

Frankie opens the curtains, letting the soft morning light fill the room. It illuminates your face, catches on the strands of your hair, making it glow. You look like an angel, in this orange haze. But Frankie already knew that.

Your eyes flutter open, and land straight on the broad man standing next to your bed, trusty cap sat atop his head. You smile, and his heart stops for a second. God, he’s missed that sight. All of the tension from the last week leaves his shoulders, and he sinks into the armchair next to you.

“Hi, Francisco,” you whisper, voice slightly hoarse from minimal use.

“Hi, cariño,” he whispers back. “You doing okay?”

You nod, golden smile still etched on your face. The wound in your side is a dull ache, and the psychological pain keeps washing over you in spontaneous waves. But you’re okay.

“You here to babysit me?” you tease.

He smirks, which is all the answer you needed.

“You don’t need to. I’m okay, I swear,” you insist.

He looks at you and quirks an eyebrow, the corners of his lips still turning up slightly.

“Well, you’re my baby, and I’m sitting,” he winks. “Now that we’ve established that, what do you wanna do for the next few hours?”

His abysmal attempt at a joke makes you chuckle, which in turn makes you wince, pain shooting through your abdomen. He jumps out of his chair towards you, placing a hand on your cheek gently.

“Shit, querida. I’m sorry. Are you alright? Do you need anything?”

Breathing deep and slow, you tilt your head to meet his eyes.

“Yes. For you to stop fussing. Sit down, Francisco. Your nervous energy is making me stressed.”

He exhales carefully, and presses a kiss onto the top of your head.

“Yes ma’am.”

He returns to his original place, and grabs a book from the nightstand.

“Have you read this already?” he asks, showing you the cover.

You shake your head, and he flips to the first page.

“It sounds good, actually. You comfy, cielito?”

You nod gently, holding his gaze. He flashes you one of his signature smiles – the rare, genuine, time stopping ones – and begins to read softly, in that dulcet, honeyed voice of his.

He reads to you for hours. You were only awake for 45 minutes, but he continued reading aloud anyway. Morning becomes afternoon, yellow sunlight beating through the open window. A gentle breeze blows the curtains and ruffles Frankie’s hair that is ever so slightly too long for his liking. He’d be perfectly content to read to you like this forever. He’s gotten so into the plot of the book that he doesn’t notice Will stood in the doorframe, watching with those careful eyes of his. They gleam blue in the sunlight, his golden hair glinting like citrine. He eventually catches Frankie’s eyes, and the older man makes his way over to the door, both boys talking in hushed whispers so as not to wake you.

“Has she been okay?” Will asks, eyes scanning your sleeping form.

“Perfectly fine. She was awake for about 45 minutes,” Frankie replies, pride evident in his tone.

“That’s the longest she’s been conscious since. Progress, huh?” Will smiles. Frankie can’t help but smile too. A week ago, they were huddled around your lifeless body, hands deep and bloody in your wound. Now, they’re watching you slumber peacefully, life returned to you like a gift from the universe.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

When Benny visits, he brings comfort with him.

He uses his key to let himself into Will’s house quietly, aware that you’re most likely asleep. It’s been a week and a half since everything happened, and while you’re awake more and more each day, you’re also still on bed rest.

Creeping up the stairs and peeking his head around the door that’s ajar, he finds Will sat at the end of your bed. You’re awake, but barely. The light shines from the hallway into the bedroom, and illuminates your tear stained cheeks.

Will wipes your cheekbone with his thumb gently, and moves to meet his brother. The older Miller pulls Benny into the hallway, shutting your door momentarily.

“She’s having a real bad day. The worst since she’s been home. The memories are flooding back man, they’re drowning her.”

All the colour is gone from Will’s face. He looks helpless. His brother hates it.

“I don’t know how to help her,” Will continues. “The tears won’t stop. It’s like every time she calms down, another nightmare takes her by surprise. I don’t know what to do, Ben. I don’t know what to do.”

Will’s voice is shaking, tears threatening to spill from those cerulean eyes. He has a hand fisted into the front of Benny’s shirt, as if he’s grounding himself. There’s something unsettling about seeing the calmest person in the room start panicking. Benny doesn’t like it.

“Hey, it’s okay. She’s gonna have bad days, that’s a given. Go get some fresh air, go for a drive or something. I’ve got her. I ain’t gonna leave her.”

Benny looks pointedly at his big brother, and inhales deeply. They exhale together, and Will wipes his face with the back of his hand.

“Are you sure?”

Benny nods. Will trusts him.

“Okay. Call me if you need anything and I will come straight back. I mean it, Ben. Anything.”

Benny pulls his brother into his chest, holding him for a moment. Will isn’t used to being the glue holding everything together, he thinks. It’s usually you.

Will pulls away and starts his journey down the stairs, momentarily pausing to watch Benny straighten his shoulders and clear his throat before opening your door carefully.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he smiles.

You don’t feel gorgeous. No, you feel like you’ve shattered into a million pieces in William Miller’s guest bedroom. The weight of your trauma has come crashing down on top of you suddenly. It’s suffocating and it’s choking you and no matter how many times you inhale, your lungs won’t fill with air. Tears keep streaking down your cheeks despite your best efforts to stifle them. You wonder if you’ll feel like this forever – forced to carry around the weight of surviving something that you weren’t supposed to.

Benny’s never been any good with words. So he tells you what he needs to with his actions instead.

He kicks off his shoes and shrugs off his jacket, throwing it on the chair. Then, he unbuttons his jeans and slides them off his legs, tossing them sideways with haphazard aim. The last thing to go is his t shirt, which he shucks over his head with ease, landing somewhere with the rest of his clothes. He moves across the room towards you and pulls back the comforter. He strokes your cheek with his knuckles gently, looking at you carefully to gauge your reaction. When he’s satisfied, he climbs into bed behind you, pulling you mindfully to sit in between his legs, his chest pressed to your back. He pulls the comforter back up over the two of you, and uses his arms to cage you in to him, enveloping you in his warmth.

Benny’s always run hot. You joke that he’s like a walking space heater, a radiator if you ever need one. Right now, it’s like having your own ball of sunshine, warming you gently from the outside in. You feel the safest you have in two weeks.

“Relax, baby,” he murmurs into your hair. He pulls you in tighter, and nudges your head to rest in the crook of his neck. You inhale deeply – the first real breath you’ve been able to take all day. He smells like sunshine, and salt, and sandalwood, and safety. You relax into him and let all the tension leave your body. You let go of the flashbacks, and the fear, and the chaos, and surrender yourself to Benny.

He stays with you like that for three days. He doesn’t separate himself from you more than a few inches for 72 whole hours, keeping his arms wrapped around you from behind, as if holding you together. When he gets up to go to the bathroom, he takes you with him. You stay attached for three days, skin to skin, allowing his warmth to seep into your bones, to settle your nerves. You’re convinced that no medicine could heal you the way Benny is. Science doesn’t have a match for this. It never will.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

When Santiago visits, he brings his guitar.

The first time he came to see you, right at the beginning, he sat with you for 20 minutes before he careened out of the room, gasping for air. The silence was strangling him, sending him into some sort of panic attack. Then, the guilt settled, and he felt like he’d betrayed you so badly that he couldn’t bring himself to go back in. He sat on the floor of the hallway with his back pressed against the door for 6 hours before Will returned home, concern coursing through his veins.

When Santiago explained what had happened, Will looked at him knowingly.

“You don’t have to be deathly silent, you know. You can watch some TV, turn the radio on. Frankie reads to her. Benny talks her ear off - doesn’t stop fucking rambling. I walked in the other day and he was explaining the current state of the NBA to her, team by team. She’ll sleep no matter what.”

Santiago nods, patting Will on the back lovingly before leaving, weighed down by shame.

The next time he visits, he brings his guitar.

If he’s honest with himself, he’s hoping you’ll be asleep. It’s easier to play for you if you aren’t looking at him like he hung the moon with those big, bright eyes of yours. But, lo and behold, he walks into the room you’ve made your own, and you’re wide awake.

“Hi, handsome,” you smile. “Where you been?”

“Oh, you know,” he smirks, “just caring for all the pretty girls that need my help.”

“And here I thought I was special,” you tease.

That smile of yours wraps itself around his heart, tangling in the core of him. You’ve always had that effect on the boys. One grin from you, and all of their problems melt away, even if just for a moment.

“You staying today, or you gonna run away again?”

You’re joking with him. Why are you trying to make him laugh? You should be upset, telling him that he’s a bad friend, that all of the other boys have sat with you for hours, so why can’t he?

But instead, you continue.

“I’m kidding, Santi. I get it, you know. I don’t think I’d be able to sit in a room with you lying there all half dead and helpless if the roles were reversed.”

You’re looking at him with so much understanding in your eyes that he has to choke down the tears that are trying to escape from him.

“It’s not that. It’s just – it’s my fault, bebita. You wouldn’t have even been in Colombia if it wasn’t for me. I’m the reason you got shot.”

He’s crying now – heavy, ugly sobs crawling their way from his chest, up to his throat. His knees give out, and he sits on the side of the bed, hands fisting in your comforter.

“Santi, baby. Hey. Look at me. Please, Pope.”

Your pleading gets his attention. He looks at you with those red rimmed, watery eyes, and your heart breaks so hard you swear you can hear it shatter.

“It wasn’t your fault, Santi. I followed you out there voluntarily. We all did. You know I’d follow you anywhere. I still would. It could have been any of us that got hurt. I’m glad it was me. I wouldn’t be able to stand seeing any of you in a hospital bed. It’d break me.”

You’re crying now too, at the thought of one of the boys in your situation. The bullets, the blood, the makeshift bandages they shoved into your side, ripping their shirts and tearing apart anything they could find. You couldn’t have survived that, if the roles were reversed. You wouldn’t have wanted to.

You press your forehead to his, hands tangling in the front of his shirt. He wraps his arms around you and pulls you into his chest, needing you as close as possible.

You fall asleep like that, face pressed into him, his heartbeat in your ear. Santiago tucks you back into bed gently and takes his place in the armchair, settling down. Pulling his guitar out of the case, he tunes it slowly, meticulously, before beginning to strum the strings carefully. He picks at the strings, playing you tune after tune, only stopping to stretch his arms and crack his knuckles. He plays for you for hours, time slipping by him like sand through his palms. When you wake, you keep your eyes closed, savouring his presence for just a moment longer.

✵ ✵ ·　 ✵ 　　 * · ✵

Will doesn’t visit.

He sticks steadily by your side, day in, day out. If Frankie visits for 6 hours, Will sits with you for the other 18. When Benny holds you for 3 days, Will gets anxious, popping his head around the doorframe every few hours, checking in just in case. Since everything happened, Will’s whole universe has revolved around you. Which, he’s realising, is the way it’s always been. His whole world has always been you. He’s just been forced to confront that truth now, and it’s scaring him.

He’s suddenly aware of the fact that he almost lost you. He’s never felt fear like that before. He’s had men press guns to his temple, shoot at him from mere feet away, fight him with their fists. That’s nothing, now. He’d take that any day over watching you lie there, drenched in crimson, dripping with pain. His hands, twisted into your side, wet and slipping, trying to quell the dam that’s broken inside of you. Your eyes, looking into his, terror grasping your whole body like a cold chill. When he falls asleep at night, all he can hear is the way you said his name, like it was the last thing tethering you to the Earth.

He makes a silent vow to himself. A promise - to never let you go again. To protect you forever, no matter what. All of this trauma has just made him love you more. He’s not sure what the future will look like, for him, or for you. But he knows that right now, you need him.

And so he pours all of his love into his actions. He makes you breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and sits with you as you eat slowly. He eats at your speed, too - always doing everything at your pace. He combs your hair every morning gently, brushes your teeth twice a day carefully. He tucks you in when you fall asleep, pulling the comforter around you, keeping you safe and warm. As soon as one of the other boys leaves, he takes their place, sitting in the armchair – making sure you’re never alone. Whenever you’re awake, he listens to you pointedly, nodding and smiling. When you have a bad day, he’s right there next to you, wiping the tears from your cheeks and murmuring reassurances gently.

He watches as slowly but surely, you come back to yourself. You’re awake more often, smiling more confidently, cracking jokes and asking for laughs. The two of you are chatting like you used to, about nothing and everything. And you watch as slowly but surely, he returns to Will. The frown lines in his forehead become less pronounced, the worry in his eyes fades slightly. The smiles he throws your way are bigger, more genuine. The scales balance out again.

You’ve been in bed for two weeks when you decide to ask him for a favor.

