#and not only that but before meeting the other survivors she was his only light in this fucked up bullshit and she probably knew that
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Let it not be forgotten how much I love Abby. She is the character of all time. 2 me. It's me and my needlessly in depth Abby hcs against the world
#rat rambles#wendy may be my favorite by a significant amount but I still spin around abby in my head at lightning speeds constantly#she is so. *explodes*#idk its just like. shes dealing with the weight of all of wendy's problems while also being one og the causes of said problem and thats#because she in fact did literally die only to presumably have to watch her twin grieve and be the reason that he got stuck in an endless#death cycle and despite her best efforts he does die over and over again and theres nothing she can do to truly save him#and not only that but before meeting the other survivors she was his only light in this fucked up bullshit and she probably knew that#and goddddd theres just so much to unpack there do you see the potential do you see why she makes me wanna bite someone#abby is a fully fledged character with complexities and issues to Me ok#yes shes a goofy kid still yes shes a silly lil guy but also shes a traumatized lil guy who is in a deeply fucked up situation#I just like the idea of contrasting abby and wendy's ways of coping with all of this#especially with how much wendy almost worships abby and their bond after getting contant'd#it just. sounds like a lot of pressure for anyone to deal with let alone a child#and who the hell is she gonna talk abt this stuff to most of the time she cant just get wendy to ask someone to die for a sec#also man being shown again and again that she has like no chance of being alive again is pretty messed up huh#she surely cant be the strong one forever. cracks her like an egg#both in a mental illness™ way and also in a trans way#anyways eepy time gn
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Can you do a fic where the reader and her best friend gets into a car accident and the best friend dies and matt conforts her at the hospital or smt🫡 I love your ficcs!
you got me - m.s
tw: mentions of car accident, death, survivors guilt. let me know if i missed any.
a/n: i wasn’t gonna post this cause i planned on deleting this account but i figured why not 🤷🏾♀️
you laid in the hospital bed, unmoving as you stared at the ceiling above you.
the lights were headache inducing but you couldn’t bring yourself to look away.
your body ached but you couldn’t help but think your heart hurt more.
she was gone.
dead.
all because some idiot couldn’t stop himself from driving while intoxicated.
all because some idiot didn’t think of the lives he’d be risking if he got on the road with even a hint of alcohol in his system.
and the worst thing? he was alive.
alive and well. or, as well as someone with a broken arm and leg could be.
you could hear him screaming just a few rooms over. pleading that they didn’t arrest him, swearing on his life that he didn’t mean any harm.
whether he meant it or not, harm was made.
and your best friend was dead.
you guessed the only good thing is that you felt like you were dying too.
it sucked to think that way, you knew that.
but you didn’t know how you’d get through life without her. she was everything to you. you almost never left each other’s sides if you could help it.
and now you couldn’t.
it wasn’t like you didn’t have people there for you to help you get through this, you did.
in fact, one of them was sat in a chair next to you, eyes closed, hand gripping yours as soft snore’s escaped his lips.
you knew he wouldn’t be asleep right now if he knew you were awake.
nick and chris were in the cafeteria in search for something to fill your stomach. they knew you wouldn’t eat anything but they also knew you needed a bit of silence to let your thoughts consume you for a minute.
now you wished they hadn’t.
you sniffled as you remember your shrill screams as you begged the ambulance to help her. begged them to care for her before they even attempted to pull you out of the vehicle.
unfortunately, despite how quiet it was, your sniffles had the person next to you moving around.
it was only a few seconds before he opened his eyes, hand squeezing yours to reassure himself that you were still there before he finally looked up at your tear stained face.
“oh, baby.”
matt quickly sat up, careful not to move too much in fear that he would hurt you in some way.
you shut your eyes in hopes that the tears would stop but to no avail.
“i miss her so much, matt.”
“i know. i know you do, baby. i’m so sorry.” he had moved so he was sat on the edge of the bed, hand tightly gripping yours as it seemed to be the only part of your body that wasn’t bruised up.
“i’m so sorry.”
you lifted your free hand to wipe your tears, unintentionally being a little rough with your movements.
matt’s heart clench as he watched the love of his life break down.
selfishly, he was glad it wasn’t you that died in the accident. he didn’t know if he could live with himself knowing you didn’t survive.
his warm hand came up to wipe your tears for you, being a lot more gentle than you were.
“i’m here for you, okay? and i know that isn’t the same as y/bsf/n being there, and i don’t want to try and replace her cause god knows i can’t…”
he noticed a small smile slip before it quickly fell.
“but i am here, okay? you got me. you’ve got nick and chris too. i’m never leaving you.”
your teary eyes met his, “can i have a hug?”
his face fell, “yn, you’re hurt—“
“please, matt.”
it didn’t take much convincing as he slowly lowered himself into your arms, his lips meeting the crown of your head, a soft whispered filling the room,
“god, i love you so much.”
#sturniolo triplets#matt sturniolo imagine#matt sturniolo x reader#nick sturniolo#matt sturniolo fluff#chris sturniolo#matt sturniolo
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— ★ BLOODSHED // SHINAZUGAWA SANEMI
content & warnings: fem!reader, canon-verse, canon typical violence (blood, vomit, death, reader has suicidal thoughts due to survivor’s guilt), conflict (sanemi insults reader a bit but hey) smut (unprotected sex, missionary) mdni
author’s note: saw the demon slayer movie n had thoughts 🫠
word count: 1.6k
Too late.
That was the only words that echoed in Sanemi's mind.
He told you to stay behind the bushes whilst he investigated the scene. Your nose wrinkled at the acrid stench of flesh.
Sanemi was not a childhood friend. He was a familiar face to you when you were both children but he was nowhere near a friend.
The tragedy that struck his family in your village was whispered among the residents. But never fully discussed under Sanemi's blood-curdling glare.
He eventually left to join the Demon Slayer Corps. His younger brother followed in his footsteps.
Fast forward to the present, you were caught amidst the pattern of young women disappearing. Sanemi and Iguro had swooped in to rescue you.
The Wind Hashira and Serpent Hashira bickered amongst themselves as you were thrown across Sanemi's shoulder against your will before they parted ways.
In Sanemi's book, he would've dropped you home with no further explanation. His duty was done.
But as he made his way into the heart of the village, boots slick with blood, and the coppery tang of it mingling with the earthy scent of churned soil wafted to his nose, he realized it wasn't going to be as simple as he wanted it to be.
Corpses were strewn across the ground like discarded puppets, their lifeless forms contorted in unnatural poses. Weapons littered on the ground. It was beyond unnerving.
His eyebrows furrowed. He told you to stay put, and he turned to see you crawling across the ground.
"Are they all dead?" You mustered out. The air was heavy with an eerie silence.
"...Yeah." Sanemi responded voice devoid of emotion, not able to meet your eye.
Your hands covered your mouth as you felt bile scratch your throat. Scrambling away, you felt your chest heave and you threw up with all your might.
The image of children crying and screaming as they cowered with their parents as the demons slaughtered them was too much.
A once bustling marketplace was now reduced to a graveyard, the stalls overturned and splattered with crimson. Laughter and conversation replaced with screams of terror.
That was the last thing you remembered before you felt faint and were submerged in darkness.
Your eyes blearily wrenched open. The atmosphere was different. From the destruction and hollowness of your home, there was warm light that shed through the paper screens and a fragrant aroma mixed with the scent of herbs.
Struggling to sit up, you felt a wrinkled hand press you back down onto the futon. You turned your head to face the kind face.
"Where am I?"
She didn't respond. Rather, she stood up, bowed and exited the room. Leaving you bewildered.
Your clothes had been changed and your feet were no longer scraped and bloody like they were when Sanemi rescued you from the demon's clutches.
Pushing off the covers, you could feel a presence. Your eyes focused on the shoji screen door, and sure enough, Sanemi was sitting cross-legged on the engawa.
He didn't bother to look at you.
"You haven't changed." You said.
He's still brash. Rude. But to you, maybe not to others it's just a defence mechanism. To push people away.
He didn't respond.
"Do you regret...saving me?" You finally questioned.
Sanemi felt his heart race. He was crushed with the guilt of all those villagers dying.
"No." He said bluntly.
"I wish you didn't." You spat and headed back indoors leaving him completely dumbstruck.
Sanemi felt rage boil within him. The vein in his temple throbbed as he saw red.
Within an instant, he shot up to yank the door open as he glared at you, breathing heavily.
"You UNGRATEFUL WENCH!" He bellowed.
You sat up from the futon, eyes widening.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!" You screeched, livid at his audacity.
"You heard me, loud and clear!" He spat. "After what I did for you?!"
"WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO LIVE IF IT WAS AT THE COST OF AN ENTIRE VILLAGE...?!" You shrieked, a lump forming in your throat.
The words stung him. All the guilt of the massacred village comes crashing down on him.
"YOU STILL LIVE." He seethed. "YOU TAKE THAT CHANCE I GAVE YOU, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
"What the HELL is left for me?! YOU SAW IT! IT WAS A GRAVEYARD!" You sobbed, tears spilling down your cheeks.
He turned away. His face was beet red, balling up his fists as he shook with a silent rage.
"But you are ALIVE, aren't you?!"
"What use is there being alive...?" You said defeatedly, not wanting to scream anymore as your body began to wrack with sobs. "Just do me a favor, and end my life."
"Don't ask me to do stupid crap like that, you hear me?" Sanemi hissed as he glared at you. "My blade is for those demonic bastards. Not airhead humans."
"I have no reason to live."
"I said, don't talk like that." He said sternly as he grabbed you by the chin and forced you to look up at him.
He practically was lying on you whilst you were sitting on the futon.
The two of you had emotions brewing. Unexplainable. And as terrifying as Sanemi could be, there was a magnetic pull between the two of you.
And it appeared he shared the same sentiment, as he instantly captured your lips for a hungry kiss.
First, your body froze. But when you registered this was something you wanted, with the way heat pooled deep in your gut, you returned the kiss.
Sanemi planted his large and calloused hand onto the back of your neck. He groaned into the kiss as your tongue ventured inside the recess of his mouth, caressing his own.
Hands grasping and shedding clothes off. Ripping, forcing and tugging at the fabric that seemed to be confining the both of you.
Your palms grazed and slid against the taut, firm muscle that was etched with countless scars. His fingers digging and kneading your soft and supple skin, the outlines of your curves and dips.
Pulling away from the heated kiss, gasping for air to latch onto the juncture of your neck and shoulder.
Closer, closer, he needs to feel you. Your limbs intertwine, Sanemi's digits gripping into the plump flesh of your rear to haul you onto his lap.
Your eyes flutter shut, it's almost heavenly the way his sharp canines sink into your throat, how he alternates between gliding his tongue and grazing the jagged edges.
He wants to devour you whole. And you'd let him over and over again. You want him, you'd let him tear you apart.
The way he growls gutturally as his achingly hard cock merely brushes against your soaked slit.
He pushed you back and began to palm at your breasts, kneading them as he met your lips again, lapping into your mouth.
"Fucking beautiful, y'know that?" He grunts between the sloppy kisses.
"You're okay.." You tease with a smile as your hands skim across his sides.
"I'm better than okay." He chuckles. You wince as he gripped and squeezed your flesh, marking you up.
He finally pulled away, his hands pinning your wrists down. His tongue dragged over his lower lip as his cock throbbed, the way you were spread out for him.
The steady forming red marks littered across your skin, the bite marks, your skin sheen with sweat, the goosebumps all across your arms and the way your lips had swollen.
"Tell me what you want." He rasped out, a predatory glint in his eye. He never thought sex could elicit the same high he got from massacring demons.
"I want you inside me..." You responded meekly.
“Anything for you.”
Sanemi let out a stutter as he slowly pushed himself inside, entering you was true bliss. The way your velvet walls accommodated him.
You mewled at how he stretched you out, your back instantly arching. He met your lips furiously, eyebrows furrowing.
"Want this whole place to hear you scream my name." He mumbled, sweat trickling down his forehead.
Sanemi nuzzled his face into your neck, inhaling your scent deeply as he began to thrust. You were a babbling mess as he buried himself in you to the hilt.
You whined as his nails dug into your hips.
"...Nemi." You mustered out pathetically, the saliva from your kissing dribbling down your chin.
"Need to...cum inside of you, make you mine." He grunted as he pounded into you relentlessly, grunting and snarling as he felt your slick walls clench around his cock.
The room was filled with the heady scent of sex and sweat as he drove you toward the brink of ecstasy.
"S'close, Sanemi..." You breathed out, his thumb dragging against your plump lower lip with a cocky smile.
"Let's cum together, okay...?" He whispered near your ear, uncharacteristically gentle.
You nodded and soon enough, your bodies were in sync, a cacophony of breaths coming in short gasps, moans of pleasure and skin slapping.
Sanemi felt himself getting closer and closer to the edge, feeling you grasp around him.
He kept his focus firmly on you, reaching to circle your clit, adding stimulation to push you over the edge.
Your walls pulsated wildly as he slammed into you, his seed spilling deep inside of you in hot spurts.
He instantly collapsed on top of you, panting heavily. It took a moment for him to finally peel himself off of you.
Your eyes raked over his face, your hand cradled the side of his face and he leaned into your touch.
Sanemi barely smiles. If he smiles, it's the thrill-seeking, adrenaline one he gets at the prospect of slashing demons down.
But as your thumb stroked his cheek, you were the only one to see Sanemi Shinazugawa beam at you with tenderness and warmth.
author’s note: if u reached this far tysm!! reblogs n interactions always appreciated hehe yeah btw i got a headache so sorry for any spelling or grammatical mistakes lawl
#kny x reader#demon slayer x reader#kny smut#demon slayer smut#sanemi shinazugawa x reader#sanemi shinazugawa smut#sanemi smut#demon slayer x you#demon slayer x y/n#kny x you#kny x y/n#shinazugawa sanemi#⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ nara scribbles
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Faint
*Requested from this ask :)*
Era: Farm
Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader
Pronouns: None-Specified
Word Count: 2.5k
Warnings: mild language, brief descriptions of fainting and dehydration, fluff!!
Summary: After pushing yourself a little too hard in the hot Georgia sun, you find yourself losing consciousness. Luckily, Daryl’s right there to help you out.
It was hot—probably one of the hottest days since the apocalypse started. The blaring sun was not holding back, as there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to block the assaulting rays from your skin for even a few seconds. The Georgia humidity also wasn’t helping; it made the air you breathed feel denser and like there wasn’t much oxygen to inhale. Sweat collected across your hairline, around your neck, and dripped down your spine. The clothes you were wearing stuck to your body like another layer of skin, and you were sure there were patches of sweat staining your shirt. Before the outbreak happened, you would have been embarrassed by it, but there were more important things to be worried about nowadays instead of people seeing you sweat.
With most of the group out of commission or being assigned to do something else, it was only you and Daryl looking for Sophia today. Daryl was heading towards the creek, seeing what he could find at the only landmark the little girl had to go by, while you searched in the opposite direction; just in case she had wandered out further than anticipated.
The water in your canteen had run out hours ago. You knew you should have gone back to the farm to refill from one of the wells, but finding Sophia was more important than relieving your dry throat. You hadn’t realized just how draining the sun was on your body until you noticed that your once stealthy footsteps had turned heavy and noisy. That should have been your other sign to go back to the farm, but you still pushed on. When your vision began to go out of focus not even twenty minutes later, you knew you were treading dangerously on succumbing to heat stroke. As much as you wanted to keep looking for Sophia, up until the hot sun began to set over the horizon, you knew you wouldn’t be very useful if you were delirious and or unconscious.
As the blue sky began to tint with light shades of oranges and pinks, Daryl had assumed you had already made it back to the farm when he reentered the property. The hunter was perceptive; keeping to himself most days and observing the people around him. He instantly felt the lack of your presence around camp when he returned from his search. Maybe it was because you were the only person within the small group of survivors that he was immediately drawn to when he and his brother first showed up to the camp at the Quarry. You had always been genuinely nice to him, and didn’t treat him like the outsider he felt and knew that he was. So your absence was significant to him.
With Sophia still missing, and presumably lost in the vast forest that surrounded the immediate area, Daryl couldn’t help but fear that you were now lost too. Of course he hoped you were only taking so long to return because you had found Sophia, or at least found a warm trail of her, but his anxiety was getting the best of him. He couldn’t take that chance; having another person lost on his account. The archer didn’t hesitate to go back out there, find your tracks, and make sure that you were okay.
Just as he was beginning to cross the field of overgrown grass and weeds, Daryl was met with the welcomed sight of you emerging from the tree line of the woods. He didn’t know if he was projecting his fears with Sophia on you, or if it was something else, but he was relieved to see you back in one piece with his own eyes. Daryl hadn’t broken stride, planning to meet you halfway and converse about any evidence you may have found during your search. The closer he got, the clearer your weary body language and sweat sheened face became.
“Y/N?” Daryl called out to you, cupping a hand next to his mouth in an attempt to magnify the sound of his voice. When the only response he got from you was witnessing your body drop to the ground, his once relaxed strides quickly turned into a full on run.
Internal alarms that Daryl didn’t know he possessed began to go off, causing his heart to race and his breathing to become labored. Daryl kept calling out to you as he made his way over to you, hoping that your face would miraculously pop up from the overgrown foliage and reassure him that you were fine and had just tripped over an upturned pile of dirt. When that didn’t happen, curse words rooted from fear flew out his mouth.
Daryl had no idea what to do when he finally reached you. Kneeling down beside you, his hands hovered around the frame of your face and sides of your head. He was worried that his touch, no matter how gentle he tried to be, would somehow hurt you. .
“Hey-hey.” The archer’s voice was soft, but still held that distinctive gravely undertone as he watched your facial expressions begin to stir. Daryl’s breath quickened and his ears had a deafening ring in them due to the adrenaline rushing through his veins.
The second you opened your eyes, just a crack, you instantly squeezed them shut again. A distressed groan sounded from under your breath as the near blinding brightness and nauseating dizziness stung your sensitive eyes. If it weren’t for Daryl’s voice sounding so close, yet so distant, you probably would have panicked at how disoriented you felt.
“Easy now…” Daryl trailed off cautiously as you began to sit up. His hands hovered around your frame, spotting you in case you fell down again.
“Don’t…don’t take me to Hershel.” You informed the archer as you blinked your vision back into focus. Your muscles still felt heavy and weak, and you were sure you’d fall over again soon as it was becoming difficult to keep yourself upright.
“Just—help me to some shade.”
Daryl was hesitant about following your wishes, as he thought you should be seen by someone who had a medical background. You noticed his hesitation, and shot him a heated warning look with whatever energy you had left to spare. With a shake of his head and a light scoff escaping past his lips, Daryl helped you to your feet and led you over to the closest tree; which was one of the many peach trees residing around the Greene’s farm.
“Water…please.” Your voice was breathy and weak as you slumped back against the sturdy tree trunk. If your body wasn’t so exerted of energy, you would have found the rigged wood that dug into your back uncomfortable.
“Right—water.” Daryl patted his body, searching for the canteen he often carried on his person. When one of his hands bumped into the container, the archer clumsily removed the strap from off his shoulder and practically shoved the canteen in your face due to his hasted mindset.
A thank you barely made it out of your mouth before you eagerly drank the refreshing water. You knew you would need more than a half-full canteen worth of water to hydrate your body again, but just the mere feel of the cool liquid filing your dry mouth and going down your scratchy throat was replenishing enough.
“You seem awfully calm for someone who just passed out.” The archer’s distinctive southern drawl seemed even more prominent when he spoke. Carefully, Daryl sat down beside you under the tree that was providing your hot skin with cooling shade.
For a moment, you could only shrug your shoulders dismissively in response as you let your head fall back against the tree trunk. The golden hue of the sunset caused the overgrown grassland in front of you to seem like it was glowing. It was a peaceful view, and you couldn’t help but allow its peace to calm you for a few moments.
“If I wasn’t aware of why I fainted, I definitely wouldn’t be this level-headed.” Your voice was slow, but composed and lucid. It made Daryl’s looming anxiety settle and his protective guard to slightly drop. “I ran out of water hours ago…I just wanted to keep looking for Sophia.”
For a fleeting second, Daryl felt a surge of warmth spread over the expanse of his chest. You didn’t have to explain yourself further; he understood where you were coming from completely and was perplexedly endeared that you were just as committed to finding Sophia as he was. Carefully, Daryl glanced over at you, and felt an electric shock shoot up his spine when he saw your tired eyes and half smile aimed at him. The brightness radiating off of your face practically blinded him, and he had to avert his gaze so he wouldn’t risk having you see the dust of pink he was sure was beginning to cover his cheeks.
Clearing his throat, Daryl only hummed vaguely in response before standing up and brush his hands over his pants to remove some of the dirt that stuck to the worn denim. Squinting through the setting sunlight, the archer took a few steps back and examined the peaches that hung from the branches. Since the peaches hung a few feet too high for Daryl to reach, he knew he'd have to poke the branch until the stem of the fruit broke free from the branch.
“I’d watch your head if I were you.” Daryl warned while raising his crossbow and nudging the branch.
Placing both arms over your head, you subconsciously winced as you anticipated the feeling of raining fruit falling on you at any moment. The last thing you needed was a head injury on top of your mild heat stroke.
“You didn’t have to do that.” You expressed endearingly as a weak smile uplifted the corners of your mouth. The archer just shrugged indifferently.
“Ya gotta eat somethin’... these things got lots of vitamins and minerals or whatever and that’ll help ya feel better.” Daryl explained while gesturing to the few peaches that were now cradled in his arms.
