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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 18 days

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The Quiet Ones 5

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Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as dubcon/noncon, and other possible triggers. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You live a quiet life, but your peace is fractured by a chaotic man.

Characters: Lloyd Hansen, short!shy!reader

Note: I slept for like ten hours and it was fucking wild.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me <3

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Asking for more or putting ‘part 2?’ is not feedback.

Love you all. You are appreciated and your are worthy. Treat yourself with care. 💖

You watch the long needle slide out from under your skin. You don’t feel it much. That man, Lloyd, loops the tube around the IV bag stand. You sit in the bed still, disoriented and dull. You can feel the tension buzzing off of him, as if he’s holding himself back. That scares you more than anything he’s done.

Before you can say or do anything, your stomach growls. The tumble is painful as your insides squeeze violently. He looks at you and takes your hand, tugging you towards the edge as he snickers.

“Hungry, jellybean?” He teases, “come on. I’ll make you a nice omelet.” He pulls until you shimmy across the bed. You turn your legs out and can’t help but use his strength to stand. He’s patient as he easily hauls you up. “You okay, babykins? I could carry you. Like before.”

“N-no,” you try to wiggle your hand free but his grip is unbreakable. He squeezes and you quit your resistance.

“You might be a bit groggy, that’s normal. The smoke, the meds--”

“Meds?”

“Well, I slipped a bit extra in the bag,” he shrugs as he glances over at the IV, “just so you could sleep.”

You look at him, your horror burning from your eyes. He grins proudly and swings your arm, turning to lead you to the door. You take short steps, muscles stiff and achy, shoulders wracked from sleeping on your back. You look down at yourself and shudder; at least you’re still wearing your own clothes.

“I’ve been doing cooking classes. I can do a florentine that will blow your tits off,” he boasts as he angles you through the door.

The hall is airy and echoey. The house must be huge. You get that sense easily. You don’t need to go around and count the rooms. He takes you down the long hallway and you stop at the top of a set of stairs. They bend in the middle but more corning, there’s a large space between each. They’re polished to a shine and look slippery as the morning reflects off of them.

“Just a step at a time,” he goads as you latch onto the railing.

You put a foot down and grip both him and the railing. Another tide of wooziness comes over you. It could be what he gave you or your days of restriction, but it’s too much. The world is too much.

“That’s it, baby,” he coos as you take a second step down.

This is strange. It reminds you of a movie you watched as a kid with a maze and twisting and turning walkways and a taunting villain. You’ve awoken in his trap and you see no escape in sight.

You slip on the third and let out a squeak as you feel yourself falling. He’s quick to catch you, scooping you up easily even in the narrow space. He lifts you and continues down swiftly, bringing you onto flat ground. You murmur and rub your head as you feel his heartbeat against your arm.

You feel a tickle in your hair and hear him take a deep breath. Is he smelling you? You repress a shiver at the thought as your eyes struggle to focus on the shapes all around you.

He carries you into another room, a kitchen, as spacious and sleek as any other part of the strange house. A white marble counter lines two walls and wraps around into full C, marking off the cooking space. On the other side, there’s glass table in an abstract, asymmetric shape with metal frame chairs around it. The whole place is out of one of those design magazines. All impractical at the expense of aesthetic.

He sits you in one of the chairs, it’s just a rigid as you expect. He stays bent, holding you by the shoulders until your hold yourself up. He drags his hands down your arms as he reluctantly pulls away. You flutter your lashes and rub your eye sockets, trying to block out your reality.

“My sleepy bean,” he beams and plants a kiss on the top of your head. “So how about it? Eggs florentine? Or are you in the mood for something a bit sweeter? I’ve perfected my crepes.”

You grumble and drop your hands slowly, crossing your arms as a chill rolls through you. You feel it pricking in your chest and across your skin. You’re not wearing a bra and your tee shirt is thin. You keep your arms locked.

You listen to him moving around. You don’t know what to do. You’re too weak to do anything. Even if you could get on the other side of the walls, you have no idea where you are. Where help could be.

You rock as your fear bubbles up. Why is he doing this? Why does he think you want him? Why you? Of all people. You mind your business, you keep your head down, eyes to yourself... you don’t deserve this.

You glance over at him as he starts to hum. Your lip quivers as you watch his shoulders blades stretch the fabric of his shirt. He’s a bit ridiculous in a full set of satin pajamas, the dark black speckled with a subtle grey leopard print. He’s too much.

You turn your head straight and let it hang. You resign yourself to helplessness. You have to be logical about this. You can’t spark his suspicion to soon. You have to wait for a window and then... figure that out, you guess. You don’t like uncertainty. You have a routine and you keep to it. That’s what keeps you safe. Or so you thought.

“...wise men say, only fools rush in...” he sings softly and you wince. The lyrics of the Elvis ballad make your skin crawl. He’s actually deranged. You don’t know him, you're strangers.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I know tree nuts are a no go,” he chimes as he whisks, turning to you with a broad smile.

You blink at him. How does he know that?

“Don’t think you’ll be needing any but I also got penicillin on the no go list and the latex thing... there’s alternatives,” he chuckles and you furrow your brow. “How’s that ticker doing? You been taking lots of iron?”

Your body hollows out. How much does he know about you? How? You can guess he’s snooped around your medical records. Obviously, he’s a man with criminalistic leanings. Is this even his house? Has he taken you to a fortress he commandeered by force? Is there some terrified family bound in the basement? Is there a basement?

He continues to futz around the kitchen as you curl your shoulders down and chew on your lips. Speaking of your heart, it’s beating again, racing, almost painfully. You’re a mouse trapped in the corner by the feline with his bristly whiskers.

Your eyes wander over to the large windows and you stare out at the curated landscape. The property is beautiful and lush. You imagine a whole team maintains the perfectly trimmed hedges and colourful blooms. The stone mosaic pathway and the leafy archway over a bench. It’s like a dream, more so, a twisted nightmare painted in hues of fantasy.

A plate clinks down before you and a sweet aroma brings you back inside. You face forward as Lloyd steps back on his heel, watching you with anticipation. You look at him then the plate. He pulls out a chair and plops himself down, planting his elbow as he cups his chin and watches.

“Let me know what you think,” he insists.

You take a breath and unlock your arms. Slowly, you drag them apart and take the thick butter knife and long fork. The cutlery feels too big for your small hands. You lean forward as the drizzle of dark syrup across the rolled crepe lures you in. Your stomach roars noisily and he giggles.

“Aw, you must be starving,” he muses, “please eat, baby, I don’t want you to ever go hungry again.”

You exhale through a ripple of disgust. You cut into the thin crepe and into the filling. Slice off the end of the roll and scoop it up with the filling. You carefully open your mouth around the fork and take a bite. Your eyes flit up to meet Lloyd’s as his gaze sticks on you. There are flames in his blue irises.

You pull your mouth off the fork in embarrassment as he hums. He’s a weird, weird man. All of this is weird. Surreal.

You look down at the butter knife and contemplate the gold cutlery. It’s heavy, it would hurt if you used the handle to give him a conk, but the blade is too dull to do much. It can slice through a crepe but wouldn’t do much on meat and bone. You don’t think you could do it, either. The thought of hurting others is just unnatural.

“Is it good? Tried my own combination,” he explains happily, “dark chocolate syrup, not too much sugar, some softened cream cheese in the middle with black cherry jam.”

You swallow and look around for something to wipe your lips. Short of a napkin, you lick your lip and clamp them together. He shifts in his chair, an act that makes you feel uncomfortable.

“Good,” you croak.

“Oh, wait,” he stands suddenly, “your coffee. Oopsie.”

He struts away and your stomach mulches the single bite greedily. As much as you want to be stubborn, you’re so hungry. And it’s delicious. It’s better than your usual flavourless fare. You could gobble it all down in a second but you won’t. You carefully cut out another bite as he returns with a tall mug.

He puts the cup down by your plate. You gulp down a forkful and set down the cutlery. You consider the mug before you take it, the white porcelain marked with the golden outline of a rose above the letter ‘Mrs.’. He has another in his hands, black but with a bowtie above ‘Mr.’. What the hell?

“Colombian dark roast. A little less caffeine so your heart won’t mind so much,” he says.

You nod and take the cup. The thought of coffee is enough to override your agitation. You take a sip and hold back a sigh. It’s good. You hate all of this but it’s all so good. You put the cup back and return your attention to the crepes. You pause and glance up at him. He doesn’t have a plate, just his cup.

“Oh, jellybean, you’re so sweet,” he smirks, “I gotta keep my protein up. I’ll have some eggs and a shake soon. Right now, you just worry about you.”

You dip your chin down and focus on eating. Small bites. You don’t want to seem too greedy. You don’t want him to see how much you need this. Does he know everything? Of course, he was watching but did he know the days you spent feeling as if your stomach was eating itself?

He pushes his hair back, trying to tidy the long strands as he watches you, “we’ll get washed up after breakfast. Then you can get settled in and relax. I’ll take care of everything else, alright? You just need to get all dolled up when the time comes,” he explains as he drags his fingertip around the tabletop, “not that you need to do very much.”

You just chew. What can you say or do? This man is straight up crazy. Not only are you his prisoner, he’s been stalking you. It doesn’t matter when it started, look where it’s ended. No, this can’t be the end.

“What’s...” you speak before you can think. You shake your head and smother your question with another bite.

“What? Go on, sugar lips, ask me anything? You wanna know my favourite colour? My favourite song?” His cheeks tint pink as he plays with a button on his pajamas.

You clear your throat and put down the fork and knife, “what’s going on... later?”

He tilts his head curiously.

“The... dress and... doll up?” You repeat his words flatly.

“That’s a surprise,” he trills as if it should be obvious. “Don’t wanna spoil it, do we?”

“I guess,” you sit back and fold your hands in your lap.

“You don’t gotta think about anything, sweet cheeks. You leave the thinking to me. I’m gonna take care of you,” he avows as his hand stretches across the front of his satin shirt. “You just gotta be you.”

You feel his gaze bearing down on you. You peek up to find his eyes slipping down and you feel them centre on your tee shirt, your nipples poking against the cotton. You hunch your shoulders and cross your arms again.

“How’s the coffee, jelly bean? You like it?” He tears his attention from your chest.

“Good, thank you,” you murmur.

“Ugh, I love hearing your voice,” he puts his coffee down and reaches between his legs. You blanch as he drags his chair closer as he lifts himself. He puts his hand on your knee, stroking with his thumb, “will you call me ‘honey’?”

You stare at him. Your cheek draw tight and your lips flatten. You want to shake off his touch and scream but that foggy glaze in his eyes deters you. This man is wild.

“Okay, er,” you gulp tightly and cough, “honey.”

He hums into a sigh and his hand slips higher on your leg before trail back down, “oh,” he shakes his shoulders, “that tingles. Do it again.”

You fight not to let your true emotion blaze through. You hug yourself tighter and bite down before you can muster the word, “honey.”

“Oh, baby, that’s nice,” he winks and sits back, eyes grazing up and down your body, “you cold? You’re all twisted up like a pretzel.”

You nod. It's an excuse you’ll gladly take.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner, jellybean?” He stands suddenly and you notice the way he tugs on the waistband of his pants. You turn your head, blurring your vision so everything around you is vague.

He rushes off and you wait. You don’t know what else to do. You’re still too weak to make a move. Whatever he gave you is potent. Or maybe, you’re just too scared to do more than shrink and surrender.

He returns with a fluffy purple robe in his hands. He comes around the back of your chair and you lean forward to let him drape it around you. He curls his hands over your shoulders and bends over you. He presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“You need more coffee, baby cakes?” He asks as he kneads your shoulders.

“Still working on it,” you pull away from him and grab the cup, “thank you...” you let the words dangle in the silence, tension piquing, “honey.”

He sighs and draws away with a tickle up your neck, “mmm, isn’t this wonderful?”

#lloyd hansen #dark lloyd hansen #dark!lloyd hansen #lloyd hansen x reader #the gray man #the quiet ones #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #series

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nevadancitizen · 1 month

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-> HURTING, LONGING, LOVING – DANCING TO DISCO MUSIC

synopsis: you wake up and have no memory of simon. you can only hope to find him among your fractured memories and the scattered lights of a disco ball.

word count: 2.3k

characters: simon "ghost" riley, amnesiac! gn! reader

trigger warnings: transient global (aka temporary) amnesia, mentions of canon-typical violence/interrogation

notes: heavily inspired by disco elysium and part one of @roosterr 's amnesia series. go give it a read if you haven't already (＊๑˘◡˘)

Nothing surrounds you. Only warm, primordial blackness – the pond you learn about in Biology 101, the one where everything and everyone comes from. You don’t know this, of course, because you’re curled up in it, your mind fermenting in it. You’re no larger than a grain of yeast. You don’t have to do anything anymore. Ever. Never, ever.

But you’re growing. Gram upon gram of yeast, slowly morphing into meat. Muscles and bones and organs and a beating pig heart, decaying as soon as they grow. Soon you’ll need to do things. There’s a faint tickle of an idea. Soldiers. Battlefields. IEDs and tanks. You don’t know what to do with this information.

Somewhere within the idea – a sensation! Pain. Arcing, shooting pain, lightning through every new nerve in your new body. The limbed and headed machine of pain and barely-dignified suffering is firing up again. It wants to walk the streets of Manchester. Hurting. Longing. Loving. Dancing to disco music.

It wants someone. You want someone. A blurred-out face, someone you’re kneeling at the feet at. A ghost of a man. So lost he doesn’t even know what his face looks like.

“I swore I wouldn’t let you go,” your barely-formed mouth mumbles. Your teeth are hot, melted-together plastic and your tongue is jet-fuel-fired rebar.

Look up. No. You were just talking to yourself. That’s all you ever do. Even in this primordial pool. And the act is wearing thin, the spots of the disco ball fade around you…

The warm blackness is instantly replaced with a cold, artificial light. You bring your hand up to block it – since when have you had these? Gangly things with a red wire further down in… your elbow. That’s not a wire – that’s a tube. Of blood? Your blood. You have blood.

You remember now. You were born with hands and elbows, knees, feet, organs and fat and a copious amount of blood. A collarbone you’ve broken more than once. A body that was molded in the crucible of battle.

And holy shit does that body hurt. That hindbrain wasn’t exaggerating when it said that you are a being of suffering.

A dull throbbing is behind your eyes as they rove around the room. They land on a button neatly labeled Call Nurse. You press it and wait.

Everything after that is a blur. Nurses, doctors, “Follow my finger with your eyes, but don’t move your head,” poking and prodding with various instruments, “Tilt your head back so I can feel your neck,” blue latex gloves, “How much do you remember?”, bright lights in your eyes.

One nurse checks the dressings on your forehead. It’s just above your temple. His hands are rubbery and unfeeling as he re-dresses it. A trickle of cold liquid dribbling down from an alcohol swab. Bandages press against your skin. “What’s your name and date of birth?”, “Can you name the members of the task force you’re a part of?”

A man cuts through the blur as he comes thundering through the door. A balaclava with a skull pattern. Three men are behind him, hanging in the doorframe, out of the way. But the man moves quickly towards you, standing on the edge of the crowd of medical professionals, pacing back and forth, eyes on you, like how a sheepdog circles its sheep. Longing, waiting. Held back by an invisible leash of respect.

After a while, most of the personnel disperse, leaving you with a transient global amnesia diagnosis, a nurse, and the men. But even then, they leave after casting a glance at the sheepdog.

He moves closer, then stares at you for a while. He’s expecting something. His brown eyes are like sodium lights. A small trickle of streets and the sky. In your mind, you know he’s the place to be. You’re still alive while he’s around.

Yeah. He’s groovy. You want to disco with him. He is disco. But somewhere, a deep unaccessed area of your mind is saying, “You don’t want to disco like this. Not really. Not in the deepest part of your soul, where blond eyelashes only make you sad.”

Wait – come on, what are you talking about? Sad blond eyelashes? Blond eyelashes are fun!

“Why do I hurt all of a sudden?”

“Hey, it’s alright, darl.” He kneels by your bed and takes your hand in both of his. They’re warm, rough, calloused in places you thought couldn’t be calloused. “It’s me, it’s Simon.”

“What?” You pull your hand away from his. “I don’t know a Simon.”

Simon scoffs, but it’s more of an exhale of disbelief. “Don’t you remember me?”

“No.” You narrow your eyes. “Should I?”

Simon crumbles before you. His sodium streetlight eyes go out with an explosion of guilt – the bulbs pop with a fizzy sound. He looks like he should be groveling at the feet of a feudal lord, providing excessive evidence of his crimes, or throwing a cat-of-nine-tails over his shoulder and ripping the flesh from his own back. Whatever made him this way – you can be damn sure it was your fault. Those three simple words, instead of “I love you,” are “No. Should I?”

“It’s me.” Simon’s voice cracks as he speaks. Tears flood his waterline. He takes off his mask, revealing his pale face and dyed-blond hair. “It’s your Simon.”

“Simon,” you say softly. You look at him and hurt. A hole in your still-beating pig heart. Blood spills out from where the bullet went in.

“No. Nothing.” You look down at his hand. It’s palm-up, splayed out where you let go of it. It curls up into a fist, then Simon pulls it into his lap.

He says nothing. Just stares at you like you’re familiar yet somehow unknown.

You don’t know what to say. You just can’t conjure up any thoughts as you stare back. The morphine can’t be the cause of your dumbness. And it certainly isn’t the new modafinil that was just introduced to your system.

You search his eyes and feel, above all things, lost. Lonely in a hospital full of people.

Simon pulls away. His breathing is heavy and labored. A single tear slips down his scarred cheek. He doesn’t look like he’s one to cry. The tear leaves a trail of wet that looks like a new scar.

He tugs his balaclava back on and shuffles out, casting one last longing glance over his shoulder before closing the door behind him with a soft click.

That’s where it is. He is disco. He’s stumbling through the streets of Manchester. Hurting. Longing. Loving. Dancing to disco music.

You’re stuck in the hospital for a week for physical therapy and observation. Simon visits intermittently. He brings things to jog your memory – men that are part of Task Force 141, small snow globes from where you and he have apparently been deployed. Some of them work. But none of them bring back any memory of your apparent relationship with Simon – your boyfriend.

Today he comes in with a small device. It’s not a phone, but resembles it. A small wire comes from the amp and ends in a small circle of plastic.

You point at it. “What’s that?”

“It’s a contact microphone.” Simon settles in the chair that’s set up by your bed. He points at the blocky part of it. “This part holds the recording. You can play it back if needed.”

“Are you going to play it back?” You ask.

“No,” Simon says. “This one is blank.”

You take it from Simon’s hand and turn it over, looking at it. Examining. “Then why are you showing me this?”

“You are…” Simon sighs, trying to find the words. “You were a profoundly talented interrogator. You used contact microphones to record the interrogation, the confessions, the works. There’s a specified interrogation chamber underground. Contact microphones pick up the noise better down there.”

You continue looking it over. Fiddling with the wire. Running your thumb over the mesh of the microphone.

“Anything?” Simon says.

You close your eyes and think. Contact microphone… violence, blood. There’s a welding torch in there somewhere. The smell of bubbling flesh and burning hair. Cauterization without anesthesia. It was that way on purpose.

You open your eyes and look at Simon. “Interrogation.”

“Obviously.” Simon huffs out a laugh. It sounds forced. “I told you that.”

“Yes.” You sigh, looking down at the contact microphone. You try to think more. Contact… physical contact. Your fist making contact. Something hard. Solid bone breaking under your hands.

But also… something soft. Something that smells good. Smells homey. A black hoodie with some cheesy skull pattern on it. Actually, a closet full of black and grey clothes. A monotone voice to match a monotone closet.

The clothes smell faintly of cigarettes. A carton that’s mostly empty. They taste better than regular cigarettes – they’re some European brand.

“Do…” You look up at Simon. “Do you smoke?”

“Why?” Simon asks. “Do I smell like cigs?”

“No. Just…”

You close your eyes and try to remember more. The carton is a brown-orange color. The back is plastered with warnings about nicotine being an addictive chemical. No filters. A smooth, walnut-esque finish.

“Revaality,” you finally say and look up at Simon.

“Yes! Yes.” Simon takes your hand instinctively, excitedly. He smiles. Like crying, it doesn’t really fit him, but you’re glad he’s smiling anyway. “That’s the brand I smoke. I smoke Revaality.”

He takes your face in his hand and guides you to look at him. His sodium light eyes are bright once again. “Anything else? Lovie, please…”

You cringe away from his touch. Again, Simon is punched in the fucking face when he remembers that you don’t know him. Not like that.

Simon pulls his hands away. “Shit. I…”

“It’s okay,” you say quickly. “I know.”

I know you know a different version of me. The thought lingers, loud and unsaid. Simon, you’re a man with a lot of past, but little present, and almost no future. I’m sorry we only live in your memories, because I don’t even have those.

“I’m trying.” You look down at the contact microphone. “Believe me, I’m trying.”

“I believe you,” Simon says. “It’s just… it’s hard.”

Silence for a while. The artificial lights above you buzz and cast harsh shadows on Simon’s face. He looks… tired.

“I still love you,” he says quietly. Almost a whisper. “I… you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”

He rests a hand on the railing of your hospital bed. “I’m not the best. I drink. I smoke. I have a laundry list of mental issues and types of trauma. So much it’s not even funny.”

“But you…” he sighs. “You fell in love with me anyway.”

You look up at him. He’s crying again. A pang of empathy in your heart. You don’t know why, but you don’t want to see him cry. The tears that cut through the dirt on his face are unbefitting.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice is a mirror of Simon’s. Soft and wavering. “I want to remember. I don’t even know what happened to me. The doctors always dance around it when I ask.”

Simon bunches the end of his sleeve up in his hand and wipes away his tears. “You were a fucking idiot. That’s what happened.”

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“Not in a bad way.” Simon lets go of his sleeve and rests his hand on the railing of your bed again. “You love too much and too hard. You saved me.”

“It… the building…” He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing his waterline to clear of tears. “The building was coming down. We thought we were out of danger close. But there was a piece of rebar that…”

Simon looks down at his lap. He’s ashamed. “It was supposed to hit me. I was supposed to die. I’m used to it. I’m used to close calls and blood transfusions.”

“But I’m not used to…” He glances up at you through his eyelashes. His long, blond eyelashes. “People I care about being hurt. Or people caring about me in general.”

“Simon.” You reach out and lay your hand over his where it rests on the railing. He holds his breath like he’s afraid.

A pause. You want to be sure of your words before you speak.

“I’m going to try my damndest to remember,” you say. “Even if I don’t remember everything, I – I want to try to learn to care about you again. Because, based on our limited interactions, I know you’re a good man. Even if you drink and even if you smoke and even if you have a laundry list of mental issues and an assortment of trauma.”

Simon slowly brings his other hand and rests it on top of yours. His callouses brush against your knuckles. Abrasive yet comforting in a way you barely remember.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “Really, truly. Thank you.”

And, in this moment, Simon finally has some sense of control in an ever-turbulent world. The world that tried to take his one and only love. The world that has taken his one and only love and is only now feeding him droplets of what he knows – what he once knew. He must exercise this control carefully, lest he lose you again.

In the sky, there are no dogfights and no silverplate bombers. Only stars and the rabbit curled up on the moon and a singular winking comet. God is in Heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.

Somewhere, the spots from a disco ball freckle the dance floor once again.