“Hey, Will?” you query, looking at the blond man who’s currently folding laundry on the dresser.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he replies instantly, ready to give you anything you could possibly ask for.

“Can we go outside? I think I might go insane in this room real soon,” you smile, bright and bold.

He beams at you, relief washing over him like an ocean wave. You haven’t left your bed for a fortnight. He’s offered a couple of times, but you refused, scared to leave the comfort of the safe haven you’ve created. But you’re ready now.

“Of course we can. You want me to carry you?”

His tone is light, jesting, but you know he’s being serious. Neither of you are actually sure if you can walk all the way outside.

“I can walk if you carry me down the stairs? Not sure I’m quite ready for those yet.”

He grins at you, and your heart stops. That smile of his seeps into your pores, lifts you up, sends energy flowing through your veins. You’re alive, and you’re okay, and Will Miller is looking at you like you hung the stars in the sky. You feel invincible.

Admittedly, it does take you 20 minutes to get from your room to the back patio. Will throws a strong arm beneath yours, holding you up as you take the journey step by step. When you reach the stairs, he picks you up bridal style, carrying you carefully. Before he sets you back on your feet, he nudges his nose to yours, still grinning.

The sun soaks into your skin outside, gentle breeze rippling your t shirt that you’re now realising is Benny’s. The leaves rustle in the trees, and you inhale the world, as if seeing it again for the first time. Will sits right next to you on the bench, hand holding yours tightly, fingers interlaced as if he’s worried you’ll blow away.

You glance at Will’s watch and see that it’s only 1pm. You have so much time left. So many possibilities to be fulfilled, so many people to love, so many places to see. But for now, you press yourself into the blond man’s side, settling in. You fit perfectly. Almost as if this is where you belong.

“Can’t believe I almost died without telling you I love you,” you murmur. It’s quiet, but he hears you, loud and clear.

“It’s okay,” he reassures. “You’re here now. We have time. So much time.”

“Forever,” you whisper. “We have forever.”

He turns to look at you in the hues of the bright afternoon. His blond hair is glowing gold, and his blue eyes match the sky, hopeful and full of promise. His hands come up to cradle your face, and he caresses your cheeks with his thumbs, rubbing comforting circles into your skin. He moves in closer, and nudges his nose into yours. He breaks out into a grin, and you can’t help but join him. Leaning in, he presses his lips to yours, soft and reassuring. You melt into him, running one hand into his hair, the other at the nape of his neck. He pulls you impossibly closer, until every part of you is pressed together. The sun is still beaming, and the birds are chirping, and you have time.

“Forever,” he whispers into your mouth when he breaks the kiss.

“Forever,” you murmur back. “We have time.”

You have time.

1K notes · View notes

nothomegal · 7 months

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“The beast and it’s treasure”

Pyramid Head x GNReader

Summary: you’ve been playing chase with this monster for god knows how long. Well aware of his inhuman strength and monstrous brutality you of course avoided it any tried your best to keep distance. Unfortunately, it becomes too much one day and you question yourself if it's even worth to keep going... So, what will you do ones you're at the mercy of this creature, (Y/N)?

Warnings: typical mentions of violence and murder, (Y/N) accepting death, Pyra being obsessive towards (Y/N).

World Count: 1.8k

(Y/N)’s shoes made a loud noise against the ground as they ran through the building. They don't even know what building they entered, they didn’t bother to learn, it’s irrelevant because if it is after them, nothing can stop the chase.

A door? A wall? Doesn’t matter which one is, it just tanks through with it's massive body and helmet as if the obstacle is made of paper. Another monster? It's sword will take care. (Y/N) is too fast? It’s okay, it can walk nonstop for days. (Y/N) hides? That’s trickier, yet it has all the time available to seek. No matter what they do, they always remain in disadvantage.

This isn’t even funny anymore, at first it kinda was since many monsters living in this nonsense of a town learned to avoid (Y/N), aware of who is stalking them. Now it’s just annoying, and scary, very scary. Witnessing a crowd of terrifying and deformed creatures flee from them like they're fire in sheer panic only reminds them of how fucked they truly are.

They stop in their tracks to regain their breath, and also to listen for any heavy footsteps or metal scraping the floor. There was nothing, no other sound but their own panting.

They lost it, for now.

After finding a place to sit down, (Y/N) let out a sigh as they plop on the ground carelessly. They remain in this ragdoll-like posture for a long while as they stare at the wall in front of them, their mind blank. They could think about something, but they're too mentaly exhausted for that, apart from the fact that whenever they do think about something interesting, the beast always announces it presence with bulky footsteps, capable to shake the ground with each it takes, or the annoying and overly loud noise of it's giant sword scraping the floor as it walks.

(Y/N)'s thoughts involuntarely focused on that creature. They're not sure if it has some official name but the few people they met in Silent Hill call it 'Pyramid Head', a pretty suiting name for obvious reasons.

Even though this beast had been pursuing them for a while, they never really managed to get a close look at it, and it's not like they want to, not after seeing all the things it does... From attempting some questionable activities with the mannequin-looking creatures and nurse monsters, to practically skin a person alive with a single pull, or cut them in half with one swing of that sword... Yeah, everything about this creature is horrible! A very few (and the craziest ones) call him 'The judge', though the creature's actions are the ones worth to judge...

(Y/N) doesn't even notice how they begin to doze off, their body too tired to stay awake. Though Silent Hill goes by it's rules and hunger or thirst no longer affect any unfortunate soul that's trapped in here, the impact this place has on people's mind is the real problem. The more they stay awake, the more their sanity deteriorate, their mind cannot keep up with everything that's going on, and simply accepting this nonsense and moving on doesn't work anymore. They want to sleep, they want to sleep and rest so badly, yet they know they can't, at least not without it being on their tail again and ready for another round of this cat and mouse game.

And just moments after this particular thought, they hear a loud noise somewhere in the building, like a wall being demolished, and soon it was followed by the annoying scraping sound.

They should be scared, they should get up and run, attempt to find an exit and another place to hide, they should... But they won't, not anymore. What's even the point? If they get up and run it will simply reset this cycle of running, chasing, hiding, finding and pursuing...

Running, chasing, hiding, finding, pursuing, running, chasing, hiding, finding, pursuing...

It's the same, it's always the same... (Y/N) already attempted things to break this vicious cycle, hell, they even tried to trick other monsters to attack this pyramid headed beast, it was the most reckless and desperate they've ever been because their genius plan consisted in straight up run into the crownd of monsters while the beast pursued them, they didn't care if they die in the process or not, they just wanted to get rid of it one way or another. But it proved to be way more powerful that any other being living in this hellhole, the beast dismembered every single creature that stayed on it's way to (Y/N), it didn't slow down even a bit as he slaughtered his path. The only moment it did stop, was to execute a creature who had the guts go after (Y/N), the beast personally chased the creature down and proceded to give it a painfull end with it's bare hands as it made loud metallic growls inside of it's helmet. After that event, every single monster avoided (Y/N) like plague, even the ones who at first did have hostile intentions would flee in fear ones realized who they are.

After this quick recap inside of (Y/N)'s mind, they made their decision...

They let out a sigh as they remain in their sitting position, even as they feel the floor underneath them start to slightly vibrate from the giant sword and the heavy footsteps, they still don't move or look up, their gaze glued at the floor.

They can feel the beast get closer, it's probably at the end of the dark hallway they're in, but... Instead of feeling fear, they feel relief. Relief to finally get over this torture, sure, they won't come out alive to live a long happy life filled with hopes and dreams like they always imagined, but at least they'll die knowing that they attempted, that they did their best.

As they hear the creature get closer, they close their eyes, a tired yet peaceful expression forming on their face. It's okay, soon everything will be okay and over and they'll finally get the so desired sleep where they no longer have to experience the anxiety of waking up and have to run for their life.

The beast finally reaches them and stops right in front, (Y/N) remained with their eyes closed and head down, waiting for their so long avoided punishment. Who knows, maybe they do deserve to be here, maybe they never were as good of a person as they thought, maybe this is their personal hell and if they die the chase cycle will repeat itself for an eternity... They don't know at this point, or care, they just want this over, and whatever verdict this monster will give them, they'll accept it.

Nothing happens for a long while, but they know the beast is there, they can hear it's heavy breathing through the metal helmet. They start to question why is it doing nothing? It's been chasing them so viciously for so long, so why did it stop? Is it because there is no longer a thrill from the persecution? No real sense of revard for catching them?... What is even happening?

Why is it not killing them yet?

(Y/N)'s breath shakes when they suddenly feel something big and warm, like a palm. wrap it's fingers around their throat and slowly tilt their head so they're looking up. The hand holding them is firm but at the same time oddly gentle, as if not wanting to cause them any pain, yet. Despite all of this, their eyes remained closed and their expression calm, they were no longer afraid of the beast, just tired...

—"{I deserve this... I deserve everything.}"— you whisper under your breath.

Their voice was nothing but a faint noise that barely echoed through the hallway and soon was overshadowed by the overwhelming silence and the monster's breathing. But soon a new sound appeared, a low metallic grumbling that resembled a purr. The sound was so deep that it made (Y/N)'s chest vibrate. If that wasn't weird enough, the feeling of something wet and slippery touching their face definetely was, enough for them to finally open their eyes.

A breath got caught in their throat at the sight of the beast kneeling in front of them, even in this possition it's frame remained huge and towering over them. A small metallic part of his helmet was peeled up, and from the formed hole was peeking out a long tentacle... Tongue? That was wiggling in front of them and dripping bits of (what they hope is) saliva on their clothes.

The monster let out another metallic purr at the sight of their now opened eyes, and without a warning it runs it's long tongue across their face, causing (Y/N)'s expression to morph into a disgusted and embarassed one as a spine chill runs through them. The beast let's out an amused rumble as it watches them, so confused and innocent.

It's tongue eventually retrieves back into the helmet, while (Y/N) is a bit too busy wiping the drool from their face and keeping themselves from gagging. Soon their little activity got interrupted when the monster lifts them up with one arm, like they weight no more than a kid's toy, and slungs them over it's broad shoulder. It takes (Y/N) a moment to process what's going on and why (or how) they're still alive.

Ones having a secure grip on them, the monster takes the sword with it's other hand and starts to walk into an unknown direction, but this time he wasn't doing it alone. (Y/N), surprisingly, doesn't try to fight against his grasp, they simply relax and let their body hang on it's shoulder. They just now realize how warm the beast's body is, were they've been this cold for so long? When was the last time they felt warmth radiate from another living being?... This feels so comforting...

Allowing their exhaustion to take over, (Y/N) goes completely rag-doll as they close their eyes. The warmth, the steps that the monster takes, his metallic yet rithmic breathing... All these factors lulled (Y/N) into a restless sleep, they don't care where this beast is taking them, they don't care what it's plans are, they don't care if they die tonight, all they want is rest.

When they were about to slumber away, the monster momentarily stops and sticks it's sword into the ground. It slides (Y/N) off of it's shoulder and instead cradles them closer to it's chest, effortlessly supporting their weight with one single strong arm. Ones they were close and comfortable, the creature resumes it's pace, though this time, it would occasionally nuzzle part of it's helmet into them in a very gentle manner so they don't get hurt with the sharp metallic edges.

Who would've think that such brutal and merciless beast could be so caring and gentle with another living being, and indeed it's impressive, impressive that (Y/N) had the luck to get the executioner's attention and liking. Though... Some would call it luck, others a misfortune, because now they're stuck in his grasp for an eternity because the monster will never let go...

Not when they became his most precious and cherished little treasure.