As Daryl kneeled down beside you again and offered you the ripest peach in the bunch, he felt his heart skip a beat when his gaze caught your genuine smile. After making sure to thank the archer once again, you quickly brushed your fingers against the peach to remove any lingering dirt and bit into the sweet and juicy fruit. A comfortable silence fell over you and Daryl as you both enjoyed the delectable snack.
Daryl wasn’t the type of person who normally pried into other people’s business. His rule of thumb was that if something wanted to be said or talked about, it would be eventually at the person's own discretion. This time, however, your health was more important than his comfortability and he was curious as to why you didn’t want to be checked on and cared for with medicine.
“Is there uh—a reason why ya don wanna see Hershel? He could help ya feel better faster.” Daryl threw the near bare peach pit a few feet in front of him, and watched the pit become hidden within the overgrown foliage of the farmland.
“Oh…I just don’t want to be more of a burden, you know?”
You too had finished your peach, and threw the pit in the same direction Daryl had. Your’s didn’t land as far as Daryl’s did, and you were going to blame your dehydrated body for your lack of strength instead of your lack of muscles. Wiping your hands of the sticky peach juice on your jeans, you brought the canteen to your lips and drank the remaining liquid. Although your eyes remained on the field in front of you, you could see Daryl’s attention turn to you from the corner of your eye, and feel his curious gaze flit over the side of your face.
“Should take the medical care while we still got it.” Daryl reasserted while resting his arm on top of his bent knee.
“I want us all to stay here longer…and if asking for help diminishes that chance, then I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
Daryl couldn’t help but admire your selflessness. He wasn’t sure how many other people in the broken group of survivors would also make that kind of stance. To visually show that he was done pushing his own concern onto you, the archer raised his hands in faux surrender. You couldn’t help but chuckle at the small glimpse of charisma from the usually guarded man.
After a few beats of silence had passed, you found yourself chuckling quietly again and rubbing a distressed hand over your face. “Maybe eating those peaches without asking already ruined our chance.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.” Daryl compromised with a suggestively raised eyebrow. You couldn’t help but belly laugh with as much strength you could muster while lightly nudging the archer’s arm with your elbow. Daryl couldn’t help but find your laugh contagious and quietly chuckle along.
“Can I get ya some more water?” Daryl asked once the laughter had settled between you two. With his hand, he motioned towards the empty canteen sitting in between your legs.
“That would be great, actually. Thanks.”
“Might be more comfortable restin’ in your tent, too.” Daryl suggested lightly as he stood up from the ground. In an attempt to seem less pestering, he shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“Probably…but I think if I even try to stand up right now, I’d go cross eyed and pass out again.” Despite how serious you were, there was a teasing lilt in your voice to delude the concern.
Your lightheartedness didn’t seem to have any affect on Daryl, as he stared down at you with a wary look in his eyes. “Right…” Daryl’s drawl was heavy when he spoke, and he shifted uneasily on his feet as those panic-induced alarms began to go off again.
“I’m fine, seriously. I just need to drink a shit ton of water...and maybe eat another peach” You reassured him encouragingly while handing the canteen to Daryl. The archer just hummed, unconvinced, and snatched the container from you.
“Don’t pass out while I’m gone…I’ll be pissed if ya do.” Daryl warned while pointing an accusing finger at you.
“Aren’t you always?” One of your eyebrows rose in speculation as a sly smile formed on your lips.
Daryl scoffed and took a few steps away from you. He could feel heat begin to flush the apples of his cheeks and the tips of his ears as he blurted out his rather flirtatious thoughts without thinking.
“Nah—not around you…you’re just different I guess.”
Instead of the blaring sun and borderline heatstroke heating up your face, it was Daryl’s alluring comment. All you could do was shake your head dismissively and try (but fail miserably) to conceal the flustered smile that contorted the shape of your lips. A lopsided smile formed on Daryl’s lips as he slowly retreated from you; all the while rubbing the back of his neck bashfully.
As you watched Daryl jog across the field to the nearest watering well, a wave of invigorating energy coursed through you. You thought only shade and replenishing water could cure your drained and dehydrated body, but it turns out a rugged archer whose strong facade was slowly crumbling to reveal the man he truly was, was just as healing.
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A/N: I just started my twd rewatch, and just had to write something with early season Daryl! Also, I’m so sorry this is out a little later than anticipated! Thank you to the anon who requested this, and I hope you all enjoyed reading! <3
#daryl dixon#daryl dixon x reader#daryl dixon fanfiction#daryl dixon x you#daryl dixon x y/n#the walking dead#twd#the walking dead fanfiction#twd fanfiction
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✨ Cruel Summer ✨
pairing: Solo Sikoa x reader, Jey Uso x reader (briefly)
AN: Literally making this for myself, so if I do ever end up publishing - enjoy I guess? 🤪
w/c: 1198
⚠️ Warnings: 18+ , swearing, violence (this is the WWE after all) slight smut, infidelity(if you squint), jealous Jey, toxic behaviour, bad/embarrassing writing ⚠️
doesn’t follow a specific timeline however it is more recent, total divas making a return.
✨ I love you ain’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard - he looks up grinning like the devil ✨
• ❃°•°❀°•°❃•❃°•°❀°•°❃•❃°•°❀°•°❃•❃°•��❀°•°❃•
“I dunno Trin, the thought of being recorded for 12 hours of the day, like, I enjoy my privacy”.
“Think about it as an opportunity, having the fans see a different side of you. Showing them how hard you work your ass off.”
Trinity is my best friend, she helped me out so much when I joined the WWE 6 years ago. She and her husband Jon took me into their family and helped me adapt into the crazy world of being a WWE superstar.
“Just think about it is all I’m saying. It’ll be fun” trin says nudging me.
Ever since I moved here, we have had a weekly tradition of Wednesday Girls Night, its just snacks, Chinese takeout, and movies, it’s just time for us to catch up and wind down from the gruelling travel schedule.
Right on queue at exactly 11:30pm Jon walks in the door.
“Times up ladies” he says, which is swiftly followed by two pillows being thrown at his head.
“Come on uce, you know better than to interrupt gIrLs NiGhT”
The couch beside me dipped and once again I felt the heat from the body of Josh Fatu, my one weakness. His hand falls to his side and creeps closer to me caressing the side of my bare thigh. You see what people don’t know is Josh and I have an ‘agreement’ - no feelings, just sex and friendship, and it was going great until it wasn’t, feeling were caught, specifically by me and I’m stuck between a rock and hard place as I’m falling hard for him, but I cant let this agreement end because I would rather have him this way than not have him at all.
“Spoke with Joe today, Hunter is bringing him up to the main roster, can’t wait to have my other younger brother fighting by my side”. A third pillow is thrown at Jon from the direction of Josh.
“We are twins, and you are only older by 8 minutes”.
Never a dull moment where the Fatu boys are concerned.
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First day of filming (TD Interview Segment)
Okay, so lets start with a basic intro okay? Ready, go!
The room falls silent the light shines bright on me, I have at least 6 pair of eyes on me, goading me into starting. Gosh why did I sign up to do this!!!
Hi there, my names yn, I am currently on the Smackdown roster and I am the current WWE Women’s Champion.
I’ve been with the WWE for 6 years now and I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for my adoptive sister Trinity, she took me under her wing and I’ve been there ever since. As you guys know – and if you didn't know, the accent should be a huge giveaway, I’m originally from the United Kingdom, I came to the states with a dream in hand and no one there to help me through this bumpy ride. I can never repay her or Jon for the way they have accepted and welcomed me into their little dynamic. Although, travelling the world with Jon and Josh is hard work, they boys are chaotic, I don't know how Trin managed to do it herself for so long!
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Friday Night Smackdown, Atlanta Georgia, 8 weeks before Survivor Series
Walking into the arena for Smackdown I get a message from Hunter asking to meet him in his office. A mixture of anxiety and curiosity fill in the pit of my stomach. In his office I’m met with the familiar faces of Jon, Josh, and Joseph, smiling I look over to Hunter who invites me to sit.
“I got your message, what’s up?
“We have been toying with the idea of a cross brand rivalry - for Survivor Series. Now that Joe has come up to the main roster, we think the Usos and Solo v The Judgement Day would pique interest from the WWE universe.”
“So why am I here?”
“Demi is the Women’s World Champion and part of Judgment Day; it would only seem right that she faces the Women’s Champion”.
Without hesitation I accept. Hunter debriefs us on how it’s going to play out over the next few weeks. We will have to be on both RAW and Smackdown over the next few weeks, so looks like it will be me and the brothers travelling together since Trin is exclusive to Smackdown!
Gorilla, few hours later (TD segment)
Tonight, I have a singles match, however Demi has to interfere and cost me the match – thus starting our road to Survivor Series.
I see Hunter in his usual place over at the screens with his headset on talking to Randy Orton, Randy spots me and immediately comes over to me.
“There’s my favourite girl.”
“I wouldn’t let your wife hear you say that Randy”.
Randy Orton, he is exactly how you would imagine him to be, a cocky little shit, flirtatious as hell, a menace but he has a heart of gold. Many nights we would hit the gym together and training with him before his injury really improved my in-ring ability. He is another one I would call my family away from family.
A familiar scent fills my nostrils, Josh. He stands next to me wrapping his arm around me pulling me closer, as if to stake his claim in me.
“I’ve been looking for you, come on let’s go”.
I smile apologetically at Randy, he just waves me off laughing, as much as I say people don’t know anything about me and Josh, it’s not to say there isn’t rumours flying around, people have their own take on it, and that’s okay, we just laugh it off.
Trin and Jon (TD Interview segment)
“You see yn and josh think they are so slick hiding their little late-night rendezvous” says Jon
Trin sighing, “I just wish they would bang their heads together and realise they are meant to be. Think of the double dates we could finally have Jon.”
Jon’s laugh fills the small interview room, “yeah it would be sweet, and yn is already like family, it would be an easy transition.”
Away from the cameras
“What were you talking to Randy about?” Josh quizzes
“Nothing, you came in and ushered me away before I could say anything.”
“Good, I don’t like it when you get attention from other guys, just me, okay?”
“I think you’ll find Josh that I can speak to who I like”. I say frustrated with his behaviour.
You see as much as I love Josh, this, this right here the way he wants to have his cake and eat it too drives me insane. I so much as look at another guy and he is right there to remind me I’m his, yet he can look at and speak to as many girls and I can’t say shit.
“I’ve got a match to get to, I’ll see you later J.”
“Goodluck out there baby girl, not that you need it.” Before he can come any closer to me, I slip out the room and let my frustrated sigh out. How much longer am I going to keep torturing myself.
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#solo sikoa smut#solo sikoa#solo sikoa x reader#solo silos x yn#solo sikoa x you#jey uso x reader#jey uso#wwe fanfiction#wwe#fan fiction#jey uso smut#wweedit#the usos#total divas#solo sikoa fan fiction#jey uso fan fiction#Fatu#josh Fatu#Joseph Fatu#wwe x reader
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You know what I need? I need the Marvel time-travel trope, but everyone goes back to the 40s.
(I say everyone, I mean the Avengers pre-Infinity War.)
Because everyone says Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are men out of time (and they’re not technically wrong). But I want to see the Avengers (sans Steve and Bucky) getting sent back in time by some wizard or a freak Asgardian lightning storm or something, and poof, they’re back in the 40s, right smack in the middle of the war.
I want the Avengers to witness what life was like during the war, hiding in bomb shelters and seeing the after effects of the world crawling out of the Great Depression and hurtling into the second World War in twenty years.
Life when Steve really was the weirdest thing science ever created. When he was desperately needed and internationally adored. Because all of the Avengers have PTSD, but Steve and Bucky went through World War II and got spit back out into the 20th and 21st centuries, and that’s a whole different category of PTSD and trauma.
I want the Avengers to actually meet the survivors of Azzano, when Steve marched into the massive Nazi base and saved hundreds of soldiers, part because he could and part because he was desperate to save his best friend, and didn’t think twice about it.
I want the Avengers to see Steve and Bucky thrive. I want them to witness Steve and Bucky with the Howling Commandos. Steve’s first team. I want them to see how Steve and Bucky lived, what life was like, because it was drastically different than the modern world.
I want the Avengers to witness firsthand life on a military base. I want Tony to have to look his father in the eye and pretend he doesn’t know who he is, but get to see all the good his father did because all he remembers is his father being an asshole. How much Steve really did care about Howard (and that Bucky did, too, because Howard made weapons to keep Steve safe).
I want Natasha to see that just because she’s an assassin doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, because there were hundreds of military assassins and spies during the war that did bad things to get information.
I want them to hear about the Tesseract and learn that sometimes Steve’s intelligence should be taken seriously, because he has experience and knowledge that none of the other Avengers will ever have. (“You should have left it in the water.” “This is the guy my dad never shut up about?”)
I want them to see how much Steve loved Peggy, how she and Bucky were the only ones who saw him for who he really was, and realize how awful it must have been for him to come back and work for the organization she created after his death and have to live without her.
I want them to hide and watch as Past Steve screams as Past Bucky falls from the train. I want them to see Past Steve realize he can’t get drunk, and the only way he can cope is to kill the Red Skull and end HYDRA. To avenge his friend. I want them to realize that not only did Past Steve crash the plane for nothing, but that Steve knows, has to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life.
I want them to listen with Peggy as Past Steve realizes he’s going to have to crash the plane. I want them to hear the slight tremble in Past Steve’s voice as he talks about dancing with Peggy, believing he’ll never get the chance, and that he’s going to die alone in the freezing cold ocean. I want them to not get the change to promise him that he’ll survive. I want them to hear the sudden static that cuts off Past Steve’s voice, and the heavy silence that comes after it.
I want them to see the world mourn for Captain America, who died just months before the war ended.
And then I want them to come back to the 21st century and see. I want them to see the way Steve’s eyes linger on pictures of Peggy and Howard, see the rows of records from the 30s and 40s in a whole new light, see rows of 30s-style clothes in his closet that he hardly ever wears because a lot of people will make jabs about it, see the way he always keeps Bucky in his sight, hugs him just a little bit tighter than he hugs everyone else.
I want them to see the bags under his and Bucky’s eyes when they have nightmares. I want Sam to quietly show them Steve’s list, and see that every line on every page is filled because he missed so much. I want them to find two more little books filled up just as much. I want them to realize how lost Steve still is despite how much he’s adapted.
I want them to see the subtle military training still ingrained in Steve’s bones, because any and every war was horrible, but World War II was something else entirely, and so was desperation that existed within the soldiers and the people. I want them to see Steve’s recklessness of jumping out of planes without a parachute, the way his eyes always scan the area when he enters a room, watching ever little detail and listening for any sound that might indicate danger. How he is always, always, on alert, even when he seems relaxed.
I want them to understand why Steve was so against the Sokovia Accords. It wasn’t because he wanted the power to do what he thought was best; it was because he was afraid of the consequences of having too many restrictions. Because even with international laws and the damn Geneva Convention, the Nazis still destroyed half the world, and decades later Nazi HYDRA was still carrying out their mission that Steve sacrificed his life for. Steve was a human experiment. The Serum was a biochemical weapon. The military broke the rules to protect the greater good, and Steve knew that. The war would have gone very differently without him.
Whether he was right or wrong about the Accords, after what Steve experienced, I want the Avengers finally understand where he was coming from. Why he was so afraid of strict regulations.
I want Tony to finally fully understand the significance of Steve giving up his shield in Siberia.
Why he was so determined to protect Bucky from the world. Not just because he was his best friend, or because it was the right thing to do. But also because Bucky was the only thing Steve physically had left of his life before the crash, save for his dog tags, and he was scared of what that would mean if Steve lost him.
Steve Rogers has so much trauma that Marvel completely ignored. They focused on Tony’s and Bucky’s and Natasha’s trauma; and that’s great, that’s important; but so much of Steve’s moral character doesn’t get explained because it gets glossed over with the excuse that he’s “Mr Good and Righteous.” And that’s true, but that’s just scratching the surface.
He’s Mr. Good and Righteous for a reason, and it doesn’t get talked about enough.
#steve rogers#the avengers#marvel#mcu#bucky barnes#don’t come at me steve did crappy things during civil war#but so did everyone else#it’s about time marvel start recognizing Steve’s trauma is so much more than PTSD#that’s my point here
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Witch Steve
(working title)
next: Chapter 2: The Aftermath
So 👉👈 You were all so encouraging that I was inspired to write 14 chapters of Witch Steve. This will eventually be going up on Ao3, but while I'm finishing it up and re-editing I'll post the start of it all on Tumblr.
Chapter content: steddie to come, platonic stobin, ~2K words.
Edit/Update: This is a 15 chapter fic. Ao3 here.
Chapter 1 The Sacrifice
Robin fiddles with the vodka bottle full of gasoline in her hands, “…in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low.”
She sighs, stuffing one of their rags into the mouth of the clear glass and completing their next Molotov cocktail. Steve watches the resignation on her face and thinks that if anyone deserves to have a moment of love and joy in the face of the world ending, it’s Robin.
It’s all of them, he reflects, looking out onto the grassy clearing.
The forest of trees behind Lucas and Erica reminds him of where they will be taking their battle to shortly. Vecna waiting in the Upside Down like a venomous spider in his web. Manipulating the troubled emotions and frightening visions of his victims, ready to break them in more than one way for his selfish desires.
Exuberant laughter draws his eyes over Nancy tailoring her weapon to Dustin as he dodges Eddie’s outstretched hands. Fondness rises within Steve like the warmth of rising bread. The fading sun frames the two boys as Eddie speaks earnestly into Dustin’s grinning face, the bond between them obvious even from here.
“Maybe it’s not the time for romance,” he admits, pensive as he watches Eddie tackle Dustin to the ground with a cackle. “But isn't love the most important thing when it is the end of the world.”
Robin knocks her knees amicably against his and he knows that this is her way of saying she loves him. He smiles back at her; he loves her too. He says it silently because he does, more than he can say at this moment. The words heavy and stuck at the back of his throat.
He wishes she could have had her moment with Vickie before they face the coming danger. The fragility of their situation leaves him with a disturbing feeling of unease churning in his gut.
It’s the fear of losing Robin that further feeds into Steve’s increasing sense of foreboding, making his teeth clench and nails dig into his palms. He has to Know, Steve decides; he needs to make sure there is hope for a later where love and romance can be indulged.
In the heart of the quiet afternoon, Steve allows the sounds of the boys roughhousing and Erica’s sharp, but not unkind, words to become muffled. While he relaxes his fists and Robin fades from his sight, Steve unfurls his uncanny gift to see into the murky depths of their futures. He hears a soft, haunting melody reaching out to him through the ethereal and a glimmering sheen covers his vision.
Like a weaver of fate, he gently unravels the white threads of destiny that intertwine around the lives of those he cherishes. Even Eddie, new to the party but just as entrenched in their fight, running scared; yet Steve thinks, just as courageously meeting the more experienced members toe to toe.
And it is only Eddie’s fate that gleams a terrible ox-blood red, a twisted tapestry of the future revealing a grim reality. Steve’s unease deepens as he Sees two roads diverging before Eddie, each leading to vastly different destinies.
One road, he is unsurprised to find, is golden bright and brilliant, full of joy, love, and friendship. This Eddie would be the guiding light for those he loves and who will love him just as fiercely as he holds them to his heart.
Steve swallows over the hard knot in his throat at the thought of all the beauty that is stolen if Eddie loses that path: because the other is shrouded in a terrible darkness.
If Eddie chooses this road, a jagged tear will be torn through the tapestry of too many lives. An unravelling thread that leads to the frayed fabric of its survivors in a way that Steve thinks the self-deprecating Eddie would never suspect.
Aside from family, only one other person knows Steve’s truth. Keeps his secret close to her breast, alongside twin confessions on a bathroom floor. Robin haltingly refusing Steve’s advances to favour Tammy Thompson and Steve blurting out that he comes from a long line of Witches. Taught at his nana’s knee and made to understand that this is something just as private to him as Robin understands her sexuality to be to her.
He watches Dustin’s wide smile, still innocent amongst a grim collection of dark moments, and Knows that this will be a turning point for his young friend. One in which Dustin lives a life spirited and mirthful or another irrecoverable scarred and linked to a critical event of grief and regret. A shiver runs down Steve’s spine and he decides he can’t stand idly by, watching as Eddie teeters on the precipice of these two divergent paths.
Drawing from long lessons of heritage and the power he and his kind hold, Steve decides on a potent action that will allow him to weave a new pattern.
---
Scarlet lightning roars in the darkness behind Eddie and Dustin as the boys wait for Steve, Robin and Nancy to depart and attack Vecna. The trailer behind the boys is tightly wrapped in the sinister vines of the Upside Down and the smell of sulphur rains down with the grey ash that coats the world in a bitter blanket. Steve watches the ghostly flakes drift onto the cloud of Eddie’s bound-back hair, and he knows that this is the moment that he readied for.
Steve reaches out to Eddie with his uncanny gift — a glass sphere, like a marble, is cradled innocently at the centre of his hand. It is as big as an apricot pit and strangely swirls with warm browns and flecks of gold, like the gentle play of sunlight flickering through to a forest floor. Steve holds his open palm out to Eddie, his hazel eyes filled with a heartfelt entreaty.
"Eddie," he asks softly, "take the marble and swallow it. Please, trust me."
Even in the short time that Steve has known Eddie, he gets that the other guy isn’t known for his impulse control. Despite this, he’s still somewhat surprised when Eddie, with no hesitation, takes the marble and swallows it down. Doe-eyed pools of warm brown look up at him through dark bangs.
“I do,” Eddie shrugs with a mysterious smile.
“What was that” Dustin shrieks, the faux military tags he had insisted on wearing jingling in agitation.
Robin stays silent behind him; Steve knows she’s holding her questions for later, having cottoned onto that he was up to something mystical when he’d hidden in the RV for a while. Only clasping his arm briefly in support when he had walked past, sweating and still pale.