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madelynraemunson · 2 months

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CALL ME WHAT YOU WANT 𓆩♡𓆪

(Book #1 of the Hellfire Gentlemen’s Club series)

strip club owner!eddie x fem!exotic dancer!hargrove!reader

𝐌𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍 𝐀𝐔 18+ MDNI

Chapter 018: Murphy's Law

You’re only against a handful of things. Of course, the one time you go to bed angry, shit hits the fan.

↳ chapters: 001, 002*, 003** , 004**, 005 , 006 , 007* , 008**, 009, 010, 011, 012* , 013**, 014** , 015, 016**, 017, 018, 019, 020*

* = somewhat smutty chapters ** = smut chapters

author's note: 2/23/2024 — i don't want you guys to suffer too much, so the last two chapters will be released tomorrow 2/24/2024. i love you guys, thank you for tuning in ♥️

CW: i don't wanna spoil anything, so this whole chapter is a trigger warning. please be mindful of this before reading; ps thank you to @freckledjoes for letting me use this picture of barron/"steve"

word count: 1.3k words

♡

“I’m Natalia, who are you?”

“I’m...Shy Girl,” you narrow your eyes. “My boyfriend Eddie lives here.”

You've never been good at math. But it doesn't take putting 2 and 2 together to realize that — the car in Eddie's spot this morning — belongs to the Nancy look-alike in front of you.

And if you looked too fast, you would've thought that she WAS Nancy. But the strapless tube top, lettuce-trim booty shorts, and lacy black tights on a cold December morning rule out that possibility.

Your eyes trail over to Steve in the background, frantic and sweaty, hairy chest out on display as he shuffles around to find a shirt to throw on. You clear your throat, meeting Natalia’s blue eyes one more time before speaking again.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Oh no girl, you're fine!" the busty brunette chirps, when she realizes you're no longer a threat to her. "I was just heading out. I guess his roomie is going to be back any second now."

Doing your best to conceal your laughter, you step off to the side to allow Steve's booty call to get her things and scoot out the door. Steve watches awkwardly, leaning against the doorway and flashing Natalia a smile as he watches her get to her car safely.

You wait until she’s out of earshot to speak to him.

“Natalia.” you sing with a smirk. “Really?”

“Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“The one you’re making right now, Hargrove. Don’t start.”

Your eyes venture down to the faint bite marks on Steve’s neck. You turn around to look at the doppelgänger one last time, giving her a wave as she drives away.

“Not starting anything,” you insist. “I just think it’s funny.”

He knows what you’re thinking and it doesn’t help his case. Steve steps off to the side, inviting you in. After closing the door behind you, Harrington gestures towards the box in your hand.

“Whatchu got there?”

“Apology cupcakes for Eddie,” you explain. “I was a real bitch to him yesterday so I decided to bake him something to compensate.”

You spent all night guilt-baking, hoping to win Eddie back with the cute vanilla cupcakes topped with sad red frowns on them, followed by a homemade card that reads, "I'm sorry for pushing you against the wall". Expecting Steve to find it adorable, he offers you a rather confused reaction instead.

"…Eddie didn’t stay over last night?” he asks with a cocked brow.

Your heart sinks.

“No… I thought he came straight here after Wayne’s.”

“Well obviously he didn’t,” Steve says. “Hence why I had Nat spend the night.”

“Well do you think he’s at Dustin’s?”

“I’m not sure, I haven’t spoken to the guy since yesterday morning.”

Something's off. Immediately rushing to the living room, you set the cupcakes down so you can call Wayne. It rings a few times but Eddie's uncle doesn’t pick up.

"Wayne's not picking up."

“That’s odd,” Steve gulps. “He almost always does.”

So you go to message Eddie. It's a simple text, Where are you? Straight to the point. To your complete shock, your usual blue text bubbles turn green. Eddie's phone is off. What the hell?

So you go to call him next. It doesn't hurt to try. But then your knees start to buckle when you're immediately directed to an automated voicemail box.

“We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please try again later.”

The room is as frostbitten as the air outside. Steve senses abrupt energy shift.

You scroll nervously through your phone. The next person to contact is Dustin. Outside of his friendship with Steve, he is the next person closest to Eddie. But Curly doesn't pick up either.

"Oh god," you feel the color rushing from your face.

"Hargrove, i-it's okay," Steve attempts. "He's probably with Jeff or Gareth or Grant or somethin', o-okay? Let's not jump to conclusions."

He rests a warm hand atop your arm, grounding you back down to earth. You turn to him with worry. He rubs your back to comfort you.

"Eddie would never do anything to hurt himself on purpose," Steve assures you. "I can promise you that much. Don't let your mind go there."

"Okay," you exhale.

"But he is stupid though," Steve adds. "So, to be safe, we should probably check the hospital. Or urgent care. Dude probably cucked his ankle again."

And with that, you two set off to Hawkins Memorial on the other side of town.

The icy roads seem to draw on for miles as Steve drives. And you had no desire to explore the vastness of Roane County, for as long as Eddie isn’t there waiting for you at whatever coordinate the wind blows you to next.

Tapping your feet anxiously on the floor, you click your phone on and off again to see whether or not a message from Eddie pops up. It’s the same outcome every time.

Steve’s gentle hand rests on top of your trembling ones once again. He gives you a soft pat.

“It’ll all be okay, Shy Girl,” he says to you. “Promise.”

Thankfully, hospital parking is almost immediate. Booking it to the emergency department now, you and Steve rush to get to the front of the line to speak to the receptionist. When it's finally your turn, she greets you rather stoically.

“Can I help you?”

Without violating HIPAA?

“I sure hope so,” you sigh. “This is a wellness check. Do you guys maybe have a Munson admitted here?”

“Munson…” the last name marinates on the lady’s tongue almost as if she’s familiar with it. You wouldn’t doubt it. Wayne’s a frequent flyer due to the cancer and Hawkins is quite literally a speck of dust on the map.

You try to help her. “Maybe an Eddie…Edward… or quite possibly a Wayne…”

“Quite possibly a Wayne?” the lukewarm secretary echos you.

“Yes!” you hiss urgently. “Or maybe a John Doe? A guy in his late twenties, early thirties... This person most likely came in yesterday afternoon, night, or maybe even this morning. He has brown hai-"

“Shy Girl…” comes a voice behind you.

It’s one of the Munsons you’re looking for. But to your surprise, not the one you were expecting.

"Wayne..." you breathe.

In front of you is Eddie's uncle, sitting in his wheelchair evidently a bawling mess. If he’s here and Eddie’s not, it can only mean one thing.

Your throat tightens and you struggle to speak. A thin veil of tears gloss over your eyes, your fingertips essentially frozen now as the sterile white building closes up around you.

“Wayne…” you say again. “What happened?”

His uncle sniffs, drawing out uneven breaths as he tries to calm down, nose an irritable red to match his glassy, sleep-deprived eyes.

“There’s... been an accident,” he chokes. “They T-boned him. Van is totaled.”

That van. That stupid fucking van you’ve told Eddie time and time again to get rid of.

“Wayne," Steve interrogates. "Who drove you here?”

“The Henderson boy.”

You can't take it anymore.

“Where is he?!” you demand. “And why aren’t you with him, Wayne?! WHERE IS EDDIE?”

“Doctors won’t tell me nothin'!” Wayne blubbers, his voice cracking like a helpless child. “But as someone whose second home is the hospital, I know what that means.”

The three of you take this time to cry. You instantly collapse into Steve's arms. He embraces you tight, dragging you off to the side so the people who were waiting behind you could be helped next.

Nothing matters anymore, you think to yourself. This is what you get for going to bed angry. The one time. The one time. And as the three of you start to gather yourselves again — rather slowly — Wayne speaks once more... uttering a belief that you've already come to terms with. Something that you already know.

“It’s not looking good for Eddie.”

🏷️ tag list: @chrrymunson , @the-fairy-anon , @ali-r3n , @corrodedcoffincumslut , @bebe07011 , @mmunson86 , @eddiesguitarskills , @chelebelletx , @imonhereforareasonsadly , @eddies-trailer-babe @motherfckerr , @jxpsi , @sidthedollface2 , @manda-panda-monium , @elvendria , @micheledawn1975 , @hereforshmut , @siriuslysmoking , @mediocredreams @nymphetkoo , @m-chmcl-rmnc , @ahoyyharrington , @keepittoyourselftellnobodyelse @kellyxo1 @emsgoodthinkin @winchester-angel @chloe-6123 , @redbarn1995 @angietherose @kiyastrf94 , @purplewitchcauldron @kellsck @joyfulfxckery @munsons-mayhem28 @dragonfire @emma77645 @drivelikenina @livosssblog @thinkingth0ts @hugdealer @ellielunamckay @xblueriddlex @maskofmirrors @babyloutattoo89 @queenofhawkins

oh yeah, song of the chapter is...

side note: s/o to DR. bridgit mendler, the irl barbie

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #strip club owner!eddie #stripper!reader #eddie munson angst #boyfriend!eddie munson #wayne munson #steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #joseph quinn #joe quinn #Spotify

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morallyinept · 11 days

Text

Adrift With You - A Frankie Morales Series - Chapter 14

Summary: Heading away on a work re-location, Frankie embarks on a flight, but unbeknownst to him, his life is about to change forever. For starters, he will need to fight for it; harder than he's ever fought for anything else before.

Marooned on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean, still recovering from an addiction, his chances of survival are bleak; but he’s not alone on the island, and soon he’s running towards a different kind of life - a life with fellow survivor, Jude, fighting right beside him every step of the way.

And if they can both survive the island together, they can survive anything, right?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x OFC Jude

Chapter word count: 7k

SERIES MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

☝🏻See Series Masterlist for full smut warnings & triggers in this story. Chapters that contain smut or triggers will be highlighted in the chapter notes below. 👇🏻

Chapter notes: In the aftermath of the tsunami, Frankie and Jude are haunted by dreams, and struggle to determine what is real and what isn't. Very, very brief mentions of suicidal thoughts, and mentions of drug taking.

Song sung in the chapter is:

Enjoy! 🖤

Chapter 13

As Frankie slowly regains consciousness, he finds himself enveloped in a disorienting haze - a fog of confusion that clouds his mind and dulls his senses.

The sterile scent of antiseptic assaults his nostrils, and the rhythmic beeping fills the air; a cacophony of sound that seems to echo in his ears, its rhythm erratic and unsettling.

His head throbs with a relentless ache, every pulse sending a sharp stab of pain shooting through his skull. His mouth feels dry and parched, as if he hasn't had a sip of water in days, and a bitter taste lingers on his tongue - a reminder of the poison he’s willingly ingested.

Every movement is an effort, every breath a struggle against the weight of exhaustion that presses down upon him. His body feels heavy and sluggish, as if it’s weighed down by invisible chains, tethering him to the hospital bed with a cruel inevitability.

And then there’s the sensation of the IV line - a thin, plastic tube that snakes its way into his arm, delivering a steady stream of vital fluids and medication into his bloodstream. The sensation is strange and disconcerting, a constant reminder of his own frailty, his own mortality.

He can feel the cool touch of the saline solution as it courses through his veins, a lifeline tethering him to the world of the living, anchoring him to the present moment.

With a groan, Frankie attempts to sit up, only to be met with a wave of dizziness that sends him reeling back onto the hospital bed. Blinking against the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, he struggles to piece together the events that have led him to this place - a place of sterile white walls and solemn faces and plastic name tags who speak in foreign medical terms; a place that feels worlds away from the place he once called home.

And then, like a bolt of lightning striking through the fog of his memories, it all comes flooding back - the overpowering rush of euphoria, the reckless abandon of his actions, the acetous taste of regret that lingers on his swollen tongue.

He’d overdosed on the coke, lost in a haze of self-destructive impulses and desperate cravings, until the world had faded to black and he’d slipped into unconsciousness.

His eyes adjust to the dim light of the hospital room, and he surveys his surroundings with a growing sense of unease. The other bed beside him lays empty and untouched, the sheets neatly folded back as if waiting for someone who’ll never come.

The silence that fills the room is deafening, a hollow echo of the emptiness that gnaws at Frankie's insides.

Something doesn’t feel right. He shouldn’t be here.

For a moment, he lays there in stunned silence, grappling with the enormity of his solitude. His mind replaying the moments leading up to this candid awakening - moments filled with reckless abandon, self-destructive choices, and a blind refusal to acknowledge the consequences.

He’d driven them all away with his addiction, with his lies, with his inability to see beyond his own needs. And now, when he needed them the most, he found himself abandoned, left to face the consequences of his actions alone.

To wake up, alone.

Frankie feels the sting of tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, a silent testament to the pain that grips his soul tightly in gnarled claws. He’s pushed everyone away, burned bridges with those who had once stood by his side, and now he’s paying the price for his folly.

As the reality of his situation sinks in, Frankie feels a cold knot of fear tighten in the pit of his stomach - a sinking realisation of the depths to which he’s fallen, the consequences of his actions laid bare before him in stark relief.

He’s come so close to losing everything - his life, his sanity, his chances at redemption - and yet, somehow, he’s been given a second chance as he feels that familiar shake in his fingers tingling.

The heavy silence of the hospital room is suddenly pierced by the sound of the door swinging open. His heart skips a beat as he turns his gaze towards the entrance, uncertainty flickering in his eyes.

And there, standing in the doorway, is Benny - the steadfast friend who has never quite given up on him, even when Frankie's given up on himself.

A small smile tugs at the corners of Frankie's lips as Benny strides into the room, a personality as big as his boots, holding steaming coffee cups in his hands.

"Hey, Fish," Benny greets him, his voice warm and familiar. "Figured you could use some of this to chase away the cobwebs."

Frankie nods gratefully as Benny places a cup on the bedside table, the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee filling the air. He watches as Benny winks with a knowing smile.

And then, as if on cue, the door opens once more, and Frankie's heart skips another beat as Will and Carla enter the room.

There’s a moment of hesitation, a brief flicker of uncertainty in their eyes, before they approach Frankie's bedside with tentative smiles.

"Hey, buddy," Will greets, his voice tinged with concern. "How you holding up?"

Frankie meets Will's frosty gaze with a mixture of gratitude and relief.

"I'm... I'm okay," Frankie replies, his voice hoarse with emotion.

As Carla steps into view, her gaze immediately falls upon Frankie, but she can't bring herself to meet his eyes. Instead, she keeps her focus fixed on the floor, her hands nervously fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, the tinkling of her bracelets like familiar music in his head.

Frankie can sense Carla's discomfort, the tension radiating off her in waves. He wants to reach out to her, to offer her some measure of comfort, but he hesitates, unsure of how to break through the barrier that seems to have sprung up between them.

It’s clear from the tightness in her expression that she’s anything but okay with him right now. She’s struggling - struggling to come to terms with everything that’s happened, struggling to face the reality of Frankie's addiction, struggling to find the words to express the turmoil raging inside her.

The anger. The love. The hatred. The helplessness.

Frankie watches as Carla takes a hesitant step closer to his bedside, her eyes still fixed on the floor. He can see the conflict etched in her features - the desire to reach out, to offer support, warring with the fear of saying the wrong thing, of making things worse somehow.

And yet, despite this comforting picture, something feels off. Something’s askew, not quite right. A weird sense of Déjà-vu almost. It’s like trying to grasp at smoke - elusive and ephemeral, slipping through his fingers just when he thinks he has it within his grasp.

The disquiet within him grows stronger, a nagging voice at the back of his mind urging him to question, to probe deeper into the recesses of his memory. Prickles on his skin making him shudder.

But try as he might, Frankie can't quite put his finger on what’s wrong - only that something is amiss with this scene.

“Frankie?” Benny asks. “You alright, man?”

Frankie swallows and looks up at his friend, and that’s when he sees it. See’s odd movement in the IV bag out the corner of his eye.

There are fishes in the bag, swimming around.

“W-what-” Frankie stammers.

His attention is pulled by the sudden screeching, and he turns his head to see a monkey sitting casually on Carla’s shoulder as she speaks with Will. A tiny monkey with big, yellow eyes staring back at him.

“What’s h-happening?” Frankie queries, feeling dizzy. Like he’s being tossed about on an unsteady bed that feels like it’s floating. “¿Qué está pasando?” (What’s happening?)

Water is trickling down the walls, steady tracks that grow in width and speed.

Frankie's voice echoes through the building furore, but his friends seem oblivious to the rising floodwaters around them. They continue to move about the room with casual nonchalance, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

That their feet aren't sloshing around circling waves of water flooding in from under the door and through the windows now.

“Fuck!” Frankie hollers as he scrambles out of the bed.

As the water continues to rise, inch by inch, Frankie feels a sense of desperation clawing at his chest. He knows he has to get out, has to escape before it’s too late and he drowns.

But as he struggles to find solid ground amidst the swirling currents, a sense of futility washes over him - a sinking feeling that he’s trapped, that there’s no way out. He looks down at the deflated lifejacket now around his torso, his fingers frantically pulling on the useless cords.

“No, no, no…”

The walls seem to blur and warp around him, and a strange sensation sweeps through his body, like the ground shifting beneath his feet. Panic surges through Frankie's veins as he looks around frantically, searching for some semblance of solidity in the shifting, swirling chaos.

The water rises steadily higher with each passing moment, until it reaches his knees, then his waist.

“Benny!" Frankie calls out, his voice swallowed up by the roar of the water. “Will! Carla!”

But his friends are nowhere to be found, lost amidst the churning currents that threaten to engulf him.

As the water rises higher and higher, panic gives way to a sense of resignation - a grim acceptance of his fate. He knows he’s dreaming, knows that none of this is real, but that knowledge offers little comfort in the face of the impending deluge.

He’s not waking up.

And then, just as Frankie feels himself on the brink of being swallowed whole by the raging waters, a voice cuts through - a voice that is familiar and comforting, like a beacon of light in the darkness.

A voice that he knows only too well rushing into his ears around the water as he sinks beneath the surface.

“FRANKIE!”

A tsunami can last anything from a few minutes to several hours.

The energy of a tsunami runs through the entire depth of the ocean. It only becomes deadly when the ocean floor becomes shallow enough, and all that energy compresses into a smaller amount of water.

The deeper the water, the faster the tsunami, travelling up to speeds of five hundred miles per hour, and taking mere minutes to reach land.

Once it reaches the land, the raw energy of thousands of tons of water destroys everyone and everything in its path in mere seconds. It’s a myth that you can outrun a tsunami of that magnitude - you simply can’t. It will engulf you before you even comprehend the thought in your mind of running.

The survival rates of a tsunami can vary depending on several factors such as the magnitude of the tsunami, the distance from the coastline, the elevation of the land, and individual preparedness and response. Generally, survival rates are quite low in areas directly impacted by a large and powerful tsunami, particularly if people are caught off guard and unable to evacuate to higher ground in time. And even if you can, your chances are still dubious.

You just gotta hope that luck is on your side.

Jude’s tumbling through the water, swallowing more of it as the deadly moments wear on; the lifejacket seemingly useless as she keeps being pulled under as she’s swept along with the ferocious current.

She surfaces momentarily to yell out for Frankie, before she’s dragged under again.

“Frankie!” She screams, more water pouring down her throat making her choke and gag.

She kicks her legs, her lungs on fire as she surfaces again, blinded by the inflation of the life jacket as she tumbles like she’s in a spin cycle in a washing machine.

She glances at her wrist as she surfaces again; part of the ripped shirt is still wrapped around it, but Frankie isn’t on the end of it anymore.

“FRANKIE! FRANKIE!!” She screams out in the water, the waves continuing to crush her head on a relentless repeat.

She splashes around frantically searching for any sign of him in the choppy current as it pulls her along.

“FRANKIE! WHERE ARE YOU?!” She cries out again, a choked sob overcoming her but refusing to admit defeat - he has to be here, he has to have survived this just like she’s doing.

They survive together, that’s the deal.

“FRANKIE!”

But then his lifejacket didn’t inflate. What if he’d been knocked out as his head had smashed into a rock under the water? What if he’s already dead?

“NO!” Jude cries out, swimming as hard as she can as the waves try to pull her under again.

“NO! NO! FRANKIE!” She screams again until her throat is raw. “FRANKIE! FRANKIE!”

With each passing moment, the waves seem to grow taller, more relentless in their assault, threatening to engulf her completely. She fights against the current with all her strength, but it’s like trying to hold back a tidal wave with her bare hands.

As she struggles to stay afloat, her mind races with a thousand fears and uncertainties. What if he can't hear her over the deafening roar of the waves? What if he’s hurt, trapped somewhere beneath the surface? What if...

She can hear choking and yelling, and turns in the water to see Frankie swimming towards her.

He disappears under a wave as it rolls on top of him and she takes a deep breath as the wave crushes her head only seconds after. She resurfaces just as Frankie reaches her and she clings onto him as he splutters and chokes.

“Thank God! Fuck!” Jude exclaims, thrashing amidst the frothy chaos, her body battered by the relentless force of the sea.

Without hesitation, Frankie reaches out, his strong arms encircling her trembling form as they ride the waves together. For a fleeting moment, time seems to stand still as they cling to each other amidst the fury of the ocean.

The water crashes around them, the salty spray stinging their eyes and coating them with a thin film of mist.

“Hold on to me!” He makes a weird gurgling noise as he tries to speak and coughs. “Holy fuckin’ shit!” Frankie cries out in disbelief as he paws at her and her hands grab a tight hold of his t-shirt.

He looks like a drowned rat, his hair and beard covering him and sticking to his skin with the saturation. There’s no sign of his trusty, familiar cap.

Frankie coughs again as water splashes over his face as they ride the waves of the tsunami, desperately clinging onto one another as they tumble and swirl with the ocean’s aftershocks.

Jude grips so hard onto him that her hands will ache for days afterwards, but she’s determined not to let him go this time.

It’s hard to tell how exactly long they’re in the water for.

The sun has moved across the other side of the sky as they bob there on the waves as the remnants of the tsunami begins to fade out on the ocean.

Thankfully, the tsunami wasn’t all powerful or engulfing enough that it’d taken their lives, but it was still incredibly damaging.

Exhausted, Frankie rests his head against the front of Jude’s inflated lifejacket with his eyes closed. But he’s still holding tightly around her waist as they float in the water, aching all over from their battered bodies.

“Look, over there!” She says to him, rousing him, and he lifts his head when they spot the island in the distance.

“Can you swim that far?” Frankie asks her.

“Yeah. We did it before, we can do it again, right?”

He nods. “Take it slow. Don’t burn out.”

They swim together against the current slowly; their limbs searing and getting pushed back with the waves every now and again as they continue to surge.

It seems like they aren’t making much in the way of progress, stopping occasionally to catch their breath and check the other is okay to carry on, but the island seems to grow closer, until eventually they can stand on the ocean floor again and stagger up the shore to the sandbank.

They both collapse on the sand; Frankie falling onto his back gasping for air like he’s having an asthma attack. Jude falls onto her knees, battling to get the life jacket off and dry heaving as she coughs up copious amounts of sea water until she eventually pukes it all out.

“Are... you... okay?” Frankie gasps in between each word as he hears her upchuck relentlessly.

She looks up at the beach, front wiping her mouth when she’s done spitting out, and is dismayed at what she sees.

“Oh God...” Jude’s voice breaks.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, the once eerily quiet island lay battered and broken, a landscape transformed by the merciless force of nature.

Trees lay uprooted and strewn about like discarded matchsticks, their branches stripped bare and twisted into grotesque shapes by the ferocious waves. Debris littered the sandy shore, a grim testament to the havoc that had been wrought upon the island in a matter of moments.

