#he was just born and he already has depression | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

softlyspector · 6 months

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Born lucky, under a bad star.

Summary: Joel has always been lucky, in the worst of ways.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~13k (sorry)

Warnings: game!Joel, major spoilers for tlou part 2, angst with a happy ending, major injuries and recovery, anxiety, depression, relationship healing, mentions of death, mentions of violence, suicidal ideation

Disclaimers and A/N: Though this fic was based around some events in tlou part 2, almost all of the canon after the divergence from the canon timeline is thrown out. This fic is also based entirely around game events, characterization, and canon. This is honestly one of the most difficult things I've ever written. It took months and many many drafts, but I'm very proud of her. I hope you love her too, she was a labor of love.

As always, thank you for reading! I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!

Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. - Kait Rokowski.

The lights of the clinic are so bright they’re blinding.

Your hands are still shaking, covered in Joel’s blood. It’s been hours since you returned to the safety of Jackson’s walls but there’s still a frantic, frenetic energy in the air. Everyone is shaken. It feels a little like a thousand year old tree has been felled, like a giant has been swung at and leveled, like something monstrous and infallible has been brought to its knees.

You’ve seen it happen before. Rebar right through his belly. It should have killed him. It would have killed anyone else. You’ve pulled more bullets out of Joel than you would care to count, and swaddled him in probably several football fields worth of bandages over the years.

Still, nothing like this.

Because Joel has always been lucky, even when he hadn’t wanted to be.

Lucky, in all the worst ways.

That fucking rebar, you think bitterly. It should have hit at least one organ, should have severed his fucking spine. But it didn’t. He walked it off, really, mostly, at the end of it all.

This though — to see him tortured, beaten, bleeding to death slowly—

Your edge of your vision tips black, like your mind is already refusing to go back to that room, like you’ll pass out if you think of it for too long.

A part of you wonders if maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you forgot to stick lavender in his pocket before he left that morning, like you always do.

Someone pushes the door open, snow swirls in against the tile. Voices, rising and falling. The cold that rolls through the tiny waiting room is frigid.

It’s still so red, his blood, even dried and crusted around your fingers and up your wrists.

Tommy is still bleeding and even Maria hasn’t been able to convince him to sit down and let someone look at him. No, all attention needs to be focused on his brother. Anyone with any medical know how, has to be with Joel.

You agree.

Tommy, you, anyone else—can fucking wait.

Ellie is sitting next to you, looking just as numb and shocked as you feel, her fingers twined with Dina’s.

The chatter reaches a crescendo. Something about the worsening storm, something about tracking folks with that big of a headstart through a storm like this one, something about the rapidly deepening darkness, night coming on, something about well who could do something like that anyway? Who the fuck would we even send?

The quiet that follows is painful.

Joel.

Joel is the one you send. Joel is the one that could get a job like this one done, the one that could track people through a blizzard with a dogged determinism, with pragmatism and infallibility.

“What did they want?” Someone asks the room at large. You aren’t sure who asks, you can’t make the shapes in the room resolve into people you know. “Why us? Why Joel? They wanted something right? Who were they?”

You and Tommy look at each other, Ellie makes a half muffled, pained sound beside you. Joel crossed a lot of people, maybe there wasn’t any sense in guessing.

No one answers. You look at your hands again and wonder if the crimson will ever fade.

Someone says your name and you look up. A coat is tugged over your shoulders. You didn’t realize you were shivering and you don’t know what happened to your own coat. One of the patrolmen is looking at you, his name slips your memory but Jesse is standing behind him, Maria on the other side.

You feel the ghost of Ellie’s hand against your arm. Odd, you think distantly, because she hates you. She has for a long time.

“What happened?”

You look around, but Tommy isn’t where he’d been standing just a moment ago. Did they ask him, too?

There’s a dark hole in your memory.

“I don’t know.”

And it’s the truth.

There’s no one more dedicated, more involved, in keeping Jackson safe, than Joel.

Aside from Tommy, maybe.

Joel is an effective killer, like an executioner with a mission. It’s the thing that scared Tommy the most about his brother, and it’s also the thing that had kept him alive long enough to get his second chance in Jackson. It’s the thing you have always loved most about Joel, the violence born of necessity.

And, you suppose, that’s what he’d been. Dispatcher, destroyer.

Protector.

At the heart of it all, the meat of it is, that it had always been that with Joel. It had always been in the name of protect, provide, survive. He never shied away from telling you of his days as a hunter, or, something close to a hunter. And even then, it was keep Tommy alive, it was survive until Boston, it was we needed fucking food.

Survive and provide and protect.

Joel.

Jackson had been wary of him, at first. The stories of his dealings with infected and raiders alike at odds with the way he moved in the commune, with kindness and a certain gentleness, a competency and dependability, with something so soft in his gaze when it came to that little girl he arrived with.