#nothomegal fic #nothomegal oneshot #pyramid head #pyramid head x reader #gn reader #slasher x reader

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blue-jisungs · 3 months

Text

silent hug

author's note. this is veeeery self indulgent bc my exams r killing me so yeah 👍

genre. hurt to comfort (i think?), classmates to friends ??? idk man just whipped n cute sunoo

summary. in which your classmate comforts you when you tear up in class :(

warnings. cursing, reader is in a bad place mentally,, kinda hinting to academic burnout? ,, crying :( + not proofread, sorry!!

word count. 1286

with a heavy sigh you plopped down on the chair, putting your bag on the desk. the walk from the bus stop to the university tired you out but at least you got four or five minutes before the classes started. so you rested your head against the bag and closed your eyes, taking in a little more sleep than you could get this morning.

the final season is coming to an end, finally. but weirdly enough, you don’t feel relieved. sure, there’s only three or four exams left – and you haven’t really studied for them but that’s a thing to do the day before, isn’t it? – but you can’t help but feel the exhaustion. your friends chat about how there’s less things to take then it was at the beginning, sure. but the closer you get to the midterm break, the less motivation you have. and the tiredness that accumulated throughout the whole month is seeking its way out.

which is why you’re a mess nowadays. promising yourself to study but ending up doing everything but studying, falling asleep at ungodly hours (and regretting it later)… or shutting yourself down from the world. your friends got used to it, everyone has their lives after classes after all. but you carry on with do not disturb on most of the time, missing out their conversations on chats and tiktoks they’ve sent you. sure, you could’ve read them later – but there’s a sinking feeling of guilt (and a dazzle of overthinking) that you’re such a shitty friend.

all of this causes your negative emotions to bottle up. and you know it’s not a good thing, especially when you feel like you’re about to cry when a minor inconvenience occurs. but you’re stronger than that, no? the thought of locking yourself in your room during the break keeps you alive, pushing the sadness – seemingly – away.

a sudden tap on your shoulder caused you to open your eyes and lazily shift your focus to your classmate, sunoo. you looked around and didn’t see your friends… well, they probably skipped the classes since some of them are careless just like that.

"it’s about to start" sunoo smiled gently and you noticed the way his ebony gaze lingered on you for a while longer. great, you should’ve put at least some foundation.

"thanks" you nodded and took out your ipad, the other hand rubbing your eye. here we go…

"i feel like… some people in this class don’t take my lessons seriously" the professor started and you froze, heart skipping a beat. he couldn’t possibly mean you, right? “the final exam is around the corner and some of you… did not too well on the quiz"

oh, well. it’s definitely aimed at you.

"i’ll hand them out at the end of the class and then run over your mistakes. now we’ll do a revision. and you better listen" the man says and you could swear his piercing gaze is drilling into your soul.

an unpleasant feeling of warmth creeped into your face and once again you curse yourself for not putting any makeup. sunoo glanced at you, a sad smile on his lips.

the professor approached you at the end, when all of the students already left. putting the paper sheet with a nasty P– on it, you frowned. hey, you passed!

"y/n, i’m really disappointed. i don’t know what’s going on but that’s the worst work of yours so far. pull yourself together. there’s so many major mistakes… spellings… it’s not an academic level. you were one point away from not passing this one" his words hit a cord in your heart, your palms beginning to sweat. he patted the paper and returned to his desk, grabbing his stuff.

and you didn’t even know when that happened – your sweaty palms shaking, breath getting stuck in your throat, vision blurry because of tears.

you packed your things and wanted to leave but your legs felt too weak. your professor left, causing you to end up all alone in the room.

you sniffed, trying to wipe out the tears but they seemed to have other plans.

"don’t cry, idiot. it’s fucking embarrassing" you breathed out to yourself, voice barely above a whisper.

"y/n, if you want… oh. are you okay?"

you would normally look up to see who that was but the realization of someone even seeing you in such state caused your face to redden even more. pulling your t-shirt up to hide your face in it, you felt like there was no way out: you couldn’t possibly stop crying. it was like your professor’s words triggered something.

"i’m… hey, it’s okay. did he say anything bad to you? or do?" someone approached you and you shook your head as a no. "can i stay here?"

you hesitantly peeled from your shirt and noticed sunoo. his gaze softened upon seeing your teary eyes, lashes wet and flushed face.

"just… don’t mind me" you mumbled and hid your face in your shirt again. you just couldn’t stand someone seeing you in such state, whether it was someone close or a stranger.

"i… i don’t know what he said but i’ve noticed that there’s something going on with you. and may have heard what your friends said... do you want to talk about it?" sunoo asked gently and all he could hear were the harsh sobs leaving your lips.

"they talk about me behind my back?" you whined, your shoulders shaking even more. his eyes widened. that was not the best thing to say…

"no, no! i mean they said you look really tired lately…" he explained hastily and suddenly you looked up. your shirt was soaked with tears and your face was a mess, your pupils blown and wet stains on your cheeks.

"i’m so tired, sunoo. i don’t think i can handle this anymore… and everyone seems to be doing great… just not me…" you mumbled, sending him a sad smile. the pearly tears balanced at the edge of your waterline, ready to spill. he shook his head.

"you’ve got this, i know you do. you got here somehow in the first place, no? if you want, i can help you. with anything. i’m not the smartest but i do understand some things so…" he stopped talking upon seeing your curious gaze.

"why are you doing this?” you asked, sniffling.

"i just… you’re my classmate in a need of help. i couldn’t stand there and not do anything when i heard you cry. and now there’s no way out, isn’t it?" sunoo joked and his face lit up. oh, this boy was a literal sunshine.

"you said everything?" you mumbled, unsurely. he nodded, a caring smile tugging on his lips "can… hmpfh… can i hug you…?"

the words were so quiet, sunoo barely heard them. but he noticed the begging look in your eyes and who was he to deny? it’s not like he would mind, either.

sunoo just opened your arms and you hugged him tightly, wrapping your arms around his waist. he patted your back soothingly, letting you let out all of your pent up stress.

a part of sunoo’s heart raced because he wouldn’t have ever imagined that he would hug his hallway crush. the other part which caused his heart to race was the embrace itself, your smell and you in general – and he was happy he could help you.

neither of you didn’t have to talk right now. a silent hug that expressed more than a sentences could ever. and both of you knew, sitting here glued to each other and in comfortable silence, that it was a beginning of a beautiful friendship.

masterlist <3

taglist. @primoppang ,, @laylasbunbunny ,, @slytherinshua ,, @kazmura ,, @nicholasluvbot ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @dazzlingligth ,, @w3bqrl ,, @ocean-minho ,, @s-e-s-a-l-e-n-e ,, @eternalgyu ,, @haecien

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heliads · 4 months

Note

Hi! Hope I’m not too late, could I request a Derek Hale x reader where she (already knowing ab the supernatural) gets tired of Derek constantly disappearing from her life whenever he does that Derek thing until finally she’s fed up with it being the one to disappear this time idk how to end it or go from there but I was thinking of an angsty hurt/comfort with a happy ending🥺! Hope it’s enough, thank you!!

'the one who leaves ' - derek hale

masterlist

The hardest part of both being a werewolf and knowing a werewolf is, and will always be, the horrors. The attacks that never cease, the blood always shed. The second hardest part is the strain of being with someone whose life is always in jeopardy purely because of who they are. Although it doesn’t feel nearly as important as the constant threat of hunters, or the latest monster to decide that Beacon Hills should be its new domain, sometimes you swear the second part hangs even more heavily about your heart than the first. Then again, maybe that’s just because of Derek Hale.

Derek is one of the most complicated players on the supernatural chess board. You met him what feels like a lifetime ago, when one of seemingly dozens of supernatural attacks had threatened the lives of Beacon Hills citizens. Derek had saved your life. A month later, you’d saved him from some hunters. The back-and-forth of life saving went on and on until the two of you decided you were better as friends than people a little too important to each other to be acquaintances, and then the boundaries were shifted again when you started dating.

Sometimes, though, on rough nights after long fights and darker ones when you haven’t seen Derek in weeks and he doesn’t seem all that inclined to answer your texts or voicemails, you start to think that entering into a relationship with you is one of Derek’s biggest regrets. It’s not that he doesn’t care for you; Derek has assured you many times over that his feelings for you are stronger even than his loyalties to his pack, his commitment to killing the hunters responsible for the Hale House fire, yet the problem remains.

Derek is all too familiar with the struggle of having a weakness. When his ancestral home burned down with most of his family trapped inside, he learned for the first time that sometimes a mortal blow capable of destroying his life doesn’t have to threaten him specifically. When he loves someone so much that he prioritizes their safety above his own, Derek creates a weakness that hunters and other supernaturals can exploit. He would never forgive himself if you were hurt as a tool to get to him, so Derek has been doing his best to limit the fallout of any supernatural fight onto you.

However, this only seems to drive the two of you apart. Yes, by not being seen in public as often anymore, Derek lowers the possibility that a hunter would try to kidnap you as a hostage, but it also means that you see him less and less frequently. When you do finally manage to meet up, after thoroughly checking to make sure you haven’t been tailed, and only after dark in one of your houses, you’re both exhausted, wrung dry of the same life and spirit that had brought the two of you together in the first place.

It’s not the same anymore. You hate to admit it, but it’s true. Loving Derek is no longer the beautiful victory it had always been. Instead, you feel as if you’ve lost the war. Derek isn’t yours anymore. If he was, you wouldn’t have to hide what the two of you share, you wouldn’t have to constantly stare at the long list of missed calls on your phone and wonder when he’ll ever pick up, if he even wants to anymore. Derek is doing a great job at keeping you safe, but somewhere along the line, the two of you got your priorities mixed up. Now you’re alone and he’s alive, and you don’t know that you’re any happier about it than you would have been if one of you were lost to the hunters.

At this point, why try? Why even bother with the pretense of maintaining the ruse? The two of you might as well not even be together at all. It doesn’t feel like you are, certainly, when you go so long in between visits. Even when the two of you are finally face to face, Derek is harried and brief, hardly staying longer than a few hours before rushing off again, never to be seen for another few months.

It wears away at you like a river at a stone. Your sharp edges, the ones that pierced through his shell so easily at the beginning of it all, have been smoothed to nothingness. Each of your attempts to break through to Derek and coax him into staying even a little longer are brushed off with simple excuses. It’s like you don’t even exist to him anymore.

Fine. Fine. If you’re not a person to him anymore, he will not be a person to you. You pack up your things and leave Beacon Hills early one morning, only telling Scott McCall and Deaton over at the vet so they can contact you if need be. You don’t say a word about your absence to Derek. Why bother? He’s not even in town, hasn’t been for months. When he comes back– if he attempts to come back at all– he can ask one of his friends and hear the same answer that he would from you right now. There’s no point in wasting either of your time any longer.

You’re still engaged in fighting the good fight against the supernatural. Deaton is a longtime friend of yours, and he’d been hearing rumors of a peculiarity a couple of states over. He couldn’t afford to leave Beacon Hills for an extended period of time, being so important to the town as one of its last defenders, so you offered to go instead. It would be good for you, you said. The trip. Being able to clear your head.

Odds are, Deaton had been able to see through that excuse as he has many of your others all throughout your life, but he had just nodded and said that he was grateful for your help. With that, you left town. You’ve been in Beacon Hills for your entire life, excluding brief excursions in the name of school or work or family trips. Never before have you left like this, not entirely sure if you would ever come back, uncertain that the person you love most of all would be there to want you to return.

At first, the trip feels like a terror. Then you roll down the windows and let the early morning light touch your face with soft, bright fingers; then the breeze cools your face, running over your skin in loose circles; then you start to breathe at last, for the first time in what feels like years. Then you remember that you are still a person worth saving, and maybe even if Derek Hale cannot do that, you can save yourself by leaving.

The miles pass by in moments. You’re long gone by the time anyone starts waking up. Scott knew that you were leaving and told the other teenagers in his pack so they wouldn’t freak out, but he still texts you anyway. Hope you find what you’re looking for.

So do I, you message him back at a red light. Stay safe.

Thanks, he responds, then no more.

You end up in the state of your choice by the middle of the afternoon, booking a room at a hotel so you can have a home base while properly surveying the area. You don’t have a supernatural’s knack for telling when something is wrong, but the hairs on the back of your neck prickle anyway, letting you know that the currents of the wind around this city have a magical edge, a certain element that sets them aside from a normal town. Good. You could use something fantastical and uncommon.

You don’t know when you expect to hear back from Derek. Never, maybe. You had assumed that he wouldn’t try to reach out to you until he got back, which might be anywhere from a few months from now to never. Once he returned to Beacon Hills, Derek could hear from Scott as to why you weren’t there anymore. You and Derek hardly spoke at all anymore, except out of an obligation to make sure you were still alive. He probably wouldn’t care at all.

Yet not a week has gone by before you start getting frantic texts from Derek.

Y/N. You in town?

Why is your house empty?

Scott tells me you left town. Why didn’t you tell me?

Y/N. Please text back. I’m getting worried.

Three missed calls.

Please pick up, sweetheart. I’ll drive over there myself if I have to. Just tell me you’re alive.

You stare at the notifications for a long time, reveling in how they build in intensity, then tap out a message of your own at last: I’m alive and well.

Derek immediately responds. And you didn’t tell me you were going?

The bright glow of your phone dulls your senses. Nothing feels right, but nothing feels wrong anymore. Loving Derek used to make you feel invincible. Now, you’re just tired, and wishing this exchange would end.

Didn’t think I would have to. You’ve been away for months, and you never tell me when you’re going. Why should I?