A scene of utter devastation that seems to stretch out as far as the eye can see. The once pristine, rocky beach is now marred by the impacting detritus.

It’s gone - all of it. The shack, the fire pit, the solar stills, just... gone. Nothing but a sparsely flooded and barren landscape greeting them, and not much else.

Jude staggers up the soggy sandbank wandering aimlessly in shock and disbelief. Face blank and eyes wide in disbelief. Body trembling from exhaustion and adrenaline as it confuses her nerves.

Frankie calls after her, rolling over onto his front and taking in the overpowering sight of destruction presented before him.

“Fuck.”

He drags himself to his unsteady feet and follows behind her in a stunned silence as he casts his weary eyes about the place. Their movements are slow and unsteady, as if they're moving through a fog, each step weighed down by the crushing weight of the destruction around them.

Every sound - the crash of waves, the creak of splintered wood - amplified, assaulting their senses with a relentless barrage of stimuli.

Jude stops when she spots something near the cave mouth as they begin to pass it.

“Oh no,” she whimpers, and drops to her knees when she reaches it. “No, please no-”

She picks it up and cradles it to her chest, her hands trembling as she strokes his cold, sodden fur. Frankie approaches, and she looks up at him with silent tears streaming down her face.

“Egon...” Jude blubs through choked wails, as she holds the little, lifeless monkey inside of her arms; his once wide, yellow eyes closed forever in a drowned sleep.

Frankie drops to his knees beside her and despite his will, he can’t help but shed some tears for the little critter who, as Jude had said before, he actually loved more than he let on.

People of faith will often be heard saying ‘God is testing me,’ when things ultimately get tough in their lives.

Like a bearded man, wearing Birkenstocks, relaxing on a cloud and sipping from a G&T, is observing your plight and revelling in it, chuckling haughtily like watching an episode of a trashy talk show.

God is clearly a sadist after everything he’s put them through, and as she watches Frankie scooping the pile of sand back into the hole he’d dug with his shovel-like hands for Egon’s grave, Jude can’t help but feel a deep sense of harbouring resentment for her maker right now.

Frankie rubs his hands against the thigh of his damp shorts and looks up at her as she stares down at the sandy grave.

“Do you think we should say something?” He asked her, scratching at the back of his head and squinting.

“There isn’t anything left to say.” Jude mutters and strides off, sitting on the sandy shore and staring out at the ocean.

It’s calmed considerably; the oncoming dusk making the horizon glow pink in the distance.

Frankie plonks himself beside her after a few minutes of staring at the monkey’s resting place; returned to the earth in the cycle of life, a festering ouroboros of gut-wrenching despair swilling inside of him, alongside copious amounts of sea water.

Hugging his knees and holding onto his wrists as he looks out at the horizon too. He breathes out a deep weary sigh and sniffs in deep.

“I’m sorry,” Jude says to him after a few moments.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, hermosa,” Frankie turns to her.

“Yes I do. I’m sorry for berating you so much about having hope all those times. You were right not to. There is no hope for us. We’re going to die, just like Egon.” She speaks like a robot, devoid of any emotion whatsoever, and it rattles his bones to see her talk like this, to see that she’s just done.

“Stop it,” he warns, pulling her towards him, but she resists, pulling her arms back away, but he grips onto them, grappling with her.

“No-”

“Hey, stop it!” Frankie yells, and pulls her in close as she wanes and falls against him without any more fight left in her.

“We’re going to die!” Jude wails into him and sobs as he holds her tight, almost like he’s a boa and is constricting the life out of her.

She writhes and her shoulders heave as she cries for what feels like eternity. Her sobs louder and more haunting and all Frankie can do is hold her in his arms and never let her go.

But his arms feel weak, no longer the strong barriers they once were to protect her anymore.

He doesn’t say anything to her; offers her no reassuring lies of comfort because there’s no point. She’s finally accepted it now like he had; they were going to die.

And it kills him all over again.

There’s nothing to pick through or scavenge.

It’s almost as if they’re just going through the motions to stay busy and not to actually drown themselves willingly in the water to end all the pain and suffering they’ve endured.

How much suffering can two people withstand before it finally breaks them? When is that breaking point, the crux of no return? When do you take that step and what is it that will finally give you that unwavering courage to turn your back and fall off the ledge?

Beaten, crushed... starving; on the brink of death and looking into its inviting, comforting jaws as it reaches out to you and convinces you in a soothing lullaby that everything will be okay, and you start to believe it for a while. That life on the other side will be better than this - anything will be better than this. The allure calls to you like a Siren song and it gets harder not to become bewitched by it and resist.

They don’t speak much, in fact at all. Jude simply watches Frankie get up from the sand where they’ve slept all night from their exhaustion, and observe as he starts hunting for things - anything that he can find and strike gold on.

Knowing it’s pointless, she stands up anyway, robotically copying his every move, searching for any stray bottles or clothes and not really understanding why she’s doing it. Searching for anything at all that can prolong their survival, even just for the tiniest bit.

But of course it’s fruitless - the tsunami has washed it all away.

Frankie reaches the tree line, surveying the damage of the wooded area that's halved in size, and he can no longer see the fuselage anymore that was previously stuffed into the bank on this side of the bay. There’s a singular piece of wood from the shack, split and broken as it floats in a muddy pool by some snapped tree trunks.

He glances up at the ridge and there’s no trace of the branch igloo and he sighs, deflated and beginning to hear that deathly Siren song tinkling inside his ears.

Jude wanders around aimlessly; frying under the heat and constantly pulling up her jeans that are falling down when she takes a few steps forward. Her legs have that dark shadow of hair growth and she hates the fact that she hasn’t been able to shave them for some time now.

She hates the fact that her stomach seems on a constant, never ending rumble. She hates that she can’t just lie down face first in the water and just go. She hates that she can’t do it because of him.

She hates that Frankie won’t simply let her die.

As she wanders along the shoreline, her eyes scanning the debris scattered by the waves, she spots a familiar sight - a baseball cap, swirling amidst the calming foam and froth of the ocean.

With a quickening of her heart, she wades into the shallows, the cool water lapping at her ankles as she reaches out to retrieve the cap, trembling with disbelief, she can't help but feel a surge of astonishment.

As her fingers close around the familiar fabric, fingers gliding over the sewn-on patch of the Standard Heating Oil logo, she chuckles out in disbelief. This simple piece of fabric, battered and worn by the elements, had made it back to him somehow. And she’s glad to see it - Frankie isn’t quite Frankie without his cap.

They meet back on the beach a little while later and slump themselves in the sand defeated with heavy thuds, hungry and tired and irritable beyond all reason. That kind of heaviness that swamps your head and crushes it until your brain splurges out of your ears.

Jude hands him the cap and he’s just as astonished, if not relieved to see it, as she is. But she doesn’t say anything to Frankie as she watches him put it back on his head under a scraggly mess of overgrown curls. And Frankie doesn’t say anything to Jude after offering her a limp smile.

She lays back and rolls over on the sand, facing away from him; willing the sand and rocks to turn into quicksand and just swallow her into the suffocating dark.

They stand on the ridge, the sun on high and the breeze blowing through her braid.

He’s always so fascinated with those stray wisps of hair that will escape it, no matter how tightly he ties it for her. They’ll flock to her face and cling to her cheek, pelting her with never-ending kisses affectionately.

Frankie’s sitting amongst the half constructed branch igloo; sticks scattered all around him that he’s whittling with the switchblade, and Jude’s looking over the ledge of the ridge and humming a faint tune that’s barely audible, wandering back and forth as she stretches her legs.

His hands are tight and raw, blister with the effort exhumed, but he continues on with the job nonetheless, numbing out to the aches and splinters. As Frankie stretches, cracking his back, he hears her hum out again.

“Sing it for me.” Frankie prompts her, and Jude turns to catch his smirk with glowy cheeks. “Go on, hermosa.”

Jude takes a breath with a grin and sings.

“In the end. As my soul's laid to rest, what is left of my body? Or am I just a shell?”

She starts moving her head, swaying it side to side as her shoulders begin to follow. She can hear the music inside her head as though they have her playlist right here blasting out on the rocks beside them; the beat of the drums counting her in and the strum of the guitars plucking through the riffs and melodies.

Frankie stops whittling, resting the stick in his lap squinting up at her with a smirk stretching his pink, dry lips.

“And I have fought. And with flesh and blood, I commanded an army. Through it all, I have given my heart for a moment of glory...”

He laughs as she rocks her hips with vigour and then punches her fist up in the air.

“In the end. As you fade into the night-”

“Woah-oh-oh-oh!” Frankie yells out singing along to the tune.

“Oh fuck, you know it?” Jude exclaims, smiling in happy delight at him.

Frankie nods. “Keep singing,” he encourages.

“Who will tell the story of your life? And who will remember your last goodbye?”

“Woah-oh-oh-ohhhh!” Frankie hollers again as he stands up, taking her hand and twirling her around whilst she laughs again, her eyes crinkling and throwing her head back.

“Cause it's the end and I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid to die.” Jude sings.

“CAUSE IT’S THE END, AND I’M NOT AFRAID - I’M NOT AFRAID TO DIE!”

They both fist punch the air over the ledge as they sing the final words out loud together, echoing all down the ridge across the island.

It’s a memory that splinters him. That was the happiest he’d seen her since they’d landed upon this dreadful island. Carefree and joyous, a wild jackal roaming unrestrained and free.

It was in that moment right there, as they’d both looked at one another with their fists in the air and turned them into the finger; giving the middle finger to the island that had bullied them for so long, through breathy smiles and wondrous awe, that Frankie realised he loved her. He fucking loved her.

I fuckin’ love you!

He’d suspected it for a while leading up to it, those sickly butterflies whenever she was near becoming more apparent. The thrumming of his heartbeat when she touched and kissed him; those early premonitions when you just know and feel giddiness from the high of meeting someone who’s so in tune to your frequency.

But that was the moment right there when it registered deep inside of the layers of his heart and winded him. Terrified, elated; utterly sound in the knowledge of the sincere truth as it flowed through his blood and over his bones.

Convinced he wouldn’t possibly feel this way again about someone, fearful that it could turn into that awful situation again where he could be selfish and push her away. But Frankie was so desperate to learn from his past mistakes, to not repeat them and be better - be better for her.

That’s love, right? Wanting to be the best you can be for someone?

Frankie-

I fuckin’ love you!

No. No-no-no!

BRAAACE!

I fuckin’ love you!

Frankie glances over at Jude lying in the sand away from him, her back to him and slipping further and further out of his reach.

‘Cause it’s the end and I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid to die!

Frankie turns towards the sea, and after he’s had enough of that horrific view staring back at him, he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes to stop the tears from slipping out of them again.

The droning noise wakes her, along with the muffled sounds of shouting. Like her head is under the water and hearing it pummel her eardrums as someone is yelling above the surface.

She sits up in the sand squinting and can see Frankie at the shoreline, waving frantically. Her eyes soon look past him to the small speedboat hurtling towards the shore.

Jude flies up on her legs, any sense of sleep rolling right off of her as she watches Frankie’s animated face astonished, and looking back at her, as his hands continue to signal to the boat.

The little boat with the inexorable humming noise like a swarm of hornets approaches the shore closer. Out in the distance she can see a larger boat, a little like a liner. Its grey shadow is stark on the blue horizon - a cancerous smear on a perfectly undisturbed cobalt backdrop.

It’s all lies... wake up, you’re dreaming.

Frankie begins to swim out towards the boat and Jude pads towards the shore in complete disbelief, her heartbeat kicking it up a gear as Frankie gets closer and closer to it.

The boat skids to a halt on the surface and she watches as the person inside heaves Frankie into the boat with his arm, and Frankie points back towards the shore with flailing fingers.

Wake up! It’s a dream!

Panic overcomes her, Jude can see Frankie waving to her, and she freezes, watching as the boat turns in the waves and holds her breath.

No, come back!

Circling, the boat speeds towards the shore again and the spray hits her in the face as she wanders out to it, her feet sloshing through the water, stunned and hyperventilating a little.

Oh God! Wake up! Please, wake up!

Frankie hops out of the boat alongside the person, who turns out to be two separate people, in blue and white lifejackets. Frankie reaches out to Jude, saying words that she can’t hear or understand, almost as if he’s jabbering away in excited, fast Spanish and she can’t decipher or recognise any of the sounds as they flow from his labrose lips.

She feels him pulling her into the boat and a foiled blanket is wrapped over her shoulders, a bottle of water placed into her numb hands.

“Wake up…” Jude mutters from trembling lips. "Wake up, wake up..."

More incomprehensible gibberish is exchanged between Frankie and the men, and she glances over her shoulder at the sight of the island suddenly shrinking away forever in the distance, reaching a gnarly hand out to her that can’t quite keep up.

Come back, Jude. Don't leave me.

It’s like an out of body experience; she’s floating and watching it happen. She pinches her arm and feels the pain ebb into her skin.

Wake up!

Frankie turns her chin towards him and presses his forehead against hers, breathing out as he pulls the blanket over her wet shoulders further.

“We made it, hermosa.”

She remembers hearing him say it to her, but the words don’t sink in; slowly being squeezed one at a time into her ear canal making the slow journey towards her brain that’s a messy pan of sloppy scrambled eggs.

“You guys, alright?” Comes a loud voice over the sound of the engine. “You get stranded after the tsunami, your boat capsize?”

Frankie and Jude look up simultaneously at the speaker holding onto the side of the boat whilst the other one steers it.

Frankie shakes his head. “No, we’ve been out here f-for over a year.” He speaks up through a deep hoarse voice that’s scarred from the sea water he’s swallowed in his desperate swim towards the speedboat.

“What do you mean out here?” The man asks.

“Our plane crashed, and we-”

“Fuck, you guys were on flight eight-sixteen?” The man questions taking off his sunglasses; the concern and astonishment palpable on his face. He has frosty blue eyes that instantly remind Frankie of Will’s.

“Y-you know about that?” Frankie asks with a widening mouth.

The man nods. “Sure, the whole damn world knows about it. They didn’t find any survivors. Looked everywhere.”

“You didn’t look hard enough!” Jude suddenly shouts at him over the sound of the engine, her voice tight from being throat punched back into reality.

This isn’t a dream. She doesn’t need to wake up. She can feel the vibrations of the boat on the waves as it bounces over them. She can see the island shrinking, feel the wind in her hair.

Frankie clutches onto her as the man dips his head in sympathy, unable to meet her stunned gaze.

“We were always here...” She trails off, looking back out at the island in wonderment.

Come back, Jude. Don't leave me. Come back.

“You guys are gonna be alright. You’re safe and we’ll get you home.” The man confirms putting his sunglasses back on. He reaches for the boat’s radio and speaks into the receiver, his voice swallowed up by the humming of the boat.

Jude clings onto Frankie and looks up at him, with eyes as watery as the ocean.

“Is this really happening?” She asks him, searching his eyes for the moment she’ll wake up from this terrible, reoccurring dream she’s doomed to live through on repeat forever.

We’re never going to get off this island. It can't be this easy.

Frankie nods with a bewildered smile through his bushy whiskers, the wind from the speed of the boat rippling through the curls behind his ears as he holds onto the cap, a giant palm flat on his head.

Jude clutches onto his wet t-shirt and rests her head against his chest hearing his heart beating as loud and as fast as hers is, even over the sound of the speedboat.

The larger ship in the distance is a US Navy vessel; called out in the wake of the tsunami to look for survivors, and to scout the ocean for capsized boats or people who had gotten into deep water.

Once on the ship’s main dock, a plethora of uniformed personnel busy themselves as Frankie and Jude are ushered towards the main control room.

She clocks a helicopter on the landing pad and shudders, recalling the countless times her mind had convinced her in her sleep that Frankie was leaving her on one, shrinking in the sky.

The captain of the ship greets them both with a caramel tan stark against a crisp white shirt, regarding them with some kind of disbelief when the rescue officers explain they originate from the doomed flight that had disappeared well over a year ago.

“Are you American?” The captain asks them both and Frankie nods.

“We’ll call the consulate. Get you some representation to help you back home.”

“Where are we, captain?” Frankie asks, and he looks back at him with a bemused expression.

“The SS Pendrinhas; US Navy.”

“No, I mean, where are we in the ocean? The island?” Frankie clarifies.

“You’re approximately one thousand and forty-three miles off the coast of The Prince Edward Islands. We’re in the Indian Ocean, sir.” The captain explains.

“We are?” Frankie asks him, turning white as a ghost.

“Yes,” the captain nods. “The island you were on is one of many scattered islands that are vastly unpopulated, surrounding the main Prince Edward Islands. You couldn’t see other peninsula points?”

Frankie shakes his head. “There was a-a ridge, but we couldn’t see any other land from that.”

“Damn. So near, yet so far,” the captain concludes with a frown, but it doesn’t offer any comfort at all. “We’ll take you down to the med bay, get you some dry clothes. It’ll be a couple hours before we reach the mainland. You look like you could do with a coffee.” The captain claps Frankie on the side of the shoulder and he winces. “Maybe something a bit stronger, huh?”

They’re both escorted down into the ship’s hull towards the med bay, passing officers stop to glance at their dishevelled appearance occasionally like they’re a rare exhibit in a museum.

Once inside the bay, another officer gathers some papers on a clipboard and proceeds to run through a list of questions, firing them off like ammo.

“Can you... Can you leave us for a few minutes?” Frankie says to the officer, noting the painfully vacant expression on Jude’s face. A thousand yard stare he recognises only too well.

The officer nods, looking somewhat relieved. “Sure. Take as long as you need.”

“What day is it?” Jude asks the officer, who stops and looks at her with a strained smile.

“It’s the nineteenth of July, ma’am.”

“And the time?” Frankie follows up.

The officer pulls back his sleeve and checks his watch. “Twenty-seven past six in the evening, sir.”

Once the grunt leaves, Frankie approaches Jude and puts his hands on her shoulders.

“Look at me,” Frankie persuades “I’m right here, find my eyes…” and her eyes slowly find him. “We made it, we’re off the island. We’re alive, hermosa.”

It takes a few moments, a couple of beats for the words to really sink in. We made it, we’re alive.

We’re alive.

Jude slumps forward into his arms, like she’s lost all her air and she sobs in abject relief. She feels him emit a small chuckle as he breathes out at his own realisation; his hands massaging her back up and down in deep circles soothing her, but they’re shaking.

“We really got off the island?” She asks him, absolutely astonished and wiping at her eyes that are so dry and sore.

Frankie pulls back looking down at her with a relieved smile; he smooths away the tear tracks from her face with his thumbs and kisses her gently on the forehead.

“We did. I love you,” he whispers to her.

Jude looks into his intense brown eyes, and remembers him shouting at her that he loved her right before the tsunami swallowed them up. She realises she hasn’t said it back.

But the look in his eyes right now assure her that saying the words out loud doesn't matter - he knows that she loves him back unconditionally.

When you spend that amount of time with someone - in that kind of situation - fighting for your life on a continuous basis, not only do you learn about your own resilience, but that of the person with you. You begin to depend on one another, work as a team; look out for each other’s well being, because understandably, if you can prolong their survival, you undoubtedly prolong your own.

But not only that, you become company for that other person, a means of distraction and escape from your plight, even if it’s just temporary. Lost in the sounds of her melodic laugh, or the way in which his muddy eyes regard you as you speak.

You begin to care for that person, worry for them and soon enough, you become attached in so many ways. An intense bond that no-one else can ever understand, and it can never be severed, even if you were to part ways - forever bonded in your strife and survival.

And eventually, you grow to love them; to depend on them to the point that you can’t function through a single moment without them, and it kills you to be apart from them for even the briefest of moments. You fall in love with them.

Jude pushes her forehead against his, breathing out, and Frankie feels her breath warm his face and insides in equal measure.

“I love you so, so much, Frankie.” Jude hiccups, holding onto him tightly. “Te quiero, te quiero.”

To be continued...

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motherofagony · 6 months

Text

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 2

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 8.7k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: you take care of joel after a patrol injury, but you suspect there's more to it than he's telling you. the atmosphere shifts as you and joel grow (begrudgingly) closer. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, brief masturbation (f!reader), praise kink for two seconds, blood, bodily injuries, needles (reader gives joel stitches), dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension intensifies, The First Kiss™, soft!joel vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: we're picking up speed, folks. world-building is my weakness, so i hope you enjoy this nonetheless. honorable mention goes to the readers in the trenches, waiting patiently for joel to [redacted] reader senseless until she [redacted] all over his [redacted]. thank you for the love on the series so far. taglist: @ghostwritesthings, @widowssbite, @p3rkerr, @eternallyvenus, @punkshort if anyone would like to be added/removed to the taglist (or if i missed anyone), please send me a DM!

You’ve always hated flying.

In the great before, the stone ages of family vacations and things to look forward to, fears were singular and planes were yours.

Your family never had a lot of money, not really, but on the special occasion of a death in the family, you’d find yourself trapped to a seat in a metal tube. Going nowhere but up. Sitting through safety instructions that came from smiling, lipsticked mouths that were only hypotheticals until they weren’t.

It’s like a rollercoaster, your dad would say, amused in the way only a dad can be and sleeping through damn near anything in the same fashion. It did nothing to calm the knocking of your knees, to quell the flip of your stomach as you climbed higher and higher until you couldn’t see anything but cotton ball clouds.

It was always unnatural to you that something so heavy could float, that you were supposed to go on doing human things and drinking your ginger ale and munching your pre-packaged snack option. As if you weren’t being hurled into the sky with no one walking you through it.

As if the plummet onto tarmac meant no harm, just completely normal erratic braking that felt a lot like the moments before a crash.

There was no control — it was in someone else’s hands that you never saw. And as you fell, you were supposed to say thank you, that’s exactly what I paid for.

This is your version of the oxygen mask. This is you putting yours on before you help Joel.

You’re on your knees digging through your med bag, thumbing through bandages, checking for a quick count of gloves, antibiotics, wash cloths. You fumble with the zipper, fighting with the tremor that starts in your forearms and liquifies into your wrists. There isn’t much in the way of supplies unless you ransack what’s kept in storage, but there’s no time, and you’re not sure of what you’re about to walk into.

Waiting any moment for a scream, or the blast of a gun when they realize Joel’s not Joel anymore.

And it isn’t really a big possibility in the grand scheme of things, if you consider that he would’ve likely turned on the route home. But it’s still there, tickling the back of your head, nudging your navel uncomfortably. Nothing’s impossible.

You of all people know that.

You linger in your living room, giving a final sweep. Worst case, you can run back for what’s forgotten, but something about the idea of abandoning a vulnerable Joel – if only for a minute – doesn’t settle right in your stomach.

Before you can stop yourself, you’re shoving a bottle of whiskey into the bag, the only anesthetic on hand. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you need to score back some points.

The steps leading up to Joel’s house are sturdy, and you imagine it’s because of the pride he takes in what’s his. Before this, his house was just another skeleton of roof, foundation, windows, and siding.

The kind of houses you pass by every day that are rife with familiarity but you don’t know what it’s like to see the people inside eat dinner, brush their teeth. Fight. Fuck.

Fresh paint from only two seasons ago, reinforced porch posts. A swing. It’s weird to see permanence in this day and age, but his intention to anchor himself and grow roots here flutters meaningfully inside you.