That reticence and worry had dissolved as quickly as it had come.

They describe him as quiet and funny, because he’s prone to good natured teasing. They describe him as fierce and short to anger, because no one can say a word about him or his. They describe him as wonderfully dependable, ask Joel for something on a supply run and you would have it in short order; sigh about the state of something in your home and it would be taken care of, fixed, the very next day.

Jackson loves Joel.

Especially that softened up, gentle creature that had emerged in the wake of everything that had happened between Boston and Jackson. Joel had always had a soft interior, trotted out in brief glimpses over the years, but the shell he wore had been so thick and sharp it was near impenetrable, nearly unknowable.

Ellie is around plenty in those first couple of weeks after. She even takes to sleeping on the living room couch. She doesn’t say much to you or Joel, hardly anything at all, but she’s there and you figure that’s what matters. It seems like she isn’t sure what to say, and desperate for the connection that nearly shattered.

The first few days when Joel comes home from the clinic, someone knocks on the front door every couple of hours and you open it and have the same conversation over and over and over again. It’s always people worriedly asking after Joel’s wellbeing, dropping off food, expressing their anger that something like this could happen to one of their own, that it could happen to someone so widely and wildly beloved.

When the knocks finally stop coming, and you can convince Tommy to go home to Maria, before Maria has to walk over and collect her husband again, you take the stairs slowly up.

You’re exhausted. You hardly sleep and when you do, you have nightmares of Joel. Formless, mind numbing dreams that you can never remember when you wake up gasping. You aren’t sure if Joel dreams of it, too. He’s always mumbled in his sleep, eyes flickering behind closed lids, so it’s hard to tell.

And he hasn’t really been coherent enough, awake enough, to ask, anyway.

“Hey,” Ellie says when you round the doorway into the bedroom, lowering the comic book in her hands. She’s beside Joel, sitting on your side of the bed, back against the headboard. “Sleeping again.”

“Was he awake?”

“A little. Drank some water.”

Despite the tension of the last few years, you know she’s thinking of another time that Joel had slept a lot, injured and only half alive.

Now isn’t like then, but in some ways, it’s worse.

You nod and take a seat at the edge of the bed by her feet. “That’s good,” you reassure her. “It’s a good thing that he’s sleeping. He needs it.”

Ellie just holds up the comic in her lap and then jerks her chin at the box on the bedside table, Joel’s glasses and book about space pushed aside. “I, uh, found them in the study.”

You shrug. “He always picked up any he found on supply runs.” You watch her from the corner of your eye and then shift your gaze to Joel. The slow rise and fall of his chest is reassuring in its steadiness, though you hate how still he is.

The skin by his temple is puckered and red, the stitches a neat little row up to his hairline. It still looks raw as a live nerve, the swelling extending to his eye, purple and shadowed in a dark bruise that trails down his cheek and jaw.

“He never said—” She stops and shakes her head. “So stupid.”

“Well,” you scoot closer and pat her extended leg. “You didn’t exactly want to talk then. We tried giving them to you, once. Left them outside your door. They got a little rained on.”

“Yeah,” she says, mouth twisting to the side. “Some of them are. . .can’t fucking peel the pages apart.” In that moment, she sounds like that little kid you left Boston with, being told not to touch something and doing it anyway.

That might have been when you fell in love with Ellie, watching her snap at Bill, and watching Joel react like any father would. It had come back to him so quickly, so naturally.

There’s a long pause in which Ellie flips rapidly through the comic book and doesn’t say anything, her fingers nervous. She looks how you feel — exhausted. “Why don’t you go get some sleep in your own bed?” You ask, reaching out to twitch a fallen lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “You’re just across the yard. If anything happens, you’ll know.”

She looks up at you, eyes flicking over your face. “I was fucking mad at you too, you know,” she whispers suddenly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You drop your hand and shake your head before looking back at Joel. He sleeps deeply now, deeper than you thought possible for someone like him, even drugged and injured.

There’s a knot tangled in your chest, that only tightens further with her question. “It wasn’t my place. He didn’t. . .he didn’t say anything to me about it for a long time, either. Wouldn’t explain what happened while we were separated. He told me the same lie. And you were going to be mad at me, too, no matter what. It had to be between the two of you.”

“And you think he was right,” she accuses hotly.

“And,” you level your eyes to hers, “I think he was right.” You dip your head. “I wouldn’t change anything, Ellie. I wouldn’t. You know Joel wouldn’t either. You matter more than that.”

Her bottom lip trembles for just a second. “Even knowing this happens?!” She gestures around the room, maybe just the situation at large.

Some of the tension knotting up your shoulders bleeds away. “He’s still here. It’s not too late.” She glances away and sucks in a harsh breath. You wait until she meets your eyes again. “And Ellie, it is not your fault. It’s not. None of it.”