Derek doesn’t like that at all. It’s different with me, sweetheart. You know that.

You don’t bother to grace that with a response. Setting your phone on ‘do not disturb,’ you shove the device back in your pocket. It’s good that Derek is unhappy with this turn of events, you decide. For once, he should be the one panicking when he wakes up alone, when he wants to be with the person he loves only for them to disappear without a trace. Why should it be you all the time?

You carry on with your task. As it turns out, the case at hand, the utter unraveling of the supernatural presence in this town, is due to an overactive ancient curse on the town. Deaton talks you through how to shut it down, and once the job is done, you return home, proud of yourself and your accomplishments.

You’re fully expecting Derek to have left town again by the time you got back. He’s been messaging you non stop, but you’ve been leaving most of those messages on ‘unread’ since they all say pretty much the same things: why wouldn’t you tell me you were going, are you alright, come back ASAP. You message back occasionally to assure him that you’re still alive, but mainly, you think a bit of silence would do the both of you some good.

After arriving back at Beacon Hills, you stop by your house to drop off your belongings before visiting Deaton to debrief. He’s glad to hear of your success, but once both of you have ensured that the town was handled accordingly, he breaks protocol to talk about your personal life instead.

“I think you should talk to Derek Hale,” he says uneasily.

You frown at him. “What?”

Deaton glances around to make sure no customers can overhear you, then continues on. “He’s been a wreck ever since you left. He keeps stopping by the shop to demand information from me. He insisted for a long time that I give him the name of the town you were visiting so he could check on you himself, but I kept it from him because I thought you would need to focus.”

“That was the right call,” you assure him. It would, after all, have been more difficult to juggle both an errant curse and a supremely ticked off boyfriend.

Deaton chuckles good-naturedly. “That was what I had assumed. I would still recommend talking to him, though. These sorts of conflicts are best handled sooner rather than later.”

You nod your agreement, and, after talking a few minutes longer, head out towards Derek’s apartment complex. Although you’ve felt bitterly triumphant in the fact that Derek now knows what it’s like to miss somebody like you’ve been missing him, you fell in love with him for a reason, and that reason was that you liked being around him more than you did with anyone else. You still love him, even if the two of you have been on the fringe of an argument for a while now.

That’s what drives you to his building, what carries you up the interminably long elevator ride, what brings you to knock twice on his door and wait until a quiet voice from inside announces that the door is unlocked.

That’s the first sign that something is wrong. Derek never leaves the door unlocked. Some could call it an overwhelming concern for safety, or just plain paranoia, but Derek’s experienced enough tragedy in his life to go overboard in making sure that he keeps all potential avenues of risk firmly blocked off. The fact that the door is unlocked disquiets you more than you like to admit.

Slowly, carefully, you push the door open. Immediately, you’re struck by the gloomy atmosphere of the place. Derek pulled the curtains over the wide windows of his apartment, making the whole place darker and more lifeless than usual. The lights are off. You can assume that Derek can see thanks to his werewolf senses without needing the fluorescents, but for your human eyes, the whole place just seems as dark and grave as a crypt.

“Derek?” You call out hesitantly.

Silence. Then, a husky voice from the back. “Y/N? Is that you?”

You still can’t see him in the gloom, so you cross the apartment to open the blinds on the large windows, hoping to toss some light on the situation. You know the layout of the place from memory, so many visits here help to solidify your knowledge of each piece of furniture in the apartment. Still, you’re not expecting to see Derek crumpled in a chair on the corner, looking significantly the worse for wear.

You’re at his side in an instant. “Derek? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he says listlessly. “Not like you knew a thing about that, though, disappearing like that.”

Your concern for him starts to fade away, replaced instead by a burning irritation. “So that’s what all of this is about? You’re so hurt that I was the one to leave that you’ve become comatose?”

Derek sits up a little, eyes flashing. “You vanished without a trace and didn’t tell me where you went. I thought you were dead, Y/N. I had to pry information out of Deaton so I even knew you were alive, and when I tried to contact you, you ignored my messages. What the hell was I supposed to think?”

You laugh, although it’s not a happy sound. “Finally, you understand. This is what I deal with every time you leave town, Derek. You never tell me where you’re going or what you’re doing. I sat here in Beacon Hills for months, wondering if you’ll ever come back. I was gone for half the time you usually are and yet it’s far too much for you to handle. How do you think I feel?”

Derek’s lips flatten. “I– I didn’t realize you took it like that. I was just trying to keep you safe. You know how the hunters watch me, and–”

You cut him off, feeling the anger coiling through your stomach. “I know that, Derek. I know that every supernatural in your life that isn’t a part of your pack wants you dead. I know that in your head, this is how you keep me safe, by constantly cutting me out of your life, but has it occurred to you that this isn’t what I want? You could have asked me if this was the way to handle it. If you had even talked to me at all, I would have told you that I don’t care about being safe. Not if it means we’re like this. Not if it means I don’t get to have you at all.”

Derek stands up slowly, until he’s hovering just a few breaths away from you. One of his hands reaches up to cradle your cheek. “I never wanted to hurt you,” he whispers. “I’ve lost so many people in my life. I can’t lose you, too.”

“I know,” you murmur back. “But if you keep going on like this, if you keep pushing me away, you’ll lose me anyway.”

He flinches. “I should have asked you,” he admits. “I can’t erase the past, Y/N, but I can apologize for the present. Will you forgive me?”

“Only if you stay with me,” you answer him.

A ghost of a smile plays upon his lips. “I’ve never had a problem with that. It hurts like hell, leaving you. Always.”

“Then don’t do it anymore,” you urge him. “Stay with me, Derek. Keep me safe by staying with me.”

“I will,” Derek promises.

People in love make a lot of promises. Some are kept, some are broken. Some are forgotten about entirely. Looking at Derek in this half-darkness, though, you have a feeling that this one will be cherished for quite a long time indeed.

teen wolf tag list: @mayfieldss, @rogueanschel, @lovesanimals0000, @rafecameronswhore, @bellabadacadabra, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @23victoria

all tags list: @wordsarelife

#derek hale #derek hale imagines #derek hale x reader #derek hale oneshot #teen wolf #teen wolf imagines #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf oneshot #teen wolf derek #teen wolf derek imagines #teen wolf derek x reader #teen wolf derek oneshot

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14buddy22 · 11 months

Text

You’re Losing Me

Aaron Hotchner x Female reader WC: 3.7k Warnings: ANGST

Based off the song; You’re Losing Me by Taylor Swift

@ssamorganhotchner (prepare for your heart to break bestie)

Masterlist

You had tried. You really did. You tried to keep your relationship with Aaron alive. You tried to keep it interesting, tried to keep it fun, but it wasn’t that anymore. You could try all you want to make him happy. You’d do whatever he wanted as long as he was happy, even if you sacrificed your happiness.

You were tired, lonely, empty inside. You were tired of being 2nd to him. You knew the implications of his job. He was very upfront about that, even telling you the night you met. He told you his marriage ended because of his job.

You ignored it, because you fell in love with him. You knew that his job made him happy and you learned to be okay with that. You knew that dates would become canceled, you knew you’d show up to family and friend events usually alone, you’d take care of his son more times than not because he was away.

You chose to ignore it. Him and the BAU were like peanut butter and jelly. They worked well together, but anyone else who joined, did not mix into that perfect combination. You wish you had, but you didn’t. Maybe you did for a little bit, but it wouldn’t last forever.

You were tired of always being his “back-up”. You knew it was always the BAU over you, but when would he realize he should start putting you before the BAU. He knew the BAU was the reason his first marriage failed, shouldn’t he consider changing that before his 2nd marriage started?

You found yourself sitting in the sunroom of the house you and Aaron had moved into. It was the perfect size for you, him, and Jack. Even though Jack was older and his toys had turned into more electronics than anything, there had been talks of having kids with Aaron. The perfect single family home that you and him picked to be perfect to raise a few more kids that you and Aaron made.

You loved the sunroom. It was yours and Aaron’s favorite part of the house. You both loved it because of the light that came from it. You know it was called “sunroom” for a reason, but still, it was your favorite place in the house.

But it’s funny how you found yourself sitting in the dark, without Aaron. You didn’t know what to do. You don’t know when it got this bad between you two. You don’t know where it all went wrong. You don’t know how he didn’t see the signs.

Sitting there with your thoughts to yourself, all you could think about is how long you’ve been with Aaron. All you’ve ever wanted to do was to make him happy, even if you sacrificed your own happiness. You’ve always been like that, that never changed, even when you and Aaron started dating.

You were a pathological people pleaser.

It’s been roughly 1278 days since you and Aaron Hotchner became a thing. That’s 3 years and 6 months that you two were dating. Too many “i love yous”, hugs, kisses, late nights, date nights, family adventures, and making memories to count.

You tried to pinpoint the exact moment of where everything went wrong, when you began to sacrifice so much of your happiness that Aaron was taking for granted. He never saw the signs that you were exhausted with your relationship with him. You loved him, but he’s losing you.

You and Aaron had been together for 3 and a half years. You set yourself into a routine that you just went through the motions with him every single day. There was no surprise element. You tried to surprise him with dates, but that was quickly resolved when majority of the time he was still never back from a case or was pulling a graveyard shift getting caught up on paperwork.

You were proud of Aaron. He was a great profiler, yet he never saw the signs. He never saw how you had to put a smile on around him. He didn’t notice the way that you were trying to tell him to take some time off so you and him could go on a weekend getaway because you felt lonely.

You felt like you were the only one in the relationship. 6 months ago is when you started to notice it. You noticed that you and Aaron had been in a routine. It was the same thing everyday. Even with as chaotic as his schedule was, it was still predictable.

He missed the dates you planned with him or the dates he had planned with you.

He missed your family events where you would have wanted him to be there with you.

He missed your friend gatherings where you wanted to show him off, to prove to your friends that they were wrong about him, but he let you down.

Maybe that’s where it all went wrong. Time and time again, Aaron slowly let you down with all the broken promises he left you. Promises of I’ll be home early tonight turned into late nights at the office. Promises of “I’ve made dinner reservations for us tonight at this new restaurant” turned into, “I’m caught up in a case, we’ll go out when I get back”.

Those promises were never made up.

That’s why you were sitting in the room you and Aaron loved, alone. You wanted to go out for a nice dinner tonight, but, from the time it read on the clock, Aaron had forgotten about the reservation you made. You had reminded him this morning. Jack was spending the night at his friends house. You thought back to this morning, making sure you did remind him.

Aaron was drinking his coffee in the sunroom this morning when you decided to make your way to him.

You gave him a kiss and he pulled you into his lap. It was his favorite way to start the day with you. You wanted to break routine and have him stay in bed just a few more minutes but he preferred to be up out of bed.

“Good morning. Any fun plans today?”

“Clean the house, do some laundry. Boring stuff.”

Aaron took another sip of his coffee and as you played with the back of his hair. You decided to bring up the fact that you two had your date night planned for a couple weeks now. You specifically remember telling him to request tonight off.

“Remember, Jack’s at a sleepover tonight, you and I have dinner reservations.”

If you hadn’t known Aaron as well as you did, you would have missed the way he slightly stilled for a second, but you didn’t. You chose to ignore it, you know he couldn’t have forgotten.

“Of course. Jack’s sleeping over at a friends house, you and I are trying that new place tonight. What time?”

“7:30.”

“Right, 7:30. I’ll be home at 7 to pick you up. Okay? After dinner, we’ll come home and I’ll show you just how much I’ve missed you and how much I love you.”

He leaned forward to kiss your neck, slowly sinking his teeth into your skin, sucking what surely would leave a hickey for the tonight. You pulled the hair at the back of his neck away from you, not wanting him to go any further, not wanting him to leave anymore marks on you.

“Aaron. Save that for tonight, otherwise I won’t be able to cover it up.”

As you got up from your spot on his lap, you made your way to start making your breakfast and cleaning up the remmanents of his.

He got up, grabbed his briefcase, walked over to you and kissed you.

“I’ll see you tonight, I love you.”

“Bye, Aaron. Be safe. Love you, too.”

It made you wonder, how can he say he loves you when he doesn’t know you’re dying.

How could he not know this was your last resort to save your relationship. Him knowing that you made reservations but him forgetting. Granted, you still had until tonight to make sure he’d remember, but you were starting to doubt. You two were just a sad song that wouldn’t come back to life any more.

It was now 8:30pm. Not a word from Aaron. No text, no call, nothing. Not even a text from the team. You didn’t like tracking his location. You weren’t insecure, you didn’t think he’d be cheating on you, but you decided to text Penelope, to see if they were on another case.