Nancy though is just as surprised as Dustin and looks on at them suspiciously.
Eddie knocks an arm lightly into Dustin’s side, “I don’t know, but it tastes like hot chocolate. Warm,” he chuckles softly, “even comforting.” He turns questioning eyes back to Steve, “but, yeah, what was that?”
Steve feels how tight his smile is. “A little insurance.”
He talks to both of them, trying to instil them to obey by the force of his words alone. Knows that Dustin can be a stubborn little shit. “Just… if this goes south, I mean, at all. You abort.” But his focus turns, inevitably, to Eddie. “Don’t be a hero, man. Okay?”
A flash of emotion crosses Eddie’s face too quickly for Steve to understand before he slings an arm around Dustin’s skinny shoulders. “Of course, look at us. We are not heroes.” Under his hoodie and headband, Dustin grimaces in agreement.
The deep feeling of foreboding in his gut is untouched by their reassurance, but Steve doesn’t bother to unravel his Sight again. He’s done what he can and now he follows the girls to battle Vecna and maybe free them all from this nightmare once and for damn good.
As they travel through the dark forest, neither girl notices the small glowing pulse that Steve presses to each of them. The marks fade softly before the other can notice it. Transported by a light brush over Nancy’s tight shoulders and a firm squeeze of Robin’s sweaty hand in his.
The attack against Vecna is fierce but the three of them have never struck more certain or true. Steve with his axe, Robin and her cocktails, and Nancy with the shorn-off shotgun. Their attacks land every time and between their physical assault and Max’s diversion, something must go right because the world shudders once, then twice, but stays steady before Vecna screams harshly and his pale, grotesque body falls broken to floor. His web of terror finally shattered.
The rest of the decrepit house, vines and all, quickly catch from the blazing gasoline and the three stumble after each other, racing to the still-rancid outdoor air. But it’s air free of Vecna and that makes it all the sweeter.
With a whoop, Robin jumps into Steve’s waiting arms and breathlessly he swings her in joy. Resting his forehead on hers, he knows she can see every nuance of his relief, sensing him finally releasing the suffocating fear of the Upside Down. “This is it, Robin. I can feel it.” Steve exclaims.
Robin’s blue eyes, which sometimes can be so cynical for a person this young, gleam in belief. Belief in Steve and that he can See the truth of it all. She wraps her hands around his shoulders and is shaking in a combination of comfort and ebbing adrenalin. “Thank god,” she breathes.
“Let’s hope so,” Nancy interrupts. But she’s looking on at them with a small smile.
Steve knows it will take a long time for her to believe that it is true. And she doesn’t have the benefit of Steve’s Knowing as they do. But she’ll get there, he thinks. Much like it will take them all time to heal, they will. And the kids will bounce back, he thinks with faith. They’ve been made to be too resilient for children their age but he’s grateful for it, nonetheless.
It’s at the thought of Dustin that Steve remembers Eddie and those two paths he had seen; he urges the girls on, back to the uncanny version of the trailer park. Impatience sparking through to his fingertips.
They’ve not quite reached it yet when Steve hears the haunting cries of anguish that echo through the empty forest and roads of the Upside Down.
Dustin is hunched over the still-warm but devastatingly motionless body of his beloved Dungeon Master and friend. Bright red blood spills everywhere, coating Dustin's hands and across his face where he has smeared a hand over his cheeks. Eyes filled with tears and pain, Dustin looks up at Steve and cries out that the older boy had tried to save him.
“He said he didn’t run, Steve. But he did. He did. He ran to the demo-bats and they— they—"
Dustin starts hiccupping between tears and short, frantic breaths. He grabs at Eddie’s camouflage jacket, shaking the body as if it will jolt the older boy awake.
“Eddie!” Dustin cries. His voice, often bigger and louder than his short body would seem, breaks through the empty quiet of the Upside Down. No more swarming bats or jagged bolts of red lightning to distract from the palpable sense of grief saturating into their tired bodies. The only cruel answer is the flakes of ash gathering over Eddie’s unresponsive body like this terrible world is already trying to bury him away.
Steve’s heart is breaking, he feels the crack of it cleanly through his chest and in the thickening at the back of his throat and burning behind his eyes. But he is not powerless; this is exactly what he prepared for.
With a firm, yet gentle hand, Steve unlocks Dustin’s stiff fingers and shifts him into Nancy’s waiting embrace. She tries to turn him in her arms, but Dustin refuses to look away.
Nancy must think that Steve is going to quietly close the lids over Eddie’s blank eyes, which should be bright and expressive; eyes that were full of mischief just hours ago. Or that Steve will try to pick up the body and take it back with them, impossible as it seems in the moment, to think of carrying a heavy and limp weight vertically and against gravity where climbing through the Upside Down gates, with only their own bodies to support them, had been hard enough.
He’s not going to do any of those things, Steve thinks fiercely. He won’t need to.
With an unwavering determination, Steve drops to his knees and pushes his left hand down, through and deep into the realm of the mystical, until he finds an answering beat, a corresponding warmth. He pulls, straining with every ounce of physical and spiritual strength he possesses. A pearlescent light suddenly pushes out from Steve's link to Eddie, it pours unendingly into the dark landscape before pulsing sharply. The ethereal cuts precisely through the unclean atmosphere before rapidly shrinking back into the connection between the two boys.
Steve's own spirit is being drained, a live wire shooting up his arm and threading through every vein of his body in a white, blinding heat. But Steve knows that it is in this critical moment where he could lose his own body and soul, where the world hangs in the balance between life and death, that something miraculous can happen.
And it does.
Eddie draws a shuddering breath and his eyelids flutter open. His chest starts to rise even as his gaze looks unsteadily out into the living world once more.
“Steve?” he whispers hoarsely.
“I’ve got you, Eddie,” Steve murmurs, checking that the wounds are healing under the slick blood. His left arm is numb, but he uses the shaking right to examine Eddie’s torso where jagged gashes are rapidly closing over.
“It’s all right, we’ll get you help, you’re gonna be okay."
“No, Steve, your eyes…” Eddie lifts a shaking finger to touch Steve’s face, leaving a red fingerprint behind to mark Steve with the very essence of his mortal life.
Steve knows what he must see since this has worked. Because reality is not the same as when Eddie had closed his eyes for seemingly the last time. As Eddie returned from the brink of death, Steve now sees the world through one rich hazel eye, while the other will remain forever white and sightless, an eerie testament to the price paid to mend the shattered threads of destiny.
If you liked anything, please consider leaving a comment over on Ao3 :-) It would make my day!
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My taglist is always open so let me know if you want to be added. Likewise, if you want to be removed let me know too. :) If I've missed you, definitely let me know because it's an accident!
@a-gae-af-racoon
@a-lovely-craziness
@aly-reads-alot
@bookworm0690
@cinnamon-mushroomabomination
@everyrandomthing
@goodolefashionedloverboi
@hallucinatedjosten
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#witchsteve#steddie#platonic stobin#stobin#stranger things#steve harrington#eddie munson#robin buckley#dustin henderson#paperbackribs writing
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"𝑨𝒍𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏": 𝑱𝒐𝒆𝒍 𝑴𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓
word-count: 2.2k
summary: Eight weeks after arriving in Jackson, Ellie drags Joel to the Tipsy Bison, where he meets you :) soft get-together fic because joel deserves some happy fluff, dammit
warnings: none :)
“Joel, right?”
The man in question finds himself ducking slightly at the sound of an unfamiliar voice saying his name. He'd managed to avoid The Tipsy Bison for eight weeks after he and Ellie settled in Jackson—his reputation as Tommy’s brother precedes him around town, and to be honest...he hasn’t been inclined to make small talk for years.
So Joel isn’t exactly welcoming when he glances up at the bartender who spoke to him. You smirk, unperturbed by his scowl, and raise your eyebrows in a gentle prompt for him to answer. Joel clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. That’s me.”
“Hm. Maria’s description was spot on.”
Your smile widens at your quip, and it’s Joel’s eyebrows that raise this time. He can’t remember the last time anyone besides Ellie ribbed him without having an ulterior motive. A joking smile spreads across your pretty face, lit by the warm lights of the bar, and something in Joel relaxes a little at the sight.
His mouth responds before he can stop himself: “And what exactly did Maria have to say?” he asks, leaning forward in his seat.
“Tall, dark, and broody,” you respond simply, eyes trailing down his shoulders and to the bar. You lean down to place your freshly-shined glass underneath the counter, and Joel finds himself tracking your movements. “'Clint Eastwood come to life.' Figured you’d sit at the corner of the bar to avoid the crowd, but that you’d also pick a seat that can see the entire room.
"Plus, I figured I wouldn’t see you in here until Ellie dragged you.” You flick your gaze pointedly to something behind him—Ellie, he takes. “I recognized you as soon as you sat down,” you tease.
He leans back with a hum, impressed and, admittedly, intrigued. Three years ago, he would’ve felt threatened by the way you managed to take him apart so completely before you even spoke a word to him. Now, he’s just stunned that anyone cares enough about him to do that sort of analysis. “Anything else?” he asks dryly.
You smirk and begin shining a new glass. “Tommy’s the only other person in this town who orders Tito’s straight. You Texas boys are all the same.” Joel nods and chuckles internally.
“In some ways,” he agrees. He takes a moment to swirl the aforementioned drink in his glass before he lifts his gaze back to yours. “You know Ellie?”
“She just might be the most entertaining person I’ve ever met," you deadpan, and Joel finds himself huffing a small laugh at that.
“Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”
“How would you put it?” you ask, and the hardened survivor finds himself stumbling slightly under the sincerity of your gaze.
One of the first things he learns about you is that you can’t hide a damn thing on your face. Your question is an honest one; you genuinely want to know how he, a man you just met and have heard who-knows-what about, feels. And while something about your sincerity makes him uncomfortable, he feels himself opening his mouth to respond. He wants to delve into this conversation with you, any conversation with you. He wants to flirt with you a little bit more.
Just as he begins to stumble toward an answer, a familiar gangly form shoves itself onto the barstool next to his. “Hey, (y/n)!” Ellie greets you brightly.
“’sup, kiddo?” You greet her so casually, Joel can tell you and the girl are already well into being friends. He regains his composure as you finally begin cleaning the glass in your hands. “Staying out of trouble?” you ask.
“Yup.”
“—Nope,” Joel interjects.
You smile at the way Ellie and Joel glare at each other, him with an exasperated sigh and Ellie an incredulous scowl. “I’ve been good!” she insists.
“Just because you haven’t been caught don't mean you’ve been good,” Joel growls.
You find yourself laughing out loud at that as you set the newly-shined glass back on the rack. “Now I’m really curious.”
“Don’t be,” Joel grumbles.
“What’s taking you so long?” Ellie asks Joel, happy to change the subject. “Tommy’s been waiting for his drink.”
“His complainin’ is exactly why I’m still over here. Just...” Joel sighs. “Gimme a sec.”
Ellie rolls her eyes and snags the lemonade you proffered her off of the bar, along with Tommy’s own glass of Tito’s. “Nope, let’s go. Maria’s orders.”
Joel sighs deeply at that. “Alright, alright.”
“Later, (y/n)!”
“Bye, Ellie.”
Joel groans and pushes off of the barstool and to his feet, eyes on his drink, as for some reason he finds himself unable to meet your eye again. “It was—” He clears his throat before continuing: “It was nice to meet you.”
The smile you offer him when he looks back up is endearing in its honesty, and Joel finds himself thinking about it when he closes his eyes that night.
~*~
The second time Joel winds up in the Tipsy Bison, it’s the absolute last place he wants to be.
He, Tommy, and a few other guards on the night shift successfully prevented a rather large raid in the early hours of the morning. The raiders had scouted the city and discovered what they thought was a skeleton shift in the patrol…not knowing that Joel is basically a one-man army.
So, he was dragged to The Tipsy Bison to celebrate. And now, he’s looking at you from across the bar as you catch his eye and hold up a rocks glass in silent question. Joel shakes his head and fights a small smile.
He had seen you around town a few times since the night you met. You greeted him with a friendly wave each time, sometimes even a conversation. But you always left him with a look that lingered just a little bit too long not to be some sort of hint.
Joel’s lip twitches when you duck back down beneath the bar, only to pop up cutely with a pint glass and an innocent tilt of your head. Joel glances down at Tommy and Maria, still deep in conversation with a woman he can’t remember the name of, before shaking his head at you again.
You nod dramatically and start to reach for a margarita glass on the top shelf, and suddenly Joel is covering his incoming laughter with a fake coughing fit.
Tommy gives him a strange look. "You alright there brother?" he asks, and Joel swallows when his younger brother’s gaze flicks to you briefly.
“Yeah, just...” Joel rubs the back of his neck and sighs in defeat. “I’ll be by the bar.” He ignores Tommy’s not-so-subtle whistle as he shoulders his way through the crowd. It ain’t his fault he’s rusty, who cares if he’s being obvious or not?
When he arrives at your little corner, you’ve set out a martini glass, a pint, and a rocks glass. “So, which is it?” you ask, blinking up at him expectantly.
“How about two of your specialty and ten minutes of your time?”
You lean back slightly in surprise, heat rushing to your face at the intensity of Joel’s gaze—He decides to catch you off guard more often if you look this adorable when he does. But, despite the heat in your cheeks, you’re quick to recover. You smile at him as you pull out two clean glasses and set them on the bar top. “Are you flirting with me, Joel Miller?”
He nods slowly. “If that’s alright with you.”
“It’s more than all right,” you mumble shyly.
Joel crosses his arms and shifts his weight, satisfied and inexplicably warmed by your answer. “Alright then.”
You join Joel on the other side of the bar for the rest of the night, thankful that your coworkers were more than happy to cover for you. The dimly lit corner might as well be its own little world with how intently the two of you focus on each other, knee to knee as you talk. When it comes time to close, you lean over and kiss his cheek underneath that flickering overhead light, before leaving to help your coworkers close up.
Joel can smell cherries in the air as you walk away.
~*~
A week later, Joel can’t take the lingering looks anymore.
You smile up at him so sweetly when he approaches you at the bar with Tommy at his back. His brother claps his shoulder before peeling off to speak with someone else, and Joel silently thanks him for the privacy. He allows himself to melt a little at the sight of you now that Tommy isn’t around to see him, and he’s nearly distracted enough that he doesn’t hear you speak:
“What’ll it be tonight, Joel? Everything’s on the house, considering you cleared a basement full of clickers—”
“How about some hot cider at mine?” Joel interrupts. Your mouth forms an o-shape at the abrupt question, and he backtracks when your eyebrows raise in surprise. “Not to—I mean, if—I just—”
“I think I’d like that, Texas.”
Joel blinks. He looks down at the bar. Settles himself. Looks back up at you. You're unable to move beneath his gaze, eyes reflecting gold under the lights of the bar, like a midwestern summer sunset. “Would you like to go on a date with me, (y/n)?” Joel asks, calmly and slowly.
“Really?” you ask. “I just, uh,” you trail off, carefully folding away the cloth you were holding. “If I’m being honest, I thought I was imagining—”
“—You got an active imagination,” Joel agrees, leaning across the bar toward you. You gasp slightly at his sudden closeness, inhaling the smell of pine and the sweet lemon tang of saddle cleaner as Joel tilts forward and into your space. “But you ain’t imaginin’ this,” he finishes.
You smile and lean back slightly so you’re looking down your nose at him playfully. “...Alright, then.”
~*~
Joel offers his arm to you for the walk to his house, and you don’t hesitate to accept. He likes the feel of you pressed against him, shamelessly using his broad frame to block the harsh winter wind. He likes how much more bashful your smile is now that you’re on the same side of the bar. He likes the way your breath hitches slightly when he drops a hand to your waist to guide you over a particularly icy patch.
He likes you.
When the two of you finally settle in front of his roaring fireplace, hot mugs of cider in hand, Joel is unable to look away. You tell him about how you ended up in Jackson not long before he did. A month after you arrived, Maria dragged you to the Tipsy Bison and forced you to learn to bartend, fed up with your inability to socialize on your own. You like people but have never been one to actively seek out crowds. You’d rather get your hands dirty in the greenhouses or help out in the clinic, and let that be the extent of your social life.
You’re vibrant in the way you talk about your life and the people and things in it and, for the first time in a long time, Joel is actively interested in learning about another person. When he asks how you met Ellie, you outright laugh before even starting the story, and Joel finds himself chuckling along with you. You and Ellie bonded over training Buckley to do the most inane things, pissing off Tommy to no end that the sweet old dog could never learn normal tricks.
It feels too soon that you insist you should be heading home. Joel walks you as far as the edge of his porch because you insist he not brave the bitter winter wind for you again when his house is so warm right now. A light breeze buffets you both as you step outside, sending the windchimes above his door into a happy little dance. His hair is tossed into messy curls when you turn to face him, and you long to sink your fingers into it.
You’re just opening your mouth to say good night when Joel takes one last, hopeful step toward you. “Can I kiss you?”
You sag in relief and grab the collar of his flannel to pull him closer, running your thumbs over the worn lapels. You roll up onto your toes, nose bumping his as you whisper: “Please.”
His lips are chapped from the wind when they meet yours, but you sigh against him anyway, pressing your fingertips into the soft edge of his beard. Joel hums and circles his arms around you, pulling you so close that you’re practically able to feel the heat of his hands through your thick winter coat. You gasp when he tugs you up onto your toes, sealing his mouth to yours anew.
Joel’s arms are the only reason you’re still standing when he pulls away and presses his nose to your temple, breathing you in. “Are you sure I can’t walk you home?” he murmurs.
You sigh and press a kiss to his jaw. “If you did, I don’t think I’d let you leave.”
Joel’s chest rumbles against yours when he laughs, and you immediately become addicted to the sensation. “That’s alright,” he murmurs, and your breath stutters as he drags his lips down your cheek to hover over your mouth. “I don’t want to rush.”
“I don’t either.” You pull back just enough to look him in the eye and run your hands down his broad shoulders. “But keep kissing me like that, and I’m going to get impatient.”
Joel’s warm breath ghosts across your face as he chuckles, and you find yourself smiling along with him. “Alright, then.”
You sigh when his lips meet yours in another warm press. A few more minutes couldn’t hurt.
#findmeinasunshower#sunshowerimagines#joel miller#joel miller imagine#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller fanfiction#tlou#tlou imagine#tlou x reader#tlou x you#tlou fanfiction#tlou hbo#tlou 2#the last of us#the last of us imagine#the last of us x reader#the last of us x you#the last of us fanfiction#joel tlou#joel tlou x reader#ellie tlou#maria tlou#tommy tlou#fandom imagine#imagine#x reader#x you#fanfiction#this fic has been KILLING ME
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dreamt a cipher
a shepard/garrus post-destroy ending longfic.
[AO3 link]
I’ve debated a while about when to start posting this. Now it’s the new year, and I’ve been working on Cipher for over a year and a half, and I’ve waited long enough to start sharing it with you all. I’ve decided it’s finally time to start uploading while I work on the final chapters.
I started writing this before I ever drew a single piece of fanart for Mass Effect. It’s all the things that were bouncing around in my head after choosing the destroy ending with a mostly-paragon Shepard—consequence and responsibility and self-recrimination; her relationship with Garrus and with herself; their ties to each other and how much weight they can bear; their differing perspectives and how they slot together—all that fun stuff—compressed into a story, a place, a narrative.
I believe in the power of love, and I promise a happy ending. They’ve just been taking the long way to get there. Feel free to yell at me in the meantime.
A huge thank you to @callista-curations for her meticulous and invaluable beta work, and to @that-wildwolf and @gammaraydeath for being the best hypemen I could ask for!
A more detailed list of warnings can be found on AO3.
I've posted the full cover art here.
────
Summary:
Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Rating: M (subject to change)
Important Tags: post-destroy ending - angst with a happy ending - slow burn (of sorts) - arguing - reconciliation - survivor guilt - minor original characters
Her own personal Noverian peak. That’s what it was supposed to be. Nothing but the discovery: no distractions, no comfort, no windows looking out—no familiar faces. But it's starting to look like her winning streak might have ended in that pile of Citadel rubble, if it ever extended that far to begin with.
────
“How does the Earth idiom go? No use beating a dead—” A long-suffering sigh. “What was it again?”
“A dead horse. And yet, you’re here. Beating it.”
Pot, kettle. She wishes he’d just fucking say it.
-> AO3.
Read the start of Chapter 1: Constant Velocity under the cut!
────
The overhead lights flicker as they always do when the data screens are up and running. It’s not something one gets used to, even so. It stings at her ocular nerves—or something like that, anyway, somewhere along the delicate wires that extend from her eyeballs into her brain—but her focus on the data doesn’t waver.
“In that case,” says Shepard, squinting against the ache, “what we need is salvage from a relay outside the immediate burst zone. Four jumps away. Five, if possible. There’s no point to any of this if we can’t scrape together a control group.”
She glances back at Elsawy, who so far hasn’t made it more than a meter into the room. She nods without looking up from her omni-tool; orange shimmers off her shiny, black hair, giving her the uncomfortable air of a Cerberus operative. Not the worst comparison, except that Miranda would waste no time letting her know if her logic took a faulty turn somewhere. Elsawy’s just as likely to agree now and write a message detailing all her crap conclusions later.
Leaning her hip against the conference table, Shepard shifts her weight off her left leg, bites down on the sigh that almost manages to slip out. Once in the clear, she grouses, “Where the hell is Meyer? He’s the one that called this meeting.”
As it is, it’s three people in attendance and she’s the only one talking. She could’ve achieved the same results with a voice call from her quarters, where she could elevate her leg in peace and without witnesses. In the dark.