“It almost was.” Her voice is strained. “Too late.”

You shrug. “He knows you care. Trust me, he does.”

She scrubs roughly at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “Yeah, uh, well, I’m still gonna sleep on the couch.”

“Why don’t you just stay right here, then? With Joel?” You ask and stand. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”

It is the ultimate admission of how scared she is, that she does not argue, doesn’t even try to.

For the first few weeks after the attack, Joel is in and out of consciousness. He sleeps much more than he’s awake.

And, it’s hard to tell, at first, why he’s sleeping so much. The pain medicine? That carefully doled out, nearly impossible to come by miracle drug — was it just knocking him out? Was he just sleeping because that’s what his body needed? Or, was it something deeper? Brain damage?

“He’s fucking. . .old!” Ellie says to you one morning around a mouthful of toast. It’s kind of odd, how easily she’s taken to old routines. And how weird the old routine is, because the third piece of your puzzle is missing, sleeping. “Old people take longer to heal, right?”

Right.

But he’s also Joel. And he isn’t that old.

It feels wrong, that he’s so still and silent.

“It’s not—” Her fist opens and closes. She sets down the toast in her other hand on the plate and turns, pacing the length of Joel’s kitchen, fidgeting with her fingers as she goes, white morning light slatting over her. You eye the toast. It’s hard to get her to eat, these days but you figure most of one piece is better than nothing. “His leg. It’s not infected or something, right? We’d know if it was.”

“It’s not infected,” you agree. When your own hands start to shake, you set down your mug, afraid to drop it or spill hot tea all over the floor, and make Ellie even more anxious in the process.

You don’t like to talk about it. You don’t like to think about it. The memories are like a hot brand.

The staircase creaks with the heavy thud of footsteps, before Tommy appears in the kitchen archway. You’ve always thought Tommy and Joel resembled each other, but now you see similarities in the kinds of expressions they make, too, the quirks in their movements that only siblings could share, and Tommy is sometimes a little hard to look at.

“Heading out?”

“Yeah, he’s, uh, sleepin’ again.” He leans against the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest.

Ellie doesn’t say anything, just slips past Tommy and heads up the steps. Tommy looks after her and then back at you. “She won’t say it but she doesn’t like leaving him alone,” you explain.

Tommy nods and then pushes away from the door to settle at the kitchen table. “Well, I don’t like the idea of it either. Good she’s with him.” He tips the chair onto its back legs and tilts his head. “How ya holdin’ up?”

“Probably about as good as you are.”

He huffs a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Maria told me you want off partols.”

You swallow and look away from him as you take the seat across from him at the table. “I - I know we’re down people already but I can’t. . .Tommy I can’t even look at the goddamn gate without feeling like—” You shake your head. “I just don’t think I can do it. I’d get somebody killed.”

“All right,” he says, not unkindly. “We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.”

A burn starts at the back of your eyes so you stand again and swipe your fingers against your cheeks. “You want coffee before you head out?”

“Nah, save that for Joel.” Then, “How you think this is gonna go? When he’s awake more?”

“I don’t know. You’d know better than me.”

Tommy laughs. The chair scrapes against the linoleum as he stands. He looks tired, and worried. It’s an odd look on him. It isn’t like Tommy at all. You and Tommy have always bonded over teasing Joel. There’s none of that now.

“Like hell. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with him, not me.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And you’re the love of his damn life.” He pauses and leans on the counter next to you.

That makes your mouth twitch, the pleasantly warm feeling in your chest consumed in the next second by a lancing pain that can only be an approximation of grief for someone and something that still breathed.

“I just can’t help worryin’,” he continues. “This might be enough for us, but not for him. If Joel can’t ever do anything again—”

“He just needs time, Tommy,” you cut him off quickly. Not able to stomach the thought. “We’ll figure it out. He’ll figure it out,” you say with more conviction than you feel. “We can probably figure something like a prosthetic out. People have been making them for thousands of years. We can do it. It’ll be fine. But it’s going to be different.”

Tommy’s right. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with Joel. You aren’t sure who you are without him anymore. You aren’t sure you know how to get along without him anymore. And you never want to have to find out. “He’s alive,” you finish with a nod. “Everything else, we can figure out.”

He nods. “You think we shoulda went after ‘em?”

“Maybe. But this is more important.”

Before he goes, Tommy wraps you in a hug. “So long as you and that girl stick around, it’ll be all right.”

“Ellie’s been playing the guitar up there,” you answer.

He nods and pulls back, one big hand clapping down on your shoulder. “See? Things might be all right yet. Always told Joel she’d come around eventually.” He releases you and heads toward the door then. “And get some sleep. Y’look terrible,” he calls over his shoulder. “Orders from Maria.”