She had easily become your best friend on the team. Sending a quick text off to her asking if there had been another case, you started to think about breaking the engagement off with Aaron.

You were empathetic. You always give him the benefit of the doubt. But you think he forgot. You know he has to keep everyone else on schedule but you just wanted this once for him to have taken something seriously.

He was the best profiler, yet couldn’t tell if something was wrong in his relationship with someone he’s been “in love with” for 3 and a half years. Someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Was it all a lie?

Penople quickly texted, “Greetings, future Mrs. Hotchner! We are not on a case. Hotch actually sent most of us home early. So I’m surprised he’s not with you? Maybe he’s still in his office?”

That hurt you. If he sent the rest of his team home early. Why wouldn’t he come home early? No text. Nothing. You reminded him about your date. Maybe he knew this relationship was ending and he was just trying to avoid it?

Then you heard the garage door opening and closing. As you stood up, you were met with him staring at you. Silently pleading with you to already forgive him.

But you couldn’t. Not now. Not when you know he sent his team home early and there wasn’t a case. You couldn’t.

He knew he fucked up, royally fucked up. He saw how you looked so beautiful in your form fitting dress. He knew that you hated dressing up all formal, yet you still did it because it always got the best reaction from it.

“I am so sorry.”

“You’re losing me, Aaron.”

Aaron’s heart stilled. He didn’t know if he heard you correctly. You didn’t realize that you barely spoke that. It came out as a whisper. You didn’t know if you had the courage to say it out loud or say it again, but it had to be said.

You were met with silence from him. Why won’t he say anything? You wanted to scream at him, but you couldn’t. You knew you couldn’t yell at him. He had a tough job and you just yelling at him wouldn’t work, he didn’t deserve that.

“I’m sorry I forgot about our dinner. I am so sorry. I started looking at this case and I knew it was close to 7 but I thought “it’s only a little case, it won’t take long” and then next thing you know it was 8:30”

“There’s always going to be another case. I just asked this one time that we had gone out for dinner. I made this reservation weeks in advance. I asked you to request this one night off. Aaron, you sent your team home early! You couldn’t even come home early. I just wanted one night with my fiancé. That’s all I wanted.”

Aaron was silent. You felt bad. But, when was it your turn for you to be unhappy? You always pleased everyone, but when could you please yourself? You probably wouldn’t marry yourself either with the way you were a pathological people pleaser.

“Do something, babe! Say something!”

You were still met with silence from him. There weren't many times that Aaron Hotchner was speechless, but this was one that stunned him the most. His fiancé tells him that he’s losing her. The one woman who he needed the most in his life, he was losing her.

“Lose something, Aar. Risk something.”

You were afraid by saying that, he would risk losing you. He was already losing you. You told him that, you already knew that, but you had a glimmer of hope. You thought back to the 3 and a half years and countless happy memories made up of him. The countless “you’re the best thing to happen to me”. You believed it. But was it a lie?

“Choose something. I’ve got nothing to believe unless you’re choosing me.”

Aaron moved towards you and he said, “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“Aaron! I’m sorry doesn’t excuse the way you’ve been acting towards me. I don’t know what else to do. I know I’ve tried given you the world because all I’ve wanted since I’ve met you was to make you happy. But you know what, Aaron? Is it wrong for me to want to be happy? Is it wrong for me to want me to be seen by you?”

You looked at him, tears in your eyes. Your heart was breaking. But, you couldn’t continue to be in a relationship where you didn’t have a pulse anymore. If Aaron thought this relationship was worth saving, he wouldn’t have messed up.

Don’t you deserve someone better? You made the ultimatum. But you had to have known there was a possibility Aaron wouldn’t pick you, and you have to be okay with that. Yes, it’ll hurt if he doesn’t choose you, but in the end, you just wanted him to be happy. If you not being in his life anymore made him happier, then so what?

You were bleeding, not physically, but you were in a constant battle of you v the BAU in Aaron’s life. You were tired of the battle already. You knew making the ultimatum you or essentially the BAU wasn’t fair to Aaron.

But you deserve someone who was going to give you what you deserved. You just wanted to be seen by someone. He was losing you, yet wasn’t fighting hard for it.

“I have loved you since I met you. The last 3 and a half years have been amazing. But if you want me to choose between you or the BAU.”

Your heart shattered. He didn’t have to say the rest to know what he was choosing, and it crushed you. Metaphorically, you didn’t have a pulse anymore, your heart wasn’t going to start again for this relationship.

You slipped your engagement ring off your finger. You carefully placed it down on the kitchen counter. How ironic that the place he proposed to you is the place where you two were breaking up.

“This is for the best. I want you to be happy, Aaron. That’s without being in a relationship with me. I thought I could handle the BAU and you, but, I just can’t Aaron. I deserve to have someone keep their promises or at least make up for them. I deserve to go on dinner dates. I deserve to have a family that I’ve dreamed of having. I know this is what you want. You’ll have the BAU and Jack. You won’t have to worry about dinner dates or dates in general. You’ll just have work and your son. Don’t mess those two things up, Aaron.”

You looked at him. His eyes were filled with tears but he refused to blink. If he blinked, he’d lose all control.

“I’ll stay tonight in the guest room and I’ll talk to Jack when he comes home in the morning, then give me a day or two to pack-up and then I’ll be gone for good.”

You grabbed his hand and then kissed his cheek. There was loss and indecision in the air, but it was for the better, right?

“I gave you my best me’s. My endless empathy. I’ll always love you, Aaron.”

As you walked away from him, you went to your room and cried yourself to sleep. You were upset with yourself for not trying to come up with a better solution. You were upset with him for not trying harder. You were upset because you were losing Jack. The closest thing you had to a family and you lost them both.

Talking to Jack the next morning was hard. Aaron didn’t say a word while you talked to Jack. Jack was upset. You knew it would be rough on him. You’d been in his life for 4 years, now you had to walk away. Leaving Jack was going to be harder than you thought.

“I don’t want you to be mad at your dad. It’s not his fault. If you want someone to be mad at, be mad at me.”

Aaron was just looking down at the floor. He didn’t want to see that you were now crying as Jack was hugging you so hard, crying too. He didn’t realize that you were going to take the blame for Jack being upset.

****

It had been a few months since you’re engagement with Aaron ended. You were heart broken. You had to realize that you gave him the ultimatum. This was making him happy, he didn’t have to worry about coming home early to a wife. He didn’t have to worry about being a father to any extra children you and him wanted to have. He only had to worry about himself, Jack, and work. That was it. You pleased him before you could please yourself, even with a broken heart, you realized that he chose and that’s what he wanted. You didn’t force him, he had the opportunity to fix it and he didn’t. It didn’t just go bad that one night a few months ago, there was some part that was the beginning of the end.

Were you able to pinpoint it? No, not exactly. But it got to the point in the relationship right around the 3 year mark where it had been a problem and you didn’t realize it. Aaron knew it was coming too.

Aaron and Jack took the break-up hard. Jack wouldn’t talk much with his father. This was just as much Jack’s loss as it was Aaron’s. Aaron didn’t realize all you did for him. He didn’t realize how much of things you actually took care of.

You did the laundry, you cleaned the house, you made sure Jack cleaned his room and bathroom, you did the yardwork, you made sure the house was always filled with food. Aaron didn’t realize this, but you always bought refillable ink for his pens and always replaced them in his office. He didn’t know it had been you doing that. He thought he just bought a really good brand of pens, but when his pen finally ran out, that’s when Jack told him that when you went shopping with Jack one time, you explained to Jack that his dad loved the type of pens they were and bought refillable ink, always refilling it when you noticed it was low.

It’s true when they say, “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. Aaron realized that the hard way, he was determined to get you back. He needed you in his life. You were the fresh air he needed. He loved walking in his home, seeing you in the kitchen or the sunroom, waiting to talk about his day with him. He missed how you were a great mom to his son.

Aaron royally messed up and he needed to get you back. He knew you were still best friends with Garcia, so when he called Penelope asking where you were living, he didn’t miss the stutter in her voice, when she quickly said, “S-sir, I can’t tell you that.”

“Penelope, please.”

Then he heard your voice. “PG, I’m going on my date with that guy who owns the bar! My location’s on, we’re going to the restaurant across from where he works. Love you.”

You were going on a date. You knew the guy wasn’t Aaron, but you wanted to get back out there. You couldn’t sit around and mope.

Aaron hung up the phone and said, “Jack, get in the car. We have to go somewhere.”

As him and his son raced to the car, they both got in and Aaron was driving like a madman. He knew exactly what bar and restaurant you were talking about. It wasn’t the first time that the owner of the bar had been interested in you.

As Aaron saw you standing outside, he pulled his car over, but then he saw the owner reach out his hand and you grabbed it, moving closer to the man. Aaron couldn’t get out now. You wanted to be happy. You deserved to put your happiness in front of someone else’s. Aaron had his chance with you. He didn’t realize that until he saw you now, smiling and twirling in the middle of the sidewalk as there was a live band close by, the man spinning you around.

Aaron was pulled out of his thoughts when Jack said, “Dad, what’s going on?”

Aaron’s heart broke, more than it had when you pulled the engagement ring off your finger, more than it did when you told Jack you were moving out. Aaron’s heart was shattered now. He couldn’t come back from this. You made Aaron happy, sacrificed your happiness for Aaron, that’s the least he could do now. You warned him. You told him that he was losing you. He just didn’t know he had the perfect woman until you were gone.

With a voice barely above a whisper, trying to respond to his son, he said, “I lost her.”

As Aaron drove away, the last thing he saw in his rearview mirror was you smiling, almost like you were looking exactly at his car. He had lost you and he wasn’t getting you back. The hopes of you and him together again were gone. He didn’t understand how he missed the signs, but he did and now he’s paying for it. He lost you and he wasn’t getting you back.

Part 2 (if you want)

#aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner angst #jack hotchner #SAD HOTCH HOURS #Aaron Hotchner x Female Reader #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #aaron hotchner fic

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undead-supernova · 3 months

Text

HIGH TOLERANCE

Part 4 / Part 5

Masterlist

warnings: mostly warning free outside of alcohol consumption, arguments, a hint of spice, and emergency cigarettes

pairings: bestfriend!modern!eddie x fem!reader

plot: sometimes you just gotta clear the smoke

wc: 5.2k

note: omg this is the last part! I'm very proud of myself for setting out to finish my first ever Eddie series (with my next one coming up quick - next week to be exact) and I thank anyone who has actually read this ! I'm very grateful that there are people who actually enjoy my work. It means a lot. I love doing this so so much. I can’t wait to share with you what’s next !!!!!!

Part 5: "Tolerance Break"

How the fuck did you end up agreeing to go to another karaoke night?

No, seriously. What the hell was wrong with you?

Okay, maybe you were being a little too mean to yourself. But didn’t you deserve it after everything that transpired between you and Eddie?

There was something that was beginning to float away from the two of you, something that felt familiar. It was exactly what you’d feared, the teetering in and out. No calls, no texts. Nothing there on your screen, left for dead on your bedroom floor most days as you blocked out any and all noise you could. Only listened to the kind of metal and screamo that sounded like fuzz, where their lyrics were practically incoherent from their gutteral screams. Played every goddamn Lego game on your Xbox and, yes, you specifically avoided clicking on Lego The Hobbit.

And to be fair, you hadn’t responded to any of the texts Eddie did send that first week. You had hope that he would show up like a knight in shining armor, taking your silence as a chance for him to be a hero—as if that was a justified response.

Because silence equaled confirmation that you were done. And confirmation that you were done meant that Eddie had to respect whatever boundaries you’d put up. Despite this, you stared at the door whenever you came home. Left a light on in the middle of the night just in case his knock woke you.

Just in case. Just in case.

But this wasn’t coping.

This was your own personal hell.

Because you also knew about the back and forth with Steve, the hopeful glances and longing stares. The missed chances and opportunities and the stupid, stupid mistakes that you thought about making. You also knew that your relationship with Eddie was going to change significantly. Maybe it already had.

You were leaning up against the side of your car, smoking an emergency cigarette from the pack stashed in your glove box. The anxiety was starting to eat you alive as you really came to terms with the fact that you were going to see Eddie for the first time in nearly a month. And, by the grace of God, you were going to be seeing him sober.

He would probably get there late knowing his finicky Tuesday schedule, sometimes having a longer shift than normal. Maybe he’d be all sweaty and grimy, frustrated and unable to talk to you. Or he could be bright and cheery and make conversation, blind to the magic of your lucky fishnets chosen for tonight.