“Lab Two,” answers Elsawy, finally ripping her attention off the omni-screen and gracing Shepard with a second of eye contact. Maybe in another life she could appreciate the effort—Jesus, as if she hasn’t had her fill of lives already. “We’re close to a breakthrough on the initial output patterns. Sorry. He’s been feeding his data to me.”
“Right.” She blinks once, twice, in time with the flickering. It doesn’t help; it never does. “I’ll swing by later, then. Anything else he asked you to relay?”
“Just that, Commander.” Elsawy is mumbling just enough that her voice has to compete with the drone of the air vents. The translator takes a second to filter out and amplify it. The result is less than perfect: “More salvage—” bzzrt—“bigger picture, you got it.” She narrows her eyes, and Shepard raises a brow. “Left leg or—” bzz!—“left hip?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Commander.”
“It’s nothing relevant,” she says pleasantly, forcing herself to stand up straight again. There’s a brief tremor shaking up her hamstrings; she waves a hand to distract from it. In the frenzy of the lights, the movement looks jerky, nervous. She soldiers on. “Old field injury. Unrelated. Anything can set it off.”
Funny, kind of, since it’s that very leg that ends in the most perfect, cooperative example of a foot she’s ever had the pleasure of treading on. It’s cloned; a replacement. Not the only one either. They should’ve just done away with the whole limb, but she hadn’t been consulted. Same with her trick shoulder. Not even Cerberus had managed to get that one back on the straight and narrow.
“I’d rather you bring it up with the doctor,” replies Elsawy. This is, apparently, what it takes for her to finally speak at a reasonable volume. “If we manage to fill even one of the data gaps…”
“I know,” she says. “I know, and I’m telling you, it’s unrelated.”
-> continue reading on AO3
#mass effect fanfiction#shakarian#fanfic#shakarian fic#oh GOD. here it is. I'm BIRTHING this baby like Shepard birthed grunt#I'm so nervous but I am really proud of this story so Take it.#cipher tag
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Pretty like a crime
Chapter 13
Pairing: Agent Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Singlemom! Agent Y/n 'Cobra' Y/l/n
Summary: Cobra is finally back on the agency and is finally back in the job. With Kai at home she has to jumble being a mother and a agent. She's sent to her first U.C mission but never thought that she would meet a blonde, green eyed Texan...
Warning: Mentions of gun use, ptsd, mentions of death, mentions of shooting, flirting, mentions of abuse, description of dead body, death, blood, undercover work, alcohol use, smut, kissing
Prologue/ Part 1/ Part 2/Part 3/ Part 4/ Part 5/ Part 6/ Part 7/ Part 8/ Part 9/ Part 10/ Part 11/ Part 12
As Bradley entered the floor of your and Jake shared apartment, he slowly and calmly walked over to your door. He stands on the pretty and neat welcome mat, knocking on the door but it opens himself with a creek. It was like one of those murder horror movies when a victim enters a haunted house.
He quickly calls out for you and pushes the door open to find broken glass, shattered mirrors and vases and a lot all over the place. With this he took off in, pulling out his gun and scanning the area as he entered. This was like another crime scene, just without all the tape and flashing lights but the splashes of blood and bloody handprints coated the hall. He looks around more, entering the living room to see more of a mess and a puddle of blood. From behind the couch it was as if he couldn't believe his eyes, there was a fallen body with a hand sticking out. It was Cobra.
He rushes as fast as he could over to you, dropping his gun as he plants himself beside you. He sees that you've got a strike to the head and suffered from a big fall. He slips his arms beneath you and lifts your body. "Shit Cobra! Please wake up!'
Before he could do anything he felt a vicious pain to the back of his head and he began to fall backwards. The world went dark as he passed out.
------
As Bradley began to gain back consciousness, his head hurt him more than life could tell. His head was throbbing, ears were ringing and eyes were blurred from whatever possible.
He tried to move forward but it became clear that he was tied with restraint to a chair, he could recognise he was tied by heavy metal chains to a possible pole.
He was becoming more conscious with every second. Sounds finally became familiar, he could finally make out words and accents. He could make out that a woman and man were in a tense conversation. Their voices seemed familiar but he couldn't make them out just yet.
His eyes only slowly began functioning and as they did his gaze fell upon Jake and Cobra in front of him with weapons pointed at him.
"Long nap you took there, Rooster." Jake's face was coated with a non human, not the one that you'd see him have in the bar at darts or pool games. This was a smirk of a psychopath.
"You were-" Bradley couldn't even finish the sentence as he looks upon you as you tilt your head to the side. You're eyes hawk him, your lips tightly shut only opening at these words, "Well Bradshaw, you wouldn't fall for such trap without proper bait, huh?"
Trap. This was all a trap. To Bradley this all didn't add up but for you and Jake this was a mischievous plan that was founded just as you turned fifteen. Once your fifteenth birthday occured, you were drawn into a missionary project for the mission force. Code X4z6, it was a plan to finally free all members of the old labour mission force but living up to one codex, no witnesses, no survivors.
You were introduced to this project as you turned fifteen and the other young person tested in these actions was Jake. The two of you were forced to train together and get your brains working rather the same way. You two where thought to stratergise together, shoot together and even murder together.
You were put to a test of eliminating one of the biggest threats to this plan. The Chevaliers. The Chevaliers where a style of mafia family that lived in France, and they were a rather huge threat. This plan could tople because of them so it was your and the original 1986 mission team to think of a plan.
They came up with a plan for you to casually meet one of the Chevaliers sons and gain his trust but you gained more than just that, you gained his heart. You made him fall head over heals for you and he would never know that this was some sick manipulation.
The idea was to kill off all the Chevaliers but for them to get you into the true circle of trust, it would've taken years so the best you could do is marry the closest son, Matthew. The plan that Jake came up with is to keep discreet, make the marriage longer than expected and then slither in and chose violence and venom but you are beaten to death.
Emma, well Olivia was seeking revenge and was on a elimination track to murder the family and you were on her side, and well it killed off the main Chevalier.
But truly you never loved Matthew, you fell head over heals for Jake and you only ever loved him. You married Jake illegally and went to him every weekend to talk out the plan and how everything was progressing and that's when the two of you made love.
Matthew never knew about Kai and good, Kai was Jake's son. He had Jake's features and eyes and he himself knew that Jake was his real daddy but just preferred to call him Jakey. Like I was saying this was all a stage act.
Olivia managed to kill Joris and paralyzed Etienne meaning he seemed revenge kidnapping her daughter. She asked you for help and you did because after all for years you planned to kill him. You helped her and after all she did bring a mess and Etienne died by getting shot by his own son Alexandre. Matthew got arrested and Romain just never figured himself out. You heard that Alexandre got back with Olivia but you never truly cared.
Once you came here you were legally divorced from Matthew and could spend your days with the husband you loved, the father of your baby, Jake. He treated you like a queen throughout your whole pregnancy. He pampered you, helped you with everything and was always there. But then he got called down to a mission where he first met the dagger squad during your eight month of pregnancy.
You were scared because you had to give birth to your son alone. Whenever you mention Matthew you always said that indeed he did met Kai because it was his son and raised him but if anyone checked, Matt was at prison at the time so it was all a act again.
And in a quite similar way you explained this to Bradley. He was shocked. The two of you were together all along, married and had a child. Kai was actually Jake's son. "But the dagg-"
Once again cut off. The daggers was an accidental add in. First of all it was never supposed to happen but the elimination plan had to include them since they started working with Bradley and Jake. It was going quite well actually, this plan was never meant to start until Bob got questionary. He asked you about your years outside the mission force and the team you were involved in because it wasn't in any files. When you hesitated to answer, he kept pushing. He had to be eliminated.
You told this to Jake and he took care of it the same night. It was supposed to look like a simple but insolvable murder. So, as Bob was taking out the trash that evening, Jake sneaked up behind him with a napkin full of illegal substances and choked him with them. The fumes are so toxic they can kill, and that's what they did. Well you can put it that Bob was taking the trash out but at the end of the day he was getting taken out in a black bag.
Phoenix was a difficult one. She became accusing and jumpy, too cautious. The day of her shooting, you played the main game. As you were running, you shot a figure, never a specified opposition. And if people around were paying close detail, you had two guns on you that night, the gun you shot her with was an illegal gun and put in the other pocket so when they collected weapons you gave them it from the other pocket so that it wouldn't be recorded.
Payback and Fanboy were the simplest kill, all Jake did was rig their car. All he had to do was switch some cables and parts up so that when the keys were twisted in the ignition, it would literally ignite. And the only thing you got to say is, it worked.
Javy was a difficult murder, maybe since he was a close friend or maybe that the plan was as stupidly hard as impossible to think off. Jake set up a whole deal about killing your ex, well what was meant to be a fight at the start and tagged Javy along with Justin. Earlier Jake set up a automatic machine gun that would set off more than a hundred bullets when the time was right on the clock.
"YOU GUYS ARE MURDERS!" Bradley screaming and trashed in the chains, jumping up and down in his chair but that didn't bring him anywhere, except pain due to the metal.
"We have our reasons!" Jake shouted at him, almost as if he was desperate. He was desperate for some sympathy and understanding but why.
You and Jake did have reasons. You needed Kai to not get involved. A deal that the two of you made is that once these days pass and all evidence is gone, you all disappear and the positive side of that is to raise your son in a world without terrors and murders.
Remember the gun, the gun your father gave you once he died, well funny story. Your mother was a quite difficult person, and technically this is where things got difficult. Sarah and Tom never had kids, they only took you in. They weren't capable of having kids together, and they met your mother. A tiny bit younger woman who wanted kids.
The three of them made an agreement behind her husband back that her and Tom would sleep together until they had a child and once pregnant that your mother would tell your believed father she was pregnant with his child.
They paid her a lot and each weekend she'd take you out to see them, this was their way of having their own daughter but that stopped. Once your mother died the agreement was forgotten about due to your fake father not knowing that you weren't your kid.
Tom and Sarah missed you and wanted their child back so they called a few of their men and one thing lead to another and they had you again but little did they know your father gave you that gun.
Your father served as a henchman in a sort of way. Back in 1986 he did the dirty work and he had to commit an agent murder, the murder of Goose. That gun was used exactly to kill him and was searched for. And yet a little girl was hiding it years after under some bathroom tiles.
"You see, Bradshaw, we really wish you didn't have to be dragged into this but you're a relation to the 86's and history has to repeat." The words of history repeating struck the brunette, brown eyed man. He looked like he was about to throw up, cry, scream and wail but he just sat there and said. "You killed my father."
"Not us, but the older generation."
Bradley sat there in full shock but didn't understand any of this situation, he finally looked up and stared at the two of you, "Why are you telling me all of this?"
Honestly this seemed weird. Something from a kids show kinda style, you know. The one where the evil villain kidnapped the good and trauma dumps their whole life before trying to kill the good but the hero interrupts just as the elimination process is about to begin.
"Well it be sad if we didn't tell anyone about our marvellous plan we had before you all effected die."
Bradley understood that he was next. He tried to break out from the chains again. Once more jumping up and down in exhaustion. He looked at them in tears in his eyes but Jake couldn't bare it he walked over to you and said, "I can't. Not him, please not me."
"I'll do it, you go to the private jet with Kai and Alfie, I'll meet you there."
He nods and looks at his friend for the last time. I'm all his days he never thought that life would make him to do this. All his life he was the man that made the world burst up in flames and burn to ground but yet alone the flames never hurt you, they never did.
He left and it was just you and Bradley in the room. You stare at him and lift up the gun your father gave you. This was the gun your fake father used to murder Goose in the exact same situation and here you were going to do that to his son.
You lifted the gun and walked closer. Each step you got closer and closer, you and Bradley never dropped eye contact. You stopped once the gun collided with his chest and you leaned down to kiss his scared and bruised lips, lightly and delicately, "I never meant for this to happen but you understand, it's crazy what you'd do for love." You prep yourself back up and close your eyes pulling the trigger.
You have destroyed the whole world, each step you made you haunted humanity more but once Bradley's heart stopped you thought how Jake always said, he even said it today, that you were the heart beat he never knew he had.
And with that my dear ladies and gentlemen. We've just learned how a 'man' tried to manipulate our little Cobra all her life. He got her stuck in a marriage and a family that everyone would die for. But she didn't die for them. From the age of fifteen she has been plotting her revenge.
She pulled the marriage, the elegance, the act of carrying from the age of eighteen to the age of twenty five. It may have taken her a while but she got back. She avenged her mother, and her do once called 'father,' and got revenge by sticking her teeth in so deep that all that filled the streams of blood was a venom. A venom of revenge.
You've avenged and you have schemed. You tricked the world for your whole life's existence. You have become the MAN. You reached your goal and left no survivors.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was no revenge but simply... A favour. But the real question I'd be asking is... who'll follow in her steps.
To end this series I see how cruelly a friendship would end. In every heroic movie, the hero would sacrifice their friends to save the world, break friendship and lives to save humanity. A villain would destroy the world, ruin it into dust and murder anyone on their way to protect their friends, neither Jake or Cobra knew what role they were playing.
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#jake seresin#hangman x reader#hangman top gun#top gun hangman#jake hangman seresin#jake seresin imagine#jake seresin x reader#jake seresin x you#jake seresin x y/n#jake hangman fic#jake hangman x reader#jake hangman x you#jake hangman imagine#hangman imagine#hangman seresin#hangman fanfiction#hangman seresin x reader#hangman seresin x you#hangman x y/n#hangman
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Of Love and Loss Ch. 10 (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)
Summary: You come upon your first settlement, the small trading post lending itself to the rugged natures of the people who gather there.
Author’s Notes: Sorry for the delay, needed a break from this one for a hot minute to keep the ideas flowing. Also there is a gunfight in this chapter. Chapter ten of this one.
Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, high honor Arthur Morgan, minor character death, loss of parents, blood and injury, grief/mourning, survivor guilt, strangers to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, graphic depictions of violence
AO3 Link
~
Of Love and Loss
Ten: Bison Coats and Molly Mules
Word count: 3936
You were dreaming of the wolves. Even in sleep, you could feel your body tense, hear the soft exhale of shuddering fear. It was like being half-awake, buried beneath sleep just enough to hold you under its thumb. Aware but not.
You could feel the edges of a scream coming and subconsciously held it. Your horse, eyes wide. A wolf leapt, and you jerked hard, hard enough to wake the man at your back.
“Hey.” You felt a hand at your shoulder shaking you awake. But it still took a moment to open your eyes, to convince yourself of consciousness.
“Wake up.”
You did so, eyes finding the side of the tent before you. No wolves. No death at the door.
You turned over onto your back, taking in a long breath.
“You good?”
You looked over at Arthur. He was closer than usual, and you were reminded of the night prior when his arms had held you close, tucked against him. You quickly looked away, glad he was at least an arm’s length away now. You didn’t know what you would have said to him if he weren’t.
You nodded to give him some sort of response. Then stretched, trying to rid your brain of its addling dream.
“Same dream as before?”
You met Arthur’s gaze with an empty stare of your own. He seemed to get the message, not pushing you to talk at least. But looking at him made you realize he still had blood on his skin. It had been hard to see in the dim light of night. Or, more likely, you had been too riddled with distraction to notice yesterday. Making up your mind, wanting to be the helpful one for once, you sat up and crawled out of the tent.
You were met with a nearly blinding blanket of snow, the sun rising and warming you. It was a shimmering day, beautiful enough to give you pause. You looked over at Arthur’s mare and felt your contentment stagger, trying not to dwell on the fact that she was alone. With a sigh, you made for her.
Once you had gotten hold of what you needed from Arthur’s saddle bag, giving Boadicea a good scratch and a treat in the mean time, you reentered the tent. Arthur was laid back, stretched out with an arm behind his head, eyes closed.
“Wake up sunshine,” you said, kicking his boots.
“I’m awake,” he grumbled.
You sat cross legged beside him. “Good. Because this’ll sure wake you up if you aren’t already.”
His eyes shot open and he looked to the cloth in your hands, his lack of understanding crossing his face.
“Sit up,” you told him.
He let out a groan to shake off any remaining sleep then did as you asked.
“What’s that?” He nodded his head at the cloth in your hands.
“Hold still.” You brought the damp cloth to his face, meaning to clean the remaining blood off for him. Only he jerked back before you could.
“What’re you doing?”
“Helping,” you said, reaching out again.
He hesitantly let you this time, though he winced when the cloth met his face. Likely from the ice cold water you had used to soak it.
You began wiping the blood away, not meeting his eye as he looked at you suspiciously. You didn’t say a word, knowing he would no matter if you did or not.
“This kindness, it’s…unsettling. Should I be worried?”
You shrugged. But it felt good to be the one doing something for him, not the other way around.
Once you’d cleaned him up, taking the time to get what you could out of his hair and beard, you sat back and looked at him.
“That’s better.”
His eyes snagged in your hair, and you realized why when he said gently, “I’m sorry about your horse.” The horsehair.
You shook your head, looking down, folding the cloth up to have something to do with your hands. It was a strange feeling that ran through you at those words. Almost like the guilt had reached you, but the grief had not. Unbelieving that it had happened at all. As if the loss of your parents was too much, your brain not having the capacity for more.
“Me too,” was all you could muster.
Arthur let out a long breath, the noise saying what you both felt better than any words could. It was a shame what had happened. No animal deserved that.
“Can we get going soon?” you asked, avoidant. Not wanting to dwell on the hair braided into your own.
“Sure.” But he didn’t make a move to get up. Just watched you.
You didn’t know why, and you caught his eye a moment before getting up yourself, a little shaken by it.
When you were on your feet and halfway out of the tent, his voice stopped you.
“Thank you.”
It took you a second to realize why he had said it, the cloth in your hand cold against your fingers as if in reminder. For a fleeting moment, you had thought of last night. Of letting him hold you. You shook the memory away and went on, going about the usual way of packing up, leaving, filing your thoughts away so that they wouldn’t take hold before you could stop them.
~
The first settlement made its appearance that day, squatty and bare. It was midday when you and Arthur rode into town, the sun high and hot enough to melt the snow, making it run off the nearby roofs in an almighty race to the ground.
Town was a stretch for this place. It was ten or twelve buildings, a few trader stalls. Not much else. But it was hope enough that you were headed in the right direction. And what better time to come across a place like this than when you had lost nearly every one of your belongings?
You wrapped your arms tighter around Arthur when a few of the townsfolk eyed you. Suddenly, wolves seemed trivial. It was mankind you needed to fear. Your life had been nearly absent of people up to this point, and now that you were surrounded by them, you felt no different than a wild animal caught surrounded. Unbelonging.
As if Arthur sensed this, he distracted you. “What all you need? I’ll stop and see about another horse if they have one to spare.”
“A coat,” you replied. A bed and a meal couldn’t hurt either, but you didn’t much take to the idea of staying here longer than necessary.
Arthur shot you a look over his shoulder.
“What? You have a big coat.”
“And all the money,” he said, turning forward again with a smirk.
“I’ll pay you back.” Though you weren’t sure how you would.
He sighed long and loud. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Forget I said it then. You asked.”
He chuckled but said no more.
He pulled off next to one of the trader stalls and dismounted. “Stay here.” Arthur met your eye to make his seriousness known, and you were again troubled by the many eyes of the townspeople you could feel following you. You moved up into the saddle and took the reins for good measure.
You watched as Arthur made way to the trader stall and struck up a conversation. The trader looked to be an old man, older than he likely was due to the dirt caking his skin. His croaking voice reached you, but you couldn’t make out a word of it. Arthur seemed to understand him though, as he was soon pointing at a particularly harry skin behind the man’s head, hung up on a makeshift rafter. The trader nodded and spoke again, not unlike a frog in the way he forced his voice out. Then Arthur was turning, making for you.
He reached Boadicea and began digging through his saddle bags. He pulled out a rolled-up wolf pelt, the sight of it surprising you. You hadn’t even thought to skin the wolves, use the pelts to trade. Your father would have berated you for that, calling it wasteful not to.
Arthur rounded his horse and pulled another out of the other saddle bag, then returned to the trader, handing them over. The trader took them without a fuss before pulling down the garment you were just now realizing was a coat. Arthur walked back over with it in hand, tossing it up to you as you moved back out of the saddle to let him up.
“How’s that for a coat?”
Truth be told, it stunk. The bison hair was shaggy and unkempt, the inside of the coat made a little hastily, but you had no doubt it would keep you warm.
When Arthur settled in the saddle and got Boadicea back out in the street, you had already pulled it on. It was roomy, made for a bigger man than you, but you were grateful nonetheless.
“Thank you.”
It was the second time the phrase passed between you. And just like before, it remained unanswered.
Toward the southern edge of town, a man had erected a corral of sorts to pen in livestock. Livestock, not horses, as there were all manner of beast in there. Donkeys and mules and even an ox. There was one draft horse that you could see, but judging by the way he looked older than the dirt showing through the snow-packed ground, you were suddenly interested in owning a mule.
“Wait here,” Arthur said, swinging over the saddle and tossing you the reins.
“Can’t I pick one out?”
He looked ready to argue, but when he turned and met your eye, he stopped. He considered you a moment, either thinking you pitiful enough in your too-big coat or sorry enough from already having lost a horse that he relented with a groan. “Come on then.”
You kicked the mare on closer then dismounted, holding her reins as you looked over the various head of long-eared, soft-eyed mules.
Arthur went over to speak to the man at the gate, and you didn’t follow, deciding which mount looked to be young enough and calm enough for a rider. Most were likely just pack mules, not used to carrying a rider. They were an adaptable breed, but that didn’t mean one wouldn’t buck you off into the dirt if it got the chance.
You were eyeing two in particular, a tall seal brown and a barrel-round gray, when Arthur waved you over.