For the first time in weeks, Joel wakes with some semblance of clarity. The bedroom is warm and dark, the tiniest pool of light washing over the form next to him from a little light plugged into the wall.

It’s the nightlight he found for Ellie when they first got to Jackson and her nightmares gave her more grief than she cared to admit to.

His whole body aches. He feels sick.

The sharpness of the pain is disorienting. He’s only been awake in brief, muddled flashes, the dulled fingers of drugged pain lancing through him and consuming most of his thoughts. He’d only been awake long enough to eat or drink or be helped to the bathroom like some kind of damn—

He remembers Tommy at his bedside. He hears the ghost notes of music in the air, your voice in his ear, the gentle slide of warm fingers over his skin. He remembers Ellie reading aloud, curled on her side next to him, like she used to do when she was younger, like when they’d stop for the night on the road.

That can’t be right, though. She hasn’t done that in years. She wouldn’t do something like that. Not anymore.

You’re next to him now, face tilted against the edge of his pillow. It’s hard to make you out in the dark, the shape and slope of your features hidden in the dim light.

When he says your name, you twitch, the slightest wrinkle to your nose, the tiniest spasm of your fingers against the sheets. “Darlin’,” he tries again. His voice grinds, catches and snags around his teeth. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in years.

He reaches for you and it’s agony, because his shoulder must be broken. His ribs contract painfully right, like the shrapnel of the bone is digging up into his lungs, piercing his heart. But your skin is soft and warm, pliant, beneath his fingers. It smells like you’ve been burning sage again. He wants to burrow his fingers beneath your skin, you’re so warm.

The cut of your cheekbones are sharper, the angle of your jaw reminds him of winter in the QZ, winter traveling with you and Ellie. Discolored circles line the space beneath your eyes like little hollows. You look exhausted, wan.

You blink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. “Joel?” Your voice is a whisper, like the dark is stealing it away.

Your fingers slide through the backs of his against your cheek when you shift closer, so careful about it, until you’re pressed to his side. “Joel,” you repeat, eyes sliding shut, forehead against the edge of his sore jaw.

He breathes you in, the warm scent of your skin, the smells of hearth and home, lavender and sage and woodsmoke. He closes his eyes for just a second when you shift up and tilt your forehead against his, breath whispering against his chin. “Joel.”

“You all right?” His voice still sounds rocky but clearing it doesn’t seem to help any.

Slowly, you sit up, hand still in his when you pull it away from your face. “You’re asking me that? You’re kidding, Joel,” your voice creaks. You’ve never really been a crier, but there’s a thickness in your mouth, softening out the vowels and snapping at the consonants. “Are you - We didn’t want you to be in pain. But you’ve been sleeping for so long, we gave you a lower dose so that—”

“I feel okay,” he interrupts your fretting, sweeping his thumb against the back of your hand. “Considerin’.”

You swallow and nod. “Hungry?” You glance at the window, where a gray, pale morning light is starting to leech into the room, the color of dirty snow.

“Yep.” He wishes you’d keep your eyes on him. “If you’ve got somethin’ ready.”

“We have anything you want,” you assure him. “Anything.”

Joel nods and attempts to push himself up next to you, chest and shoulder aching something awful. He bites back a groan but it still pushes past his teeth.

“Careful,” you say sharply. Before he can protest, you’re up and around the bed, one hand behind his back. “Your shoulder is broken in a million places.”

“A million?” He grunts.

“Three.”

“That ain’t a million.”

You don’t laugh and your hand doesn’t move from his back. “And broken ribs. Now lean back.” He does as you ask, real careful about it so you don’t worry.

An odd feeling creeps up inside his chest, dulled by the lighter dose of pain medicine coursing through his veins. It ain’t just a sick feeling, but something else. A helplessness, maybe. It feels wrong, in more ways than one.

Joel becomes acutely aware of what he already knows, every single injury, the graveness of them. He knows about the broken shoulder and ribs that had to be reset, torn skin that had to be stitched together, that he has internal bruising but by some miracle no internal bleeding. His face throbs suddenly, his temple tight with pain. He feels his heartbeat behind his eye and in the swelling in his cheek.

And, the worst of it, leg amputated to just above the knee. Sick crawls up the back of his throat. He doesn’t dare look.

The feeling in his chest swells until it chokes him.

Helpless, useless — something hard and fanged digs into his mind. It feels like grief, but what is he supposed to be mourning, exactly?

Everything, maybe.

His whole damn life.

“I’m fine,” he grunts suddenly. Sharply. “Quit fussin’.”

He feels like fucking crying.

“Just - shut up, Joel,” you snap back. “You almost fucking died.”

A fist curls around his throat, warm and tight. He almost can’t breathe through it. “Yeah,” he croaks, voice breaking the word in two.