How would he act? Would everything be okay? Did he even want to talk to you after what happened?

What even really happened?

Maybe he wouldn’t show up at all.

Would it even be worth it to stay?

The sound of Robin calling your name woke you from your self-indulgent nightmare fuel. You looked up, watching her wave at you with Steve in tow, sporting a white crop top and a deep green button down left open, bracelets galore. Steve was in his work outfit, sleeves rolled up, button down unbuttoned and untucked. Disheveled wife beater clinging for dear life in this weather. Like he was straight out of a quirky 2000s movie. Except he didn’t look exhausted, just slightly tired.

You met them halfway, giving Robin a side hug to keep her away from the smoke.

But as soon as you pulled back, she grabbed the cigarette and crushed it under her Vans. Even went so far as to stomp on it.

“Rob, seriously?” Steve asked.

“Gross,” Robin replied, shaking her head at you. “So, so gross.”

You just wanted five minutes of unhealthy coping mechanisms—but you knew Robin was right. Getting back into smoking cigarettes just because you were in a perpetual state of sorrow due to your own actions may not be the best course of action. Maybe that’s why you felt better on your two-week tolerance break from smoking weed. It just felt better to have a clear head, especially if it wasn’t doing well in the first place.

Steve gave you an apologetic look, also giving you a side hug. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” you said. “It’s probably for the best.”

“Should we go inside?” Robin asked, pointing at Go Ask Mary.

What you noticed as soon as you sat down was that neither of them even mentioned Eddie. Didn’t tell you whether he was still coming or whether he’d be late. The three of you were ten minutes early to the scheduled time, so it wouldn’t be too bad, right?

Steve started chatting you up immediately, (almost unbearably) asking you how you’d been doing and if you’d seen anything good on Netflix or Max lately. You really didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to even look at him. Because if you did, you’d only see betrayal in his eyes, a mere reflection of your guilt.

As if noticing your discomfort, Robin butt in. “Actually, I was watching this documentary on that new NASA thing and apparently there’s this black hole—"

You were starting to feel sick to your stomach and it only increased when Eddie walked into the bar twenty minutes late.

Despite telling yourself not to, you looked up at him.

He wasn’t grimy or dirty, like he’d showered before coming. Like he felt the need to clean up before, what, coming to a bar on a Tuesday evening? His hair was all volumized and bouncy, face glowing in the dim lighting. A Master of Reality Black Sabbath tee with his jeans and his leather jacket and his chains and his everything…

And despite Robin and Steve greeting him first, Eddie held your eye contact.

You hated how that made you feel. Like you were the only reason why he was here. Like you were the only reason he was being social and staying out late. Like you made it worth it.

But neither one of you said anything to each other.

The last few weeks had been…quite unbearable if Eddie had to describe it. He spent nearly every night at his phone, talking to Wayne as if he was his therapist. Wayne bit the bullet and comforted him, tried to give him advice about the whole thing. But Eddie was in a fugue state, unable to truly manage his heartache, even with his stashed emergency cigarettes in his glove box. So, when he got the invitation to another karaoke night and Robin promised you’d be there, he made sure to leave work early, take an extra-long shower, and come prepared to talk.

When you said you’d get the first round, Eddie did his best to stay seated.

Because neither of you had said anything to each other and Eddie wasn’t really sure what that meant. He wasn’t even sitting next to Steve tonight because he felt so embarrassed…but what about you?

Because you looked tense, a tight smile on your lips that definitely didn’t meet your eyes. Your grip on your vodka Redbull was starting to concern him, all strained knuckles and shaky glass. Steve and Robin blabbered on, you and Eddie contributing when it seemed necessary, never actually talking to each other.

By the time Robin said she’d get the second and you jumped at the chance to go for her, he’d given up on being polite.

He reached into his jean jacket pocket to find his black Bic lighter, his holy savior when it came to anxiety and fear. You were ten steps ahead of him, refusing to look back. Refusing to even look up, as if the idea of making eye contact with anyone in Go Ask Mary was borderline criminal.

Eddie glanced at Steve and Robin before standing up.

“Ooh, are you going to go talk to her?” Robin asked, taking a final sip of her first Coke and Bacardi to try to hide her smile. Steve mirrored her, taking a long gulp of his beer as he raised an eyebrow at the man.

The two were the definition of the phrase in cahoots.

Eddie only rolled his eyes in response, turning on his heels to follow your lead.

You were in nearly an identical outfit to the one he last saw you in, with your black Joan Jett t-shirt replaced with a black Scene Queen crop top. A leather jacket. And there with it, a pleated black miniskirt that swayed with you as you walked, calling attention to your fishnets and maroon Converse. Red lipstick to match. Fucking hell—

He was utterly weak for you.

And how did he open up a line of dialogue?

“This is awkward, isn’t it?”

You turned to him before looking down, watching the black lighter move between his fingers—always noticing his anxious habits but never truly calling him out.

“I guess,” you replied, seemingly nonchalant.

But he was getting closer and…was that cigarette smoke on your jacket? Had you been smoking? Eddie thought about asking, but there you were beating him to the punch.

“Emergency cigarette, huh?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seems like you’ve been stressed about something.”

“It’s all over you, too,” he countered. “I wonder if there’d be a common denominator if we compared notes.”

He didn’t miss the way you scowled before trying to cover up your frustration. “It’s just been tough at work.”

“Oh, so is that why you haven’t texted me in three weeks?”

“Eddie—”

“Hey, it’s just a question,” he said lightly, throwing his hands up.

Before you could say anything, the bartender was sliding you the drinks.

“You left your jacket at my place,” you said as you handed Robin’s card to the guy. “It’s in my car if you want to grab it before you leave. Or earlier if you’d like.”

But Eddie wasn’t one to back down, was he?

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“And I don’t intend to,” you stated, scribbling on the receipt before turning to walk away. Eddie noticed you left his and Steve’s drinks behind. With a sigh, Eddie grabbed them and followed you back to the table.

After everyone was a bit tipsy, Robin found her way to the karaoke stage, followed by Steve. You noticed that Eddie was opting out, merely sitting there in silence. He nursed his whisky, nodding along to whatever conversation was happening, even if he was directly spoken to. It was already bad enough that he was sitting closer to you than he did Steve.

Was he trying to make you feel better? Was his silence to keep everyone from feeling weird? Did he tell Steve about what happened, and they were trying to play it cool? Lower the awkwardness?

Your anxiety was starting to crawl along your skin resulting in you having to take your jacket off. The alcohol doing absolutely nothing to diffuse it. Even if you drank faster. Not that you would ever feel the need to expedite the process of any form of intoxication or inebriation. Not at all. Nope. Never.

But after another dreadful fifteen minutes, you needed out of there.

Fast.

“I’m going to sing a song,” you announced, interrupting Steve.

Before anybody could respond or react, you shot out of your chair and walked over to the guy by the stage. He sat on a stool behind a podium, his laptop hooked up to a speaker.

“Pick your poison of the night,” he said with a grin. “The Eighties are your oyster.”

“Gladly.”

Eddie watched you scroll through the guy’s laptop, bouncing from side-to-side as you debated your choices. Nodding your head along to whatever he was saying.

And he just couldn’t help himself from being a pest, from ignoring Robin and Steve, from walking over and ending up behind you.

“What’s the song choice?”

You flinched, turning to look at him with quite a nasty look on your face.

“Why do you care?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you being so goddamn mean?”

Like before, you gave no answer.

Instead, you grabbed the microphone and stepped up on the poor excuse for a stage. As you lifted your foot, your skirt started riding up. Eddie didn’t mean to look up your skirt in a moment like this, scout’s honor, but he caught a snippet of…your…garter belt?

Were those your…lucky fishnets? No, he had to be mistaken. You already had a few pairs, there was no way you’d worn the lucky ones when you were being this mean.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” you asked him, your voice sounding much, much harsher than it usually did.

“I’m not looking at you like—”

The track started and you shook your head, turning from him to put on a smile and face everyone else but him.

Eddie didn’t stay, heaving a sigh before walking off to sit back down next to Steve and Robin.

Clearing your throat, you let yourself groove through the beginning instrumentals, shaking off Eddie’s words and the fact that he didn’t stay to watch. Didn’t stay to show any support or be your biggest fan like always. But this wasn’t about him.

“There's a boy I know, he's the one I dream of.

Looks into my eyes, takes me to the clouds above..."

You were met with a few cheers at the choice of song. Trying to play along, you held onto the cord of the mic, twisting it around your fingers, while moving your hips from side to side. Your pleated skirt moved with you, twisting and turning and twirling wherever you moved.

For the first time tonight, you smiled.

“How will I know if he really loves me?

I say a prayer with every heartbeat.

I fall in love whenever we meet.

I'm asking you what you know about these things."

But something began to click in your head.

Because this was absolutely about Eddie. This was exactly how you’d been feeling for the last three years. Every little, tiny thing that had run through your mind whenever you were together. Whenever you were laughing or crying or going on dates that ultimately turned into duds. When you went to the aquarium or the movies or Jailbait Hemp…

When you were sitting with him for the first time in this exact bar, wondering if he was going to be something more in your life, unable to predict where you’d inevitably be.

“Falling in love is so bittersweet.

This love is strong, why do I feel weak?”

You closed your eyes as you kept going, determined to get through this without having a meltdown. If you just powered through it, then everything would sort itself out and you’d sit back down and Robin would tell you that the song was a good choice and Steve would say some dumb shit. And Eddie—

Eddie would say nothing at all.

And at the end of the night, you’d tell Robin and Steve goodbye. You’d turn to walk away to your car and hope that Eddie would run up to you and demand to talk. But you’d inevitably be met with disappointment as you reached your car. He wouldn’t grab his jacket. He wouldn’t say a word. And the two of you would fade without a sound. Without even a goodbye. And you’d know then for certain that he never truly wanted to be with you. He’d made his choice.

“If he loves me…if he loves me not.”

When you opened your eyes, you were shocked to see Eddie near the edge of the stage, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

“If he loves me…if he loves me not.”

He was looking at you the way you hated, the way you secretly loved. Like you were the most precious thing in the world.

“If he loves me...if he loves me not.”

He was quiet, not even swaying, letting you sing no matter how terrible it sounded. Just making eye contact with you, watching you. You tried looking away, but nothing else could hold your attention long enough before you were back, trying to make sense as to why he was still there.

And there was something bubbling in your chest, something starting to unfurl.

“How will I know if he really loves me?”

Something was starting to constrict your vocal cords and you had no way of letting it go.

“I say a prayer with every heartbeat.”

Especially when Eddie was still standing there, and you were realizing that whatever you two had was over.

“I fall in love whenever we meet.”

This chapter of your life was coming to a close.

“I'm asking you what you know about these things.”

Nothing was going to fix this.

“How will I know if he’s thinking of me?”

There was nothing you could do.

“I try to phone but I’m too shy. Can’t speak.”

Nothing.

“Falling in love is so bittersweet…”

You started to choke up, sniffling as you looked at Eddie, with his pretty brown eyes and his intense fucking stare and his teeth digging into his bottom lip. Was this the last time you’d ever see each other? Was this truly the end? Was this the last look you’d get of him, forever lodged in your memory as the moment you lost the greatest thing to ever happen to you to someone else?

“I feel weak—"

Without hesitation, you dropped the mic, jumping down and running past Eddie. Robin and Steve tried to call your name, but you couldn’t do it anymore. You pushed open the front door into the tangerine glow of the sunset and felt yourself fall apart.

“What are you doing, Eddie?” Robin asked, shaking her head at him as he sluggishly made his way back to the table. “I mean, seriously.”

“This has gotten totally out of hand,” Steve said with a sigh, swirling a straw in his beer bottle.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” Robin said sarcastically. “How do you think she feels?”

Steve nodded. “You literally didn’t want to keep going on dates because you’re into her.”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed. “You said you were okay with it.”

“I am,” Steve said, throwing up his hands. “I get it. You feel how you feel. No shame in that. But I just think it’s kinda annoying when you’re not even doing anything about it. I mean, seriously, dude. It’s been, what, two weeks?”

“Three and a half,” Eddie corrected.

Steve gestured to him. “My point exactly.”

Eddie felt like an idiot. The way he watched you start to crack onstage, as if you were bending. Breaking. Falling apart.

“Are you really gonna just let her leave?”

Eddie turned at the unfamiliar voice. It was the drag queen that seemed to always be there, Luverne Bell, just out of drag this time. He stood there with his hands on his hips, still wearing a killer manicure.