“Pick one out you like. This feller’s willing to make a deal.” You saw a gleam in Arthur’s eye you didn’t understand but handed him the reins anyway, making for the corral.
You stepped inside and moved over to the two mules you had been eyeing before, all of them in a big bunch, swishing tails and knocking off flies from their long, twitching ears.
The gray was nearer, and you made for him first. It took some maneuvering to get to him, but when you did, the way he turned his ears back and swung his head away from you was enough to prove the last thing on his mind was work. So you let him be and made for the taller brown mule instead.
Upon reaching her, she pushed her nose into your hand, curious. You let her nuzzle you a little before stroking her long face, scratching her ears. She let you, her eyes going half closed. In terms of mounts, you could do worse.
“How about this one?” you called out.
Arthur looked to the corral owner in question. After some back and forth, money exchanged hands. She was yours.
“How’s that, girl? Come on. You’re coming with me.”
You slipped the makeshift reins over her head—what they all wore, little more than rope—and led her out.
Arthur was asking after a saddle when you passed through the gate.
“What do you know, I sell those too,” the man replied.
You had to stifle a laugh when Arthur leaned in close, muttering sarcasm. “What do you know?”
Within the next twenty minutes and after knowing you owed Arthur for how much he had just forked over (or gotten “cheated out of” as he put it), you had a saddled, bridled mule.
It was now time for the true test—riding her out of here.
Arthur mounted his mare and looked down at you with amusement, crossing his arms over the saddle horn.
“Well go on then. Let’s see if you picked a good one.”
You shot him a look then stepped into the stirrup before you could think better of it, before you could think of what falling for the second time would do to you. But to your delight, the mule just stood there, patiently waiting on you. You swung onto her without a fuss. When you put your heels to her, she jerked a little in surprise, then slowed. You tried again, and she moved out. No problem.
Your smile took over your whole face. She had definitely been ridden before.
“I was expecting a little more of a fight,” Arthur said with a tinge of disappointment, his mare falling into step beside you.
Catching the stares of more than a few onlookers, you tensed. “Seems you weren’t the only one.”
While passing a nearby outpost, a man on its back porch called out to you. “Such a pretty lady with such an ugly ass!” A few of his fellow porch dwellers laughed.
You weren’t sure if he meant Arthur or the mule, but neither was good. Neither fared well with Arthur’s temper you had only seen once before. But return it did, in full force.
“You best be quiet, buddy,” Arthur responded, the words laced with malice.
The man guffawed. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll put a bullet in you,” Arthur said simply, cutting you off and moving his horse over so that he was closer to the threat, landing you on the outside.
You didn’t even have time to be afraid before you noticed Arthur’s gun in his hand. You hadn’t even seen him draw it.
The man glared at him, all amusement gone. And the moment sat on that glare—you, praying no one shot for fear of your new mount parting ways with you, and Arthur, just daring the man to make a move.
Finally, the man spit in the melting snow at Boadicea’s feet but said no more. He didn’t look away though, staring a hole into Arthur’s head as good as a bullet.
Arthur turned to go but left his gun in his hand. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t have to tell you twice.
You were both setting a trotting pace out of town when you turned back, looking for the same man. He was gone, and somehow that was worse. It settled like a heavy stone in the pit of your stomach, not knowing where he went.
Arthur saw you turned, watching, and whistled to get your attention. “Eyes on the road.”
You looked to him, then to the road, and knew why he’d said it. Nearly every pair of eyes was on you. On the gun still in Arthur’s hand.
When you skirted the edge of town, taking a small ridge upward and farther east, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.
You felt more than saw Arthur’s gaze turn in your direction.
“What’re you going to name her?”
Another distraction. But you smiled at the irony as you patted the animal’s neck, thinking that he still didn’t even know your name.
“I don’t know yet.”
Before he could respond, a voice rang out above you both, making you stop.
“Best hold it there, you two.”
Your eyes landed on the very man you had been so nervous to lose sight of. Him and four others, all mounted, all armed, all sitting at the highest point of the ridge out of town. They must have galloped up here, circled around to beat you.
“What you want?” Arthur asked with more annoyance than anything. How could he not be overcome with fear? You certainly were—you were outnumbered, had the low ground. And three of the men, including the one who had spoken, were looking at you like you were a prize to be won, a toy to be broken.
“I want that pretty little lady on the mule, since you don’t seem to know how to show any respect.”
Although obvious he was speaking to Arthur, his eyes never left you as he said it. Your blood ran cold.
“Not gonna happen, I’m afraid,” Arthur said, so nonchalant you almost took your eyes off the man to look at him.
The man chuckled. “And you’re gonna stop me, are you?”
“I will if I have to. But, best not let things get ugly. You be on your way and we’ll be on ours.”
Was he insane? How would that kind of talk earn anything but violence?
As if thinking the word drew it out of the men, the one who had spoken moved in a flash, aiming his rifle. You ducked and kicked your mule, spinning her around when the inevitable report of a gun rang loud, echoing and repeating, echoing and repeating. The noise stopped before you could get so much as a few feet out of the line of fire, your mule panicked below you. Terrified of what you would find had become of Arthur, you waited with hands uselessly covering your head, waiting on them to drag you off the mule.
“Let’s go. Quick,” you heard, and the familiarity in the voice made you balk. You turned to find Arthur motioning to you, already turned onto the snow-covered path out of the valley. He was whole. He was alive. And the five men…
“How did you-”
“We got bigger problems,” Arthur said, turning back to look at the town below. You followed his gaze to see much more unwanted attention. The whole town’s attention. A few men were already mounting up with guns drawn, in defense of their own.
“Shit,” you said and, praying your mule was a fast one, kicked her hard and were galloping up the slope in a moment’s breath, snow flying with the way her feet struck the earth. You took her around the five men that lay dead on the ground, trying not to trample them. “You killed them!” you said uselessly.
Ahead were their respective horses, running wild at their fright over the gunfight.
“No shit,” Arthur yelled, his horse pulling ahead of yours with ease. “Come catch one of these horses. They’re faster-”
“No time!” you interrupted, though that wasn’t the real reason. Your mule hadn’t stepped a toe out of line of where you’d asked her to go. So you pushed her hard, galloping away from your pursuers into the flattening countryside, hot on Arthur’s tail.
It took entirely too long to reach the safety of a spance of trees, a few shots ringing out behind you just before you did. Arthur shouted, “On me! We’ll lose ‘em down here!” and you didn’t bother turning to see how close your pursuers had gotten. You could hear the distant hoofbeats. A cacophony of them.
Arthur shot through the woods on his mare like water down a hill, and it took all you had to keep up. Your mule placed her feet well, but she was bulky and slower.
“Quick!” Arthur said, and turned a sharp left behind a huge rock face that hid him and his horse from view. You followed, nearly overcome with relief when you saw how the rock turned inward on itself. It was a small overhang, almost like the mouth of a cave—the perfect hiding spot.
You followed his lead and jumped off your mule, leading her as far inside as she could go. She was breathing heavy beside Boadicea but otherwise stood firm. You felt so much pride for her you nearly choked on it.
Arthur threw you his reins and peeked around the rock face, the sound of distant riders still approaching. But the sound was farther off to the right, likely not heading in the right direction. Could you have gotten so lucky?
You put your hands on your knees and sucked in breaths, trusting Arthur to warn you if you needed to run again.
“Stay quiet,” he whispered, coming back over to stand beside you.
Finally, the weight of what just happened bore down on you. It was too much. It was all too much. The fall, the men in the woods, the wolves, and now this.
You fell to your knees, using every ounce of strength you had left just to breathe.
“It’ll be all right,” Arthur said lowly. “We’ll get out of here soon enough, leave that shithole of a town behind us.”
“We almost died two days ago,” you said, voice small. “Now this.”
That must have struck a chord with Arthur, as he didn’t immediately answer like he always did.
Then, serious for once, “I know.” He looked back out toward the sound of hoofbeats, their growing distance reassuring. “I know.”
The pair of you waited for what had to be an hour. The closest anyone ever got was a distant shout away, though they eventually either gave up or went into hiding themselves to try to draw you out. Arthur banked on the former.
“Let’s go,” he finally whispered, testing the waters by leading Boadicea out, her hooves clacking against the rock. You followed behind, waiting for the inevitable sound of a horse, of a shout, of another gunshot. Anything. But it never came. And once mounted, the farther you and Arthur rode, the more that weight on your chest eased. The sun was setting, and you were getting farther from danger’s reach with every step. Soon it would be night, and you could ride through the darkness until no one from that town had any chance of finding you.
A few more hours had the trees thinning further. You were getting nearer to the prairie lands of Nebraska. Arthur had slowed his horse to a walk a while back, and now he was checking over his weapons as he rode. You eyed him, still wondering how he had killed five men without a scratch. There was no doubt in your mind he was a dead shot with that revolver. But, you figured, outlaws had to be. At least the living ones did. It still befuddled you that he was an outlaw, as good as he had been to you. His protectiveness over you was no small thing, and all you could think was that you were grateful, immensely, that if you were forced to live without your parents, you had at least been granted this man in their stead. You would have wound up dead otherwise. Three or four times over now.
When Arthur pushed on well past sunset, you settled in for the night on top of your molly, reeling. The life you were leading was different than any you could ever have dreamed. It scared you, it wore you down, but it was something to reflect on. It only leant to that story you would get to tell your parents someday, if you ever found your way back to them. You had a feeling you were heading in the right direction.
Stiff and scarred and terrified still, you rode on. That was all you could do. It was all this life had left to offer.
_________
Chapter eleven is here.
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#arthur morgan#arthur morgan x reader#arthur morgan x female reader#high honor arthur morgan#rdr2 arthur morgan#rdr2 fanfic#rdr2#fanfic#writing
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Hi Star, I was wondering if you can write for Leon x Fem reader where the reader and Leon are on mission together to save Ashley during RE4. Leon and reader are in love with each other but they haven't confessed until reader almost dies.
If not that's okay. Have a nice day/night :)
Resident Evil Leon Kennedy x Fem!Reader: “You can’t die on me yet!”
Warings: Spoilers for RE4 Remake, Violence, Guns, Drowning, Almost dying.
Pronouns: (She/Her)
A/N: Hi! Thank you so so much for requesting you’re my second request and I’m so excited!! I really really hope you enjoy this fic and I hope to get requests from you in the future. Thank you! Also I’m sorry for the wait, i’ve been so busy. I promise any future requests will not take this long 😭
Running through the graveyard, you and Leon run for the gate just ahead that lead to the church. With a grunt Leon pushed the gate open and then closed as you went ahead to the second gate in front of the door inside. You shook it a couple times trying to get it open.
“Damn it- Leon it’s locked.” You said looking at him over your shoulder. He started to walk up behind you, he had a look in his eyes as he shook his head.
“But of course. Because when would the two of us ever get a break?” He said with a sigh. His comment made you smile slightly. He was correct of course, the two of you haven’t had a break since you’ve got here. The only thing close to one is the time you’ve spent with the merchant, talking and shopping, without him this trip would of been much worse.
“Well… Let’s call Hunnigan. Might be a good idea to update HQ anyway.” You said leaning back against the gate and looking up at the sky. Leon nodded his head at your words.
“You’re probably right…” He breathed out then placed his finger to his ear and called, “Conder One and Robin Two to Roost. The church is sealed up.”
”And Baby Engle?…” ‘Roost’ or Hunnigan asked in reply.
“Negative. We haven’t found her, yet. This place is locked up tighter than knox…” You told her joining the conversation.
“I see. I can think of one reason they’d want to do so.” Said Hunnigan, they could hear light typing from her keyboard through her mic as she spoke.
“So can I. She’s definitely in there. And we’ll find a way in, one way or another. Conder One and Robin Two out.” Leon told the woman before ending the call. You looked at him standing up straight and going to his side.
“Do you really think she’s in there?…” You asked placing a hand on his shoulder. He paused at your touch and looked you in the eyes. His look made you pause in return. You loved his eyes, and his hair and his jokes and his-… Well you loved him.
You met him after the Raccoon City incident , both of you were survivors. How you managed to survive is a different story, but soon after you found yourself working for the government and meeting the blonde in front of you. Training was a nightmare, but having Leon made it so much better.
“(Y/N)?… Did you here me?” Leon asked titling his head as he looked at you. You removed your hand and gave him a nod looking away to the church.
“Yeah sorry- I zoned out a little uh… Let’s find a way inside.” Your voice was hush as you walked to the side of the church following the wall. Leon watched you go for just a moment before following not wanting you to be left alone.
It didn’t take long for you both to found a small room on the side that was unlocked. It wasn’t connected to the main church but there could be clues on how to get in. Looking around for supplies and answers, Leon’s eyes land on a map and a small note.
“This here says that the key is being held in a cave on the lake-“ He said taking it off the wall then looking at you.
“Then we’ll go to the lake. The signs around said it was just through the gate next door. It’s locked but…” Your eyes landed on a trapdoor in the corner of the room. “I think there may be a way around.” Leon walked up and opened it, shining his flashlight down the hole before looking at you.
“Well… Ladies first.” He said giving a half smirk. You playfully rolled your eyes walking up to him.
“Oh why thank you, what a gentleman.” You said walking pass him and starting to climb down the ladder. You faced him as you descended down, he chuckled softly.
“And watch your step too-“ He said as he made his way down after you, “I won’t be able to catch you from up here-“ He told you smiling.
Shaking your head you left the male on the ladder and followed the light at the end of the small cave, it lead to the other side of the gate just next to the church. You unlocked it just in case then looked to Leon.
He nodded his head down the path then started to walk that way, following you looked around at the world around you. If the people here weren’t crazy infected monsters then this would be like a vacation. Thinking about it you’d love to go on a vacation with Leon. You both needed some time together. You- Your happy thoughts were cut off as Leon put an arm over you and held you back as he peaked over a corner.
“Hostiles… Get your gun.” He whispered softly. You ignored the warmth in your cheeks as you nodded getting it ready. Leon took the first shot and the two of you went into battle. And battled and battled and battled. You were just lucky that he was here to have your back. He always is, it’s one of the reasons you loved him so much.
Throughout the whole fight Leon would warn you if someone was behind you, call out whenever something was thrown your way and freed you from anyone who laid their hands on you. You did the same for him. It’s why you were put on this mission together. It’s why they always put you both together, because you work perfectly together.
That work and care got you through the some cliff side area and through the quarry to thankfully, the merchant. The merchant was glad to see you two, welcoming the both of you in from your battles. You and Leon look at each other with a sigh of relief and buy anything that looked important. After saying your goodbyes you both continued forward.
“He’s always there when we need him.” You mumbled as you stepped out. Leon nodded a bit looking at you then smiled a little.
“Yeah I bet you loveee seeing your boyfriend~” He joked laughing a bit as you playfully hit his arm.
“Oh ha ha. Very funny but he’s not my type Leon.” You replied walking up to a fence blocking off a drop. Placing your arms on the railing you look out over the lake as Leon wondered what your type was exactly. “Hey- there’s some people in the water- On a boat.” You called to Leon as he walked over.
The two of you watched as they dumped a body in the water.
“Fuck…” Leon mumbled and then two seconds later the body was eaten by a large creature they only got to see for just a moment. The two of you stood silently knowing what would come next.
“That um… Cave we have to go there is-…there’s a walk way right?…” You were sheepish as you glanced at Leon. All he did was point to the little docking area across from them. “… Great.” You mumbled then sighed. Leon looked down to you and then gently placed a hand on your back.
“Hey… We… got this okay? In and out. As long as we’re careful I’m sure we’ll be fine.” His voice was soft and comforting, he even gave you a soft smile to reassure you. All you did was smile back and gave him a nod as you both started to make your way down to the lake side.
There was a very tiny boat it looked like it could just fit the two of you. Leon smiled and held his hand out to you then gently helped you down into the boat. Afterwards he followed suit, pulling the cord and starting the little engine.You sat in front and he drove the boat to the little building.
Light from the lowing sun made the lake shine, the whole place in a pretty orange glow.
“Hey…” Leon said to get your attention. “I actually want to talk to you about something while we have a moment… I was thinking maybe after all this… You and me could-“ He cut himself off as the boat slowed then came to a stop.
“Did um… Did you do that?” You asked looking over at him as he looked to the engine and shook his head.
“No?…” He said pulling on the cord trying to get it to start once more. You bit your lip, glancing into the dark water then jumping a little as something hit the bottom of the boat.
“Leon- Please for the love of god get it started already.” He could hear the worry in your voice as you held onto the sides of the boat. But Leon was somewhat lost in thought looking around the calm water of the lake. “Leon?”
He was brought to his senses as the lake monster that ate the body moments ago jumped from the water and over the two. Right after it grabbed onto a rope hanging from the boat and started to pull it along with it. “W-Woah-“ You let out falling a little bit into Leon but he kept you up right in a protective hold as you both were pulled. 
“Now what do we do?!?” You asked looking back at Leon. He glanced at the engine then some harpoons on the floor of the boat.
“You shot I drive- Just another mission… We got this.” He said handing you the harpoons. Have you ever used a thrown weapon? No, but it wasn’t like you had much choice. With Leon keeping the two of you away from rocks and anything floating in the water with you, you fought off the monster.
Things were looking great, with the lake filling up with the beasts blood. Bending down to grab another harpoon, the boat was rocked by the creature just enough to throw you from the ship. You fall backwards into the dark cloudy waters with your heart pounding as you try and swim up. Your lungs started to burn, it was like no matter how much you swam you couldn’t reach the top. The last thing you remember was something moving pass you.
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾☆.｡:*.｡.:*☆ ༓･*˚⁺‧͙
……
“(Y/N)?… (Y/N) come please? Don’t give out on me now-“ A muffled voice called as you slowly came two. “God please I- I never got to… Damnit… Come please… You can’t die on me yet. I can’t lose you too… Please… I love you so much don’t do this. I didn’t even get to tell you!” The voice continued then you gasped, all of the water in your lungs coming up and out making you gag.
Gasping for air you held your chest trying to get it out. After a moment you took in the world around you. You make it to the little dock you had seen before. By your side was a soggy Leon who pulled you into a tight hug the second he saw you were okay.
“Oh thank god! I thought I lost you.” He said as you gently pat his back to reassure him.
After a second it hit you. You were alone so the voice you heard had to be Leon’s… And what he had said… Your cheeks reddened as you remembered. Did you imagine it? Miss hear? Either way you were going to ask, you needed to know.
“Leon… What um… We’re you saying before I was completely up? I kinda heard a bit…” Your voice was quiet as Leon froze and glanced away for just a moment.
“O-Oh that uh… Damn it well… I almost lost you and I’m not going to risk it happening again without you knowing.” He said moving closer and taking your hands. “I really really love you… So much… I was even going to ask you out on the boat before that monster came. I couldn’t help it- You’re just… You’re just amazing.” He said looking at you like you were the only girl in the whole world.
You blushed and slowly grinned pulling Leon into a tight hug. He loved you! It took you almost dying to find out but he loved you!
“I love you too Leon… I have for a long time now.” You told him softly, your hug was so tight just wanting him close. Leon grinned and hugged you back just as tightly. He was so thankful you felt the same. 💜
(A/N Hi- I’m so sorry for the wait again April is always a busy month for me. Future fics will come faster I promise! In at least at weeks time if I decide to do it!)
#stardust writings#resident evil#resident evil x reader#scenarios#x reader#leon kennedy#resident evil 4#re4 fanfic#leon kennedy x reader
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The Cabin in the Woods
Eddie Munson x Reader
11,339 words
Warnings: natural disasters, death/dying (no character death), medical gore, medicinal drug use, use of Y/N but VERY minimal, no beta.
Synopsis: Something is very wrong in Hawkins and Eddie isn’t answering the phone. A story featuring heavy metal concerts, medical attention, mutual pining, and a cabin in the woods.
Author's Note: Follows canon except they do defeat Vecna – whose final act is the ‘earthquake.’ Set primarily in Hopper’s cabin. I used this website as a floorplan reference. We're pretending it's not as trashed as it is in the show.
Part One: Chrissy Cunningham was Dead
Chrissy Cunningham was dead. She was beautiful, with slightly crooked teeth and sparkly eyes. Her face was all over the news on Saturday morning. A small town golden girl was murdered overnight. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.
The next day the news came straight from Hawkins again. Fred Benson wore glasses and worked on the high school’s newspaper. He was the sole survivor of a tragic car wreck only to die at the hands of, what the reporter called, a serial killer. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.
On Monday you went to work and listened to people filter through gossip. The girl died at a trailer park. Some drug dealer’s house. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.
On Tuesday your mother came home and said, “Did you hear? Turns out they found the boy on the road right near that trailer park.” Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.
He wasn’t answering the goddamn phone for four days straight and there were two dead kids from his town, maybe from his trailer park. Eddie was entirely M.I.A. while Fred Benson and Chrissy Cunningham were dead.
Part Two: In a Fairer World
In a fairer world, you would have grown up in the same shitty small town as Eddie Munson. Alas, you were banished to your own equally shitty and small Indianan town. It meant you didn’t have Eddie to keep you company during lunch periods or ask you to the school dance. It meant you remained lonely for most of your teen years. It meant that the only time you got to spend with Eddie was when your paths crossed at metal shows in Indianapolis or Chicago.
It was in the depths of a cold 1984 winter that you and Eddie first officially met. You had seen each other around, noting the presence of another teen that had snuck into the show or club, but you hadn’t ever spoken. Then, on a particularly bitter night, you and Eddie found yourselves in the same hiding spot.
You’d clocked the bouncers of the venue doing periodical laps inside, spot checking IDs. They only bothered when the air was stale and frozen like it was then. Annoyed, you swiped an open jar of maraschino cherries from behind the bar and ducked your way into a small storage room, no bigger than a broom closet.