“Yeah,” you snarl. “So shut up and let me fuss.”

You turn and leave before he can say anything else, footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. Voices trundle up, creased and folded, rising but muffled. You’ve always been mean when you got scared, ever since Joel can remember. You were mean as hell when he first met you, a hissing kind of frustrated, new to the QZ and new to trying your hand at smuggling.

You’ve softened up over the years. He hasn’t seen you like this in a long time, maybe not since you got separated in Salt Lake City.

More footsteps, this time heavy, stomping, coming upwards.

Ellie appears in the doorway a second later. Her hair is messy; her eyes are wild. She’s in sweatpants and a shirt that’s too big for her. She looks tired but unharmed. The knot tangled up around his lungs eases just a little. “Hey, kiddo.” He tries not to sound surprised.

Her eyes flick over him and then away. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave either. Instead she picks up a book from the corner of the dresser and settles in the chair across the room.

A firm but unyielding presence.

He closes his eyes, tips his head back against the wall, and tries to push down the feeling of failure rising in his throat like a tide.

Joel’s fingers are clumsy.

He can’t walk, can’t work, can’t do much of anything without irritating every ligament and tendon and bone in his body.

But even worse than that, he can’t remember how to play the guitar.

And nothing makes him feel so helpless as that.

Even after not playing for twenty odd years, the notes and the placement of his fingers on the strings and frets had come back easily to him, almost like he’d never stopped playing at all.

Now, it doesn’t.

In part his shoulder is to blame. Even nearly healed, it’s stiff. But the other part of it is that he can’t remember how to play. Every note seems wrong, and he can’t decide if he’s hearing it wrong, if there’s something wrong with his hearing, his perception, or if the note really is just wrong.

Ellie plays for him, instead.

It’s easier than talking. Neither of them are really good at that, anyway. He’s just glad she’s around at all.

He can’t help but think of that last conversation he’d had with her on the back porch, that she wants to try to forgive him, even if she thinks she might never be able to. He supposes this is her way of trying her hand at that.

Sometimes he wonders if it would be like this if he hadn’t almost died, if he wasn’t collecting sympathy from everyone like there was some kind of shortage. Maybe that conversation on the porch would have meant nothing, otherwise.

The thought hurts him, no matter how glad he is that she’s there.

One evening, pretty late, as snow peppers down through the early winter black that curtains the window, she stops playing.

The living room is quiet, aside from their breathing and the crackle of flames in the fireplace.

“I was going to invite you over to watch a movie.”

The metallic twang of the last note she plucked hangs in the air.

“I was - I was going to fucking ask you to watch a movie with me. That night. One of those dumb action movies you like. Like the ones we used to watch, remember? Curtis and Viper 2.”

She doesn’t look at him. She stares at her fingers, idly, nervously, twisting the tuning pegs of the guitar. “Think I saw that one before,” he answers, voice a little choked. “Pretty good.”

Ellie rolls her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Yeah, you would think so, old man,” she replies eventually but still doesn’t look up, her mouth twisting to the side. “I just - don’t want you to think I’m only here because you—” She shakes her head, and props the guitar against the wall before she stands and paces the room twice, toying with her fingers in that way she always has. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Even when I was really mad.”

“Ellie,” he says but she doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know.”

“Anyway, I meant what I said.”

“Ellie.”

“I wanted things to get better. I wanted to try. I was going to.”

“Ellie.”

She spins suddenly toward the front door, one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing awkwardly. “I gotta get going.”

“Kiddo.” This time she turns and finally looks at him. The scent of pine and smoke fills the room. The red of the flames flash across her face, so serious and anxious.

When they first came to Jackson, they spent a lot of nights on the couch together. His neck always ached the next morning from sleeping upright but he’d never complain about it. Then the distance between them had grown, and he doesn’t know when the last time something like that had happened.

But that same distance is slowly shrinking now, even if things might never, never be the same again.

So many times when he looks at her, he still sees that fourteen year old kid. He’d had the same problem with Sarah, looking at his twelve year old and seeing her at five and eight. It was just how it went, being a parent.

“I know, Ellie,” he reassures her. “I do. It’s all right. Even if you didn’t mean a word of it, it’s all right. I meant what I said, too.”

And even though she said she needed to leave, she nods and sits down again. She plucks a few notes out on the guitar when she pulls it back into her lap.

“D'ya still wanna watch it?”

She does.

Joel is whittling.

It is decidedly not going well.

He’s too distracted for it. He never realized how much pressure settled on his shoulder, how much it pulled at the muscle around his ribs, from doing something as simple as this, and he doesn’t like the nausea that comes with the pain.

But it’s something he can do, so he does it.