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. “Boy, I watched that poor girl thirsting over you a month ago, jealous as hell of that one with the hair,” she said, pointing at Steve before looking back at Eddie. “She sang to you tonight—fuckin’ Whitney Houston, the queen of all queens—and you’re questioning if you should be a big boy and go tell her you love her? Are you that stupid?”

“No, I…” Eddie gulped. “I guess I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Then go, idiot,” Robin said from the table. “You’re literally wasting time.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Don’t fuck it up.”

They were right. Eddie couldn’t back down. You needed him just as much as he needed you.

It felt odd how simple it was.

Even when he was unsure of your feelings. Even when you had those awkward conversations. Even when he’d be on a date with Steve or talking Robin’s ear off about his frustrations—not to mention Jeff, Gareth, and Grant. (They got much more than they needed to.) Hell, even after you fought and stopped talking for nearly a month. No matter how hard this felt, loving you was simple.

And he planned to keep loving you no matter what.

Eddie nodded before walking towards the door.

He could hear Luverne Bell sigh behind him, saying, “I’m getting that fuckin’ invite to the wedding, so help me God.”

It was all completely hopeless.

This was probably the lowest you’d been in a long time, dramatically running off a stage at your favorite bar in front of the guy who you’d been in love with for the past three years. And now you were too weak to get in your car and drive far away from here, far away from Eddie.

You tried being an asshole to him, tried to get him to push you away and leave you alone. It would be better that way, giving him a reason to never come near you again. At least then you wouldn’t be tempted to tell him that the sight of him with Steve made you want to throw up. Hell, you already did.

Tears streamed down your face as you lightly hit your head back on the brick wall of the building. You needed to distract yourself. Calm yourself down.

With the las bit of strength you had, you shuffled over to your car to grab another emergency cigarette. You caught the sight of Eddie’s jacket in the passenger seat and nearly screamed, wanting to run over the damn thing out of spite.

Maybe act on impulse and burn the damn thing.

As if you’d ever actually do it.

You managed to successfully light your cigarette when you heard Eddie call your name. Turning, you could see him looking around to find you before he finally did. He called your name again.

“Don’t leave!” he said loudly. “Come back.”

With messy makeup and even messier hair, you looked him directly in the eye as you walked back over. If this was how everything was to end, you were ready. No matter how fucked up you looked. No matter how fucked up you felt.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“What’s there to say?” you asked, taking a strong drag.

“You can’t keep playing this game with me,” he said, shaking his head. “You really can’t.”

“Go back to Steve,” you choked out, fingers shaking as you took another drag. “I bet he’s better company than I am.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to go fucking be with Steve right now, alright?”

“Why not?” you asked loudly. “He’s all cool and hot and sexy and a big, hot, sexy hot shot. I’m sure he’s better than me in every way possible.”

This earned you another eye roll. “Oh my god.” He covered his face with his hands for a moment, dragging them down to his chin before giving an exasperated sigh. “I don’t see why you care when you’re the one who didn’t answer any of my texts, nor did you answer me when I asked you why like an hour and a half ago.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” you lied.

“That’s just a shitty copout at this point.”

“You’re annoying,” you lied again.

“And you’re acting like a dick!” he exclaimed. “An outrageously humongous cockhead!”

You scowled at him. “Oh, I’m the cockhead? Really?”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Real mature. Nice.” You waved him away, taking another drag. “Go back to your boyfriend already.”

“Stop bringing up Steve, oh my god!” he nearly shouted.

A scoff left your mouth. “You’re the one dating him.”

“Yeah, well, I broke shit off with Steve three and a half weeks ago.”

You paused, pulling the cigarette from your lips. “You did?”

Eddie nodded. “Mhm.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you know,” he said with a breathy sigh, fiddling with his lighter. “Just in love with my best friend over here, no big deal.”

“You’re…” You lost grip of your cigarette as everything began to swirl around you.

He was…actually in love with you?

“You’re in love with me?”

His eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”

“I…wasn’t sure.”

“Right, even when I almost kissed you, or…?”

“Well…I just thought when you…you said you thought Steve made you happy…” you trailed, losing steam. You couldn’t continue, only shrugging in response before crossing your arms over your chest.

He tilted his head, trying to catch your eyes. “And now here’s the part where you say you’re in love with me, too, right?” You looked up, watching his lips turn up in a small smile. “‘Cause there’s no way I’m interpreting this wrong anymore.”

You looked at him questioningly, nearly playful in nature now, deciding to push him just a little bit further. ��Oh, yeah? What makes you so sure?”

“Because tonight I realized that you have been nothing but jealous this entire time and making fun of Steve who, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve never had a problem with before.” He drew closer, putting his hands over your crossed arms. “And there’s nothing I want to do more right now than kiss you and make all of this stupid middle school drama go away.”

“Are you not worried we’ll lose everything if it doesn’t work out?”

Eddie smirked. “What if I told you that I don’t care about that and all I want is to take you home and cuddle on the couch and watch Lord of the Rings?”

“The extended edition?”

“Literally what else would I be referring to?”

“Okay,” you whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie wrinkled his nose at you, eyes searching yours. “Mm, and why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I’m absolutely, positively in love with you,” you admitted. “That’s why I’ve been looking at you like that for almost four years.”

He grinned. “God dammit, I knew that was what you always wanted to say.”

“And yet you never said anything about it,” you noted.

“Well, I—” Eddie paused before his eyes lit up. “Holy shit. Holy shit! You were gonna tell me that day at the aquarium, weren’t you?” Your mouth opened but you were way too embarrassed to admit to it. He studied your expression before a smirk fell on his lips. “You were! I knew it. I fucking knew—"

So, you kissed him.

Uncrossed your arms and grabbed his face, keeping him from walking away. From running away. From doing anything else than being right here, right now. In your grasp, in your kiss.

And Eddie wasted no time, roughly grabbing your waist and drawing you in, breathing you in. You were trying to process what was happening, but it was all going by so fast. Because his hands were squeezing your hips, fingers flexing as if he was consciously trying not to hurt you.

Instantly, you couldn’t fathom ever feeling this euphoric. This carnal hunger for something so soft and tender. For finally being able to get to this moment, this aching desire having loomed over you for so long.

Despite this disbelief, you needed to push back, not ready to give away your dominance. Did he even know you?

You reached a hand down and grabbed his ass, pulling him against you, earning a gasp from him. When you squeezed harder, he jumped and let out a small yelp.

Laughter spilled from your lips as you watched his cheeks turn red, close to matching your lipstick. And you noticed it hadn’t really transferred to his mouth, saving him from more embarrassment. (You thanked whatever God was out there that you’d worn your sturdy lipstick.)

Even so, your lips were still on his, unable to disconnect. Unable to let them go anywhere.

“You think that’s funny?” he asked, playfully trying to stare you down.

You wrinkled your nose, grinning. “Yeah, I do, actually.”

Eddie wrinkled his back at you. “Yeah?” He mimicked your voice, raising the pitch.

“Oh, yeah.”

Without warning, Eddie pushed you against the brick wall, slotting his thigh in between your legs. You swallowed a whimper, trying to stay quiet. Trying to sustain your dominance. But he had other plans, fingers slowly moving down your side until he grabbed your thigh and lifted it—roughly at first, but then carefully placing it snug around his hip. Delicately, as if the moment was meant to be cherished, as if you were meant to be handled with care. He dragged his fingers down your fishnets before curling his hand around your knee to quickly yank you up juuust a little further.

Eddie was moving his nose against the side of yours, shaking his head. “And what the fuck are you doing wearing these?”

“You don’t like them?” you whispered, pushing him further.

“Are you serious? I’m in love with them,” he admitted. “And you. Very much you.”

“Told you they were lucky,” you responded with a playful shrug.

“God, you’re frustrating,” he whispered before his lips met yours again. But he quickly moved, making his way down to your jaw. You wondered if he knew that you were getting dangerously close to losing your grip on whatever abstinence looked like.

And then he reached the back of your ear and oh—

You let out an involuntary moan, having to lean away from the contact to catch your bearings. If you didn’t, you genuinely thought you were going to faint.

“Maybe we could do some other things while we watch Lord of the Rings.”

Eddie tipped his head back as he let out a hearty laugh. “And what might that be? Watch the first, second, andthird?”

“It’s a—” Eddie quickly dipped back down, nipping at your neck. “Ah, fuck. It’s a surprise,” you finished, nearly moaning again. “Fuck, not for much longer if you keep doing that.”

“You want me to wait until we’re two and a half hours deep into Mordor?” he asked. “Do you know me at all? That shit is important.”

You shrugged. “Well, you could be two and a half hours deep into this pussy—”

“That was unnecessary,” he joked, shaking his head.

Your smile widened. “It was kinda funny.”

“Just a little,” he admitted before moving his lips back to your jaw.

“I could dress up as Sam?” you teased, feeling his teeth carefully grazing your earlobe. Another gasp escaped your lips. “Could call you Mister Frodo if you’d like.”

The vibrations of his laughter made tingles run down your neck.

“An intriguing thought,” he joked. “May I propose a trip to my van?”

Now you fully pulled away from his face, wondering how serious he was.

“I’m not doing it in a parking lot.”

He feigned offense. “Why not? My van’s right there?”

“Eddie, I’m not having sex in your van.”

He tsked at you, leaving pecks on each of your cheeks. “You’re no fun.”

“How about a compromise,” you proposed, pressing a finger against his mouth. “How about you fuck me beforewe watch Lord of the Rings?”

“Does a joint happen to sneak its way in at some point?” he asked against your finger. You giggled as he removed it but continued to hold on. Smoothed his calloused fingertips over your knuckles.

“One before, one after,” you said matter-of-factly.

He smirked. “I think I can manage that.”

You kissed him again.

And it really wasn’t so stupid after all.

Taglist: @mrsjellymunson @fishwithtitz @aysheashea

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER READ THIS! Your support has meant everything to me ! <3

#Eddie munson #Eddie Munson x you #Eddie munson fluff #Eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x reader #best friend!eddie #modern!eddie munson #modern!eddie x reader #best friend!Eddie x reader #thank you again. I’m feeling so ahhhhh right now! finally finished my first eddie series #can’t wait for the next one #just feeling glad that I can escape and disappear from reality for a little bit

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icyowl · 1 year

Text

Vash Soulmate AU

Pairing: Vash the Stampede x f!reader

Synopsis: soulmate trope where injuries are transferred between one another. You've managed to hide it until now. 3k

A/N: I got nothing. Have fun!

———————

Soulmates: two people characterized by an undeniable pull towards and affection for one another. Signs include, but are not limited to, romantic attraction, frequently similar interests, and the sharing of injuries.

———————

Team: disheveled, exhausted, alive.

Body: pained, sore.

Brain: dizzy.

Sleep: beckoning. As soon as you could patch yourself up, whatever meager mattress awaited you would nonetheless be a welcomed friend. Just a bit longer.

“Hey, you alright?” Vash said while everyone began to split for their assigned rooms. Count on someone as caring as he to sense your exhaustion.

“Yeah, of course.” You replied. “Just tired.”

“After the day we had, I don't blame you.”

“Take care of that knife wound you got, okay? I saw what those bounty hunters did to you.”

“I'll be good as new tomorrow, promise.”

You knew that was a lie in more ways than one.

“Get some sleep.” He added before leaving the hallway for the boys' room. With the Stampede safely away, you listened closely for any sign of his return, and when you heard none, promptly collapsed into the wall and finally let your quivering legs let go of their last bit of strength. A relieved exhale, the kind that came only when you could let you guard down after having it up for so many hours, left you nothing but a sagging corpse against the hallway wall. Your hand delved under your clothing to assess the damage.

Blood.

Surprise? You wished.

Weary eyelids fell blissfully shut. Perhaps you'd wake up, maybe you didn't care whether you did or not, all you knew was the mere act of staying awake was more displeasing by the second. A part of you knew this couldn't continue. Your poor, feeble human body couldn't take much more of this. Just a quick rest. . .

“Hey.” Meryl said once she emerged from your shared room. Her tone indicated she'd finally had enough of your shenanigans.

“I know what you're gonna say.” You replied around a dry cough. The blood leaving your body was taking your energy with it. “Go away.”

“I could, but then you'd bleed to death. So come on, at least give me a chance of getting you on your feet.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Through a bit of struggle, Meryl finally managed to get you off the floor and into the room. Vash or any of the boys could have come into the hall if they caught sound of any of the groans and hisses and whimpers you gave, but thankfully did not. Your steps were slow, vision distorted, and Meryl barely managed to get you into the room and onto a bed before you spasmed from the pain and bit your sleeve to keep the boys from hearing it. Meryl reluctantly helped you out of your top and took the time to complain the entire way. This is ridiculous and I'm not helping you again. If you were more coherent you were sure you'd care.