It’s always been a sacred thing to you, you don’t know why. A place you’d never dreamed of entering, but dreamed about what it would smell like. A pair of boots haphazard by the front door, small piles of organized chaos, of collected tangibles. A you never know if you’ll need this in one corner, a saving that for a rainy day shelved in another.

So when you raise your hand to knock, you feel like an intruder, an unwelcome invasion of privacy. And you don’t know why you knock at all, you nearly think better of it given the circumstances, but you’re testing the atmosphere, hoping for voices inside instead of a struggle.

Ellie’s swinging the door open, relief smoothing out the lines in her forehead when she sees you. Her presence seems to answer any unspoken questions you had about Joel being infected, and you don’t voice them to her when you can see unrest in her antsy legs.

“Hey. Sorry for the wait. He alright?”

Her teeth are worrying her lip, probably more traumatized by the sight of him than anything. A few strands of hair have freed themselves from her lazy half-bun at the base of her neck, caught in the crossfire when she ran her hands through it, you think.

“Yeah,” Ellie breathes, committing to it. “Yeah, he’s okay. Bleeding stopped, nothing seems broken. Just needs stitches, I think.”

It sounds more to convince herself than anything else. There’s a foreign fragility to her, and you hate it.

“He tell you what happened?”

The question strikes a nerve. Ellie’s shaking her bowed head, scoffing in a half-laugh that doesn’t touch her eyes. Her hand wraps around her knuckles, cracking slowly in an effort to alleviate the tension that’s reached a fever pitch inside her.

“He won’t tell me, says it doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have gone alone anyway, he was bein’ a dick. ‘I wanna think, kiddo - need t’clear my head,’” she mocks in a gruff, rolling pitch, the perfect dosage of Texas.

It levels you, potent. Are you the thing Joel needed to clear his head of?

You’re weirdly longing for it, but being flicked away like a bug, peeled away layer by layer from him isn’t something you want.

There’s hope that you’re contagious. That you’re haunting him and lurking in the darkest corners of his mind like an apparition like he has yours. And maybe there’s hope after all, something left to salvage.

But you play dumb, furrow your brow a little too expertly.

Ellie’s measuring you, and there’s a glimpse of worry but she hides it in a way that you wouldn’t know what you were looking for if you hadn’t already found it.

“Anything you wanna tell me about the other night? He was pissed when he left,” she tacks on quietly.

You go a little slack-jawed. You don’t even know how to put it into words, and you couldn’t tell her what it meant even if you tried.

What’s there to even say?

“You know what, none of my business,” she says, her hands lifting in tired surrender when you don’t answer, ignoring your near-sputter. “But you’re not off the hook, just make sure the old man doesn’t croak. And tell him he scared the shit outta me.”

You exhale and hope it doesn’t read too much as relief. You’ll have to answer to her later, but at least you might have an answer to give.

“Handful of salt in the wound, rub in circular motions – got it. Tell Tommy I’ll catch up later.”

Your shoulders scrape affectionately as you nudge past each other, and you cast a wide look at the periphery of Joel Miller’s house. The feeling of unwelcome disappears, and if anything, you’re being tugged further inside. Imagining what it’s like to be a fixture, an adornment in his weird little life.

Nooks that you assumed would be messy are neat, coiffed even. There’s that unavoidable smudge of secondhand all over the furniture – mottled ever so slightly, aged uneven in places that only an apocalypse can do. But it’s an otherwise tidy existence. Another surprise from Joel that you’d never pick up on if you only witnessed him nursing a drink at the bar.

An oak bookshelf props itself at the bottom of the stairs and it rivals your own, dust gathering in thin lines where he’s repeatedly shelved this, reread that. There are paintings hung decisively on most of the walls, breathtaking rural landscapes of wherever.

You’re lugging the bag upstairs, counting your breaths with each step. The whiskey rattles mutely against the first aid tin, and it’s a toss-up now of who you really brought it for.

The landing mirrors the ground level, a purposeful littering of tchotchkes. Doors line the second floor, some closed, some ajar but not inviting, and you realize you have no idea which one you’re looking for. You sway uninvited by the bannister until you hear the unmistakable hiss of breath between clenched teeth, then a soft moan as his weight shifts.

And you’re stepping inside a room – his bedroom – warmed in the soft beginnings of sunset. Joel’s sprawled asymmetrically on his bed, eyes pinched shut, delirious with blood loss but already looking substantially less like a corpse. A damp rag settles just above his brow, and the handiwork of Ellie.

There’s an unrecognizable hurt in him, wounded in ways that he shouldn’t be capable of.

He doesn’t give any indication that he knows you’re here until he’s rasping out something weak disguised as stern.

“I ain’t bit. Shut the door behind you.”

Your mouth goes dry.

“How did you –?”

Joel just huffs in response, as indignant as his body lets him be.

“You see anyone else here? They might as well’ve jumped out the window, as fast as they dumped me ‘n left. I ain’t stupid.”

You accept that and drop the pretense, pursing your lips with a nod. He doesn’t seem that offended, knows it’s just the nature of the beast.

You move over to his bedside, unpacking the bag quickly on a side table, looping your metaphorical stethoscope around your neck and switching gears into a mode that’s strictly doctoral.

Yet, there’s still that hum beneath your skin, the fizzle of unfinished business. It’s thick in the space between you, in the way he flicks his gaze at you lazily. You’ll let him foster the anger, giving it a home. You can be the martyr he says you are.

This new lens feels calmer, almost professional. Your nerves are still firing rapidly, and your composure is forced, but it’s better than nothing.

You drag a chair from the corner up to Joel’s bed, not letting your eyes wander too far into the depths of the space. You don’t have time to dissect the idiosyncrasies of his life. Not yet.

He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but you get the sense that he’s tracking your every move. His limbs are concrete, the tendons in his forearms so tense and coiled like any and every movement is forbidden.

“Joel.”

He grunts, a pained translation. Still no effort to move.

“I need to take a look at you,” you say patiently, bargaining like you would with a kid. “Wanna tell me what hurts?”

Another grunt, softer this time. He motions vaguely, weakly to his head, then the left flank of his abdomen.

You already know what you’ll find under the rag on his head, and it bodes well that the bleeding looks to have stopped. His stomach wound, on the other hand, was enough to bleed through two layers.

“Alright. Lemme see.”

A muted whimper echoes in his throat, so uncharacteristically that it tugs on your heart. Still statuesque, unmoving.

Your fingers are deft, careful as they unbutton the first, second, third buttons of his flannel. Joel’s stock-still, and his breath comes in sharp, slow waves through his nose. Your own breath kind of sits in the back of your throat, and you pretend with a hurried exhale that you weren’t just holding it.

Your fingers reach his navel on the last button, and you’re gently tucking each panel of his shirt under him on either side, focusing too hard on not touching him. It feels like something is somersaulting low in your stomach.

You can’t even dare yourself to look at his chest, his stomach. The patch of hair leading down to the band of his pants.

Get it together. That’s not what this is.

An angry gash looks up at you, thankfully clotted with dried patches of blood. It’s about two delicate fingers long, a nasty slice. It looks clean, abrupt in shape but suspiciously manmade. Not too deep, but not superficial enough to heal without some assistance.

And thank god, not nearly as bad as you thought it would be.

Joel’s looking at you now through heavy lids, wary of you, but something like fear touches the corners of his eyes. You fight to stay medical, methodical in your diagnosis. No emotion slips out, nothing allowed in.

You sit back calmly, letting loose a sigh. Not letting yourself bathe in the intimacy of the moment, in the way he’s staring.

“You need stitches,” you announce simply.

“Like hell.”

“Joel.”

He’s scowling, a hurt animal pissed at its own vulnerability. Silence passes like a ship between you, and for a moment, you think he’ll really fight you on this. He can’t hide anything when he’s like this, the weighing of his options evident in the tick of his jaw, the pathetic pinch just in the center of his brows.

“Fine,” he grits out. “Make it quick.”

This fucker.

You’re rolling your eyes, unceremoniously tugging the rag from his forehead. The cloth is red but not soaked, just twinged pink around the edges. Joel curses, just an octave above unintelligible.

His hand is shooting to the cut near his hairline and you’re smacking it away before he can pollute it.

“Lay still, fuck’s sake,” you chastise. “An infection’ll put you out longer than a few days. Unless you have a puzzle you been meaning to get around to?”

The faux-threat calms him immediately, and the shift in restraint doesn’t go unchecked. He doesn’t say another word, but you catch a glare and a twitch of his mouth.

You make quick work of cleaning him up, squeezing rubbing alcohol on a clean towel and scrubbing patient circles through the mess of dried blood. Joel releases sharp noises you can only describe as growls when you get too close to the border of his cuts.

It’s primal, a dog asserting dominance with his leg caught in a trap.

You try to lose the attitude, and it’s difficult when your patient hates you, doesn’t hate you, won’t clarify either way.

There’s a hint of purple that’s developing like fresh film on the mountains of his knuckles that doesn’t go unnoticed. Places on the most taut peaks of flesh where his skin has split, marred with scrapes that look like indents of teeth. And in the right light, there’s a discoloration of something in the same family splayed on his ribs.

And that… you know that when you see it. Even if everything else can be explained away.

“You wanna talk about it?” you say quietly.

There’s an intermission where he doesn’t respond. Too long to be the truth, too short to come up with a lie. And you know he’s been waiting for this question, might’ve already thought of a story.

“Got clumsy,” Joel recites. “Tripped on some stairs that were caving in, hit my head.”

“Bullshit.” And it’s a statement, not an insult. It doesn’t cover why he has a certified stab wound in his side.

Another stretch of silence, lack of defensiveness, makes it clear that he knows you know. But he doesn’t elaborate, and for whatever reason, you don’t push it.

And maybe it’s enough to acknowledge this sort of thing for now. You can stow it away, let it keep you up at night. Draw parallels where there possibly aren’t any. If he’d run into a human thing, he’d be much worse off, right?

Just like you were.

You take care in lining up the supplies to stitch in neat order beside you, mulling over each step in your mind. Stalling, maybe.

You pull the whiskey bottle out of your bag by the neck and nudge Joel with the cap.

“Something to take the edge off.”

He kind of hesitates, but there’s a tenderness. Recognizing it as an act of mercy, a peace offering.

There’s nothing said, but he takes the bait, spinning off the top and swallowing a messy mouthful. A drip escapes through the corner of his mouth and slips into his beard.

You can feel the taste of it blossoming on your tongue.

He grunts his thanks and keeps a steady grip on the neck of the bottle, and the network of veins in his forearm unwind.

You clamp the needle, laced through with something thicker than thread but not quite medical grade. Joel exhales a shaky whine when you pierce the skin, and his fist grips the sheets when you twist clockwise to push the needle through to the other side.

“You’re doing great,” you murmur.

The needle weaves over the cut, greeting the other side. You pull it through and up, and his lower lip trembles, sweat beading his forehead.

“First one done,” you say, praising him but also yourself.

Joel’s still clenching the linens on the bed, ignoring you and hiding out in his own mind somewhere.

You don’t tell him that you’ve only ever practiced on fruit, that your suture knowledge comes exclusively from the one medical text you have and endless hours of TV you grew up on.

Silence envelopes you again, heavier than before if possible. The pressure waxes and wanes like nighttime waves, licking the shore between you. And it’s not angry, just something… else.

“Some house you got,” you note casually as a distraction, like you’re commenting on the weather. It comes off relaxed enough, though any conversation between you feels like flossing a crowded mouth.

His eyes sharpen, and you think it’s in excruciation, but there’s a twinge of apprehension. You straighten for a moment, hands fixed mid-stitch, and roll your eyes.

“Okay, cool it, Home Alone, I’m not casing the place.”

Joel takes a turn rolling his eyes. You swear that you see his mouth twitch again, but you hang your head, dabbing a cloth where pinpricks of blood form.

You try again.

“I like your paintings.”

You dare to look up, and his mouth is in a tight line.

“You like my paintings.” he repeats dully, not a question. Joel’s as cynical as you, and he thinks it’s a jab, not sincere.

“You’re not gonna make this easy on me, are you?”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it.”

Now’s as good a time as any. You sigh at that.

“Look, the other night wasn’t my finest moment. It didn’t need to go that way,” you mutter, leaning on the concentration of sewing up Joel’s skin. Otherwise, you might feel too strongly, dissect your word choice with an uncomfortable linger. “Sorry. I know you were trying to help.”

He goes rigid as your second stitch meets a third. The bottle tips to his lips again, and you wonder if it’s an act of liquid courage. You boldly hope so.

“Nah, I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Been thinkin’ I needed to apologize anyway,” he admits, and you know he’s happy you made the first move. You can already feel him loosen, but maybe it’s the alcohol. “You ain’t a martyr, y’know.”

Oh.

The needle hooks into the final sliver of skin, your handiwork tightening into a neat line. You sit back, wiping your brow with the ungloved section of your wrist. It’s a treaty, a handshake at the very least.

“Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one,” you smirk, olive branch fully hanging between your teeth now. “Keeping up the charade is so exhausting.”

Joel presses out a pained half-laugh, and you feel something crumbling between you.

You tie off the last stitch, trimming the excess thread off the knot. The clamp clatters into the tray, and you give it a final once-over before peeling a large rectangle of bandage from your kit and pressing it gently over the wound.

“All done,” you quip, peeling your gloves off. “Didn’t even have to amputate.”

“Not too bad,” he grunts.

“I’ll add it to your tab.”

While you’re riding the high of approval, you stand and move to the foot of the bed. Joel’s boots are still on, laced messily.

And for some reason, you don’t even ask permission, you just start untying, tipping them off and lining them next to one another on the hardwood.

He doesn’t say a word. Out of confusion, maybe.

You scoot your chair and makeshift flatlay along with you, positioning yourself at Joel’s head. That look is back, a side-stare that steals your breath.

That look that knows you could absolutely ruin him, and he’d either thank you or kill you.

The pads of your fingers brush back the hair from his forehead, still slightly matted with blood. It’s a surface cut, but crescent-shaped and easily hidden by a curl of brown, peppered with grey. Butterfly closure it is.

No signs of a concussion show themselves. At least there’s that.

“You might have a scar,” you murmur. Being this close to Joel makes you feel like you’re wearing two layers too many.

And he hasn’t broken the stare, not even minutely.

“Add it to the collection,” he says lowly, not an ounce of self-pity.

Your eyes flash to the scar near his temple. You’re exercising full-on restraint not to ask him about it. But it’s not the time, something you could try to pry out of him later. And knowing there’ll be a later makes you relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw.

He’s nice enough to pretend not to notice, or he’s in too much pain to mention it.

You dab the damp rag around the border of his cut again, mopping up any excess. You reach for the isopropyl.

“You might wanna take another swig,” you warn. And he obeys, down the hatch and white-knuckling through it.

“Good boy,” you’re murmuring automatically, and it just slips out.

Your mouth falls open just so, and Joel’s coughing, clearing his throat against the burn of whiskey. You’re pleading with the universe that his cough was close enough, loud enough to cover the words, but his face has turned a shade of red that’s probably rivaling the heat that reaches your ears.

Good boy? Jesus Christ.

If there was ever a heightened moment of being fucking touch-starved, it’s this.

You make haste with the disinfectant and place the closures over the cut. The bloodied towels and scraps from the DIY surgery are cleaned up, tied neatly into a plastic bag. And now, this is the part where you run and never face him again.

You’re already making plans to board up your windows, maybe have Ellie deliver your meals solely through a slot in the door.

But Joel’s pain is overriding everything, and he’s sunken even further back into the pillow, his head lolling to prop on his shoulder. He’s whispering a weak thanks that’s incoherent at best. You tug the blanket up and over him.

You grab a glass from downstairs, fill it to the brim with water and bring it to him. He groans at the sight, petulant.

“I’m not leaving until you finish this.”

His lifts his arm for it, scowling. “Gimme the damn thing.”

Satisfied, you hand it over and watch him drink it down, his throat bobbing in a hearty gulp. Your gaze can’t help but snag on it.

You have got to get the fuck out of here.

You come back with a refilled glass and sit it on his bedside table, close enough within reach. The medical bag is packed up and ready, sagging slightly in areas where you’ve emptied it. It knocks against your already-knocking knees, and you’re grateful to use its weight as an excuse for how blurred you feel.

“I need to talk to Tommy. You gonna be alright for a bit?”

His eyes are closed again, on the outskirts of rest, but his mouth pulls up in the ghost of smile.

“Ain’t goin’ nowhere, sweetheart.”

And you hope he means it.

—

You track down an unsettled Tommy, finding him pacing in the back of the general store. He’s restocking some shelves but not quite – there’s an gross pairing of tinned fish and fresh eggs sitting on a display that’s unappetizing at best.

“He’s okay. No bite,” you add lowly, acutely aware of how many pairs of ears are in the store. “But he needs to be monitored.”

Tommy slackens, rubbing his eyes that are full of exhaustion and bruised with worry. Index finger and thumb stroking the respective tails of his mustache one, two, three times as the gravity of that strikes him.

He loops you into an embrace, and it’s kind, full of ease. The smell of firewood and smoke tickles your nose. His worry evaporates then, and honestly, so does yours.

“He doin’ alright?”

You chew on that for a moment and nod. There are complications, but nothing to do with Joel’s health.

“He was pissed about the stitches, but I didn’t have a choice. Cut was pretty deep.”

“So… he tell you what happened, then?”

There’s that question again. You feel like you should have an answer, but if he wouldn’t clue in Ellie, you sure as hell wouldn’t be.

Like squeezing blood from a stone, your dad used to say.

“No,” you lie instinctively. You don’t know why.

But it isn’t really. Not if you don’t know the full truth yourself. There’s just something about Joel’s omission that makes you feel entitled to find out first.

“He said he fell down some stairs,” you amend, “just didn’t say where or how.”

Tommy offers you the same look that Ellie gave you – a raised brow coupled with a touch of disbelief.

“If you say so.”

You shrug, playing it as cool as’ll come natural to you. “You know Joel. Doesn’t want to make a fuss.”

He chuckles, shaking his head and rolling out his shoulders that you know have been holding tension. He believes that, at least.

“Sounds like you know him, too.”

—

A few days come and go.

Ellie takes on a lot of the recovery, but she doesn’t like messing with stitches — creeps me the fuck out that you did that without puking all over him, she claims — and she’s eager to substitute for the patrol routes while Joel’s down and out. You offer to step in, with a totally normal and selfless motive.

If she thinks anything else of it, you’d be the last to know.

Your new itinerary consists of changing Joel’s bandages, cleaning up through his hissed breaths and every goddamn it. Twice a day, morning and night and sometimes in closer intervals, but never approaching the cusp of any boundary.

Joel’s fiercely independent, swatting your hands when you try to help. Donning a clean flannel in the space between your lunchtime visit and your nightcap, despite you telling him that he shouldn’t be pushing his mobility.

That said, he’s marginally better about following doctor’s orders, drinking the water you leave on his nightstand but neglecting the pills that would stop him from coiling in on himself like a ready spring. And he doesn’t say it but you know it’s because he thinks it’d be a waste.

You trade regular formalities at first, each of you standing behind your respective walls, daring the other to toe a bit closer.

Joel doesn’t ask, but you bring him some short stories to pass the time and he devours them. You didn’t think much of it other than just straying past the point of being nice, but your heart sings a bit at how he leaves his shell at your coaxing.

You learn Bradbury is his favorite, but when he finishes The Most Dangerous Game, it’s the most he’s ever spoken to you in one sitting, astounded at the perfectly tied bow of an ending, asking you questions that only the author could answer. But it’s a marvel to witness, something you think about when you’re cleaning stables or washing dishes.

He’s unraveling for you, a loose thread tugged too hard on your favorite sweater. He talks of the places in the paintings, sometimes abruptly, like he isn’t sure what his cue is or if he has one.

Mentions of pre-Jackson when there was so much uncertainty and isolation, but it was coupled with those types of watercolor skies that you couldn’t paint if you tried.

These little pieces of him that make him whole – it’s like you’re both in on the same secret. And Joel isn’t doing it to lighten the tension, to be nice; that isn’t his brand of politeness. He just revels in the holy act of confession with you as his witness.

You come to learn that his room is modest, different from the rest of his house. Clues of hobbies sprawled on his desk – leatherworking tools and hand drawn blueprints that you can’t get a good look at with just a sidelong glance.

There’s a dusty stereo tucked at the back towards the wall, and you picture a content Joel, sketching new plans for a porch swing or some small addition while old bluesy country croons from the speakers.

You like this daydream, placing him in something lighthearted where his only worry is that he’s losing daylight on yardwork.

The two of you talk about little bits of everything and nothing. Reminiscing about sending snail mail, discussing what you think places like Italy look like now. How close you came to crossing an ocean in another life.

Tonight, you have a night terror that clings to you like wet denim. Stop-motion, nonsensical. Your head ricocheting into concrete, hitting your temple just so. Flashes of the people that used to be your parents, your friends.

And just as the life drains from you, blood seeping onto the floor and into spidering cracks, you wake up a flailing mess.

You practice your routine, twisting on knobs of lamps and plugging in the twinkling lights hanging around the perimeter of the living room. You press your cheek to the floor, checking under your bed for monsters for good measure.

Bleary-eyed, you’re climbing back under the covers, pulling them snug up to your chin.

There’s a neediness crawling its way through your organs with a one-way ticket south. The juxtaposition of fear mingles with an otherness, and it anchors itself to Joel.

You never cared for a protector, still don’t, but the eagerness that sprouts from him to defend your honor — and for nothing in return — magnetizes you on a cellular level.

Your fingers are dipping into the band of your already-damp underwear, taking inventory of what the thought of him does to you. Body on auto-pilot. A pool of dripping neediness, so slick that you’re coating your clit in excess and rubbing in tight circles.

He doesn’t even have to touch you, and it’s pathetic.

Images of Joel’s beard scratching your thighs swirls behind your eyelids, your hand gliding between the glistening of your folds. Fingers crook inside you, dipping into the last knuckle, and you’re choking on a gasp, already on the edge.

You wish they were more calloused, thicker, with length that can hit the spot that’s desperately out of reach.

You wish they were Joel’s.

It takes only a minute, some curling and pumping of your wrist to make it quick in case it’ll only ever be a fantasy. The wet noises of your arousal are nothing short of obscene, and you’re coming loudly, sharply on a string of moans.

In some ways, you think, you have already died.

And fuck. It’s so poetic it makes you sick.

—

On the fourth day, Maria sends you to Joel’s with some stew — two hearty containers that're meant for the both of you.

She’s been taking her shift at his place, carrying over containers of this and that to keep him fed. You wonder how often she takes on that role anyway, sans injury. You don’t peg Joel as the type to eat three square meals a day of his own accord.

Tell Joel I can’t make it tonight. Gotta do inventory.

She makes no room for elaboration, so you don’t ask. But you thank her with a hug, and you could swear that she’s giving you a conspiratorial smirk.

When you knock on Joel’s bedroom, he gives a new, warm invitation, coated in subtle hospitality. It’s a far stretch from the unaffected what? you might’ve received a week ago.

You place the stew down on the bedside table, along with some bowls and spoons you plucked from his kitchen. He just looks up at you from his bed, uncertainty reaching the lines of his forehead.

“It’s all Maria,” you explain and he hums, catching up.

“Explains a lot,” he mutters.

You eat quietly for a little over ten minutes. Joel’s flannel today boasts a rich navy, buttoned up to the top but not far enough to hide the sprinkling of hair that peeks through.

He catches you staring and pins you with a dark glance.