It’s snowing outside again, wind raking against the siding, rattling the window panes. There’s a thin stream of air coming in around the window’s frame, cold.

His hands are chapped and raw, blood pooling at the seams of his knuckles.

The fix would be easy enough, but everything he needs to do it is in the basement. And the basement is a near impossible location for him to reach, so he puts up with it, hands growing more frustrated by the second because he wants to fucking fix it.

You use the office, his work space, often enough, and it’s one thing for him to be cold and uncomfortable, but another thing entirely for you to feel that way.

But he can’t make it down to the living room without help these days, let alone down two flights of stairs to the basement, and then back up them, too.

“Joel?”

He glances over his shoulder to find you standing in the doorway. You have a pair of shears in your hands.

“Still want me to cut your hair?”

He wants to do it himself. But you’d offered earlier, because you’ve been doing it for him for a long time, for years and years now. And he’d always liked it because your hands are kind with it and you’re better at doing it, anyway. But now it just feels like one more thing he can’t do for himself, one more thing he’s relying on someone else for, and that makes guilt and shame choke him.

Joel can’t seem to do a damn thing, not for himself, but, worse, not for anyone else either.

“Joel?” You ask again when the silence stretches until it’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have to; you can do it yourself.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s all right, darlin’.” You start forward when he labors up from the chair, teeth gritted, but quickly stop when he meets your eyes, warning you away with a glance.

You don’t say anything else, just back out the door and pad down the hall to the bathroom.

He isn’t sure if your feelings are hurt or not, all his focus directed on hauling himself upwards and then limping down the hall with one crutch under his arm. Feeble threads of pain lance up his leg, centering in his joints, the hinge of his knee. The space under his arm is sore too, from the crutch, even wrapped in cloth.

Joel is used to pain. He’s used to temporary aches, the sharp stab of healing wounds, the quick rip of a bullet or knife through skin, chronic pains from age and long healed injuries. On cold days, his side aches something fierce, like that rebar never really came out of him.

But this pain is different, without origin, and he’s having a hard time adjusting to it. Or maybe he’s just having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this is not a healable injury, at least, not in the way he wants it to be.

For the rest of his life, he will be disabled. He’ll never get back to himself, never be what he once was.

The bathroom light is gold. It washes his skin into a better color, not so pale and strained and pained looking.

He hates looking in the mirror now. Joel never considered himself particularly good looking, never thought about it much, really. And, for most of his life, looks haven’t really mattered anyway.

But seeing his reflection now is a reminder of his failures. It’s a reminder of everything he can’t do.

His whole body is nothing but reminders.

He is a patchwork quilt of scars.

He doesn’t know how you can stand to look at him. But you just brush your hands through his hair when he leans the crutch against the counter and sits heavily on the stool you dragged upstairs.

The bathroom is thick with the scent of lavender and earth. Every winter it turns into a makeshift greenhouse, all the plants that can’t survive the winter dragged inside for the season.

The feeling of your hands through his hair is soothing and the tension in his shoulders slides away.

“I can do it myself,” he grumbles, despite himself, and without conviction when you run a comb through his hair.

You hum under your breath, not really paying him any mind. You know he doesn’t really mean it. Even if he feels like a fucking burden for it, it’s something you’ve always done for him, so it’s a little easier for him to accept. “I know. I like to.” You tilt his chin up and Joel steadfastly avoids looking in the mirror. “Besides, I’m better at it. You take to it like it’s a hack job.”

The trim doesn’t take long, since he keeps his hair longer anyway. It’s mostly an excuse for you to rake your fingers through his hair.

“The window needs fixin’,” he says when you slide in front of him and set about trimming his beard without asking. That’s fine, too. “I know you been, uh, kinda cold in that room.”

“It’s not so bad,” you say when you finish with him, brushing your fingers against his cheeks and then through his hair. You smile, eyes crossing his face, tracing his features like a well known map, before you twitch a lock of hair away from his forehead. “You gonna fix it for me or what?”

“Mighty big ask of ya,” he grouses, irritation itching at the edge of his mind.

You’re still smiling faintly, touching his face, the curl of hair behind his ear, the scar along his hairline and then the one over his nose.

“I just can’t see how,” you say and Joel almost snaps. He wants to. He wants to say you don’t fucking get it, that you don’t want to get it, that it’s different now. He wants to say he’s not the man you’ve always known, that shit ain’t as easy as it’s always been. He can’t do shit for you, anymore, and isn’t that the reason you’ve stuck around all these years?

But then you continue. “I left that damn caulking gun on the side table three days ago.”

“You what?”

You shrug. “Thought you might have noticed it too. And I’ve always been so bad at that stuff.”

The guilt that settles in him is heavy, but familiar. The shape of it is different, but it's still like shrugging on an old coat, it’s so natural and intimate.