It was dark but warm. You were pleasantly buzzed and snacking away when the door opened and another body jumped in, bumping into you with a yelp.
“Fuck! Sorry!” Eddie said but made no move to leave the cramped space. You listened to him feel around the door and wall, then the space was illuminated. He turned to look at you.
“Huh,” was all you said at the revelation of there being a light in the room.
“They’re checking IDs,”
“Yeah,” you replied. “That’s… why I’m in ‘ere,”
“Yeah… Um. You want me to go… or…?”
You shook your head no. “How old are you?” you asked.
“Seventeen. Just,” he answered honestly. “You?”
“Sixteen.”
You swapped names and hometowns, then when the coast was clear went your separate ways.
Between ’84 and ’85 you and Eddie danced around each other. Polite nods and manic grins when you slammed into each other in mosh pits. By March of ’85, you became friends. When there was a show, you’d call each other beforehand to plan the night. City meet ups before and 24/7 diner fries after. Something shifted by the end of ’85.
While you had graduated, Eddie was repeating again. He was still his usual self, but he had pulled away from you a little. It hurt, because you were desperate to see him. It was scary, finishing high school and tumbling into the adult world. You wanted the routine of Eddie and gigs. Also, somewhere along the line your feelings about Eddie had become different than platonic.
Between the hours of phone calls, the hand holding as you ran through crowds together, and the conversations had while sitting on the curb about all the things the future could hold, you fell in love.
You figured it was one sided. If Eddie loved you back, he would have kissed you. He would have said something, even by accident. He wouldn’t have pulled away at all.
By the spring of 1986 you hadn’t seen Eddie in a couple of months. In the rare phone call, he said he was trying his hardest to graduate. There was one class he had to get credits for, even a D would secure him the high school diploma that had alluded him. Like you always did, you offered to help with homework and edit essays and do anything for him, but like always he laughed the offer off, saying that the teachers would be able to tell his own scribblings from your intelligent words.
You hated when Eddie talked shit about himself. Luckily, it wasn’t too often; given his history and current status as his town’s resident freak, he did surprisingly well at the whole self-esteem thing. There were cracks in the facade though. Deep seated ideas about his worth. Self-deprecating jokes. It hurt to know things like that lived somewhere in him while he lived in a place determined to make his life shitty.
Despite knowing just how much Hawkins misunderstood Eddie, and despite hearing the rumours of a trailer park, you still couldn’t believe what you were seeing.
Hiding from parents who were asking when you were going to move out, you had been flicking through television channels on the couch in the basement. The couch was musty, with wet patches that never seemed to dry. The T.V. set was old and staticky. Still, it was better than being upstairs.
You stopped on the news to watch a segment on the violence in the Gulf of Sidra between the U.S. and Libya. There were no American casualties. While you were wondering if there were Libyan deaths, the news anchor was shuffling his papers.
“And now to local news. Small town Indiana has been rocked by another in a series of violent murders. Patrick McKinney brings the body count to three, and with rumours of Satanism, Hawkins, population 13,400, is once again in the spotlight.”
The story played out. A reporter in the field stood outside the boundary lines of Forest Hills Trailer Park. “This is a town all too familiar with murder and mystery,” she said. A photograph of a teenage girl named Barbara. Another of the missing child Will Byers. A mall fire. More deaths. More misery.
Frozen in place, your skin broke out in goosebumps and your mouth went dry. Tears pricked at the edges of your eyes and butterflies scraped their razorblade wings across the lining of your stomach.
“And now, three more deaths can be added to the tally, but what has profoundly shaken this quiet town is the thought of a murderer in their midst.”
It cut to a teenager in a green varsity jacket with a microphone held out to him. “We always knew he would do something like this. Guy’s a total freak,” the teen said.
“And the rumour of Satanism?” asked the reporter, aiming the mic back at the teen.
“Oh, yeah. He listens to that devil music and he’s the leader of a cult. They’re called Hellfire.”
Before your brain had a chance to connect the dots for itself, Eddie’s photo was on the screen. The reporter’s voice was steady and sure as she said, “Edward ‘Eddie’ Munson is a twenty-year-old who attends Hawkins High. He is law enforcement’s prime suspect. The first victim was located inside his residence here at Forest Hills Trailer Park, and a witness claims to have seen Munson in the vicinity of the third victim at the time of their death. Munson lives with his uncle, who has declined an interview.”
Wrapping your arms around yourself, you began to rock back and forth in an attempt to self-sooth. You didn’t register it, but you whimpered as you watched the closing of the news report.
“Are the people of Hawkins cursed? Has the occult been attracted to an already traumatised town? Or is this simply the work of a disturbed young man? Law enforcement is asking all residents of Hawkins and surrounding areas to remain vigilant. Do not approach any suspects. Call your local police department or Crime Stoppers with any information you may have. We will keep you updated on any developments.”
The screen cut back to the news anchor, who moved on to banter with the weatherman. It felt like all the air and sound in the basement had been sucked out in a vacuum. You couldn’t breathe. Your vision was blurry. You were going to puke.
Making it to your bedroom, you threw yourself into your small bathroom and curled up on the cool tiles. There were tears but you weren’t properly crying. Every tiny spark of energy in you was dedicated to figuring out what the absolute fuck you had just seen.
It wasn’t possible, you knew that. Eddie had been generous and sweet since you met him. He was respectful and got pissed when people didn’t observe metal gig etiquette. He pulled people out the mosh when they needed help. He’d bought you more bottles of water than you could count. Eddie was so deeply a lover, not a fighter.
So, no, there wasn’t even a split second where you thought he was guilty. It was simply instantaneous terror for where he was and what would happen once the pitchfork wielding townspeople or the trigger happy cops found him.
A knock on your bedroom door snapped you from your spiraling.
“What?” you yelled.
“What’s with all the door slamming?” your dad’s voice yelled back.
“Nothing. Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”
There was a pause. “You okay?”
You sat up and breathed out. “Yeah. Sorry,”
“Alright…”
It wasn’t until you heard his boots walk down the hall that you got up and moved to the telephone next to your bed. Eddie’s number was still connected, but it rang and rang like it had for days. You tried it all night, but there was no answer.
Sleep came in short restless bursts. The following day you got sent home from work early for crying in the bathroom. You apologised and made up a story about a death in the family, earning you a week off.
After another sleepless night, nobody picking up the phone, and all the catastrophising your brain could do, you thought it couldn’t get any worse.
When you emerged late in the morning for breakfast, you found your parents in the living room watching a breaking news story.
“There’s only twenty-two confirmed casualties so far but it’s… it’s bad here, John,” the corresponded said. They were crossing from what appeared to be some sort of natural disaster.
“Are we sure it was an earthquake?” John from the studio asked.
“That’s what the authorities are saying. Seismologists say 7.4. The townsfolk though, they seem to be asking questions.”
“What happened?” you asked your parents.
“Earthquake hit… Did you feel anything?” your mum replied.
“What do you mean?”
“It was here. Indiana.”
Somehow, you knew.
“I didn’t feel anything… Are we even on bloody tectonic plates?” your dad said.
“That poor town,”
“Something going on there, let me tell you. I was talking to Bill at work. He’s got a cousin out that way. Says the whole place has been swarming with feds, even before this,”
“Because of the murders?” she asked.
“That and everything else.”
The back and forth between your parents was making your blood run cold, you shushed them and turned up the television.
“We’re hearing now that a suspect is in custody for the recent string of murders, but it seems like Hawkins has bigger problems,”
“Yeah, John, the people are banding together to help neighbours out. We’ve seen federal support mobilise quickly. But nobody has forgotten about Eddie Munson and the occult murders,”
“He’s in custody?”
“We can’t confirm if it’s him, but we’ve been assured a suspect has been taken in,”
“Right, and the earthquake - what can people at home do to help?”
A phone number appeared on screen with a call to donate funds to help Hawkins rebuild. The sound of your parents discussing an appropriate amount to give, then finding their credit cards, then calling the number, then being annoyed at joining a queue, became white noise.
Whatever was happening in your brain was all happening on a subconscious level. You were standing still, not a single thought in your mind. Just a shell, waiting for something to come from deeper within yourself to move you.
Suddenly, “I… have to go. I have to go.”
Flying down the hall and into your bedroom, you were throwing random articles of clothing and toiletries into a bag while your parents were still on hold. When you ripped back through the house, your mum noticed the frenzy and started to trail you. Kitchen, fridge, apple, a couple of cans of Dr Pepper. Cupboard, chips. Hallway, keys. You only stopped when your mum yelled your name.
“What?!”
“What are you doing?!”
“I… I have a friend. In Hawkins. I have to go,”
“No, no you don’t. They’ve said not to go. It’s too dangerous. There’s a number you can call to find friends and family,”
“You don’t understand. I have to go. I have to.”
The expression on your mother’s face was fear. Your dad appeared and his was all confusion. For a second you considered saying that the friend was Eddie, but logic reasoned a second later.
“I’m going,” you asserted, holding the keys in your hand tighter and taking a step backwards toward the door. “I’m sorry.” And you bolted out the front door and into your car.
In a fairer world, you would have grown up in the same shitty town as Eddie. In a fairer world, whatever was haunting Hawkins would have never existed. In a fairer world, Eddie would have loved you like you loved him. Alas, the world was unfair in far more ways than you could have even begun to imagine.
Part Two: The Drive to Hawkins
The drive to Hawkins was long and lonely. The route bypassed Indianapolis and looped around to continue to the other side of the state. Despite the authority’s warning, it seemed like hundreds of people were lined up to get into the small town. The roads were at a standstill and you spent the night behind the wheel.
You caught a few hours of sleep before being woken by the horns of the cars behind you. That process repeated itself until almost midday the next day. By the time you hit Hawkins’ welcome sign, you were close to peeing yourself and exhausted beyond belief.
Parked at a playground and barbeque area, went to the toilet, and made an attempt to wash your face and armpits. It was when you were reading a tourist information board that it dawned on you that you had no idea where to start. Looking around, you felt like you were at the epicenter of chaos.
Smoke was still billowing in the sky on the horizon. The sound of sirens was constantly audible. There were cars and people everywhere. If you focused on the noise, you could hear crying. The news was right – Hawkins was a cursed place.
“Okay, okay,” you said to yourself. “Okay.”
If Eddie had been arrested, it was unlikely he would be allowed visitors. At the very least though, you may get some information. If he hadn’t been arrested, if justice had prevailed in the so-called-land of the free, then you could try Forest Hills after.
Normally, going anywhere near a cop shop was a hard no, but for Eddie, you’d do it.
When you got to the closest station, you realised how hard the task in front of you was going to be. You had to park blocks away, walking through crowds of people looking for missing loved ones, and past tents of what you feared were body bags.
“Sorry, excuse me?” you said to someone official-looking woman holding a clipboard. They were trying to answer multiple people’s questions. You waited patiently until it became clear that manners couldn’t co-exist with an environment like that. “I’m looking for someone,”
“Everyone is, honey. Check the board for names. Black one has photos of bodies. Red one is for missing people. You see someone you recognise, bring the photo to me. If they’re already on the red board, nothing more you can do.”
There was a third possibility that you legitimately hadn’t thought of, one worse than being wrongfully arrested. What if Eddie had died in the earthquake?
You started to cry, but you were just one person in a sea of misery. Nobody stopped to see if you were okay. Nobody looked at you like you were being weird in public. You were just another grief-stricken person.
After powerwalking back to your car and throwing yourself into the backseat to curl up, you sobbed for what felt like hours. When you calmed down and poke your head up, only minutes had been spent. Fifteen at most.
You climbed over the centre console to sit back in the driver’s seat. You wound your window down and rummaged through your bag for some tissues. Wetting some with the last of your bottled water, you washed your face.
There were still people everywhere, and you could make out a conversation happening close.
“What do we do now?” a small voice asked.
You glanced at your side mirror and watched as a man and woman embraced.
“I don’t know… They said search parties are being organised over at the school…” the man replied.
“I just want to find her,”
“I know… I know. Me too… Let’s just… Just go there. Heard it’s been set up with food and water too. You need to eat something,”
“I’m not hungry… I just want to find her.” The woman began to cry.
It felt wrong to be listening to their conversation, but there was nowhere to go. You saw the couple begin to walk. The woman seemed frail and the man had a scarf tied around his leg. Even through the mirror’s reflection you could tell he was injured.
“Excuse me!” you called after them, sticking half your body out the window. “Do you need a ride?”
Maybe manners couldn’t function, but humanity certainly could.
The man nodded and did not hesitate as he pulled the woman along and got her into the back seat. He slid in next to her.
“Thank you,”
“Yeah. No worries… Um, where do you need to go?” you asked, playing dumb.
The man directed you to the school. You dropped them off at the front door before driving back down the block in search of somewhere to park. The drive had been silent save for the directions. Every part of you was crying out to ask if they knew Eddie. Did they know where he was? Was he okay?
As you approached the school on foot, you read the signs someone had made out of pieces of plywood and a can of spray paint. Search parties and missing people information were inside the main building. First aid and immediate supplies were inside the gymnasium. Not knowing what to do, you flipped a coin in your head, and walked in the gym.
It felt calmer inside. Cots were set up for the injured. It seemed this was triage for the not mortally wounded. Nobody was screaming in agony. Volunteers were handing out cups of water and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Across the space more volunteers were sorting donations of blankets, toys, and other items. The room was lined with pinboards covered in missing people posters. There were people in fluorescent vests giving orders and answering questions. It had only been about 36-ish hours since the earthquake, but already the operation to help was well underway.
You made your way around to where the donations were being collated and organised. A girl looked up as you approached the table. “Hi! What do you need?” she asked. “We’ve got pillows and blankets. Jackets too?”
“Oh, ah, no. I’m okay… I was actually looking for a friend.” You saw her face drop and her mouth open as if she was trying to work out how to redirect you. Before she could, you said, “Not like, a missing friend. I don’t think he’s missing. I just, um, can’t get a hold of him… So, I was maybe looking for someone that knows him? Like a friend?”
“Oh… Well, it is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. What’s their name?”
You hated that you hesitated. “Eddie… Munson.”
The girl was startled at even his name. There were people around who looked over at the mention of Eddie too.
“Don’t you know what he did?”
“He didn’t hurt anyone,”
“That’s not what everyone says,” she replied, the earlier kindness in her voice entirely gone.
“They’re wrong.”
The girl’s expression fell neutral and she stared at you.
“Do you know where he is? Was he arrested?”
It was clear she was deciding if she wanted to give you the information or not. “No,” she eventually offered. “Everyone reckons he did some freak witchcraft shit to get out of it. Cops say they have the real killer and everything.”
You bit your tongue. Starting a fight in an earthquake crisis centre was not a good look. “Okay, so he should be at home?”
The girl shrugged. Despite her intentions, she had been helpful. You left her without a word more and headed for the exit.
You didn’t get far before someone was yelling after you. At first you didn’t respond, thinking they were calling for someone else. “Hey! Ah, hey, miss?!” But then they said, “You know Eddie?”
Spinning, you took a step towards the guy. He was around your age and had a pretty face. He wore a clean blue sweater and seemed relatively put together considering everything happening around him.
“Is he okay? Do you know where he is?”
The guy looked you up and down conspicuously. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” you parroted immediately.
“Sorry… It’s just… There’s a lot of people looking for him… Not all, you know-” He shook his hands in a gesture that meant nothing to you. “Not all friendly,”
“Are you his friend? What’s your name,”
“Steve. I’m Steve… I guess, yeah… Yeah, I’d say we’re friends… New friends, but friends. Been through some… stuff together. Really bonds two guys. People! Two… People. Two separate people…”
“Steve? He’s never mentioned a Steve,”
“Yeah, ah, like I said – new friends,” Steve said tilting his head to the side. “You’re not from Hawkins, are you?”
You shook your head. “I see him in Indy. We go to shows together-”
“Oh! Yeah! No, he talked about you… Which, all things considered, it’s gotta mean something. Not a lot of casual conversation in the middle of all this,” he said, motioning to the surrounding chaos. Steve saw your sad eyes, the tiredness written all over your face. The pins on your jacket. The boots. He was sharper than people gave him credit for and was appropriately suspicious of things. There was a feeling though, a flutter of empathy. “Y/N, right?”
“Yes. Please. Is he okay? I need to see him.”
Steve folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “My shift here isn’t over, but I’ll call someone. They can take you to him,”
“Thank you. Yes. Thank you.” You jumped at Steve, holding him in a hug.
He was unprepared and slow to react. “Ah, yeah, yeah. You’re welcome. Just go sit over there somewhere.”
Saying nothing else, just nodding eagerly, you followed Steve’s instructions, walking down the sidewalk to sit near the school’s bike racks.
It took less than two minutes before the sounds of everything started to pin prick at your heart and lungs. Despair and desperation. You wished you had your headphones, a mixtape made by Eddie and sent through the mail to keep you company, but the batteries in your Walkman were long dead after the drive to Hawkins.
Part Three: “Are You Eddie’s Girlfriend?”
“Are you Eddie’s girlfriend?”
Dustin Henderson was exactly how Eddie described. You recognised the boy before he finished turning into the car park on his bike. Even under his Thinking Cap, his hair was trademark. He beamed at you as he came to a stop, asking the question like it wasn’t going to throw you into inner turmoil.
“Ah… We’re friends,”
“That’s what he says but…” He paused to wriggle his eyebrows.
You stood up and brushed grass off your pants. “Where is he?”
“You got a car? It’s too far to go with you on the handlebars.” Dustin smiled when you nodded. He got off his bike and took a long time trying to get it to fit in the back of your car.
As the kid directed you out of the heart of Hawkins, you were relieved that you didn’t have to think of things to say. Dustin had that covered. It started with a question, “So, earthquake, huh?” It was as if he was testing you.
“Yeah? I’m… uh, sorry? That how you hurt your leg? Is, is your house okay?” you replied.
“It wasn’t an earthquake…” He paused to gauge your reaction. You kept your eyes on the road and said nothing. “You know how people say Hawkins is cursed? They’re not entirely wrong.”
He told the story of three boys searching for their fourth. A story of monsters and heroes, love and hope.
“He was just with the wrong person at the wrong time,” Dustin told you, introducing Eddie into lore. “The first person that died, the one that started all this, was Chrissy. You probably saw her on the news. She went to Eddie’s to buy drugs and that’s when he got her.”
There was a foreignness in how Dustin said ‘buy drugs,’ and even with all he had been through, that alone was a reminder of the fact he was just a kid.
“He?”
“Vecna. The bad guy. He killed her and Eddie was there,”
“Right. And everyone thought he did it,”
“Yeah,” Dustin nodded. “Turn left up here. All of this, the ‘earthquake’ and everything, is Vecna.”
You took the left and slowed down, the road unpaved and winding into a wooded area. As Dustin continued to give you directions, adding more fantastical details about Hawkins and his friends, you began to worry more and more.
“Wait, wait. So, if Vecna is, like, dead or whatever… and Eddie has been cleared, why are we driving into the middle of a forest? Why’s Eddie hiding?”
For the first time in the conversation, Dustin seemed like he didn’t want to speak.
“Dustin?”
“Ah…”
“What’s wrong? What happened to him?”
“Can I just say that you’re handling all this very well,”
“Dustin!”
“I mean, it’s a lot,”
“Dustin. What happened to Eddie?”
Dustin sighed, looking out the window and spotting the end of the road up ahead. “He tried to be a hero.”
You glanced at the kid, then rolled to a stop.
“Maybe he should tell you this part,” Dustin said.
When you looked at each other, you could see the trauma Dustin hid behind a quick wit and years of living in flight or fight mode. He deserved a break; you nodded.
“Yeah, alright,”
“He’s pretty beat up. He’s gotta be in more pain than he’ll admit. Maybe… maybe you can help with that,”
“Should he be in a hospital?”
“Yeah, definitely. He made up some crap about how someone more in need deserved the bed.” Dustin frowned.
Cutting the engine, you got out of the car. The sound of Dustin pulling his bike out drew your attention.
“What now?”
“The path is pretty clear. Just follow it up,”
“You’re not coming?”
“Nah. If I’m gone long, Mom will freak out,”
“Can’t blame her… You sure you should ride that far? With your leg, I mean,”
“I’m fine. Stronger than I look, you know. We’ll bring supplies tomorrow morning. Everyone will wanna meet you too.”
Did Eddie really talk about you that much?
“Okay,”
“See ya, Y/N.”
Dustin rode off back the way you’d come. You stood watching until he was completely out of sight and sound. It was eerily quiet in the woods then.
The walk was only a few minutes. The path led to a small structure that didn’t look like a place for a hero at all.
As you climbed the steps to the cabin, you noted all the missing nails and rotten wood. At the door you held a hand up to knock, then hesitated.
Fuck.
You breathed in deeply then knocked, calling out, “Eddie?” in a weird sort of yell-whisper. The sound cut through the serenity of nature, making you cringe. With a shaking hand, you opened the door, pushing it inward, grateful it didn’t squeak with rust.
The place was small. Directly to your left was a bathroom and to your right a kitchenette. A small living room was ahead, with a door open wide on the opposite wall; you could see it was a bedroom, the bed made and most of the floor space taken up by boxes. The final door, adjacent to the kitchen, moved; you watched it open slowly.
From the darkness, Eddie emerged to lean his weight on the doorframe. His hair was tied in a messy bun, and he wore track pants and a long-sleeved flannel shirt that was at least three times too big for him. Part of his face was covered with bandages, and he had deep lines under his eyes that you’d never seen him with, not even when he was his most hungover.
“Y/N?” Eddie’s voice was croaky, his throat dry. He looked confused and dazed. You were the last person he expected to see.