“You afraid of the dark or somethin’?”

Joel’s ask cuts through the air, and your spoon stops mid-route to your open mouth. It’s so out of the blue that it stuns you momentarily.

“Sorry?”

“You turn the lights on at night.”

What you thought to be private moments of fear were actually on display for all to see.

For Joel to see.

And the memory of your thighs trapping your hand as you came over and over again on your fingers… you’re grateful to at least have had some decorum to draw your bedroom curtains.

“Um.” You dig for a way to say nope, I’m actually just a pussy and I see things that aren’t there. Also, I was touching myself thinking about you last night. “No, just nightmares.”

Every inch of your skin feels like it’s searing. A bead of sweat makes a slow descent down your spine to your tailbone. You laugh lightly to deflect.

Joel’s mouth thins into a tight line.

“It’s nothing,” you promise.

“Ain’t nothin’,” he snaps. His brows are knitted in fury, misdirected. But you get it.

Your stomach is rumbling, but you’ve effectively lost whatever appetite you had. The bowl finds a space on the side table, and you’re pulling your knees to your chest protectively, thumbing at the fray on the cuff of your jeans.

You don’t mean to scowl, but you can’t help it. You can’t even meet his eyes.

Joel’s sighing, his own bowl discarded on the nightstand, grazing the lip of yours.

“Look, it’s not my business,” he starts, choosing his words carefully, “but that kinda shit worries me.”

When you do look up, he’s rubbing his beard with rigid fingers. You should feel nice and fuzzy that he cares enough to point it out, but it’s just embarrassment instead.

That, on top of everything else, you can’t even get through the night without waking up in a cold sweat.

“I know how it looks,” you say in surrender, “but I swear I’m fine.”

You can imagine what it would feel like to really mean it; it’s just on the tip of your tongue. There is a defiance there, it’s just struggling to find a way out.

“You sure about that?”

You let your feet touch the floor, straightening out your legs and busying yourself with smoothing the creases in your pants.

“You worry about everyone else like this?” you muse, hoping to redirect.

Joel’s scratching the back of his neck, eyes fixed anywhere else.

“Always worried about you.”

If you were any farther away, you wouldn’t have heard him.

Outside, kids are yelling, playing tag. You watch in jealousy, can almost hear the crunch of their boots and their tiny, inconsequential conversations. It takes you longer than intended to give a response, and he waits, patiently. Just trickles a look from the crown of your head to your hands to your face. Searching for a reaction.

“You’re about ten months late, Miller.” And you’re smiling briefly. You mean it as playful, but it’s colored with sadness.

His eyes glaze, and the wheels are turning, wondering if that also means too late.

“Didn’t want you to think I was takin’ advantage of the situation. And I thought Max —” Joel bites down on the name.

“Fuck Max,” you spit in disgust. “That was never a thing.”

You don’t have to make eye contact to see that he’s pleased by that. He hums in the back of his throat. Resists a shit-eating grin. From the looks of Joel connecting the dots, you don’t need say much else.

“Yeah, well. We all failed you,” he insists. “I failed you.”

It sets an incredulous spark in some hidden part of you. Nails cut into your palm, your fists balling harshly. Everyone else? Sure, you’d give him that. Jackson spit you out, with the exception of a select few.

But Joel?

“You saved me.”

“Not good enough,” he says under his breath.

—

The next day, you let yourself inside, already learning the language of Joel’s house when you press a little extra weight against the door to seal it shut when it sticks.

It’s quiet, on the cusp of 8, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Joel’s on the brink of sleep.

The sun’s long settled over the mountain, so there’s not much in the way of guidance.

It’s dark, but you expected it to be. You draw the curtains one by one, moving blindly from room to room yet knowing exactly where your feet are. It strikes you as odd, a visitor keeping pace with an unfamiliar house.

But if Joel’s anything, it’s predictable. Unfussy in the way he keeps out of the way, even in his own space. Takes pride in it, sure, but lives in a way that demands nothing but cherishes everything, even the absence of something.

Meaning there’s nothing too unexpected, too risky in its placement. He doesn’t take up too much room in the event that it’s gone tomorrow.

When your hands fumble for the switch of the living room lamp, the bulb springs to life and bathes a wary Joel in light. Sitting on the couch, slouched with residual soreness, but waiting.

For you.

“Jesus, fuck — what the fuck, Joel —”

“You’re late.”

“— sitting in the fucking dark like a lunatic —”

He puts a hand up to stop you, as if to press your mute button.

“I didn’t fall down any stairs.”

Your hands have risen to your chest in the shock of him there, and you’re gripping your shirt in the way he had almost a week ago. You don’t miss that little detail, so much so that you struggle to piece together what he’s saying.

It punches you abnormal; you kept so busy with leaving the subject alone that it slipped your mind that he lied.

“Sit down.”

You’re obedient and you don’t know why. You find a seat across from him, pulling up a stool that’s meant for feet, not your ass. Something crackles beside you, and the embers of a dying fire glow and warm to the left of you.

Your leg crosses over your knee, creating a 45-degree angle that you rest your elbows on. “Yeah, I gathered as much, thanks. You’re a terrible liar.”

Joel’s just eyeing you. And it’s not in a way that sizes you up, more of a calculation of what to say next. What to give away. There’s a beat of this, then another, then another.

“I thought ‘bed rest’ was pretty self-explanatory.”

You’re growing impatient, filling the room just to do it. You both know what happened, and maybe that’s what’s needling at you. That you’re the one person who’d understand the most, but the one person he doesn’t want to know.

It feels wretched and seething, knowing something but not enough.

“I’m gonna need you to cut to the part where you tell me what happened, Joel.”

At that, Joel drags in a breath and leans deeper into the couch. His gaze has moved to somewhere far off, burning into the drawn curtains like he can see outside, can see directly into the window of your kitchen. And with sudden clarity, you realize that he could — it’s a clean diagonal stare.

Are you afraid of the dark?

How many times has he sat in this very spot, taking in the show, watching you make tea, watching you read, watching you stutter and shake with sobs? Witnessing the onslaught of a nightmare?

Touching yourself? Watching you undress?

You aren’t the voyeuristic type, just uncaring to the point of defenseless. But Joel keeping an eye on you in this way is the coup de grâce that does you in. There’s no question now of whether he cares.

“I took Mountain View, headed for the outpost. Not much up that way lately, maybe one or two infected every once ‘n a while,” he says, and it’s unsettling that he’s talking in a way that could be to anyone or no one at all. “Thought I’d stop at the pharmacy on the way up, check that off, too. ‘Cept I wasn’t the only one with that idea.”

He pauses only to crack his knuckles for effect. Fingertips splay on his spread knees, and what seemed so fragile earlier, watercolors of bruises stretching from ligament to tendon, seems threatening now.

“One was lootin’ in the back, didn’t hear me come in. I thought he mighta been alone ‘til his friend followed me in,” he pauses, lost in thought. “Got into it with him.”

As if on cue, the gory split-skin of his hands flexes. Offensive wounds.

You were right, but you wish you weren’t.

“His friend came up from the back, ‘n they took turns for a minute. Long enough for me to get a good look. I ended up takin’ out the shorter one, other one was gone before I could get up.”

Joel doesn’t lift his head, just his eyes. The skin around them crinkles in sinister shapes, lids disappeared, lashes nearly touching brow. You know it’s not anger directed at you, but it’s shrinking you back down into an armchair, your fingers digging and clawing at the fabric without recognizing it.

“Know what’s funny about that?”

You don’t think you can answer with the desert that runs through your mouth. And whatever it is, it’s anything but.

“Not a lot of activity along the outposts this way, unless it’s infected. Everyone else comes straight through to Jackson. The logs say we’ve only run into two groups of raiders in the last five years along the patrol route,” another pause for emphasis. “And one of them was ten months ago.”

Something catches in your chest.

And then there’s a dam that breaks, pure relief. Relief that Joel’s seen the thing you’ve been pointing and screaming at while everyone else shrugs their shoulders and squints.

Then — panic.

Ice sneaks into your veins. The tips of your fingers run numb. It strikes you that you’re standing, that the foot stool is tipped on its side.

He doesn’t move, but there’s a contained rage in his eyes and his voice. A temper bubbling now that you’ve confirmed what he suspected.

“He have any tattoos?” Joel asks roughly.

There’s a flash of stars, hand-poked, bordering on downright sloppy.

“Who?” You say dumbly, but it’s obvious what he’s referring to. He’s seen it, too, and he’s seen it this week.

“You know who.”

You do.

You could draw it from memory if he asked.

Your weight becomes too much for your legs, and you collapse back down, this time into a chair that supports your amoeba-like state as everything in you turns to jelly.

“They’re getting closer. We were in Teton, so if they made it this far —” you jumble out, not sure if it’s just meaningless vomit to his ears. By his solemn nod, it isn’t.

He’s up and out of his seat with a wince that’s not as severe as before, his eyes careful on you, on your hands that you’re gripping together tightly to keep them still.

The isolation of his side is evident in the way he closes the space between you, but he masks the grimace as best he can. There’s a reprimand in you somewhere that he should be resting, lying down at least, but you know it’s pointless.

“Hey.”

He’s kneeling as much as his flank will allow, a pain in his eyes that isn’t for himself. Those fingertips scale the cliff of your jaw, ghosting as if he’s afraid to overstep. They’re prodding you to meet his eyes, and when you do, he drops his hand like he’s been burned.

It connects fiercely to a memory that you try to hold in your hands. A snowy, reminiscent one that slips through like a ribbon of smoke.

“Ain’t gotta worry about him. I’ll take care of it.”

You laugh, a real one that’s stained with sarcasm.

“What does that mean?”

Joel softens now, and the shift startles you. He thinks for a beat before answering.

“Whatever you need it to mean.”

It feels incomprehensible that anyone would willingly put themselves in danger for you, even adjacently, but then who noticed you were missing that day? Who led the pack, found you bleeding out?

The weather was violent, incoherent — a lost cause, a needle in the proverbial haystack. He already toed the line of a dangerous, potentially fruitless rescue mission.

And you never even thanked him.

“Why?” You ask it for the second time in as much as a week. It’s disjointed in conversation, but he knows that you need this answer.

“You remember how you were before?”

And for a split-second, you try.

There are glimpses, a rickety reel of kids tugging on your pant leg as they beg you to join them during recess, a glittering spray of laughter with Ellie as empty beer cans and discarded guitars litter her living room floor.

Of your friends’ faces on too many relaxed, sunny patrols, sometimes forcing them into a detour into the abandoned record store through Alpine so you can see what’s left.

Dinner in warm houses like Tommy and Maria’s, so full to the brim of love and potatoes and mead that you stumble on down to your house with cheeks burning and tuck yourself in with all of the lights off.

Visions of Joel that are fleeting, taped in frames on a film strip, but friendly exchanges.

But it’s a faceless narration. The accident wiped clean of any room for interpretation. Any visitation with these memories. You can place yourself in them, but can’t for the life of you feel tethered to her.

Frustrated, eyes watering, you shake your head.

“That’s why.”

Now he’s holding your jaw like he would some fragile thing, slotting his thumb just under the pulse thrumming in your neck, feeling the echo of it in his hand. There’s a silence, as if he’s straining to hear, to know the sound and syllables of your livelihood. You wish he’d press harder, bring you to the precipice of pleasure and death.

If only to know what it feels to be glass in Joel Miller’s hands, to be given the taste of death after he’d given you the gift of life all those months ago.

Your heart is hammering against your ribs. You know he can feel the adrenaline in your pulse point.

“Joel,” it falls out as a whisper, and you hate how good his name feels in your mouth.

He’s looking at you with empathy, thumbing through the pages of every agony you’ve succumbed to. It’s new and buzzing, knowing that there’s nothing you’d ever have to explain to Joel. No reasoning or fine print for how you are, he just knows. And he stays anyway.

A tear tracks a salty line down your face and it meets the pad of his thumb, an easy swipe.

And there’s a surge low in your throat, seesawing with satisfaction and the tell-tale lump of more tears if you lean in hard enough. Joel never shows his hand, the last to fold, but it feels a lot like you’re the prize he was waiting to throw cards down for.

So, you lean. Concave cheek into his calloused hand, tears without sobs leaking between his fingers down into his sleeve. The weight of only the world — your world, plural and shared — pushing you into him. The cataclysmic release that you’ve been aching for.

Your head is against his chest, cheek pressed against flannel because he’s guided you there. And it’s nice, you think, nice that he’s being a gentleman about the whole thing.

A gentleman just finger-combing through your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

It’s serene, and you’d happily make a home there and fall asleep if it wasn’t for the hammering of your heartbeat. You know he can feel it, and your quickened breath is the cherry on top.

Joel levels your faces, and his fingers are deja vu on the braille of each ridged cheekbone. He’s waiting on a cue, a line to be given to him from offstage, but you see flames licking through each darkened iris.

Something keeps holding him back, keeps holding you back. He’s too careful, afraid of cutting his hands on you. And in exploring every facet of that, it’s because he doesn’t want to bleed on you, not because the sharpest parts of you could hurt him.

You keep telling yourself it’s foreign and you’re strangers to one another.

But is it? Are you?

As if he’s reading your mind, Joel closes the distance in one fell swoop, and he kisses you.

It’s clumsy at first, in the way that clumsy is when you’re learning each other’s mouths. You taste the dregs of whiskey, of something wanton, and every unspoken word that’s ever misted between you. Years of forming smile lines and the prickle of his unkempt beard against your chin, taste the stories of every scar.

You’re tangling with him, lips pressing urgently against Joel. His tongue’s expert but gentle when he dips it inside your mouth, and you’re swapping breathless sighs. You can only imagine what he’s tasting of you, what flavor he’s been dreaming of.

His hands are still at either side of your face, thumbs pressing sweetly into the bony part of your jaw. Joel’s stilling the unrest in you that’s put its bags down and refused to leave. It quiets, tips a hat and walks out, leaving a welcome calm in place.

There’s a chasteness, but you know he’s just as desperate and hungry as you are. Wanting to claim, to devour each other entirely. And it’s not lost on you that he’s on his knees, hands clasping your face in prayer like you’re some communion he’s drinking from.

He engulfs you, and you’re moving together, fitting together like you were poured from the same mold. Joel’s fingers have moved to thread through your hair, one of his hands cradling the back of your head and tugging just barely.

Enough that magma pools in between your hips.

But he slows, letting loose a low groan into the heat of your mouth. It’s helpless, like he’s accepted he can’t swim and has submerged his head underwater.

And when you finally break apart, Joel’s pupils are dilated, on the cusp of black. Your collective breaths are uneven. He looks at you in awe.

“Been wantin’ to do that for a long, long time,” he’s saying, but you can barely hear him. Not when your heart is catching up with the rest of you, roaring above everything else. His thumb skates over your bottom lip, and the instinct to unhinge your jaw for him shouldn’t be there, but it is.

Maybe this sort of suffering is worth it, if it’s Joel you’re suffering for.

If you weren’t in trouble before, you sure as fuck are now.

#my writing #ahfe #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us #the last of us hbo #jackson!joel #joel miller #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #a heart for eating #joel miller x f!reader #the last of us smut #motherofagony

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moonstruckme · 7 months

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Hi! You are such a good writer!! Totally fine if you don’t want to be write this because it can be triggering, but I was recently roofied (nothing happened physically but I did have to go to the hospital, I’m ok now) and it would be nice to see either a steddie or poly!marauders fic on how they would react to it happening to their girl. More focusing on the aftermath and mental issues… again if this is too trigger please don’t feel bad about not writing it. I would also just love a basic comfort fic <3

Oh sweetheart, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I've had it happen to a couple of my friends while we've been out (thankfully nothing happened with them either and we were able to get them home safe, but it's so terrifying regardless), and it's insane that it happens so frequently. I hope you're feeling better my love and are seeking any support you need <33

cw: non-consensual drug use, mentions of drinking, no sexual assault but general talk of rape culture

Steddie x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

No part of you is comfortable right now, but you’re trying to tell yourself it could be worse.

The IV in your arm is itchy, your head is starting to hurt, you feel cold and exposed in the outfit you’d worn to the bar, and your throat is sore from forcing yourself to be sick repeatedly on the curb.

You want to cry, but you’re not sure you’ve got the energy left to do it.

It turns out you do, though, because as soon as the nurse pulls back the curtain to let Steve and Eddie into the little area you’ve been given, your cheeks wet themselves with tears.

“Hey,” Eddie coos, nearly picking you up off the bed in his eagerness to have you in his arms. “Hey, baby, how ya doing?”

“Hey,” you try to say back, but the sound is garbled by a sob. You’re trembling again. You thought you’d gotten past that.

Steve crouches by your bed, eye-to-eye with you as he smoothes some sticky pieces of hair away from your face. You’re not sure if they’re wet with sweat or vomit or something else. You try to stop it, but another sob escapes you, your chest like a cracked shell Eddie’s trying to hold together with his hands on your back. You appreciate it, but it’s a feeble attempt. You’re crying like a child now, shoulders shaking, face hot with tears as you cover it with your hand embarrassedly.

“Take it easy, you’re alright,” Steve says, then hesitates, giving you a once-over. “You’re okay, aren’t you? I know you said on the phone nothing happened, but…”

You shake your head, sniffling but trying to pull yourself together. “It didn’t.”

Eddie lets you go, and Steve rolls his eyes as you scooch over to make room for him on the tiny bed. “What happened then, sweet thing?” he asks gently.

Any composure you’d worked up crumples, and a whimpering sound tears from the back of your throat in your efforts to keep from bursting into tears again.

“Give her a minute,” Steve murmurs, rubbing your back with slow, long strokes. He takes your IV tube in his hand, carefully working it out from under where you’d accidentally sat on top of it. “It’s okay, honey, take your time.”

The frightening part of it is, you’ve already forgotten most of it. Your friends had to be the ones to tell you that you’d been with them the whole time, that no one had left you alone and nothing had happened. That you’d scraped your knees on the sidewalk outside, not in some dark alleyway, and that they’d been the ones to drive you to the hospital, not some random guy once he’d finished with you.

You shudder, and Eddie mistakes it for a shiver, taking off his jacket to drape it over your shoulders. “Thanks,” you say. The smile he gives you in return is far from happy, but it’s something.

“I don’t remember everything,” you warn them, and some of the blood leaves Eddie’s face as Steve’s mouth flattens stoically, nodding for you to go on. You force yourself to take a deep breath. “Um, I know I’d had a couple drinks, but I was feeling fine, and then I had one more and everything started to seem off within like, twenty minutes? I couldn’t really walk, and I could barely talk, and that’s not what three drinks do to me, you know?”

You look to Steve for confirmation, and he squeezes your shoulder reassuringly. “Right. We’ve seen you after a few drinks, honey. That doesn’t add up.”

You nod, feeling a bit more sure of yourself. “Yeah. Anyway, then Ananya said I told her I felt weird, and she took me outside to get some air and I made myself throw up outside the bar. And I guess I got everything out of my system, because when I got here they said—” You clear your throat, fighting against the blockage there. “They said it could have gotten a lot worse if I hadn’t.”

Eddie rests his head on your shoulder with a sigh, hair tickling your neck. “Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry. Do you have any idea who might’ve done it?”

You shrug with the other shoulder, and Eddie intertwines his fingers with yours comfortingly. “I mean, a group of guys bought that third round for me and my friends, so it could’ve been them. But then it’s weird that I’m the only one who got roofied, right?” Eddie’s hand tightens on yours, and something hardens in Steve’s eyes. “Could’ve been the bartender, too, I guess. I was paying attention to my drink, and they’re the only ones who had their hands on it, but…” you shrug again. “No proof, and no way to know for sure.”

Steve’s voice is low, but soft for your benefit, when he asks, “You sure you don’t want to try to do anything about it?”

That’s one thing you’ve had all night to mull over, the one thought you forced your unnaturally sluggish brain to work through. You shake your head. “I think I’m gonna call the bar tomorrow and tell them what happened just in case it was their bartender, but right now I just want to go home.”

Eddie makes a sympathetic sound, turning his head to nuzzle at your neck affectionately. Steve reaches over to pat his leg, smiling at the both of you. “I asked the nurse on our way in, she said you’re free to go as soon as your IV is done,” he promises. “She said you’ll have a hangover from whatever they gave you, too, so I’m thinking we can pick up some gatorade and stuff on our way home and have a chill day on the couch, sound good?”

You give him a tired smile, and he cups your face in his palm, a slight crease forming between his brows as he assesses your red-rimmed eyes, the circles beneath them. “My head is already kind of hurting,” you admit, “so that sounds perfect.”

He hums. “We’ve probably got a little while until they can unhook you,” he says, eyeing your IV bag. “Wanna try and sleep?”

You hesitate, recalling with abrupt clarity the scrape of pavement under your knees, the lights going by your window on the way to the hospital, the mantra that had played in your head over and over again: don’t fall asleep, don’t fall asleep. But Eddie’s head is a reassuring weight on your shoulder, and Steve begins stroking his thumb under your aching eyes as he waits for you to answer. You’re nowhere safer than with them beside you. “You’ll stay with me?” you ask quietly.

Eddie scoffs, his breath tickling the underside of your chin. “Sweetheart, you scared the shit out of us tonight; we’re never letting you out of our sight again.”

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sm-baby · 2 years

Text

*stares at Sharky in a way that only she understands*

#art #minecraft #mineblr #witch friend #Pillager general #Trigger warning #TW: Abuse #TW: Choking #tube witch

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millerscoffee · 9 months

Text

dancing is a dangerous game | part one

you're a bandit like me, eyes full of stars.

5.5k | joel miller x f!reader

masterlist

rating: 18+ MDNI

tw: brief mentions of using your body for trading purposes, you shoot at joel miller????, light dub-con but that goes away quickly

warnings: post-outbreak au. no ellie. angsty smut, semi-dom!reader and dom!joel so that's fun, power struggle, age gap (joel is 56, reader is late 20s or early 30s), enemies to lovers, voyeurism (f watching m), masturbation (m and f), pet names/degrading names (baby, honey, darlin', brat, bitch, slut, etc.), dirty talk, choking, oral (m receiving), fingering, spanking, p in v (unprotected - wrap it up folks), joel is mean but not unkind. no use of y/n.

summary: inspired by "cowboy by me" by our lord and savior taylor swift. this is a post-outbreak world and joel has his own land. think bill, but a little less... deranged. kind of. you essentially are a raider, but make it fashion. when you stalk joel's cabin for the third day, that's when you get interrogated by none other than joel miller himself.

A/N: hi, i'm bee! this is my first fic on tumblr, and my first stab at this whole stratosphere. longtime listener; first time caller 💅. i was ALSO inspired by an ask i saw on @swiftispunk's page (hi! i love your writing sm??) and kinda just... ran with it. i honestly wasn't anticipating writing stuff during the outbreak, so i apologise if it's not quite right. imagine me living during that time with a tube of lipgloss and one (1) bullet in my pocket just in case. this... may be a series. i don't know yet. see ya! enjoy!!!

The first time you meet Joel Miller is down the barrel of your gun.

You can hear your father's voice telling you 'Back out, girl. Don't get too big for your britches.' Look where that got him. His ashes against your chest in a makeshift pendant necklace, buried by your clothes.

Still, you listen.

"It don't have to be like this," you drawl with index over the trigger guard. You've heard of him. Joel Miller. He's notorious, and even though you've kept to yourself most of your life, his name still roamed throughout the abandoned towns you passed. Someone always owed him, and he always owed somebody.