A hefty weight landed square in your lap. “A first aid kit. You're welcome.” Meryl spoke as she took a seat on her own bed. This had happened enough that she didn't bother with you much and instead set about getting ready for the night. If you passed out, then maybe she'd worry.

Meryl pinned you with a dark glare when she had put up her jacket for the evening. “When are you going to tell him?”

Your hands worked down to open the kit without looking. Right now energy was too sparse to bother lifting your head. “He's already got so much on his plate, I—”

“You can't keep going like this. With how reckless he is, it'll kill you.” She bit back angrily. The fact she was angry made her even more angry. Soulmates were supposed to be a time of joy, not pain, sorrow, apprehension, trepidation. You and Vash should have been enjoying the bond ages ago; instead, she got to watch you hide away from him, patch yourself up in the dark and holding back tears when you needed a shoulder to cry on. Preferably the shoulder of a lean, glasses-wearing, gun-wielding, messy-headed typhoon.

“I will.” You said. The near-nightly routine you developed began to take shape even with the room's minimal light: unroll bandages, find gauze, lay out the towel, etc. Unfortunately, Meryl had heard your lies before and no longer bought them. She continued like you'd said nothing at all.

“Nick's too dense to have any idea, but Roberto's suspicious. He'll catch on soon, and do you think he's gonna keep your secret?”

“Can you just—” The brief blaze of intense fury coming to life in your blood was quelled under the knowledge that she had good intensions and clearly came from a place of compassion. Factually? Yes, she was right. You hated having to hide your injuries too. Obviously it would be so much easier to cry out whenever Vash got punched, kicked, grazed, beaten, tossed, pummeled, dropped—

You get the idea.

But emotionally? You just couldn't bare letting Vash and the others know of your situation. They'd only worry more, be more stressed, miss more sleep, treat you differently, carefully, like you were more important than them. This also felt like something you needed to keep up now that you'd gone along with the lie for so long. If you told the truth now, they'd only feel betrayed and distrusted. That was so far from the truth it nearly made you tear up just thinking of their faces. Vash especially. He'd feel it deeper than the other two.

“Can you just find some water, please? I can't hardly swallow.”

Thankfully Meryl did as you asked and made for the door.

“Swallow your pride, how's that sound?” She asked and closed the door before you could reply.

This wasn't about pride. Both of you knew that. You didn't have pride when you poured alcohol over the gash, screaming into your sleeve to stifle the noise and hopefully not tip off the boys next door. It wasn't there when the touches of the gauze made you thrash and your vision whiten with the spikes of agony. Pride wasn't felt when you looked at yourself — shaking hands, helpless sniffles, welling tears, tucked away in the dark of the room like you were ashamed to exist. You hadn't felt pride in a long time.

Pain. Pain was all you could comprehend. The gash was deep and oozed fresh blood readily every time you squeezed the surrounding area. You were probably queazy from seeing the life-force leave you and ebb uselessly onto your skin, clothing, and the bandages, but you were too light-headed to care. Trying to keep your dirty shirt out of the wound was difficult and eventually you accepted that it had to go. Infection would be hard to stave off and harder to conceal. It took a few tries to move your body in a way that would allow it to come off, but after some crying and more biting your hand to keep the screams at bay, it dropped from your hands onto the bed.

Fortunately Meryl came back swiftly with the water—

“You got any bandag-”

You heard Vash's voice, recognized his silhouette, cried out some sound of distress, just as he saw the blood, wraps, scars, bruises, stopped dead both physically and somewhere deep in his chest.

Some worthless insecurity - or maybe you stupidly still believed he hadn't seen even though his eyes had yet to leave you - made you grab your shirt to cover yourself, yell out at the flaring agony consuming you from the sudden move, and freeze. Even if he hadn't seen the wounds (he most certainly had), your shout would have tipped him off.

The shirt did a lousy job covering the scars - after all, they were everywhere. Neck, shoulders, chest, arms, hands, it was endless. Bruises filled in the rest of the macabre mosaic. Vash was only a few feet away from you, but when he called your name, it sounded distorted and distant. The heartbroken tone was the very thing you'd tried so hard to avoid.

“Its just a small cut, I'm oka-”

Then he began to cry, no, sob. His tears were endless and he did nothing to wipe them away so the two streams left his eyes, met at his chin, and fell in a steady drip to the floor. He started to violently shake, wrought with grief at the soul-breaking realization that you were hurt, he had caused it, and he'd been causing you pain for a long time.

He called your name like a plea. There was no real reason behind it. He wasn't mad, or calling you over to him. It was the hapless cry a child might do when looking for comfort. You hissed through the pain, shortened the distance, and stood in front of him on trembling legs. There was no point in hiding it any more. Slowly you let go of your dusty shirt with one hand, then the other, watching it fall, utterly terrified to look him in the eye. When had you heartbeat gotten so loud?

Vash's hands reached for you, then closed and retreated, before reaching again and holding your hands preciously. The weight of his guilt had his teeth creaking under the clench of his jaw and the tears had yet to slow.

“God,” he fumbled, “- I - fucking, god damn it - no-”

“Va-”

His fingers brushed over a scar near your collarbone. “When I let that guy stab me,” then they moved to the mark in your shoulder, “and I took the bullet for that girl, and here,” now they tickled your side, “when Nai burned me, god, this was when I got held hostage by those sisters,” he said after suddenly walking around you and seeing the minefield on your back. Some kind of wounded sound exploded from deep in his throat. The shame was crushing. “And here is from the police, and that's from those scientists taking biopsies—”

“Okay, okay.” You stepped away from the constant skim of his prying fingers and tried to hide yourself. It wasn't because you didn't like his reaction — it was perfectly reasonable — but being exposed like this was uncomfortable to say the least.

Now that you'd put space between your bodies, Vash hunched under the self-loathing flooding him, chin touching his chest, eyes pinched shut, and hands clenched furiously by his shivering sides. He had no right being close to you. “I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry. Words can't - I can't-” He said through tears and snotty sniffles.

This is what you wanted to avoid. What should you say? What did he need right now? Comfort, obviously, and you yearned to hold him, but Vash was the type to push people away, to think himself a burden, a poison. How could you get him to change his tendencies without him thinking he was doing something wrong? How would you tell him to take it easy, not because you wanted to spare yourself from the pain or change who he was, but because seeing him in pain hurt like any real wound?

“Maybe we can come up with a solution together. If its - if you want. I don't want to force anything.” You offered into the subtle quiet of the room. This moment was pivotal. Rejection. Acceptance. It would be now.

Realization began to work into Vash's psyche. His fists loosened, his eyes stared far past the floor. It began to come into his mind that you were his soulmate, that he had a soulmate, that it was you, that he was so happy it was you and you were right in front of him, here, needing him physically, mentally, and all he could do was weep and cross your boundaries and then refuse to touch you like you weren't hurting.

“Y. . .” He started. Your incredulous statement was hard for him to process. “You think I don't want this? You think I'm even gonna let you out of my sight now-” Vash rushed through the distance between you in just a couple of steps, but stopped just before yanking you into him for the bone-crushing hug he desperately wanted to give. He knew the first rule of soulmates - skin to skin - but didn't want to overstep any bounds. You still looked a little embarrassed to be shirtless in front of him.

You also looked. . . pale. He always worried for you, but now that he knew of the unspoken connection between you two, he looked at you more carefully. Clammy, shaky, dull gaze, a slight sway to your weight. You had just began to lean dangerously far to one side but Vash was quick to support you by the elbows with lightening speed.

“Sorry.” Was all you could come up with.

“Don't be.” Vash replied. He should be the one apologizing, he thought.

Relaxing back against the bed was a godsend. Scratchy covers or not, getting off your feet was a blessing. You let Vash inspect your wound, too caught up in the relief to care. The secret was out, he wanted something with you, and now you were being diligently tended to by his gentle hands. You looked at the dusty ceiling, focusing on anything but the off-colored plaster.

“How are you able to focus?” You asked to try and stop thinking about the tickling sensation of his fingers. “You've got the same wound I do.”

He replied without looking up: “Biology, I guess.”

There was nothing to say to that. All you could do was try and remain still when his thumb gently brushed over a bruise. It was a kind touch, all of his were, but it was hard to let it happen. Topless, prone, letting him see so much of you; it was a little intimidating. You supposed you made it a fair trade when your eyes unabashedly locked onto him. The faint tint to his glasses wasn't enough to stop you from seeing his focus, touched with traces of sorrow. This quiet - two people sharing themselves with gazes and touches in the solace only a dark room could provide - was quickly feeding the connection previously snuffed out. Rapidly this man's face, respectfully tending to your injuries and looking nowhere else, was becoming quite the sight to behold. You didn't know you were looking at guilt. You didn't know that he felt like he'd done all this to you by his own hand: every scar, cut, scab, bruise, or knot.

Vash sat up, surmising he could only help with the most recent gash. “Alright, I'll need to clean it.”

“I already did.”

“Pouring booze over it doesn't count.”

“It's not that bad-”

Vash's eyes glared at you with a sudden edge. “I'm not letting this get worse.”

Now he looked a bit more like the infamous gunslinger everyone thought him to be. You decided to stay silent after that. He rummaged through various bags - knowing he was going through Meryl's things but not caring because this was you we're talking about and he wasn't going to let notions of respect stop him from helping you - and finally procured a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Vash was even meticulous enough to pinch the gauze between a set of tweezers before liberally dousing it in rubbing alcohol, worried his hands might cause infection.

“You ready?” He asked quietly, the soaking material hovering dangerously close to your skin. His grip was steady. Much steadier than yours would have been.

“Ready as ever.”

The last-ditch attempt at humor didn't last long. As soon as the gauze made a home in your skin, any thoughts other than the intense, stabbing discomfort spiraled away. The effort it took to stay still and not try to thrash away from the horrific feeling of course fabric digging through your screaming flesh was borderline incomprehensible. Perhaps it was the pain, perhaps the blood loss, but your brain began to float and swirl with a queazy nausea. In an effort to stay in the present reality you lashed out, grabbing onto anything that could give you some comfort. The warm clothes between your fingers meant you'd grabbed onto Vash — in itself nothing terrible — but when you looked and saw it was the flesh of his upper thigh in your grip, you hastily let go and instead settled for the bed linens beneath you.

“Sorry!” You rushed.

“I don't mind.” He replied. Nothing in his expression gave any of his emotions away (he really was very focused on stitching you up) which made it even more unnerving. Was he put off? Did ignoring what happened make you feel better? Did he not care? Did you want him to? “I like when you feel like you can rely on me.”

You continued to fist the sheets while Vash took his sweet time getting into every single nook and cranny of the cut. Even laying down you began to feel lightheaded. Sometimes Vash flinched, the only indication he felt what you did. It made sense; the transfer of pain and injury could be deadened until soulmates' bonds grew. From here on, both of you would have to be more careful. When he said he was done you sighed in relief, only to be told he needed to get you to sit up so he could wrap it properly.

“I'm gonna need some help.” You said.

“I wouldn't want it any other way.” He replied like it was nothing. His arms were warm and gentle as they worked between you and the sheets to support you properly. “Ready?” He asked, voice just a few inches from the skin of your neck and surprisingly smooth for how much he quivered on the inside.

You nodded.

Your grasp on his shoulders turned to hooked claws when the pain became too much. Vash had tried to be gentle, but it was going to hurt regardless. Then, wordlessly, he set about cushioning the gash with perhaps too much gauze and encircling your midsection in bandages. Again, maybe it was the blood loss, maybe not, but you shivered when he crossed the minimal space between you both to pass the wrappings behind your back.

“I never thought I'd have one.” He began. “I mean, I'm not even really human.”

“Didn't you feel every time I got hurt? Sure, it's not much compared to you, but you had to have felt my injuries too.”

“Honestly, it's hard to tell what's old and what's new at this point.” Vash finished by taking off his coat and wrapping you in it. After he pulled the front together to keep you warm (the shaking didn't escape him), he continued. His eyes stared at his coat, refusing to rise to meet you. “I know I don't have much right to ask this, but I can't stay quiet. Please, please promise me you'll try to be more open with me from now on? If you're hurting, I want to help.”

“If you'll do the same.”

Vash's eyes lifted in surprise. It would be hard - frankly he wasn't even really sure how - but it was fair. To share the hardships. “Then. . . we have a lot to talk about, I guess.”

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