You were across the room and reaching out for him before he could warn you. As soon as you grabbed him, he winced and made the same sound a puppy does when you accidentally step on his tail.
“Sorry! I’m sorry! Sorry. Fuck. Are you okay? Sorry.”
Eddie tried to control the pain, but it kept hold, forcing a contorted expression to linger on his face. You stepped away from him.
“Eddie- I’m- Oh my god,” you breathed out. “What’s happening? What happened? Are you- Fuck.” You didn’t know where to start or what to say. Suddenly, your mouth was moving before you had a chance to censor or edit yourself. “I saw the news. I tried to call but when I couldn’t get a hold of you, I… I freaked out,”
“How-” Eddie tried to ask, but the pain was rolling down his spine.
“Dustin,” you replied. “Um, I was…” Totally and utterly terrified for Eddie. Unable to go on with life without knowing he was safe. No, not just knowing. Seeing him for yourself. “I went to the school, ‘cause it’s all set up as a crisis centre or whatever. I asked someone about you, and a guy named Steve heard. He called Dustin for me. He showed me the way here.”
Eddie managed a small nod. “He outside?”
“No. He had his bike when we met up. We had it in my car and he rode it home. Just us… Should you sit? Back to bed?” you asked, trying to look behind him into the room he’d come from.
Carefully, he turned around and retreated. You followed along behind him, turning the light on as you entered the room. Eddie stood over the bed, and before you could work out how to help, he just let himself fall onto the mattress. He hissed and clenched his teeth, screwing his eyes shut so tightly that it made you shudder.
The single bed was old, low to the ground. You knelt and gently took one of Eddie’s hands. Looking around the room, you began to understand the gravity of the situation.
On the bedside table was a mountain of different medications – antibiotics and painkillers and other things you didn’t recognise. There were bottles of water next to the bed, empty ones thrown about the room. Some evidence of food, but mostly unfinished packets of chips and cookies. Sitting on a table against the opposite wall was a box of medical supplies, and next to that a pile of bloody and gore covered bandages and tissues. The final piece of the puzzle was a bucket under the bed that you couldn’t see into but you guessed was for pee.
“Eddie… When did you last take anything for the pain?”
You thought about what Dustin had said. If Eddie was in more pain than he let on, he probably wasn’t taking a reasonable amount of painkillers.
His eyes fluttered open, and he slowly turned his head to face you. When he glanced at the bedside table, he pulled a face. “Dunno.”
You were confident that it was a significant time ago. “Okay, well, we’re taking some now,”
“M’fine,”
“No. No, you’re not. You’re the least fine I have ever seen anybody in my life. Eddie, whatever happened, this is… insanely fucked. Please, just take some of this and-” A shaky breath in. “And you can tell me what the hell is happening.”
You studied his face. The patch bandage on Eddie’s face wasn’t a clean white. You could see whatever wound was beneath it was still actively bleeding. He had dirt and grime around his hairline. His lips were chapped badly and now close to him, you could see knots in his hair were matted. Whatever happened forty-eight hours ago when the ‘earthquake’ happened, Eddie still wasn’t clean of it.
His big brown eyes met yours and he gave in, opening his mouth. You put two oxycodone tablets in his mouth. He swallowed them dry.
You sat with him, holding his hand for a little while longer. Eventually, when his breathing had settled into a healthier rhythm and it looked like he’d stopped clenching every muscle in his body, you said, “I’m going to, um, clean up a bit, then when those kick in I’m moving you to the couch out there, or the other bed. You need to get out of this room.”
Eddie made the smallest of nods, and you watched him close his eyes and zone out again.
Turning the light off and leaving the bedroom, you closed the door behind you and leaned your back against it, holding in a sob that was trying to claw its way out your chest. It hadn’t been the reunion you’d pictured. You had no idea what had happened to Eddie, or how hurt he was, but letting your mind try to fill in the blanks was a bad idea.
“Okay,” you said to yourself with a nod.
The cabin wasn’t as bad as you had initially thought. It was old and in need of updating and repairing, but it wasn’t leaking or covered in mould. Finding cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, you wiped down surfaces and collected all the trash into a bag. It became clear that if Eddie was bedridden, other people were spending a lot of time there. The garbage, the blankets and pillows on the couches, and the dishes drying in a rack told you enough.
The sun was beginning to set as you cooked a vegetable stew. A lot of veggies were in their final days of edibleness, and that way you could put some in the freezer for easy meals later. Later? You caught yourself in the thought; how long did you think you were staying? Did Eddie even want you to be there at all?
You set a bowl of stew down on the old wooden chest that served as a coffee table in front of the couch.
“Eddie,” you called, going back into the bedroom. “I’m turning the light back on… Has the oxy kicked in?”
Eddie looked at you, more lucid than before. You could see his pupils were blown. He shrugged a little, trying to sit up.
“Okay. That’s better than no. Come on. Food’s ready.”
He looked at you like he wasn’t sure you were real. When you held your hands out to him, he took them and let you gently pull him up. He walked slowly, then sat on the couch at equal speed.
You moved the bowl from the table to his lap, checking it wasn’t hot to touch.
“You good?”
Eddie nodded as he looked at the stew, picking up the spoon.
The first thing you did in the bedroom was strip the bed. There was no washing machine in the cabin, so you balled all the linen up in another big garbage bag. Next went all the trash and the bucket under the bed. You swept the floor and wiped down the bedside table and the desk. All the medical supplies found new homes in the bathroom, and you went through the duffle bag of clothes to determine what needed washing and what could be folded neatly onto the desk.
The springtime air was crisp, but you opened the window anyway. With the room airing out, you closed the door to protect the rest of the cabin from the cold.
Eddie had eaten all the stew. It gave you an albeit small but no less real sense of peace. If he could eat, he’d be okay. As you took the bowl to fill again, you spoke.
“Dustin is exactly how you described him, by the way,”
“How was he?” Eddie asked.
“I mean, I don’t know him… but… he was weirdly… chipper? No boundaries? Inappropriate?”
“That’s him… He shouldn’t be riding his bike,”
“His leg?” you guessed.
Eddie nodded. “Yeah,”
“What happened?”
Eddie went quiet, took the second bowl of stew you handed him. He started to eat.
“He told me about everything. Well, not everything everything. Just everything before… Whatever happened to you… But about, um, Vecna? And the upside down. And Chrissy.”
Eddie’s eyes looked for anywhere that wasn’t where you were sat on the couch next to his.
When Eddie thought of you, he thought of heavy metal crowds and cheap beer and being the person he wanted to be. He thought of how you were escapism from the shitty life he had. How you thought he was cool and funny and good enough to be a friend. How you sounded over the phone late at night, all sleepy and cute. How you looked dressed for a gig. Eddie never wanted you to be in Hawkins. He never wanted you to see him in the context of his everyday life.
Of all the fucked up things that had happened over the past week, having that pure, beautiful, escapism taken away from him might be the worse.
“You don’t have to stay and… look after me or whatever,” Eddie said. Although there were some bitter tones in his voice, he mostly sounded sad.
He’d been in and out of consciousness for forty-eight hours. Things slipped from the dreaming into reality. Demobats in the corner of the bedroom. Lightning as the fridge opened. You, holding his hands and making him stew. But you were real, Eddie was only just fully becoming aware of it. He was confused by your presence, and ashamed of what you were seeing.
You were meant to know Eddie at his best and most beautiful. Not this. Not this broken and hollowed-out version.
“I know that… And, um, I know it’s kind of weird for me to just show up. Since we’re not like…”
Eddie looked up, afraid you were about to say that you weren’t friends at all. “It’s not weird.”
You smiled. “I’m just saying I know I don’t have to be here. I mean, we haven’t really talked heaps lately anyway.”
That was on Eddie. He didn’t know how to talk to someone he was falling in love with. Still didn’t.
“But I just… needed to know you were okay. And to tell you I know you’d never do the things the news said you did,” you continued.
He didn’t know what to say. “This is good,” he decided on, holding up the now-empty bowl.
“There’s more. You should let that settle though,”
“When did you get all…” He was going to say ‘parental’ or even ‘maternal’ but had enough cognitive energy to stop. “Uh, good at playing nurse.”
Last time Eddie had seen you, you were shotgunning a warm beer handed to you by the singer of a local metal band in Indi. She had pulled you on stage, impressed to see a girl handling herself amongst the big guys. You’d shotgunned the beer, sprayed half back over the crowd like a fountain, then jumped with reckless abandon onto the pit. It was a far cry from the stew-brewing, soft voiced girl he was looking at.
“If you wanna see nurse, I can do nurse. When did you last shower?”
At the hospital, they gave him a sponge bath where it was necessary. Before that, well, Lovers Lake probably didn’t count. And after… Eddie had barely set foot in that bathroom. Bare fucking minimum. He picked at his nails, trying not to focus on the black underneath them.
“Not meant to get the bandages wet,”
“Right… Well, speaking of the bandages. When were they last changed?”
Fuck, Eddie thought. He walked right into that one. “Nancy came yesterday,”
“Is Nancy an actual nurse?”
“No. She’s just, like, really smart. Like… really smart.”
You folded your arms across the chest. “Remember when you said you were fine after you accidentally headbutted the barrier at Sabbath? Then your nose started to bleed later? And it turned out you had a full on concussion?”
Eddie laughed at the memory, but as soon as his chest started to shake, the pain flooded his entire body. He hunched over, whining. He hadn’t laughed since the upside down. It was the most he’d demanded of his body, even if indirectly.
He was incoherent with pain. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t make sense of his surroundings. Eddie didn’t register you rushing over to him and falling to your knees, hands framing him but not touching him.
“Eddie? Fuck, Eddie. What can I-”
His entire perception was clouded by agony. The tears streamed down his face and hit the wooden floor.
There was nothing you could do but wait. Carefully, you rested your hands on his knees and listened to him do his best to breathe through it.
“I’m going to get more oxy,” you said, standing.
“No!” His voice sounded desperate; desperate enough that you knelt back down. “Shit’s too addictive. I don’t wanna-”
“I know,” you interrupted. “I know. But there’s a big fucking difference between your asshole dad, and you needing to be able to function.”
Eddie tried to sit up straighter, but it hurt too much.
“Come on Teddy Bear.”
It worked. Eddie looked up at you through narrow eyes. Even in immense pain, he couldn’t let it slide. You grinned at him.
“Seriously though. Dustin said you should still be in the hospital. So… If that’s a no, then you’re stuck with me.”
You looked at each other for a moment. There was something in both your gazes that scared the other. Quickly, you moved to go get more painkillers. Eddie took what you gave him.
“So, are we gonna talk about why you won’t shower? ‘Cause you’re the cleanest metalhead I know. This isn’t very you.”
That’s the problem with you being there, Eddie thought. You knew him too well. His freshmen buddies only knew him as their over-the-top DM, a contextual friend. Nancy, Steve, and Robin, well they didn’t know him at all. He let all of them make assumptions to hide the truth. Maybe if Gareth, Jeff, or Gene were there, they’d see through it, but he’d been able to trick the rest of them.
“I… I tried… Soon as they left, soon as I was alone. All I fuckin’ wanted was a hot shower. But…” He took a shaky breath in and out. “Couldn’t stand for more than a minute without feeling like I was gonna pass out. And the water burns. I don’t know if it’s some fucking upside down bullshit magic that makes it hurt worse, but it’s not… not normal… And that fucking mirror. Not saying I was, you know, Adonis, but ah… The scars are gonna be… Gnarly.”
Trust Eddie to reference Greek mythology in the midst of a literal nightmare.
There was one other obvious option. “A bath then? Shallow? So the… ah, cuts? Whatever. So they aren’t submerged. Then a strategically placed washcloth?” It was more query than statement.
The image in his mind had Eddie sitting in the rusty old bathtub. The water would be lukewarm. His muscles wouldn’t let him maneuver enough to properly clean. He’d hardly be able to stretch his arms up to wash his hair.
“Eddie…”
He looked over at you. “Uh… I…”
“I’ll help,” you said then.
“I don’t-”
“You do. If you could do it yourself you would have… We can be adults about this.”
Eddie didn’t want to be an adult about this. He didn’t want to have to make decisions beyond what song to learn on guitar and how best to torture Hellfire Club. He was sick of life or death choices. Although letting you bathe him like a baby wasn’t really life or death, it kinda felt like it.
“Fine,” he resigned, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes.
“Besides…” You stood up. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”
God, he missed levity. You beamed when he grinned and snorted.
“That was this is? Miss me that much?” he joked.
A messy summer night in the city. Too many beers. Not enough weed to chill the buzz. The plan was to sleep in the back of the van, but it felt like an oven. Item by item, you ripped your clothes off in the darkness. It was entirely innocent and definitely because of the alcohol. When you woke up, you’d been only in underwear and Eddie was entirely naked. You couldn’t look each other in the eyes for an hour after.
The cabin’s bathroom was clean. You let the water go through the pipes and drain away for a couple of minutes. “Good enough,” you muttered to yourself when the water was mostly clear. There was no bubble bath or luxe body wash. You caught yourself looking before you realised it was a stupid act. There was a stack of washcloths, a bar of soap, and a bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. It was all brand new, still sealed, and sitting on the edge of the bath.
You frothed the soap under the running water, trying to create some modesty bubbles or milky-toned water. With only a little luck, you went back into the lounge.
“Do you want to wait for the pills to kick in?”
“Nah. They will. Let’s just get this done before Harrington or anyone shows up.”
Eddie took your held out hands and walked with you to the bathroom. He quickly sat on the toilet, not out of breath but something like that.
“Shirt,” you ordered.
The flannel was easy to unbutton. You were dismayed to find he was wearing a very fucking destroyed Hellfire shirt underneath.
When Eddie made a small yelping sound during his attempt to lift his arms. You stopped him.
“I’m just gonna cut it off,”
“No! Didn’t let Wheeler. Not letting you. Do you know how much these cost to print?!”
You huffed. “Who’s Wheeler?”
“Nancy,”
“New rule. Every time me and Nancy agree on something, it means it’s the right thing to do. Besides, it’s all ripped up and there’s blood and whatever fucking else on that. It’s never gonna be wearable,” you argued.
Eddie wasn’t sure why he was fighting so hard for the Hellfire shirt. Maybe something about surviving in it. Maybe something about trying desperately to claw a little of the past back.
“Fine,” he agreed through gritted teeth.
It took a little work with dull scissors, but you got there. Whatever you were expecting Eddie’s injuries to be, it wasn’t that. You were too slow to stop the gasp that escaped from you; Eddie looked up frowning.
“I’m sorry, I just… What the fuck happened?”
Like the patch on his face, the ones scattered across his torso were bleeding through. You sat on the edge of the bath and turned the water off, the bathroom suddenly quiet. Eddie said nothing. You nodded, accepting the silence.
“How’s the pain?” Your voice was barely above a whisper. “‘Cause I think it’s gonna hurt like a bitch to get these off. They look kinda melted to you,”
“Thanks,”
“Sorry! Fuck. Sorry. I just…”
“It’s fine,” Eddie said. “It’s bad. I know it’s bad. It’s whatever… Can you just… Don’t look at me like that?”
You knew what he meant. Eddie hated pity. He hated when people pitied him for his dead mother and shitty father. For living in a one bedroom trailer with his uncle. For repeating high school. For all the things that made the average folk feel awkward. Eddie fucking despised pity.
You nodded. “Yeah. I mean… I don’t feel bad for you at all. Like, Dustin said you tried to be a hero or something? Do some classic Edward Munson Dumb Shit and end up like this, yeah?”
Eddie smiled. “Something like that,”
“Exactly. See? No pity here. Toughen up, kid.”
God, he loved you.
The first bandage – the one across Eddie’s cheek and jaw – came off surprisingly well. You held your expression steady as you worked, absorbing the excess blood and fluid with cotton balls.
The second bandage was covering a neck wound. Your stomach flipped, sick with the thought that it could have killed him. A little deeper and Eddie would have died.
The third wound was collarbone based and the bandage was a lot harder to move. Eddie’s jaw clenched impossibly tight and he was holding his breath.
You remembered when he took you to get your first tattoo. “It helps if you have something to distract you. Music or talking to someone, you know?” Eddie had said.
“Are these… bites?” You’d been almost too afraid to ask, but your brain couldn’t come up with any alternative conversation topics.
“Yeah,” Eddie replied weakly.
Some of the bites were smaller, but most weren’t. Eddie’s chest was more broken skin than not. His left pec was destroyed, and all down his sides were eaten into. Across his stomach bloomed another wound. Even his arms and hands had not escaped the assault.
“Dustin said the plan was to distract the… bats?”
“Demobats,”
“Demobats,” you repeated, the word feeling alien on your tongue. “What went wrong?”
For a couple of seconds, you thought Eddie was going to stay silent, not answering the question. It would have been more than fair. But, he started to speak in a shaky voice.
“We… did… it… Did what we were meant to do, you know? The demobats were away from Creel House. We were on our way out of there. There were… just so many of them. Too many to distract. I went to climb… climb the rope… but…”
Even with a lot of the story filled in by Dustin, you didn’t quite understand the picture Eddie was painting. You had to assume a lot; the rope must have led out of danger? Out of the upside down? Creel House was where Vecna was? You didn’t stop Eddie to ask clarifying questions.
“I just kept seeing Chrissy. In my head. Nobody deserves what happened to her, but she… She came to me for help and I… I kept seeing her and I kept thinking that this was our one shot at killing Vecna. And what if my part was the part that fucked the plan… What if I could actually do more? So, I didn’t climb the rope.”
Eddie thought for a moment, deep in reflection. Had it been worth it?
“I… I went back out there. Figured I could distract them, the bats, some more. Kill some. And I did. Not enough… There was…” Eddie sharply took a gulp of air in. “There were more than before. They were everywhere. I couldn’t see anything, then I… I don’t know.”
He did know. Even running on adrenaline, he could feel each bite. Eddie had locked onto the memory now. It was so vivid in his mind still.
“All the things from there, from the upside down, they’ve got these teeth. Like, hundreds of them. Their faces aren’t faces, they’re just big mouths and the, the lips, or whatever, they open up in every direction, and there are just rows and rows of fucking teeth. Like… a black hole of teeth,”
“Like a lamprey?”
After one fishing trip, Wayne had come home and told Eddie about the ‘vampire tube’ fish – the lamprey. Eddie was obsessed with them for a while after that, finding a book in the school library with a photo, then telling you about them on the phone. Your own public library had the same book, and you could see why a weird little dude like Eddie was so into them.
Eddie looked at you. “Shit… Yeah… Fuck… That but like, a bat…”
“There were dog ones before, right? Dustin said a few years ago there were dog ones,”
“Apparently… and then the human one.”
You tried to imagine a human figure with no face, just flaps of flesh opening to reveal endless teeth. The imagination is powerful, but even yours couldn’t really conjure a picture. Maybe your brain was just trying to protect you from the pure nightmare fuel that description could produce.
“Then they got you?” you asked.
“They got me. But, ah, as they did, they all just fucking dropped from the sky. And it was so quiet until Henderson showed up. I told the little shit to stay where it was safe. But he was there… Did my whole goodbye speech to him, you know? I could… I could feel the blood pooling in all the wrong places. My lungs were swimming in it. I was coughing it up. No way was I gonna live.”
Eddie’s face was as animated as it always was. You weren’t used to it animating terror and agony though. This wasn’t the kind of story Eddie normally told you. Your eyes had welled up with tears and you’d stopped working on removing his bandages.
Eddie’s gaze was fixed on a spot on the bathroom floor. He stared as he spoke. “The others were still setting fire to Vecna. Dustin tried to get there, but he’d messed his leg up pretty good. They found him halfway there, carried him back. Dragged me back. Got me to a hospital,”
“Jesus, Eddie. Why aren’t you still there? It’s been what, a night? Two if you count that night?”
He nodded. “I woke up the next day. They’d given me blood and stitched up the worst of the bites.”
Everyone had tried to keep Eddie in the hospital, but he was refusing a lot of medical care. He hated the accusatory stares and whispers. He couldn’t stand the noise.
There was no point in asking why he wouldn’t stay there. No point in suggesting he went back. Eddie had looked up and seen both those thoughts cross your face.
“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just needed a little blood,”
“Aren’t there like, long-term effects? What about the blood in your lungs? And, like, did you actually die? What if you have brain damage?”
“Not like I was a genius with a 4.0,”
“Eddie,”
“Y/N.” It was quick. Snappy. Your name in a warning tone.
The remainder of the bandages came off, and you mopped up the carnage as best you could. When you were done, Eddie stood, empowered by the painkillers enough to take his own pants off. He stepped into the bath and lowered himself in. It was all somehow both benignly clinical and breathtakingly intimate.
The water came up to his waist, lapping at the lowest of the wounds. You waited until the waves had settled before speaking again.
“I’m gonna wash your hair first,” you told him. He nodded, seeming smaller in the bath. Childlike helplessness.
You left the bathroom briefly to look for tools. There wasn’t a single brush or comb to be found. Returning with only the largest cup you could find, you settled next to the tub.
Lathering Eddie’s hair with the 2-in-1, you tilted his head backwards and rinsed with the help of the cup. As the water ran down his back, Eddie shivered. You repeated the process two more times, the conversation pausing entirely.
When his wild mane is clean, you raked your fingers through it bit by bit, gently pulling knots out. It’s a somewhat successful method, although you’d have to go for rounds two and three when his hair was dry.
“Close your eyes,” you instructed. Eddie complied. “Keep them closed.”
A washcloth was soaked in slick soap and you covered Eddie’s face in the goo. With great delicateness, you cleaned his hair, face, ears, and neck. The soap didn’t burn the bites like you’d both expected, but the coarse washcloth wasn’t exactly pleasant either.