Your dad would've been older than him, but not by much. You knew of the world before this, was just a little thing. Still, you heard stories undulate from your father's southern voice that mostly left you bored on long days searching for food or shelter. You'd give anything to hear them now.

Part of you died when he did.

You were young when the outbreak happened. Resourceful, your father made it work in raising you. Taught you how to fend for yourself, rely on no one. Which was no easy feat considering how unbelievably stubborn you were. Were? Are.

Maybe he loved you. Maybe it was the chip on his shoulder. The kind of anguish that comes from not being able to give your mother the same kind of life. A promise to her.

Yes, you were young when the outbreak happened, but flashbacks of her getting attacked by a clicker burn you alive at night.

"Y'er on my land." A gruff voice calls you back to reality. Few words for someone who held your life in his hands. His own gun pointing back at you. Of course it would be.

"I was just passin' through." The lie flies through your teeth. You had been circling the place from a reasonable distance for a few days now. Scoping out when this man in front of you was his busiest, when he patrolled, when he slept. This was a heist situation, no doubt about it.

"Bullshit. This s'the third fuckin' time I seen you 'round here. And it's y'er last."

Shit. Fucking shit.

Your eyes dart to the side, really trying to pattern a plan in escaping but your breathing would say otherwise as calm and collected as it was.

In any other situation, you wouldn't be so willing to comply, but considering he's got you cornered and his gun is quite literally cocked and ready to go – you're not exactly in the position to make hasty decisions.

Goddammit if there wasn't something about him that made you nervous.

"Listen. Just was lookin' for somewhere to sleep. It's fuckin' cold and your stables look warm." Your head tilts in the direction of a lone horse's home in a bed of hay, and you're not fully lying. It's not that you have set up camp by any means, but you've noticed.

"We could trade. You give me y'er ammo, and I g–"

"You give me your cock, I get it. You really could be more original." You were used to this. Bartering, some might call it. Living out here on your own was dangerous, and running into men who wanted to use your body in order to get supplies wasn't that uncommon. If they were that kind, even. You'd heard the horror stories.

Albeit, most of these men met your gun in the end. Enabling you acquire their supplies, keep all yours, and your dignity. Win/win.

"...I give you the pleasure of livin' another day. Really? Y'think it's that easy?"

There was something in the way Joel says this that makes you grateful for the jacket you're wearing. Goosebumps prickle your skin, bile creeping up your throat and you will it back down again. Y'think it's that easy? As if he thought you wanted it.

If circumstances were different, you'd be rubbing the crimson off your cheeks. Flashing him a sheepish grin in an attempt to resolve whatever misunderstanding there was... but this wasn't the environment to elicit such conversation.

And you weren't that type of person to begin with.

Instead, your index sweeps from guard to trigger when you fire off at his leg. Hasty decisions be damned. You're quicker than him, so why're you tryin' to save him? You're a 'shoot to kill' type of person, and as the bullet grazes past his calf – part of you wishes you had.

Because not only did your bullet not make contact, Joel gets worse. You two lock eyes. His rifle is thrown over his shoulder as he grunts and walks perfectly fine over to you – despite the way his eyebrows knit together, jaw ticked. Was that a grin? Do something, anything – run.

Joel grips the nape of your neck, and you yelp in surprise.

Who the fuck does this man think he is?

His large hand eclipses your wrist as he maneuvers the gun from your hand. The action makes you writhe in pain, and it sends a shiver down your spine to know he's only using an ounce of his power.

You dig your elbow into his ribs despite him stronger than you. Stomping, kicking, punching anything you can find.

"What the fu–"

"Little girl, you picked the wrong one." His breath edges at the shell of your ear, and every sign should be pointing for you to hate this, but it almost feels familiar. Like yourself. It's only then when you worry.

---

You don't realise it, but Joel is pushing you inside his cabin. Keeping your head in direction of the ground, thud of the door heard somewhere behind you.

"You want to be treated like a big girl? Get these fuckin' pants off."

"What... what? No I'm fuckin' not–"

Joel chews up the space between you when he pushes you to the nearest wall. Your back at his chest, a cheek flush against the cabin's support.

Pine, tobacco, and whiskey fill your senses and you bite back the urge to whimper. He wouldn't see you like that.

"You're not? That why you were watchin' me jerk off last night? 'Cuz you don't wanna give it up?"

That alone makes blood creep up your neck and spill over your cheeks. You have to squeeze your legs together to quell the ache.

It was lonely on your own.

Most nights were spent half asleep on a cold, hard surface. Tired and hungry more days than not. You don't remember the last time you got a hot meal, much less been touched. So when you heard Joel's low grunts coming from the window (a window from a cabin you don't know quite yet that he built with his own hands) you become intrigued.

It's in this moment you're certain it must have been the rustling of branches just outside his room. You remember it happening last night, cursing to yourself for making noise. His fist stalled around the girth of his fat cock before spilling his seed over his stomach. As if that is what caused him to come.

It makes sense now, and it equally causes you to become dizzy and filled with rage. You bite your bottom lip, unable to think of a response.

"Mouthy thing ain't got much to say now. Now c'mon. I ain't taking these off you, doin' it y'erself." More of a warning, Joel lets up on his grip on you, but you're defenseless. No weapons, no pack. He's got your world in his hands.

With the newly found space between the two of you, you turn around – back of your head against the wall as your eyes find the other set for, perhaps, the first time. And they're deep. Deeper than you were aware of. Dark, impossibly round. Wrinkles reside on the sides of them, and if you knew any better, you wouldn't admit they were doing something to you.

But not only are you stubborn, you're too forthright to beat around the bush.

"I shot at you, and you want my cunt? You must be lonelier than I a–"

"Now."

Your words don't match your actions as your hands fall by your sides. Fingers play with zipper of your old, faded jeans that have seen better days.

You can't help but snicker an awkward laugh from how he's just watching you. Insecurities rise when you realise you're not laughing at him, but more his eyes on you. How intense it feels suddenly. He wants this. Wants you.

His eyes draw impatiently, broad frame leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed.

"Ain't got all day. Still considerin' your death."

His arms. Bulging through the fabric of his shirt, his body was built in a way that you could tell he worked with his hands... maybe in his past life, too. Throat dry, you shimmy out of your pants until you're left in your cotton panties.

Ones that you are becoming more aware the condition of. A small pool of wetness forming at the core of you clings to the fabric.

"Top, too."

Is that? It is. Your eyes wander down to see the growing bulge in Joel's pants. Not even the hem of his flannel could hide it. Sure, you'd seen it in its full form the night before, but that was with distance and without the heat rising between the two of you.

You bite your lip without hesitation, pulling the layers of jacket and a handful of tops onto the ground until you're bare. The cool air passes over your nipples and wills them into stiff peaks.

"Ain't you somethin', baby."

That's the first time Joel Miller draws a shaky exhale out of you. All from a single sentence.

When Joel steps over to you, that calm and collected breath is nowhere to be found. Your chest rises and falls at a random pattern, feeling more and more naked by the second as his clothes are completely kept on his body. A purposeful tactic.

He bends down to collect your clothes along with everything else that yours, and you are truly at his will. So busy on the precipice of pleasure that you don't even think about trying to get away.

"Stay."

"Ain't a dog." You glare, standing with your legs brushing together.

"Then quit actin' like a bitch. And quit movin', I'm gettin' to you."

It shuts you up quick, jaw snapping shut. You're certain if he told that to anyone else they'd be reduced to tears, but you can take it. It coils a heat inside the pit of your stomach that you've never felt. Causes your clit to feel as if it's on fire from the need to touch it.

Joel turns on his heel to walk away and it's as if you're able to breathe fresh air from the humidity he brings. You notice he's putting your things and his rifle away on his kitchen counter before coming back to you. He must really trust his ability to keep everything out like that.

Then again, have you even moved in the last five minutes?

The last thing he is, is worried.

You're able to look around, if only for a moment. Though, is it really looking? Your adrenaline is pumping, pupils blown from the fact that not only are you in the house you'd been stalking... you're about to fuck the man in it. And you almost tried to kill him. You definitely didn't miss on purpose. Couldn't have.

All the same, the cabin was nice, and you could take in briefly the light wood – old and weathered. A record player in the corner beside a guitar. This stuff could get you a lot in return, but for whatever reason that doesn't even cross your mind. Maybe your heart beating in your ears is a handy distraction to keep you walking the line.

Your eyes track the rugged man instead.

---

"Here's how this is gonna go," he announces, coming back to you and not phased that you haven't moved a muscle. "You are gonna take your ass over there on the couch. You're gonna make me come, then you're gonna go. Understand?"

"Well... I guess it is that easy."

Your bratty mouth getting you in trouble again. As if you're in the position to say anything. Naked as you are.

---

Joel's jaw ticks forward in a way that makes you feel fear, yet there's a direct correlation between it and the slick gathering between your folds. The same wide hand that gripped the nape of your neck wraps around the front of your throat while he pushes you against the wall, and your shoulders slump – all but folding instantly.

His mouth is inches from yours, forcing you to look him in the eyes.

"Listen here. I've been real kind to you. Coulda killed ya day one, tryin' to steal my shit like that. Was gonna be real kind in where I fucked ya, too. Now we're gonna fix that mouth a'yours and fast. Knees. Now." You soon come to know this isn't a suggestion. It's not even a warning. It is what's happening.

It's in the way Joel's hands guide you down onto your knees. He goes for his belt and you hear and see that distinct clang of metal untangle before your very senses. Your mouth waters instantly, teetering into fully giving into this struggle of power.

Joel's hands are calloused. You can tell he takes care of them, but that doesn't hide the wear and tear. Specifically on his fingertips. They grip your jaw roughly, and you choke back a moan as your mouth hangs open pliantly from this. Every nerve ending buzzing to be touched.

"Where'd that bratty girl go, huh? You done bein' big and bad – wanna be a slut, don’tcha?"

Your eyelash splay along your cheeks as you nod, and you feel his grip tighten, tugging your chin up higher.

"Look at me. You want this cock? I need your words. Tell me you wanna be a slut."

You're not sure when it happens, but hot tears run down your cheeks as everything comes to a head. Your body is trembling with raw desire right at your fingertips, just within reach. You can't hold back anymore, it physically hurts to.

"I wanna be a slut for this cock... please."

"Fuck, even a please. Oughta eat you out for that, sugar. Maybe next time."

Your brain is swimming at the thought. Next time?

With his free hand, Joel sets his cock free from his jeans, giving a satisfying smack to his abdomen quickly. No need for another piece of fabric keeping him from getting what he wants as you soon take note he isn't wearing boxers.

There's no denying what you're met with as you get to view it from this close. Joel Miller has a pretty cock. There's a soft, but bulging vein on the underside to match how big and thick it is. The rosy tip greets you, and it's the first time you get to see how much you've turned him on.

Your mouth is drooling while it's pried open and meets the tip of him. A moan from you is instantaneous, yet feels so distant from yourself, it doesn't affect you until much later. The taste of his precum coats your tongue as he slips past your lips and it's all you can experience. Your moans slip in and out of the sloshing sounds of your mouth. Keeping your hands by your sides, you don't tempt to touch him in fear he would pull away, so instead you twirl your tongue around his leaking head. Bob your head up and down in a slow, but sultry rhythm that causes him curse under his breath. He's not stoic above you, he's reacting.

He's clawing for every last bit of the upper hand.

"S'a lot, innit, babygirl? That's alright, you can take it." It's then you can sense Joel's guard slipping. Could be the fact that your mouth is suctioned perfectly around the length of his cock, but his voice gets damn sweeter the longer you go like this. His hips also have no problem in thrusting shallowly every now and then to knock the drool off of your dripping chin.

Even if you could form a thought, you don't know you would.

His fingers tangle in your hair, pulling it out of your face as you maintain eye contact. Intuitive in your approach, he told you to look at him earlier, so maybe he likes it? The groans filling the room lead you to believe you are correct. It feels so removed from who you were moments before: snickering because his gaze felt intimidating. Now, his pupils are blown as they pour into yours and his neck hangs back when your mouth makes those pretty, sloppy popping noises – testing your gag reflexes as you will them to relax.

It's way more intimate than anything you've ever done with anyone you've ever been with, and this stranger is pulling it out of you. Within the mess your brain is in, you remind yourself if you want to stop you can, and not a bit of you does.

The hot tears that were once down your cheeks swell in your eyes once more, but this time from the sheer size of him. You moan vibration after vibration against him, shifting and pushing your cunt against your calf, thigh – anything to feel some sort of friction.

He lets out a growl when he notices you, "Honey, if it's that bad, touch yourself." If your cheeks weren't red before, they are now.

It's him calling you out, slight embarrassingly, but not letting up with his hips. It's the way the embarrassment builds the fire in the pit of your belly. It's your hand pushing inside your panties at the sound of his command. And it's you practically choking on his cock from the gasp you let out through your nose – stunned at how wet you are.

Your fingertips barely brush over your clit when you notice the slick collecting, bubbling right at the very top of your slit and slutty moans fall out of you. Your eyelids droop as you try to keep your gaze up to Joel, but the way your fingertips roll over the hood of your clit in satisfying circles sends you over the edge way quicker than you anticipate.

"Shit, baby. Just like that. You filthy thing, can't hold off another minute longer, can ya? Need it right fuckin' now."

The sound of Joel's deep voice looms overhead as you come completely undone.

Unable to stop yourself, the suction on his cock pops free for a moment. Your moans hitting the air as your eyes roll back. Your body rushing to find each wave of pleasure roll off your back. Joel's cock still nestled in your mouth, but his hips still. "Goddamn, look at that little slut come out. Such a needy fuckin' kitten."

When Joel makes sure you've ridden it out, he pulls his cock from your mouth. Your body feels weak despite how eager your mind is now, face-to-face with Joel's cock, you watch as his scarred hand glides your saliva over his length entirely. It puts you in a trance, quickly getting out of it when he taps his cock against your cheek. "Pretty kitten want this? C'mon."

If your moans felt foreign to you, you don't even know what to do with yourself at the twinge of a grin that spreads on your face. The sheer audacity of his taps right against your fucking cheek. Orgasm-drunk, you shuffle to your feet and Joel has no problem in tossing you – finally – to the couch.

Your back is to him while the front of your body brackets the width of his couch, arms hunched over the back of it, knees dig into the cushions. You're grateful for the lack of eye contact in this position as it gives you a moment to press your face into your bicep, an attempt to collect yourself. But all of it obsolete when you sense Joel's presence at your ass.

His body heat unmistakable to miss. You bite at your own skin, neck craning to behind you to watch him.

"Shit, darlin', look at you. Ass up like this like y'er in fuckin' heat for me." You whine at the fact his clothes are still mostly on, and you know he must be sweating underneath them, but he won't give it to you like that. Not yet, 'maybe next time'. "You know I can't go any further 'til you get a spankin'. Need to be punished for tryin' to hurt me like that. For tryin' to take my things. Ain't right. Need you to learn your lesson."

Where are you? A part of you knows this is a tactic. That Joel is lulling you into a position you can't say no to. It already shows itself in how you're splayed on his couch. Yet, you can't find the person you were before you stepped into the cabin. Not yet, not like this. You nod weakly, and Joel swipes the cotton undies down to your thighs so quickly the rush of air cools the heat of your folds. A flutter runs through you.

"Count. To ten. If you don't, we start over. Say, yes sir."

"Y-yes... sir. Yes sir."

A searing, mind-numbing spank wallops over your ass and it causes your hips to jut forward. Whimper hitting the top of your throat, you almost, almost, forget to count. Everything in your senses distracting you from completing the simplest tasks such as fucking counting.

"O-one." Another. "Twooo." And again. "Th-three!"

You start sniffling by the third smack of his wide hand, and you hear mocking sniffs behind your head. "Aww, pretty baby can't take the hurt she tries to give to others? That must be really tough. Y'heart's bleedin' all over my couch, honey."

Your cheeks burn, you really feel sorry for what you've done. Or at least, what you were planning to do.

The next spank leaves a welt of Joel's handprint across your skin. "FOUR!" Your body begins to feel weak, sliding against the couch, you know talking back is useless as you silent tears stream into your arm.

There are six more blinding slaps to your ass by the time he's done with you, and you feel him pull back when he's through. You imagine him wringing his palms, the roughness of them. You begin to wonder if that's how they got to be so weathered, and pretend not to be weirded out by the ache of jealousy.

"Y'know for somebody whinin' the whole time, your pussy is just droolin' from that," any narrative you wandered off with disappears in its replacement of Joel's fingers gathering slick between your folds. No announcement, just go. It was just within reach, feeling him inside you. You ride the shudder your body makes, licking your lips as you realise the unspoken rule is free and you can speak. "N-need it. Need your cock, please... please." "Need it, and you don't even know my name?" His index and middle finger waste no time in pressing into your aching core. Sounds of your wailing mix with his words as he lurches over, lip close to your ear. "Or maybe you do already."

"Please, please, please," your fingertips grip for the worn fabric of his couch while your hips that try to jut back are quickly halted by his other palm, a strong stopper at the base of your spine. "Not 'til you tell me my name." "I-I don't know. I don't know it, I swear." Joel's thick fingers slip completely out of you and you mewl pathetically, pussy clenching around nothing and he can see every last detail of it behind you. "Last fuckin' time, better tell me the truth." "It's Joel," you cry, hips pushing back against the resistance as much as possible. Anything to be filled again. "Joel. Joel. Joel. I was... I was– I don't know anybody. Not with anybody, I swear! Joel, I swear. Please! Just grew up hearin' your name. I swear on my life, Joel, please! I know I lied, didn't think you'd believe me."

You don't know why you're begging like your life depends on it, but your pleasure surely does, and there's a longer pause than you want lingering behind you. As if you can palpably feel Joel contemplating whether you're being truthful or not. But if there's one thing about you, aside from this moment in this compromising position: you don't answer to anybody.

Joel's cock bottoming out inside of you at the drop of a hat is confirmation enough that he believes you.

And you not only wail, but scream at the stretch and irresistible contact that punches you straight to your gut – right where you can feel the tip of him. Half-moon prints dig into your hips by his short fingernails when he grabs ahold of you and you're on your forearms, head hanging between your shoulders. Your panties keep your thighs straying too far apart if there is such a thing.

"This what you wanted when you watched me?" Joel grips your torso now, pulling you closer to him as you become more upright, his cock more accessible to the spongy spot inside of you and your nipples stand erect, eyes rolling back as it takes all of you not to rest your head back against his shoulder, and you fail. Hard. Your occiput makes contact with his shoulder. Joel brushes your hair back to the side, lips graze but never fully touches the column of your neck. "Thought about this tight cunt last night. Left the window open on purpose, but you knew that already, didn't you, pretty girl? Clever little thing and so fuckin' dirty."

Joel's hand snakes around the front of you, spreading your folds as he dives his fingers over your glossed-over clit your wetness claimed and that sends a whine off of your depraved lips. "That's it, honey. Show me what this cock does to ya. Makes you downright brainless from how well you take it." While his skilled fingers, toy with your clit, the other set of digits graze over your breasts on their way up to your mouth. You take them inside the warmth of your wet mouth easily, rolling your tongue over the digits until you can only focus on the white hot pleasure beginning to boil over. You keep his fingers between your teeth, a faint realisation that you can taste yourself on them. That's what does it.

His hips are relentless as they pound into you, the repetitious slaps of his skin against yours, of his balls tapping your cunt again and again sends you into a place that he knows you're approaching when you tighten and pulse.

"Y'know how tight and wet you feel around me, darlin'? Never had a fuckin' cunt like this. Let it out, let it out, just like you wanna. Just like you did last night around your fingers. Nothin' like this cock though, and you know it now, don't you? Oh, fuck yeah– thaaat's it. Look at you." "Joel... Joel!!!" Joel talks you through it, sending your body diving off the cliff that is your second orgasm. The undeniable gush of your fluids around his cock. His name stays stuck at the your tongue, the constant thud of it vibrates your lungs.

It starts at the attention on your clit. The raw bundle of nerves send signals outward as it spreads down your legs, up your stomach, to your nipples and down your spine. Your brain feels effervescent, toes curl, and it comes back again right to your heart. Your beating heart, wild, and every moan, whimper, scream that comes from you sounds like it is from someone else's chest. But it's yours, and you know that when you start to feel hazy, unable to hold yourself up anymore.

"Good for my cock after all. Ain't ya, baby? Shit."

Your torso leans forward while your cheek rests on the top of your hand that's gripped on Joel's couch, and your body is relaxed and fucked. Comfortably silent, just the way Joel would want you. His cock slips out of you, unable to stop the slew of grunts and groans that acts as an anchor to keep you from slipping under. You lick your lips, looking back at him with a nod, unable to stay silent for long. That struggle of power coming back for vengeance. "That's right. Come all over this ass you ruined. See those handprints? Dirty fucking man, you just met me. Show me how much you enjoyed doing that."

That's as far as you get when you feel the heavy streams of his hot, white come rope over your skin, and for someone who is no position to be smug, you sure do have a shit-eating grin on your face. Pure, and the simplest thing the two of you accomplish.

Joel shakes his head, shallow breaths become him as he staggers back and you pretend not to notice. "Gonna kill me, kid."

"Almost did."

---

You don't know why, but neither of you hold the promise of you leaving right away. You linger, both of you half naked and spent. You take your time cleaning yourself off, slipping your clothes back on. Day becoming night.

You tiptoe into the living room where Joel is unfurled on his couch. His eyes are closed, the back of his head inches away from where the two of you just had sex.

Planning your goodbye, you sit at the edge of the couch cushion, knowing he wasn't really asleep. Just restin' his eyes.

"I am sorry...," you finally say into the dimly lit room, pangs of annoyance fizz at your tongue for even apologising. For shooting him, for trying to steal from him. All of it.

It's not his fault. It's just how you are.

This is dichotomous in relation to your eyes. They're bleary when a yawn pulls deep from within you. As if rest had been climbing up to the surface this entire time.

"Maybe you should be apologisin' 'bout your shitty aim. Could teach you a thing or two." Joel's eyes remained closed, arms crossed. If you could let yourself experience this, you would notice how soft he looks in this moment. Instead, your stomach is recoils in fight or flight.

You're glad he can't see you swallow the knot in your throat.

There was no magical solution for your life, and a part of you wishes you hadn't chosen his cabin to raid. You wish you hadn't met him, because now you could feel yourself want to notice the small things in him. Already.

You felt it dangerous to let anything that close to you.

You scoff to play it off, giving his chest a light shove and very accidentally getting lost in the light landscape of hairs that resides at the top of his flannel. "I could teach you a thing or two." A pathetic response for a pathetically spent human.

"We could both teach each other," he resigns and you're grateful he doesn't point out your lack of wit for how worn out he's made you. Perhaps the smugness settles in the things he doesn't say. Really, it's in what Joel spouts off next that throws you upside down.

"S'why you should stay. One month. That's it."

"Excuse me?"

"Didn't stuttered," your eyes roll and somehow, despite Joel's own being shut, he tuts his teeth. "Don't roll your eyes at me, little girl. You need a place to sleep. Besides, I could use an extra set of hands. Way I see it, best offer you've had in a while. Got a shelf life, though. Don't like to wait."

A part of you is suspicious, and if this man didn't make sure you orgasmed twice, you would suspect yourself to be dead within a matter of minutes.

There's something true about him, though. You're unwilling to look at it directly, but you trust him.

"Fine."