He must be destined for some kind of failure, born under a bad star, something.

Everything he touches falls apart, no matter what he does. Everyone he holds dear, leaves him, one way or another, somehow. His mama, Sarah, and then Tommy, and then Tess. Most recently Ellie, though maybe things there were being mended. Maybe you were next, soon as you came to your senses.

Joel has spent most of his life taking care of people. And when he wasn’t taking care of people, he was moving, working. He hardly ever sat still. He didn’t have time to sit still.

Not before the outbreak, and certainly not after.

Even in Jackson where the pace of the world is slower, he was always busy. If he wasn’t on patrol, he was on wall duty, looking after Jackson’s security. Or, he was fixing something for someone, building something, helping with the horses. If he wasn’t doing any of that, he was improving his house, he was working on a new carving, he was playing the guitar.

Healing up, it’s involved a whole lot of sitting still and feeling useless. It had involved a lot of other people fussing over him.

A lot of sitting still and feeling like he was failing everyone he knew. Like he had already failed everyone he knew. For all the effort he put into it, it would never be enough. He cares wrong, he loves wrong, and now he can’t even do that.

He fails you in this, too. Of wishing he could accuse you of all the things he thinks of himself.

Joel knows you think of it too, you just haven’t gotten frustrated enough with him to say it yet. You haven’t had the full weight of his broken, uselessness on you, yet.

That day will come. There’s no way it won’t, because he can’t do for you what he’s always done, what he was put on this god forsaken earth to do. The one thing he’s always been able to do. Not just for you, but for everyone. Ellie, Tommy and his family, Jackson at large.

It’s always been the thing he could point to and say look, this is why I am like this, this is why you need me, why I’m around. You survived because of me. Because I made sure you did.

So he’s not worth much now, really, and all the promises he made you and all the promises he made to himself, he can’t keep them anymore. And isn’t that why you stuck by him all these years? Despite all his shortcomings?

“Sorry, darlin’,” he cups your face in his hands, smoothes his thumbs over your cheeks, the hinge of your jaw. “I’ll get right on fixin’ that for you.”

“I know you will. Thank you, Joel.” The full weight of your head tips into his hands, and your eyes slide shut. His hands are large against your jaw, scarred and calloused, harsh. Reminders, maybe, of what he used to be. He looks at the hollows beneath your eyes, the raw, worried skin of your bottom lip.

You don’t sleep anymore and when you do you have nightmares. You hate to leave the house. And sometimes you flinch even when nothing is happening around you, like memories are snapping at your heels.

He did all that to you, too. Terrible gifts he’s given and can’t take back.

When he glances back up to your eyes, you’re staring at him, a worried, anxious kind of look lodged there that he absolutely hates.

“What?” He asks, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks and then the delicate hinge of your jaw.

“Nothing.” Your eyes shift away from his, and you twitch in his grasp. He already knows what you’re about to say, because you’ve never gotten better at saying it, just like him. He doesn’t need you to say it, but you do anyway, and he hates how much he likes hearing it. It’s like a ray of golden sun. “I love you, Joel,” you murmur and hook your hands around his wrists.

For a long time, you just look at him, the silence is heavy with unsaid words, but he isn’t sure which of you is the one not saying something. “That enough?” He eventually grunts. “For you?”

You frown. “Why wouldn’t it be? Do you think it’s not?”

It shouldn’t be. All those promises stack up in his mind again, everything he can’t keep.

“It shouldn’t be.”

You pull his hands away from your face with a shake of your head and lean in to kiss him. Your lips part softly against his, the hitch of your breath sweet against his mouth. The heat of you is so close and intoxicating, it’s something he never wants to have to give up, not when your thumbs are pressed to the pulse in his wrists, and not when you taste like apple, honey.

He shakes one of your hands away to wrap his arm around your back and pull you closer, until the warmth of your body is pressed securely to his chest. Your tongue slides against his, teeth nipping gently at his bottom lip. Something warm floods his cheeks and his chest goes tight.

When you pull back, you tug on a piece of his hair then touch the blush pinking on his face. “You look real handsome, Texas.”

He tucks his forehead against your collarbone, and you fold your hands against the back of his head. “It’s enough,” you say. “Always has been.”

The next day, he finds that most of his tools have been relocated upstairs, either to one of the cabinets in the living room, or to the office upstairs.

Either way, he no longer has to traverse two staircases down and back up.

He isn’t sure when you had the time to do it, or why he didn’t at least hear you doing it.

Joel’s chest swells with love for you, right alongside the guilt that does nothing but grow.

He fixes the window.

Some days are easier than others.

He has good days and bad, and some of the bad days are worse than others. He sows the feelings up inside himself, cocoons the bad away inside his chest. It’s easier that way. And it’s necessary now. It’s just another thing you’d have to deal with.