As you descended Eddie’s body, dirt and muck washing down and turning the bath water a hazy brown, you cleaned the wounds. They started to bleed again, not heavily, but enough that by the time you were at his waist, you needed to pull the plug out and re-fill the bath with clean water.
Eddie was acquiescent. The drugs had well and truly kicked in, building on the mild buzz of the first you’d made him take. Even with the washcloth pain, the experience wasn’t as horrific as it could have been, he decided.
When he was finally clean, you sat on the ground next to the tub. The water had a pink hue from the blood, but he’d stopped bleeding.
“You look like you now,”
“Who’d I look like before?” Eddie replied.
“I don’t know. You from a different dimension. A really, really fucking bad one,”
“Guess I kind of am now.”
You said nothing to that. Maybe he was. Maybe you wouldn’t know this Eddie like you knew yours.
Eddie looked down at his chest, then his legs beneath the water. They ached, despite being unharmed by the demobats. He thought about Dustin and his leg. How he jumped through the gate with such disregard for himself, to try to stop Eddie. Save Eddie. Dustin fucking Henderson, man. Suddenly, a new thought-
“What you said about Dustin. Inappropriate or whatever. Did he say something?”
“He said a lot,” you replied.
“But, ah, what exactly was it that-”
A small laugh escaped you, and Eddie’s sentence stopped dead in its tracks. He looked at you.
“You seem nervous,” you teased. “The kid know one too many secrets or something?” Eddie’s face was expressionless but you could see his mind working overtime to think of something to say. You put him out of his misery with, “He didn’t say anything. He asked something. Like, straight away. Before a ‘hello’ even,”
“Am I gonna have to give him the world’s worst wedgie?”
“I guess it depends on how embarrassed by the question you are.”
Eddie broke eye contact, looked back down at his body. The entire situation was radically out of his control. Might as well add more spice. “What’d he ask?”
“Kid rolls up. Toothy grin. Busted leg. Happy as fucking Larry. First thing out of his mouth – ‘Are you Eddie’s girlfriend?’”
Part Four: The Cabin in the Woods
The cabin in the woods held warmth better than you would have guessed. After letting the bathwater drain yet again, you left Eddie to sit in hot clean water for the third time, then started the fire in the corner of the living room.
“Whose cabin is this?” you called out.
The bathroom had no door, just a curtain to pull across the open frame. Eddie could hear you just fine.
“Hopper’s,”
“That’s… the Chief of Police, right? The one everyone thought was dead? But was in Russia or something?”
“Dustin really gave you the whole story, huh?”
“Kind of. Don’t know how or why he was there… But isn’t he meant to be dead? Nobody’s meant to know about him?”
It was the first time Eddie realised that you might now be in danger. Although not being privy to the truth about Hawkins wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of safety, being included in its secrets definitely bumped up the ‘likely to die a horrible death’ stats. At the very least, you’d be on someone’s watch list now.
“Yeah. He was gonna stay here, but too many people know about it.”
Made sense, you thought. “So, why are you here? The cops aren’t after you anymore. Don’t you want to be with your uncle? Or your friends?”
The small fire was burning bright and the flames licked around the chunk of wood. You stood up, satisfied with your work.
Eddie hadn’t answered, so you walked back to him.
“Think I should get out now,” he said when you appeared. “S’cold,”
“Yeah. Okay. Here.”
Like he had before, Eddie winced as he moved. He stood and helped you wrap a towel around his waist. You draped another over his head. With his fingers threaded through yours, you guided him out of the bath and back onto the couch.
“I’ll do the bandages before you get dressed,” you told him, going to retrieve what you needed.
Before you sat back down, you ruffled his hair in the towel, making sure it was dry enough not to drip everywhere. Taking parts of his hair in the towel and scrunching them, you worked like you’d done it all before.
Next, you coated cotton balls in antiseptic balm and dabbed at each of the wounds, and checked all the stitches. The bites had stopped freely bleeding, with only dots of red and some evidence of gooey serosanguinous drainage. After each was disinfected, you blew gently on the raw skin to cool it down. Goosebumps iced their way across Eddie’s body.
When the fresh bandages were applied, Eddie leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes.
“How do you feel?” you asked.
His immediate reaction was to be sarcastic. It was a defense mechanism, but Eddie reminded himself he didn’t need to defend against anything when he was with you. “Not… good… but, ah, a lot better than before,”
“I’ll take that… I’ll get some clean clothes.”
Eddie pulled on clean boxer shorts and sweatpants while you binned all the old bandages left in the bathroom. Once everything was clean, you returned to the couch. You helped him pull a t-shirt over his head, then sank down next to each other.
The soundscape consisted of the fire and the odd bird call coming from the woods outside. It was late, maybe even close to midnight. Not too far away, the rest of Hawkins was still assessing the damage and counting the dead. But there, in an off-the-grid cabin, the rest of Hawkins didn’t exist.
Eddie reached over and placed his hand palm-up on your leg. You took it and held it tight. All the emotion you’d swallowed since seeing him barely alive bubbled up your throat and out of your mouth in a small sob. Eddie rolled his head to look at you, expression sad.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
You choked out a laugh. “What are you sorry for?”
“I dunno. Making you worry.”
When you tried to let go of Eddie’s hand to clear your face of tears, he wouldn’t budge. You used your free hand, attempting to not let the soft crying turn into anything more.
“I was so worried.”
Eddie nodded. “Yeah… I’m…” As he searched for the words that felt right, his eyes stayed glued to your face. “I’m sorry about… not calling in a while. Not returning your calls,”
“S’okay. You’ve been busy with school and-”
“Nah. Well, yeah. Yeah… But, I…” Fuck it, Eddie thought. He still felt so close to death. He was scared it was something he’d never be able to shake. What did he possibly have to lose? “I got scared. About… you know… You. Like, how I feel about you. Just seemed easier to ignore it than have to… do anything about it… When I say it out loud, it sounds so fucking stupid but… Losing you ‘cause we lost touch would hurt less than if I lost you ‘cause I ruined it by… having a dumb crush or whatever.”
Dumb crush.
A portal between your world and another? Yeah, sure. A girl with superpowers? Yep. Demogorgons and secret armies and lifesaving songs and everything else that had been handed to you that day? Uh-huh, okay. Eddie having a crush on you? Liking you like you liked him? Well, that sounded impossible.
Unless… it didn’t. Unless it made total sense. Unless it explained so much. Unless it was one small thing the world could give you and Eddie to help balance the scales.
With those big brown eyes, Eddie was finally able to look at you with all the love he had. Warmth spread across his body and he took one step towards peace.
“It…” You shook your head. “It wouldn’t have ruined anything,”
“No?”
“No… ‘Cause…” Poetic was the aim, but exhaustion had steeped your brain in stupid juice. “I’ve got a dumb crush on you too.”
Eddie smiled, soft and kind, only a hint of mischief. “Cool,”
“Cool,”
“So, how much time have we wasted? Being dumb?” he asked.
“Um… Years, probably,”
“Well, fuck.”
You laughed together and sat watching the fire for a long time.
Eddie told you about how he was afraid to be in Hawkins. He was afraid that Wayne’s mates would treat him like the uncle of a killer. Afraid his friends would be hurt, like Gareth had been. Afraid that it wasn’t really, truly over.
You listened, letting him speak and not undermining the feelings with logic or counterarguments. When he was done, you said you understood.
“Can you stay? In Hawkins, I mean. When do you have to go back?” Eddie asked.
“Never, if I don’t want to. Mom and dad want me out. And, it’s not like I’m working a dream job. I could stay… If you wanted me to. To help. Or not. It’s, like… Totally fine-”
“Yes. Stay.”
Another step towards peace.
Maybe, in an unfair and cruel world, where Chrissy Cunningham was dead and you and Eddie had lived miles apart and the drive to Hawkins was long and solitary pain was all Eddie thought he deserved, maybe this – this mutual love, was what you got to make up for it. It wasn’t enough. Of course, it wasn’t. Chrissy and Fred and Patrick deserved to be alive. Steve shouldn’t have had to feel phantom vines around his neck for the rest of his life. Dustin was owed a childhood. Eddie should never have been witch hunted. But, if it had to be like that, then yeah… Maybe you could be Eddie’s girlfriend.
After creating a nest of pillows and blankets in front of the fire, you and Eddie laid down and curled your bodies around each other. He kissed you on the temple, and you listened to his steady heartbeat. For a few perfect hours, everything else faded away while you slept soundly in an ex-cop’s secret little cabin in the woods.
End Note: I hope you liked this little fix-it fic. Please, let me know what you think! Reblogs are especially appreciated.
All Eddie Taglist: @solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @munsonlives @sweetpeapod @depressooo-expressooo-blog @thorfemmes @hawkins-high @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob @mymoonisalways-in-scorpio @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @onehotgreasymechanic @hazydespair @lacrymosa-24 @mel-the-fangirl
#Mine#Eddie Munson#Eddie Munson Fanfic#Eddie Munson Fanfiction#Eddie Munson/You#Eddie Munson x You#Eddie Munson/Reader#Eddie Munson x Reader
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Since this was gonna be longer than a standard ask, I thought I'd submit it instead.
Here are my human x mascot OCs for Fuwa Fuwa Pandemic
Sakiko "Kiki" Djobo
They/she
Has a Togolese father and a Japanese mother. Raised primarily in the U.S. but spent a lot of time with family in their parents' home countries growing up.
Kiki was able to get a job as an English teacher at a Japanese school that happened to be close to where her maternal grandparents lived, so she spent some time visiting them before her job officially started. That is, unfortunately, when everything went down.
Kiki ends up escaping an encounter with a mascot, but her grandparents sacrificed themselves to save her. They hid her in an old bunker in the house, where she stayed until the threat of starvation forced her out.
Eventually, she meets up with a group of survivors, mostly around her age, who are trying to find the perfect place to settle, where there are few mascots or where they can more easily defend themselves from attacks.
The group travels far, but eventually they come across an old farm near a city that seems to be mostly left alone at this time and decide to make it their homebase. Kiki, who likes to garden, and a grad student who was studying industrial agriculture convince the group to try and farm it for a steady source of food. There's even a stream that bisects the farmland, a stable source of water they can exploit for themselves and the crops.
Suiko
He/him
Suiko is an apex mascot, inspired by a mythical water creature that, according to folk tradition, inhabited that very creek, the Kappa.
Because the mascot he was based on was actually made of waterproof materials, Suiko is one of the only mascots who has the ability to swim, as his skin is naturally smooth and watertight.
His swimming prowess has allowed him to supplement his carnivorous diet with water creatures, such as fish and frogs. But he'll drown a human if he's hungry enough and the opportunity presents itself. Transient survivors are often drawn to the creek because it's a good water source.
If he's not that hungry or he's too tired to hunt, he may engage survivors in polite conversation, but they should still be wary of him.
How They Met
At first, Suiko enjoys his solitary life, but he begins to grow lonely. Until, one day, a group of survivors overtakes the recently abandoned farm that surrounds his part of the creek. He revels in the prospect of a steady source of meals for the next week or so.
But one of them comes to the creek to do laundry, and he has to admit, he finds them kind of attractive. And he's not that hungry at the moment, so he reveals himself and promises not to hurt them if they don't try to run from him.
The human hesitantly agrees, eventually introducing herself as Sakiko, or Kiki, for short. Even though this mascot is polite to her, she can't help but feel disappointed that her group might have to move again. Until she remembers a bit of folklore about Kappas; they love cucumbers. And the farm has a few cucumber plants that are putting out fruits like crazy. So Kiki promises to come back and give him one. He's a little skeptical, but he lets her go because he's genuinely curious about this exalted "cucumber."
Kiki leaves to put the clothes out to dry and comes back with a handful. Suiko's face lights up when he tries the strange fruit and he becomes somewhat obsessed with them.
So he and Kiki strike a deal that, if she brings him cucumbers whenever she can and talks with him for a while, he'll leave the other survivors alone and will hide from them while continuing to defend his territory from rival mascots.
—————-
they sit by the river and “talk” (suiko talks, kiki listens and tries not to think about how easily he could tear her apart)
#submission#click for quality cause mobile is stupid#semisolid ocs#fuwa fuwa pandemic#kappa are some interesting monsters
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What are some of your personal headcannons for Ghostface in DbD?
ooohhh...
He doesn't know any of the survivors' names. At all. Regardless of how many weeks/months/years he's ran trials with them. Or he may be familiar with some of them but wouldn't be able to match a face to it. Why should he care what they're called by when they're just gonna be on the receiving end of a blade? It's not like there's really been an opportunity for a meet n greet thus far with them.
Conversely, he does at least know the moniker of all the killers, but there's only a handful that he remembers the true names of (i.e. Amanda, Frank, etc). Y'know, the few that he would actually hang around with outside of trials.
Aside from Frank, he calls the other members of Legions various nicknames. But not as actual terms of endearment, just because he can never remember who's who lmao.
This is a general headcanon of mine but I like to imagine since Susie is one of the youngest (15/16) killers that she's automatically everyone's favorite annoying little sister. This extends to Ghostface, who has no problem admitting that she's his favorite out of all the Legion brats (especially in front of said Legion brats).
He doesn't know fuckall about the art of photography. Lighting composition, lens or angles -- don't know her. Goes off purely by vibes. It just so happens he also has a natural talent and artistic eye, so he never needed to learn the foundations to make his photos look good. Like being able to play an instrument but not be able to read sheet music.
He likes feisty girls, the ones that will kick and spit and fight back. He doesn't care for the soft ones that cry and beg for their life and are just overall pathetic in the face of death, where's the fun in that? The bark and the bite are what makes it all the more sweeter to subdue them with a knife in the stomach after they had almost escaped his grip.
His little floaty ribbons act as dog tails whether he realizes it or not, betraying any strong emotion that would have otherwise been hidden under his mask and unflinching stance. They'll stiffen straight if he's surprised, flick lowly at the ends when he's angry, wag when he's excited--
Before the fog, when he was still Jed Olsen and however many previous fake identities prior, he used to wear makeup to hide the collection of scars on his face courtesy of former victims. He's plenty familiar with color matching and foundation/concealer setting, he could do a natural full face with no problem.
Due to moving across states so many times and having to create new identities with it, he's also changed his accent to reflect whatever location he's at to better blend in at the locals. By now, since he doesn't have to mask that any more, he talks with the worst mashup of regional dialects you've ever heard. You can only pick up his natural southern twang when he's speaking with some kind of intense emotion (anger, excitement, etc.)
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Found again 1 of 4 - Dad! Joel Miller x daughter! Reader, future Ellie x reader
Summary: You were meant to be killed after you were unknowingly handed off at 11 years old by your uncle to military, it wasn't fully Tommy's fault, they were yelling about quarantine zones and safety trucks transporting cilvians, he thought you'd be safe, but after almost two years of running and avoiding infected, military and the crazy ass survivors, you were finally at your wits end trapped while sacavanging before a woman finds you leading you back to your light
Warnings: cussing, talk of people being killed, infected being killed
September 26th 2003
You watched as your Uncle Tommy disappeared farther and farther into the distance, the truck shaking from the holes and broken pieces of road leading you out of your hometown in Texas. You were split from your sister and dad whenever the truck was crashed, uncle Tommy realized the safest thing for you to go with the groups of soldiers with many guns and other protective gear.
You were in the truck maybe an hour before it pulled to the side of the road, you could hear the rough crackling and static of the solider's walkie talkies going off "We're at capacity" They spoke, many people started to ask questions about what it meant, where they were supposed to go now, but you could tell something was wrong, they were loading their guns and getting off. You quickly slipped through the truck bed's boarded up walls, which had about 2-3 foot between them, running into the treeline, you didn't trust them and you knew your dad, sister and Uncle Tommy were meant to meet at the river, and you were right not to trust the soldiers, moments later you heard loud gunfire and almost all of the passengers now laid slump in a ditch.
You took off running quickly, in any direction you could that was away from those soldiers, you wanted your dad, why couldn't of you stayed with him?
December 2nd 2005
You were hyperventilating and needed to calm down, you were out of ammo and just broke your only knife in a clickers neck before you were attacked but ten others, they were pounding at the door screaming and wailing to get in the room, this was it, this is how you died. You bit your knuckle trying to hold back a sob before hearing glass shatter behind you "Hey! Kid, come on!" A woman yelled reaching her hand through the window, you didn't think twice and grabbed her hand crawling out of the room right as the door hinges gave out, clickers and runners rushing into the room ready to devour you. "I'm Marlene, you almost got yourself in trouble there" She said softly pulling you up off the ground "I-I'm Y/n..Miller" You sighed, almost forgetting your name for a moment, you hadn't spoke to anybody in awhile and hadn't needed to introduce yourself. "I have a camp, set up a few miles away from here....We're called the fireflies..why don't you come join us, you look way to young to be out here.."
August 14th 2007
"Y/n. I have a job for you" Marlene's voice came through your walkie, you grabbed it off your belt watching out of the window confused, she was supposed to be back already "Protect the girl. Protect Ellie. I got fuckin shot" Her voice cut through the speaker harshly "Got it..Marlene..Are you gonna make it?.." You asked nervously, she was the first person to actually help you after you lost Tommy and Joel, you didn't wanna lose her too. "I dunno..just protect her please, get her to the lab" She demanded, you switched the channel on your walkie fighting back tears as you marched down the hall "I need troops out finding Marlene! She's injured somewhere outside of camp! Now!" You yelled into the walkie before clipping it onto your belt.
You slowly opened the door to Ellie's holding room seeing her sitting on the floor curled up against the wall "Hi..I'm y/n..Marlene sent me" You said watching as she looked up at you with a glare "fuck you" She seethed "I'm not doing any of your stupid ass tests" She continued standing up "Listen. I'm not some smart scientist or anything, I'm a sixteen year old who sneaks out of the camp at night to smoke weed" You said establishing a slight layer of trust hoping she'd catch on "Why the hell are you telling me this?" She asked raising an eyebrow "Because, I feel like you're a trusting person and I want you to trust me" you said sitting a few feet from her reaching point "Why're you here?..Where's Marlene?" She asked, you sighed looking at her, she was like 10? you couldn't tell, you tried to steer clear of kids, they reminded you of your childhood and your dad and you didn't wanna think about him, he was probably dead somewhere walking around with mushroom plates growing outta his face. "She's been hurt..but..I've got our people looking for her..She wanted me to make sure nothing happens to you..you're a special person" You said scooting closer "Yea..everybody claims I'm this special fucking person but keep me chained in a room to run tests on me" She sassed "I know..I know..I'm not sure why you're special..but special enough that Marlene is going through very very long lengths to protect you" You explained.
You sat talking with Ellie for another two hours before Marlene walked in looking at you both "Y/n..I've found help but..I wanna make sure there's no bad blood..It's a woman and man, Tess, and Joel" She said, you furrowed your eyebrows "I don't know any Tess or Joel" You said clearly, your dad was probably dead by now, you had to convince yourself that so you wouldn't drive yourself crazy. Marlene looked at you hesitantly before calling out for them to come in, You kept your head down, packing your and Ellie's bag with sandwiches and a flashlight, a knife for Ellie and a gun for you. "Ellie...This is our help Joel and Tess, guys this is Ellie and Y/n..You'll be escorting them across the u.s" Marlene explained, you heard your men rush in to take Marlene to the medic leaving you alone, you wanted to turn around but you were also scared.
You heard footsteps then Ellie's groan as she thrown into the wall, you quickly cocked your pistol turning around and aiming at the two "Leave her alone!" Ellie yelled towards them, you froze, your hands shaky and your mouth went dry, there was your dad, alive standing infront of you again. Your dad. Where was Sara though? "Baby girl" He rasped watching you, waiting for you to drop your gun to hug you tightly, you hugged him back hiding your face from Ellie and Tess in Joel's coat collar holding back sobs "I thought I had lost you too" You heard your dad cry into your flannel sleeve "Damnit y/n what the hell happened?" He asked holding onto you tighter like he was in a dream terrified to wake up and not see you. "Uncle Tommy sent me with the military" You said softly, the smell of your father surrounding you was comforting and put you in a state of calm. "And you ended up with the fireflies?" He asked finally pulling away to look at you, you weren't his little girl anymore, you weren’t the 4 foot tall doe eyed little girl he last saw before he said goodbye to both of his daughters. Whenever Tommy had told Joel why you weren’t with him he lost it, collapsing once he got the chance in tears, he promised your mother, his wife to protect you two girls and he had managed to lose you both in one night, now here you were fully capable of survival in a world like this. He didn’t wanna think about what you went through to get here though.
“That’s another story..whenever Ellie is asleep” you said softly looking at him “I missed you..a lot..” you whispered, you heard Ellie grunt standing up “are you gonna explain y/n? He looked like he wanted to murder you five seconds ago” Ellie grunted standing up grabbing her back shooting a harsh glare towards Joel “This is my Dad. Joel..” you mumbled looking at her, you could see her face soften, one of the things you clicked about earlier was not having parents, sure you didn’t lose them the same way but you were still stuck without them, she was happy for you of course, but she was also a little jealous, she wanted that, she wanted a dad to come find her and rescue her from this.
“You guys need to start your trip back before it gets light out” Mark said sternly, you and him fought a lot, he was an ass and you never appreciated his snarky comments or creepy stares. Tess nodded in agreement letting you and Ellie stick between her and Joel as they lead you back to the QZ. Joel walked behind you, wondering if he really wanted you coming along, or if he wanted to do this at all anymore, you could stay in his apartment, stay safe from any harm outside but if the guards found a firefly, former or current they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.
Part two?..should a make it a lil series?
#joel miller#the last of us#ellie the endergirl#Joel miller x reader#Ellie x reader#part one#the last of us part one#the last of us hbo#pedro pascal
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