"Gonna need clearer confirmation, darlin'. Really need you to want this if you're gonna stay with me." He knew exactly where to press.

"Fuck, I shoulda killed you when I had the chance. I want to stay with you. One month." You try to ignore the grit between your teeth as speak, but your shoulders eventually soften. And you really do mean it. It's just... you're hardened from years of misplaced trust.

Your hand goes to the pendant around your neck subconsciously.

Joel either doesn't notice, or gives you the space.

You're grateful either way.

"That's that, then."

If anyone could understand the concept, it's Joel.

"That's that."

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #joel miller #tlou fic #by bee #dancing is a dangerous game

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forcemasculinisation · 3 months

Note

I agree with the anon asking about T-dick. We need more content.

Imagine bumping into a girl one day who looks like she's trying to look like a guy but doing a poor job of it. She's got half a used tube of low dose T-cream, wears a jock and a packer and binds. It's the not quite short enough hair and voice that tips you off.

A perfect candidate to be forcemasced perhaps?

Trigger Warnings: Dubious consent.

I'd say shes already on her way to being easily manipulated, pretty malleable even. He just needs that extra push to know what's best for him.

Once you get to know her, she piles on excuses about her appearance. Her shaggy hair covers half her face, like she is insecure about her soft features. She swears she binds for some sort of personal preference, and takes T to help her gain an advantage in track. There's no point in justifying the silicone dick between her legs; but she still finds a way to try and convince you. It puts her in the right mindset - that's all.

You take stronger medication than her, enanthate injections, and you eventually coax out of her that she's curious about it. Says she's always been curious about upping her dose, but scared about the effects. You give her the illusion of consent by letting her know, casually, of some of the major changes she could see. Thicker and longer body hair. A much deeper voice. Coarser skin and less curves. You joke with her that an increased sex drive is another common effect, and his eyes subtly widen at that.

Soon enough, months of her straddling you as you push your needle into her skin go by. You're already starting to see major changes, and soon enough a man stands before you. His hair is still long, shoulder length by the time facial hair starts to show, but - seemingly on her own accord - he buzzes it off. She still seems uncomfortable with such sudden changes, as anyone would be, but it's your job to assure him that it's all fine. She'll still be straight if she presents this way, and straight guys love masculine girls (a sweet lie, of course, but how else will you pursuade him?).

It's fun to watch him flush as you call him a good man (a good boy, occasionally) for taking his shots so well. You get to introduce him as your mate, your boy to others, using he/him pronouns, and watch with pride as his protests of "I'm actually a girl" falter with every moment.

Social transition is the hardest. But he'll get there soon enough. He's your boy toy now.

#You guys like longer posts like this?#Got my juices flowing at 3am I couldn't stop thinking about it #Thank you anon #force masc #forced masculinisation #forced masculinization #ftm forced masculinisation #ftm forced masculinization #autoandrophilia #roachification #t4t #ftm cnc #asks #boy hypno #forced masc #masc hypno #boy hypnosis #masc hypnosis

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cobaltperun · 4 months

Text

Lost (5) - Keep me breathing

Tara Carpenter x female Reader

Summary: To anyone on the outside, and to Tara’s friends, you were Tara’s fierce protector, the MMA fighter who’d take anyone on for Tara. The Guard Dog, as Amber called you. You had no idea you’d have to protect her from people who claimed they loved her. It didn’t matter. As long as you and Tara had one another there was nothing you wouldn’t be able to survive.

Story warnings: Scream violence, family issues, trauma, angst, certain sensitive topics

Warning for this chapter: Talks about suicide if that can trigger you in any way, please, don't read.

Word count: 7k

Story Masterlist / First part / Previous part / Next part

-Another night that comes undone. You're the one that keeps me breathing.-

Something was missing, she felt cold and vulnerable, and she didn't feel arms around her. She was alone. She wasn’t supposed to be alone, you’ve been with her since you found out she was attacked, but now Tara woke up and you weren't in the bed with her. She was drowsy from the medicine and you not being there didn't make it any better. Why did you leave? When? How come she didn't wake up?

And then the memories came back. The knife over your chest, the way you held Ghostface's wrist, you saying you'd be right back, and then the terror she felt as you knelt, as you got shot, as she shot you, as you lost consciousness and were carried away by the doctors. She couldn't breathe, she felt as if something was squeezing her chest, as if no matter how hard she tried she couldn't breathe.

Her inhaler. She needed her inhaler. Tara frantically looked around until she found it. She pressed it against her lips as your words came back to her. 'Love, look at me,' that's what you said, that was definitely what you said. And it wasn’t just some friendly nickname either, this was you, and you… you’ve never called her like that. She called you Baby for a bit, when she figured out that would get you to comply with her wishes easier, but she stopped after getting together with Amber, and even while she called you that it wasn’t meant to be specifically romantic. But you calling her ‘Love’, there was nothing friendly about it, about the word you chose, about the look in your eyes, the tone of your voice.

You should have said that word four months ago. You shouldn't be saying that word now that she shot you. Now that you bled for her. Now that you...

Did you survive?

She tore the tubes off, not even registering the lack of pain, she didn't even consider just how strong the painkillers were if she wasn't feeling that excruciating pain she felt earlier. Someone had to tell her what happened to you. When she last saw you you blacked out and doctors took you away from her. Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and she tried to push whoever did that away. "Miss Carpenter you have to stay in bed," it was a nurse and she was already calling for doctors.

"Y/N! How is she?" she paused for a moment. "Uh, Y/N L/N, she was shot earlier. Please tell me how she is?" she needed to hear you were alive. You had to be. You wouldn't leave here like this. What kind of twisted reality would she be living in if you were dead. Born sick, abandoned, neglected, attacked in her own home just to get Sam back to Woodsboro, if this was how she lost you as well… as consumed by despair, terror and guilt as she was a sick thought that it would have been better if she was killed the first time she was attacked crossed her mind.

"She's alive, miss L/N had a mild heart attack, her injuries are serious, but she is expected to make a full recovery. Now get back in bed and don't tear anything else off," the knowledge that you were alive calmed her down, chased away the despair driven thoughts she had. But still, a heart attack. Was that what was happening while you were carrying her? The guilt gnawed at her chest, if it wasn't for her you'd be fine. It was all her fault that you were in that condition.

The nurse helped her back into the bed and probably noticed the look on Tara's face. "Sorry about putting it like that, I should have been more considerate. I just had to answer the same question two hours ago."

Tara looked at the nurse. "W-What?" did she wake up before and couldn't remember it?

"Heart attack and that girl still tried to force her way to you. Wouldn't calm down until we told her you were fine and even then, we still had to sedate her to keep her from reopening her wounds," Tara looked away, embarrassed by the shy smile she couldn't keep off her face and the blush that clearly had no intention of fading any time soon.

"Give it an hour or so and we'll see if there's anything we can do to put you in the room together," the nurse assured her and left as the doctors came in to check on her.

As they checked her wounds and made sure none of them reopened Tara thought back to what you said right before Sam came and saved the two of you.

'Just in case I don't get another chance. You saved a life that had no right to continue. So let me-' you didn't get to finish whatever you were saying, but she knew whatever you were about to say wasn't something she wanted to hear.

There was so much you kept from her, the agreement, as you called it, between you and your parents, the reason behind such an agreement, and now this. According to you, Tara saved a life that had no right to continue. She didn't get it. She refused to make the connection between a 'life that had no right to continue' and your life, but what other life could you have been talking about?

Somehow, as high as she was from all the painkillers, she kept thinking back to one particular moment, about a year after Sam abandoned her.

~X~

Her mom was getting ready again. By now Tara recognized each sign her mom would go out, she recognized the patterns that told her how long she'd be alone. By the looks of it, she wouldn't be seeing her mother for at least two days, perhaps even three.

It's been a year since Sam left, no, abandoned, Tara, and the house Tara lived in felt less and less like home with each day that passed. Her mother didn't even bother to lock the doors, let alone say something to Tara. An 'I'll see you later' would have been enough to soothe Tara, but she didn't even get that. She was well-behaved, she did her best at school, she didn't cause any trouble. Surely her mother wouldn't leave her.

What would happen if she did? If she left Tara all alone? Would someone force Sam to come back and get her? Or would someone try to contact her father first? Would they even want to take her in? They left her, so no, she didn’t think they would. Would she be stuck in foster homes? The only person who she believed would want to take her in was you. And you weren’t eighteen yet, so you couldn’t do that. But what if her mom abandoned her after you turned eighteen? Would your parents let her stay with you? They probably would, though not because they liked her. No, Tara was sure they didn’t like her, especially your dad, but you’d talk them into letting her stay. She’d stay with her best friend, she’d live with her best friend, she could sneak into your room to watch a movie whenever, and not just on rare nights she was allowed to stay at your place.

Somehow, that thought, that the moment you turned eighteen you’d be able to prevent anything from keeping the two of you apart, comforted her. When she thought like that, she didn’t hope that her mother would never abandon her, she just hoped she wouldn’t abandon her in the next two years.

Almost on auto-pilot, she unlocked her phone and called you. It rang for a while. That didn't worry her, it always took you a bit to pick up your phone. if you weren't at school or with her you were most likely training, so it took you some time to answer the phone. She counted seconds in her head and then, just as she reached twenty-seven seconds you picked up, slightly out of breath.

"How's it going Snuggle Tar-Bear," despite the anxiousness squeezing at her chest she smiled at the nickname. It sounded like she did interrupt your training, you were a bit out of breath.

"Awful, mom won't be home for a couple of days and I'm so bored," she tried to sound cheerful, to feign being bored and hopefully get you to skip training for at least a day. "Wanna sleep at my place tonight? I promise I won't make you watch The Babadook again," she was sure you've seen it at least five times by now, and every time it was because of her.

There was a pause for a moment. "Oh, no you don't, we're watching that damn movie. I want to see how many times it'll take for you to get bored of it."

Her smile widened. "You're coming then?" just reassure her, tell her a definitive yes and that's all she'd need for now.

"Yeah, I'll be there in about an hour. I just need to get something done and I'll come over," there it was, the reassurance she needed. As long as she had you, she’d never be alone, that’s how it was for years now.

"Great, don't take too long," she couldn't hide the eagerness in her voice, you've been busy over the past few days, and she missed you.

"The longer you talk the longer it'll take me to get there," you were teasing her, but there was a bit of seriousness to that statement, so with a rushed 'Bye' she hung up. With a happy grin on her face, she rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. Just an hour to go, she could wait that long. She looked around her room, at the framed photos, one of you and her, when her and Mindy won an award for their short movie. One of her family, while it was still whole, and one of her and Sam, the last two photos were bittersweet, memories of times that would never come back, and she always felt a mix of feelings when looking at them. That was why she kept the gifts from Sam and her dad in her drawer, only pulling them out when she missed them the most. There were bits of your presence in the room, even aside from the photo. The Babadook DVD you bought her, among a few others, the snow globe with three reindeer she liked, and you got for her. You were a part of her life, a part she never wanted to lose, a part she was sure she’d never lose. With the grin she couldn’t wipe off her face she stood up and went downstairs to watch the TV to pass time before you came to her house.

The house… unlike her room, didn’t feel like home. The liquor cabinet she despised, the bare furniture, with barely anything personal in the way the rooms were organized. The cold permeating the house had nothing to do with the dull colors, it had everything to do with the absence of people in it, the silence that was rarely filled, and the size of it that enhanced the sense of loneliness. So, she rarely spent time outside of her room, unless someone came over.

A bit over an hour later she heard knocking on her front door and jumped to her feet. You were there and you looked... tired? It didn't show in the way you carried yourself, but there was a sense of exhaustion in your eyes. "Hey, are you okay, Y/N?" she reached up and, despite that not being what she usually did, caressed your cheek. She didn't like the way your eyes widened at that, as if you got caught doing something you shouldn't.

"I'm here, I'm okay," back then she had no idea it would take four years to figure out what those words meant, back then she just took those words as you saying you wouldn't be there if something was seriously wrong. And she figured that was true because if something was actually seriously wrong, you'd be there trying to fix it, not here with her watching a movie and having a sleepover. So, when you stepped in and picked her up, when your arms trembled around her, she brushed it off as fatigue from training. When you took a few extra seconds to let her go she explained it by you missing her. That explanation felt good. Someone missed her. Her dad didn't. Her mom wouldn't. Sam didn't. You did. So, she went with that explanation. "Thanks for calling, I'm sorry you had to," from the moment you said those words that exhaustion she saw sort of faded away and you were back to normal.

~X~

You woke up again five minutes ago and while you wanted to go and find Tara to make sure she was fine you needed to make a phone call. Which made the white ceiling above you extremely interesting, frankly, a white sheet of paper would have been worked as a distraction given who you had to call.

"Come on, you're not afraid of one phone call," who were you lying to, you were more afraid of this phone call than almost anything in the world. The only thing that ever scared you more was seeing that gun pointed at Tara, but now you didn’t have adrenaline fueling you. Taking a deep breath, you pressed the button and waited.

"Susan Smith, how may I help you," you immediately recognized the voice. You immediately wanted to hang up, to pretend you called the wrong number and forget about this. You couldn’t though, you had to keep Tara safe, and she would be the safest if she also had medical care available to her. "Hello?"

You swallowed, getting over your fear for Tara’s sake. "Uh, good evening, I guess, I'm-"

"Y/N?" oh, this was definitely not how you wanted this conversation to go. You did not imagine she would recognize your voice.

"Yeah, it's me, I know it's sudden, but I need help. Can I come to Sacramento with two other people? Tonight?" you spoke slowly, waiting for Susan to hang up. She didn't.

"Of course, Honey, you don't need to ask," you must have imagined it, or you were too high from painkillers, or something.

"One of the other two, Tara, she has a broken leg and she got stabbed and she also has asthma, and I don't know who else to turn to. So, I need to keep her safe, since the ones that attacked her are still out there and no one knows about you and me, and I-" you were just piling up more and more words at this point.

"Y/N, hey, I'm here for you, I'll help," Susan's words made you squeeze your eyes shut, you couldn't cry now.

"Got it. We're in Woodsboro right now, so we'll arrive sometime tonight. I'll text you when we leave the hospital," you despised how vulnerable you sounded.

"I'll be waiting. Please drive safely, okay?" she didn't change a bit. She was exactly how you remembered her, the kindest adult you ever met in your childhood.

"Thank you," you nearly cried. It was fine if you couldn't stop a tear or two, right? Just this once you could let yourself be weak, just for a moment, right?

"Thank you for choosing me," yeah, you could be weak. "It's okay, honey, let it out. It's okay," and so you just sat there, letting all the emotions you felt over the past two days flow out of you. There weren't even that many tears there to cry, but damn, did it feel good.

"Right, I'm gonna go get Tara and Sam now. See you soon," you felt lighter, much lighter, as if those tears released the tension within you that you didn’t even realize you had.

Tara's room wasn't too far from your own, she was like five doors down the hall, and you didn't even try to suppress your grin when you saw Tara awake and with Sam. "Why hello my favorite person and Sam," you leaned against the door frame as the sisters turned toward you.

"You're also so high right now," you could see the brightness in Tara's eyes even from where you stood, the relief caused by seeing you, and Sam, as if in on a secret chuckled lightly.

"There's a joke that went right over my head somewhere in the hall. Anyway, glory to the painkillers," you approached Tara's bed and crouched right next to her. "You okay?"

"You're the one that got hurt, you know?" she said incredulously.

"Meh, details. You had an asthma attack," you replied, not even looking down when you felt her hand taking your own.

"And you had a heart attack," she squeezed your hand, her fingers trembling slightly, and you placed your right hand on her forearm, lightly moving your fingers up and down along it to comfort her.

You smiled when she visibly relaxed at the gesture. "And now we're in a who got off easier contest. Well, you better be okay because I'm taking you the hell out of here."

Tara nodded. "Yeah, Sam and I just talked. She had the same idea," well that definitely made things easier.

"I'll just get Richie and we can go to Modesto," Sam said, which didn't make things easier.

"Yeah, no. Great that you're coming with us, but we're not going to Modesto and we are not taking Richie," you put your foot down. How did Sam not realize Modesto wasn't safe for Tara? Or her for that matter?

"Wait, Y/N-" Sam began, but you weren’t having it.

"I'm not waiting, Sam. Bastards are after you, right? So, they very likely know you were in Modesto before. I'm not letting you take Tara, or go there by yourself while we're at it, when it's the second most dangerous place for both of you," you didn't want to argue, you really didn't, but you would if that's what you needed to do.

Tara pulled your hand slightly, and you looked at her, smiling once again. In the end she’d choose who she wanted to go with, if you and Sam couldn’t come to an agreement. The look in her eyes told you she’d go with you. Not that you’d ever make her choose. She just got Sam back in her life, and you weren’t taking that from her. If you really couldn’t reason with Sam in any way, you’d still go with them, because no matter how dangerous the place was, you’d at least be able to fight for Tara.

Luckily, Sam contemplated your words and seemingly saw your reasoning as she nodded. “Fine,” she sighed.

"Where do we go then?" Tara asked, clearly relieved that there wasn’t an argument between you and Sam.

"Sacramento. I made a call a few minutes ago. Susan is a nurse; she can make sure your recovery is going fine and she'll let us stay at her place. Before you ask, if anyone figured out the connection between me and Susan, they'd have to be one hell of an investigator. More importantly, no one in their right mind would think I'd go to her of all people. So, it should be safe, or, at the very least, buy us time to recover," even if whoever attacked you went to your parents to ask where you could be and somehow got them to take a guess, they would never make the connection.

"Okay, what about Richie?" Sam questioned.

"One is a male, regardless of how injured I am, Amber, Mindy, Liv, they can't hold me down, and if the logic is that it's someone you or Tara know, well, now it's between him and Chad," you scrolled the news when you woke up, trying to delay calling Susan. So, you knew. You knew about Wes and Judy. It hurt, but you had to prioritize. "I don't know about you; I'd rather avoid taking that chance."

Sam nodded. "Let's get going then. You'll need some clothes right, so we should make a stop by your place. Is it still the same address?" she was pushing her emotions back, trying not to consider the possibility that her boyfriend was behind this. You honestly admired the way she focused on keeping Tara safe and nothing else.

"Nope, new address. Some of Tara's stuff is there as well, so we won't have to go back to Tara's place. I'll go pick that up, you get Tara ready and then we get the fuck out of here,” and that's how things went, sure, you were a bit irresponsible for driving in the state you were in, but it was Woodsboro, and there wasn't a lot of traffic, especially this late.

You came back to the hospital to find Sam outside with Tara and two women you didn't recognize, though one looked suspiciously like Gale Weathers. That would make the other Sidney Prescott? Oh well, none of your business. You stepped outside, placed Tara's bag on the back seat, and while smiling at Tara to reassure her you were fine reached down to pick her up.

"Y/N wait," you halted at her concerned tone.

"Yeah?" you tilted your head to the side.

Tara had the perfect 'Are you for real right now' face. "Your injuries," she reminded you.

"Really Tara? You weigh like, a hundred pounds and a potato, a very small potato by the way," you lifted her up and took a deep breath. "Okay, maybe not a very small potato, but a potato nonetheless."

Tara let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan as she facepalmed. "See? I told you?"

"You said, and I quote: your injuries, it's not injuries, you're just heavy. It's a potato that broke the MMA fighter's back or something like that," you reached the right side of the car and only then realized you made a grave mistake. "Uh, mind opening the doors, my hands are kinda full?"

Tara shook her hand in disbelief and tried to reach the handle with her right hand. Which didn't exactly work. "Sam, a little help here?" she called out as she looked at her left hand. She wasn't sure she could grip the handle hard enough to open the doors. The other Ghostface squeezed her injured hand and then even further injured it, not to mention she somewhat opened the wound when she was forced out of her hospital room. How bad was her hand now?

Sam was quick to open the doors and you gently sat Tara down. You made sure her leg was comfortable and closed the doors. While you placed the wheelchair and the crutches in the trunk. By the time you were done, Sam was already in the driver's seat. that was a weird experience, seeing someone else in your seat. Sure, you taught Tara how to drive, but this was different.

The moment you got in the car next to Tara she leaned over and rested her head on your right shoulder. Her bag was moved to the front seat with the bag you picked up from your apartment, thus removing any barrier between you two. It wasn't like you wanted a barrier, she just had her inhaler there, so you figured it would be better if she had it near her. Either way, Tara made a different call, so you smiled and eagerly wrapped your right arm around her. In approximately three hours you'd see Susan again and it made you anxious to think how that would turn out. She sounded eager enough to help, but still... Before you could get too worried or forget about that detail you sent Susan a message, saying you were on your way.

"Are you sure we can trust Susan?" Sam's question stopped your train of thought for a moment.

"Yeah, she's my half-brother's mother," surprisingly it wasn't difficult to say that. There was a time when even thinking about Zack felt difficult, but it looked like time did make things easier. Or maybe you just grew up and learnt to deal with it better.

"Half-brother?!" if you weren't holding her, you were sure Tara would have sat up, well, she tried but you were kinda too tired to move your arm and let her do it.

"You didn't know?" Sam really didn't phrase that question correctly.

"You did?!" the painkillers they gave Tara must have been way stronger than the ones they gave you since she pushed her way out of your grip as if she was perfectly fine. Granted, she did lean on your side to do it. The same side that got shot...

"Gah, easy Tara!" you groaned, wincing at the pain.

"Shit, sorry!" she winced, biting her lower lip when she saw you breathing through your teeth. Yup, definitely weaker painkillers.

"You okay?" Sam asked, as if her question didn't get you in this situation.

You gave her a thumbs up. "Talk it out while I recover."

"Talk what out?" and the older Carpenter was confused. How? You had no idea. Now, sure, you and Sam were never all that close, you got along mostly for Tara’s sake back when you and Tara were kids, and normally Tara would know there was no way you’d say to Sam something you weren’t willing to share with her. Right now, however, the way Sam phrased the question made it appear as if you did do just that.

"Did you know, Sam?" and Tara was right back on track, it was probably good that you were in a car and not somewhere she could properly move.

"Of course I didn't, I just thought if someone knew you'd know," Sam immediately corrected her mistake and Tara frowned.

"She's telling the truth, Tara. I didn't tell anyone. Zack's been dead for almost a decade now so there wasn't a point in mentioning him," you decided to be quick and to the point with the conversation. Hoping they'd get the hint and drop it.

"We're here if you ever need to talk, right Tara?" Sam got the hint, that was for sure, and if there was any chance whatsoever that Tara didn't, that definitely got the point across.

Tara did what only Tara could do to you. She wrapped her arms around you and, while avoiding your wounds, and her own, which was actually really impressive, leaned into you. "That goes without saying," she said with so much conviction it nearly shattered all your defenses. Before you could speak, she pressed a finger against your lips. "Don't say thank you."

You grinned at that, and she removed the finger. "This is really not a comfortable position Snuggle Tar-Bear," you joked, trying to lighten the mood. Also, you were worried about her leg. Sure, she positioned it in a way that made it seem okay, but maybe painkillers prevented her from realizing if something wasn't right.

"Don't care. You need me," she mumbled into your neck, and you gave in, shifting so the two of you were half lying on the backseat. Your upper back, which also meant one of your stab wounds, was pressed against the doors, but you figured it was worth it.

Your mind was in shambles over everything happening. Tara was attacked, you had a heart attack, Zack died from heart disease, and you were going to see Susan for the first time since Zack's funeral. You were going to see Susan, because you needed to keep Tara safe.

All of that and the memories that came with it flooded your mind. Made you restless.

It was a simple story. You met the brother you didn't know you had, he changed your life, introduced you to MMA, died, and then his death subsequently ruined your relationship with your parents. After his death, your life fell apart, going from arguing with your parents to silence, then back to arguing, then again back to silence, until even arguing ended and all that was left was to wait until you were eighteen.

That was why the discomfort and pain were worth it because Tara made those thoughts quiet. So, you closed your eyes, hoping to take a nap.

"Y/N," Tara, though, had a different idea.

"Hmm?" you didn't open your eyes, but she knew you were listening.

"What did you mean when you said I saved a life that had no right to continue?" and, as if she somehow chose this day in particular to learn everything you kept under lock and key, she just had to ask that question.

Suddenly, talking about Zack and your parents felt like an amazing idea and a wonderful way to pass the time until you got to Susan's home. You raised an eyebrow, silently wondering if she really had to make you bare your soul to her sister as well? You liked Sam, you really, genuinely did, but not to the point of wanting to just spill everything to her. Maybe eventually, if she decided to stick around and you got close, but not now.

And then there was the fact that she did, in fact, abandon Tara. Now, you weren’t in any position to criticize her for leaving, you knew Christina Carpenter, anyone would want to get as far from that woman as possible. You, yourself, wanted to take Tara away from that place the moment she turned eighteen. So, no, you didn’t blame Sam for leaving, you blamed her for leaving Tara, because she could and should have stayed in contact with Tara, and not just vanish without a trace. But she came back, and was ready to fight to protect Tara, so that was enough for Sam to go back to the list of people you liked.

Immediately, another thought popped into your head, and you realized Sam being there was a blessing in disguise. Tara asked you a direct question and if there was one rule you lived by it was that a direct question needed to be answered and answered honestly. Knowing what the answer was and knowing how Tara was going to react you figured having Sam there would be beneficial. At least, with Sam hearing it from you, it would avoid Tara needing to talk to someone other than you about it and then awkwardly explaining the issue without revealing what you told her.

"I nearly killed myself," Tara froze, Sam nearly got all three of you killed with how abruptly she hit the brakes in the middle of the road, you barely kept you and Tara on the back seat. Luckily you hadn’t reached the highway yet so the car behind you had enough time to stop. "Sam, please, if I have to die in my own car, at least let me be behind the wheel," you groaned, delaying the moment you would have to look Tara in the eyes as the driver that was behind you furiously flipped you off. For once you figured it was a well-deserved middle finger.

You finally glanced down. Tara looked heartbroken, it was the only word that could describe the look on her face. "What?" you hated how choked her voice sounded. So, you spoke. You told the story.

There was no way you could ever forget that day. You dreaded the potential of that day ever coming up in a conversation with Tara, yet here you were. All because you couldn't keep your mouth shut. 'Now deal with the consequences,' was all you could think.

~X~

It's been half a year since you made an agreement with your parents. The moment you turned eighteen you'd leave the damn place and never see them again. You'd stop arguing, you'd play the role of their daughter in their sick facade of a perfect little family. They, in turn, would have no say in anything you were doing as long as it didn't tarnish their reputation.

So, now, with fighting off the table all that remained was silence. Silence at home. Silence at school, because Woodsboro wasn’t exactly welcoming to newcomers and not a lot of people accepted your love for MMA and the way it shaped your body. And while your training and skill in martial arts protected you from bullying, most people didn’t want to associate with you. Silence. Silence. Everything was silent. The only one filling the silence was Tara and to an extent her friend group, but you weren't part of that group. You were Tara's slightly older friend.

They messed you up. Your parents, that is. And now here you were. Lying on your bed. The phone was on do not disturb. And you looked to your right.

To the gun on your pillow.

Thousands of thoughts and questions plagued your mind, yet not a single one became coherent enough to latch on to it. To maybe get you to put the gun back in your parents' room. To forget it existed and keep going.

You sat up.

Why do it? A small part of you wondered. A much larger part responded with another question. Why not?

You reached out and placed your hand on the gun.

Silence ends with a bang. The emptiness will be filled. Everything begins and ends in a single moment.

And then, just as you placed your finger on the trigger, The Babadook theme began playing. Startled, you nearly dropped the gun, but somehow you managed to safely put it away and, albeit with shaky hands, managed to pick your phone up and answer. "How's it going Snuggle Tar-Bear," you hated how out of breath you sounded.

"Awful, mom won't be home for a couple of days and I'm so bored," Tara's voice was a reminder of what you almost did. How did it get to this point? "Wanna sleep at my place tonight? I promise I won't make you watch The Babadook again."

You weren't sure how long you didn't speak, but when you did you somehow managed to sound normal, like you weren't about to put a bullet through your head. You felt the need to throw up as you kept the conversation going. You had to end it, you had to... you didn't know what you had to do.

The call ended and you dropped down on your bed, biting the pillow to keep any sounds from coming out. The fuck was going on with that timing? You somehow managed to set an alarm to go off in half an hour and just closed your eyes.

Your head was empty, your heart beating rapidly as your eyes landed on the gun. Were you really about to do it? Just pull the trigger? What would that solve?

You barely felt the time pass when the alarm rang and you got up, you got up while letting it ring in the background. You changed your clothes, picked up the necessary things for the sleepover, and finally turned the alarm off. You forgot to put the gun back. You were still in a daze when you reached Tara's home. You were still in a daze when she opened the doors. You only snapped out of it when she touched your cheek.

"I'm here, I'm okay," somehow your brain managed to connect the concern in her eyes and the question you barely heard. You stepped inside and picked her up, and it felt like the pieces of the puzzle you didn't even know you were trying to piece together were getting put in all the right places all at once.

You wondered why not an hour ago and as Tara, the same Tara who was already left behind by her father and by Sam, who already had to deal with an alcoholic mother, wrapped her arms around your neck and held on as if you'd leave her too, you had your answer. You had your why not. So, you didn't let go as quickly as you usually would. You held on just a bit longer, letting Tara ground you, letting her effortlessly keep you by her side. "Thanks for calling, I'm sorry you had to," for the moment the daze was gone, and you let her pull you inside, and when the theme song that stopped you from pulling the trigger played in the background of the movie began, you pulled Tara a bit closer. Tara looked up and you just smiled, silently telling her to keep watching. She raised an eyebrow at that but complied, though you did notice she held onto you a bit tighter than before.

Back then she occasionally fell asleep in your arms, but you didn't sleep in her bed. No, that only began happening shortly after Tara turned sixteen. So that night, the moment Tara went to sleep, and you were left on your own, it all just came back. Or you came back to it as if pulled back by an invisible chain. You didn't know. It didn't matter. You were being pulled back into that vortex of desperation.

You were naive. You thought finding your why not would end those thoughts. You thought it would solve everything. It didn't.

It just gave you a reason to cling on and stay alive. So, you did just that. One day at a time.

When you came back home you didn't find the gun in your room and when you went to the kitchen to get something to eat the silence was broken for the first time in almost two months. "Buy your own if you want to do it," yeah, loving parents.

~X~

"It was a struggle for a while. I'd think I was getting better, then I'd relapse back into those thoughts. One day I'd be fine, the next I'd be punching my way through the day just to stop thinking. Still, it got better over time, and," you paused, taking in the expression on Tara's face, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she kept holding onto you. "...most importantly, I never, ever, picked up the gun, or anything that could kill me, again. Never with that intention."

"Why did you never tell me?" Tara's voice was weak, small, the fingers of her right hand gingerly caressing the back of your neck. "Why did I never notice?" she sounded furious, angry at herself over not noticing sooner.

"Tara, you were already doing everything you could even without knowing about it. I'd gain nothing by telling you and you'd worry and stress about it," also saying something would mean you'd have to talk about Zack as well, and you weren't ready to talk about him now, let alone four years ago.

"For over four years. I didn't notice anything for over four years!" she was shaking now. As you feared, all of this was too much for her right now.

"Tara, please stay calm!" you could see Sam struggling not to turn around. "I get how you feel, but please stay calm. Y/N is alive. She's doing better now. You've been with her, right? You were kids, that was as much as anyone could have asked of you."

"I wasn't there. For the last three months, I wasn't there," and in those three months, you were feeling lost. Her eyes met yours and you could see the turmoil she was feeling. Her eyes were always the most expressive eyes you had ever seen. "I left you to deal with it alone. I aba-" for the first time since you've known Tara you placed your hand over her mouth. She could say anything else, but never what she was about to say.

"Don't even think that," you warned. "Never think that," you couldn't let her go there, to let those thoughts consume her. "You couldn't know," slowly you moved your hand from her mouth and gently brushed a few strands of hair behind her ear.

"I should have known."

"I didn't let you."

She wasn't quite as calm as you or Sam would have liked her to be, and you could see the turmoil in her eyes, you could feel it in her grip, in her refusal to let you go. She had the same expression she had earlier in the hospital, while she was desperately trying to put pressure on your wound. That got you thinking and without considering the idea for more than a few seconds, without considering her relationship with Amber you leaned in and kissed her left cheek.

You gave Tara plenty of time to react, to say something, or do anything to even imply you crossed a line. She didn't, instead, she let out a shaky breath. "Y/N," there was something different in the way she whispered your name.

"I'm here, Tara. I'm not going to leave you. I'll be in your life for as long as you want me to be," you whispered soft reassurances hoping it would calm her down.

"For the rest of my life then," Tara said with certainty that made you think your heart skipped a beat or two. It definitely began beating faster and you could only nod, not really trusting your voice to stay on your side if the conversation continued.

You'd have to pretend you didn't notice Sam glancing back at the two of you and giving you a 'You're dead if you hurt her' stare when you stopped at a traffic light.

You were fine with that, after all, you’d never hurt Tara. You loved her enough to go through anything, to fight anyone, to face whatever consequences, to give up on something and create something, Even more now that she nearly died, now that you nearly lost her you were not going to let anyone get between you two. As long as Tara wanted you by her side, you’d stay right there.

#tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter x female reader #tara carpenter x you #tara carpenter #scream #jenna ortega x reader

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youreobsessedwithtoomanyfandoms · 4 months

Text

know its for the better

Words: 2733

Warnings: angst, talks of a miscarriage, body image, talks of difficulty staying pregnant, mention of what is technically a still-birth, depression, suicidal thoughts, self-medicating, accidental suicide attempt, probably poor writing and OOC characters but whatever

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Part 2 for "Love Thorns All Over This Rose"

I decided to make this be longer than just two part, so this'll be a sort of mini-series

I just want to leave another TW here: if you have ever suffered through a miscarriage or any type of child loss, please proceed with caution. I do heavily talk about how Y/N feels after suffering through that and do talk about her feeling like a failure of a woman and other things. I just want everyone to know that if you feel triggered by that, I apologize and I don't want anyone to be upset over what I wrote

I also want to say that I personally have never gone through. What I write in this, is purely based off of what I have read in other fics or stories as well as seen people talk online. I am trying not to offend anyone and if I do in any of the part that I talk about those things; I severely apologize.

Reminder that Alfred is dead in this so that's why he isn't here!

The POV here still isn't really consistent. It jumps between being with the Batkids, Bruce, and Y/N's. I tried to make it flow though so hopefully that works!

Reminder that Bruce and Y/N's ages don't matter (I'm not in the mood to deal with that) but; Dick is 31 (and married to Kori but that's not too important), Jason is 25, Tim is 22, Damian is 15, Cass is 24, and Steph is 23

Also a reminder that I also am not too familiar with Duke, so that is why he isn't there much. Mostly just mentioned

Anywho, enjoy

Love Z <3

All that he knew was that he walked in on his dad doing CPR on his mom.

That was all he knew.

That was all Dick knew.

3 Months Ago

Y/N tightened her grip around her purse, the people were following her too closely. She knew this. The light was still out, she kept reminding her that. Kept telling herself that no one would try to kidnap her in broad daylight.

But oh how wrong she was.

She should have known better. She grew up in Gotham. She should have known better.

----

Now

Three days had passed since everything happened. Bruce had refused to leave the hospital. He wondered if it was from guilt of not being there for her other times. Or if he was just filling in his obligation as a husband. Or maybe...maybe Dick was right and he was just doing all he could to preserve his image.

But none of that mattered. Bruce was staying until she woke up. Because she had to wake up. He had to show her that he still cared. That he still loved her. That he knows...he knows how much of a horrible person he has been to her for the past month.

He had to make sure she knew that he regretted it. Every word he said to her that night.

But every sign scared him. They had already had to resuscitate her since getting here. The tube was stuck down her throat, helping her to breathe. Nurses looking at him with pity, making him feel foolish for holding out hope that she would be okay. With every look that they gave him, there was a sort of emptiness and despair settling into his stomach.

Almost as if he agreed with them.

But he couldn't. He couldn't be agreeing with them. It wouldn't be useless holding out hope that she would be okay.

He ran his thumb over her palm, his eyes glancing up her arm and body until they landed on the raised skin on her collarbone. His hand that wasn't holding hers, come up to run over it. One of the many reminders of what happened 3 months ago.

----

3 Months Ago

Y/N woke up groggily. Her head was pounding and she felt like she had been dropped from a tall building. She blinked, trying to see something, anything, but as her eyes opened, she wished she could go back to seeing nothing.

She was sure that she was in the sewers. The damp and musky smell with the sound of water dripping down the old stone walls and floors around her made her all too aware of where she was. She tried swallowed any saliva, but her mouth was dry. Tears pricked her eyes from pain as she carefully pushed herself up.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she gingerly touched her stomach. Involuntarily, her own body flinched back from her touch. She felt her air catch in her throat as she felt nothing moving. In the past month or so, her baby had been moving all the time, leading her on to many sleepless nights.

Deep down, she knew. She knew that her baby was dead. And she knew that there was nothing to be done about it.

She jumped back as she heard the sound of shoes pounding against the damp stones. She tried to move away from the only place that someone could come from, but with her hands and legs being tied together, it was harder than expected. She slipped slightly, her side hitting the stone hard.

Three men, with honestly average builds, stalked into the area. She breathed raggedly as she watched them continue towards her. She tried to push away as one grabbed her arm and forcibly pulled her up, a yelp of surprise and pain left her mouth as she was pulled to her feet.

These three men were normal. They weren't some goons or some chemically induced maniacs. They were normal.

And maybe that scared her more.

One of the men, who she assumed was the leader, walked up to her, knife raised. Her eyes darted between him, his associates, and the knife. Any self-defense training that Bruce had taught her, flew out the window as she stood before these men.

"When the situation arises, you'll remember what to do."

That was what Bruce had always told her. But here she was. In the situation and nothing was showing up in her mind as what she was supposed to do.

She leaned back as the guy leaned in but the one with the grip on her arm moved one of his hands to hold her head and make her look at him. She shook as she felt the knife against her collarbone.

A small whimper of pain left her mouth as she felt the knife push deeper, deep enough that it would scar over, before she was pushed back to the ground. The one with the knife gave her a sadistic smile before hoarsely whispering, "We're going to make sure Bruce Wayne finds you dead."

She stared in near terror as she held her hand over where they had sliced and watched as they left just as quickly as they had came.

----

Now

Jason stood in a corner away from Y/N's body. Even with the tube gone, she still didn't wake up. Although she had made some developments...some in the past 8 days that she had been in here and everyone had convinced Bruce to go home and get some proper sleep. So now here Jason was, standing in a room where the woman he had allowed to become his mom was laying still.

But he stayed away from her body.

Something he didn't say often was just how scared he can get. He remembers each time he's been absolutely terrified. When Bruce, well Batman, caught him stealing the wheels to the Batmobile. When he was stuck in that warehouse and Bruce didn't make it in time. When he saw Y/N again for the first time since his "death" and he thought that she would hate him for what he had done. When she was taken. Those words he heard Bruce hurling at Y/N.

And right now.

Jason was keeping his composure, but inside, he was a trembling and terrified child. A kid who just needed to know his mom was going to be alright.

Inside, he knew exactly how Damian was feeling.

But as he stared at her body, his mind couldn't stop drifting, remembering what he had heard that night 4 weeks ago. All he could do was wonder what would have happened if maybe, just maybe, he had gotten angry at Bruce for what he heard.

----

4 Weeks Ago

It was nearly 2 AM when Jason was going to sneak out of the Manor. Technically, it was easy to do, well...it was once he got passed Bruce and Y/N's room. So, he was as silent as he could be as he passed by. But he stopped in his tracks as he heard the voices from behind the cracked door.

Now, Jason wouldn't say he was noisy. But don't all kids stop and listen whenever they hear their parents arguing?

But they weren't arguing. No. He had heard that before. This wasn't it. This was different.

And it scared him.

He stood by the door as Bruce's voice got louder: "--Well I'm sorry that I'm not here anymore Y/N! But can you fucking blame me?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Her voice was low, warning him to think before he spoke.

"You didn't pay attention and got taken. You and your inability to pay attention to your surroundings got our baby killed."

She sucked in a breath, "You think I don't blame myself already, Bruce? Do you think that I don't wonder what would have happened if I just hadn't gone out that day?"

"Please, this doesn't affect you. You're perfectly fucking fine."

"Because I have to be!" She nearly screamed, "One of us has to be a parent to everyone else in this home and we both know it won't be you!"

"They aren't even your kids, Y/N, why do you--"

A loud slap echoed and Jason's hand went over his mouth as he continued to listen.

"Those kids are mine. I am the one who helped raise them. I am the one who has made sacrifices for them! You haven't done shit for them, ever." She let out a choked back laugh, "All I did was ask for you to be here with me, to understand what I am feeling and going through. But of course, you don't understand anything."

"I understand that you killed our baby."

"No Bruce. Those men came after me to hurt you. You are the reason I was taken and lost our baby. But sure," Her voice started to break, "Go on. Blame me. I'm used to you doing that anyways.

----

Now

Jason breathed shakily as he grabbed his helmet and stormed out of the room. He knew Dick would be there soon with Damian anyways and he had to get out of there.

--------

Dick watched as Damian laid curled into Y/N's side. Bruce was, miraculously, still sleeping as he and Damian snuck out to the hospital. He didn't do it much for himself as he did it for Damian, he knew that the kid had a sort of...guilt that he could have done something.

Not that Dick could say anything against that. He felt guilty as well.

Y/N was his mom. He was the oldest son. He should have protected her, that was his job. Dick was the protector. He was always supposed to protect everyone. Y/N and even Bruce included. He already had been in this situation before. The immense guilt of failing to protect Y/N.

He remembers what he thought that first time he was here. Remembers the guilt of already failing to keep Alfred alive and not wanting to fail Y/N.

----

3 Months Ago

Dick ran through the sewers, trying to find Y/N. Two days had passed since she had gone missing. All of them had lost sleep trying to find her and now they were searching the sewers for where she could be. He felt like a failure, a bad kid, all because he didn't

He stopped in his tracks as he heard her labored breathing. He turned in the direction that he heard the breathing, his own getting caught in his throat when he saw her laying in the fetal position.

"Mom." He breathed out, rushing to kneel by her side. He gently grabbed her face and looked at her, tears pooling in his eyes. "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

He failed. Guilt filling with him. Guilt of failing Alfred and now her.

He was a failure and he knew that.

"You-you're not a--"

----

Now

"--A failure."

He stopped and looked at Y/N, his eyes wide. "Mom?"

Her head was turned to the side, a small look of gentle concern on her face. "You're not a failure Dick." She whispered through a hoarse voice, "You didn't fail anyone. Especially not me."

But he shook his head. He did. Not once. But twice. First being after she was taken and now this.

"Dick, stop that. The only person here that failed was me."

He got up and angrily wiped the tears from his eyes, "But I-I just...you never--"

Her hand shakily came up to touch his face, "I'm the one who failed sugar. I should've..."

She stopped, hand leaving his to rub her neck. Out of instinct of all the times waking up from injuries, he grabbed her the bottle of water he had grabbed earlier. Unscrewing the lid, he gently brought it to her lips and she quickly took a gulp of it.

After a moment, she gently held his wrist. "Dick, look at me and believe me when I tell you that it's not your fault. You did nothing wrong." Her grip tighten on his wrist for a moment, "You or your siblings." She glanced over at Damian, her arm wrapped around the kid who was now sleeping. "You all had nothing that you could do." She looked back at him, "Everything that happened, that I did, was nothing to do with you kids. It um...it--"

"Has to do with dad?"

She nodded silently before breathing shakily, "I know Jason heard what Bruce and I said. Ahd I um...I assume that--"

He stopped her, his head shaking. "He didn't tell us anything."

"Oh." She sucked in a breath, "Let's just say, both your father and I say things that we shouldn't have. Not saying they weren't truthful...that deep down we didn't mean each and every word that passed our lips...but you kids aren't to blame."

Dick swallowed hard, "Why did you do it mom?"

Her hand fell from his wrist and she looked away, out to the window. "You don't understand how I felt after everything--"

----

6 Weeks Ago

Y/N silently stared out the window. Her hands mindlessly moving up and down her now flatter stomach. She felt disgusting and like a failure. A failure as a wife and as a mother and...as a woman. She was hurting. Not physically, sure her entire body was in pain, but mentally, she was in much more pain.

Her head snapped as she heard the door open. She saw Bruce standing at the door, an almost uncomfortable look on his face. She shakily looked away, ashamed to even look at him.

She heard his almost scoff, "Y/N, come on. You need to talk about it."

She looked at him slightly before whispering with a strained voice, "So do you."

"Y/N, I didn't...nevermind." She looked away again as he walked further in, "Doctors said that you'll be able to leave soon. By the end of the week at most."

She nodded, "Alright." Her voice nearly numb and void of emotion. She turned her head to him, "You always gonna hate me now?"

Bruce sighed, "I don't...I don't hate you."

"Why not?" Her words started to lace with their own venom, "I lost our baby. Because I'm such a..."

He shook his head, "Don't finish that sentence. You are not a failure baby. It wasn't your fault. None of what happened was your fault. You weren't gonna know that someone was going to come after you.

----

Now

"Y/N?" She felt herself freeze when she heard the voice. She kept her eyes everywhere but at the door. She didn't want to see him. Not here. Not now. "Dick can you--"

"Mom doesn't want to see you."

"Dick you don't--"

"Dick it's okay." She whispered, looking at her oldest. "Take Damian down to the food court, force him to eat some junk."

"Mom--"

"Go." She whispered before he silently nodded and grabbed the younger boy, starting to carry him out of the room. She weakly gripped the blanket, "Why are you here?"

"Can I not visit my wife."

She shook her head, "I am not your wife, Bruce." She looked at him angrily, "You're the one who served the fucking papers."

"And I can't--"

"Bruce, you told me that the only reason you were letting me stay in the manor was for the kids. Was so that Damian didn't have to losing another person." She breathed angrily, "You stopped loving me, not the other way around. You're only here to keep up appearances that you are a loving and devoted husband." She leaned forward in his direction, "But I know exactly what you are."

"And what's that?" He challenged.

"A selfish coward who only cares for himself and his image."

He shook his head, "I'm sorry that I made you think so lowly of me."

Tears burned her eyes, "Get out."

"Y/N--"

"Get out, Bruce. Now."

He stood and started for the door, momentarily stopping to look at her. "I still love you, I know what I did and what I said shows otherwise, but all I ask for is one more chance and I'll prove it to you."

Her lip quivered for a moment before she whispered out, "Tell the nurses I woke up."

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