He’s never been good at saying the things that needed said, anyway.

He tries not to snap at you. He’s trying not to get mean, and he can’t just walk away like he used to be able to when his mind got messy. But he’s been failing because he wants you to fight with him, wants you to hate him.

Joel wants you to say that he fucking failed, that he’s been failing his whole life at the one thing he was supposed to be able to do. The one thing he’s really good for.

“Stop it,” Joel snarls one day in the spring, when you offer your hand down the steps to the living room.

He doesn’t mean to snap at you like that, but he doesn’t take it back either. He’s in too much pain. And he doesn’t want to admit it.

The smile slips off your face as you step back from him, a stoney expression sliding over your face instead. It’s routine, you helping him, and maybe that’s the problem. He grits his teeth, that look reminds him of Boston, reminds him of the time before you used to trust each other.

“I ain’t helpless.”

You raise your hands and take another step back, looking away from him as you do.

The breeze that comes in the landing’s open window is cool. It isn’t quite warm enough for the window to be open but the house needs airing out after such a long winter, such a hard winter. The air is crisp with the scent of pine and the lavender hung in dried clumps above each doorway.

“I know, Joel.”

When he looks at you, you visibly brace yourself.

A wave of self-hatred so hot it burns immediately follows the guilt. But it also doesn’t stop the angry, frustrated pulse beneath the surface of his skin, pressing against the back of his teeth.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just leave me there.” The words are bitter, poisonous. Accusatory. “You should have left me to fuckin’ die.”

Whatever you might be expecting him to say, it isn’t that. Your breath catches hard.

You can be cruel, too. He waits for your anger, the burn of words he deserves to hear, something mean and hateful but true.

But the words don’t come; your anger doesn’t come. You just look tired and empty, sad.

You pace the landing, the soft shush of your footsteps echoed by the creaking of the floorboards. Your silence pricks at him. He wants you to scream at him, blame him, for failing, for being so fucking stupid.

“What if it was me?”

Your voice is so low, he almost doesn’t catch your words.

The quiet of your footsteps come to a halt. “What if it had been me, Joel? It could have been. It could have easily been me. They knew who you were. We’ve done a lot of the same shit. We’ve made a lot of the same enemies over the years.”

Your hands are shaking, your breath comes in quick little pants. The acrid, bone aching feeling of cresting anxiety and panic floods the little landing. “Me and you and Tess, we were kind of a package fucking deal. So, what if it was me?”

The breeze sliding through the open window feels different now. Colder, older, more brutal.

“That’s fuckin’ different and y’know it,” he snarls.

“Why?” Anger floods your face, the curl of your fingers harsh against your arms when you cross them. “Why would that have been different? Because you think I always need to be taken care of?”

He doesn’t answer. He looks away from you, but he can’t go anywhere. He’s at your mercy and you both hate it.

Joel leans heavily against the wall, his right hand curling around his left wrist, a nervous, anxious tick he’s never been able to shake.

“Tell me,” you beg. “Say it, Joel. How is it different? Why?”

He shakes his head once, slowly, and doesn’t look up at you. “You can say it,” you continue, your voice eerily quiet. “You never trusted me to have your back.”

That ain’t it at all.

It’s not your failure. It’s his, in every single way. He doesn’t blame you or Tommy or Ellie or anyone else. He doesn’t believe for a second that you don’t know that.

It would have been better, probably, if he died.

He doesn’t understand the guilt you feel.

He can’t take care of you anymore, can’t protect you anymore.

Worse, he can’t do that for his kid.

If he’d died, maybe that final sacrifice would have been enough to make up for everything else. Maybe it would all just be done.

He’s the one breaking promises, not you, just like he always has been.

Sometimes, when he thinks of Sarah, he can only remember her final moments. He can’t think of anything else but her blood, how red it was in the dark. He can’t think of anything else than what could have been. He can only see the halo of that mounted flashlight glaring into his eyes, his own voice pleading. Please don’t.

If he’d just been shot, he would have died first, he wouldn’t have ever known how bad he failed in that moment. He would have died first, like a parent was supposed to. No good father should ever outlive his kid.

Maybe, this had been his second chance, to finally die first.

Born lucky, bad star, like always.

So, what would he do, if it had been you? He’d have taken care of you, just like you’re doing for him. But that is not anathema to him; that is just how things are supposed to go. It wouldn’t have been a failure.

He’s no use to you anymore, no use to anyone.

He doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, he nods.

“You’re right.” He shrugs and pain splinters across his shoulders. “It would have been different.”

Your expression flickers blank and you turn away. It would have been easier to stomach if you screamed at him, if you slammed a door.

But you’re just quiet.

Once, during the late autumn, when you were traveling with Joel and Ellie, you noticed Joel wasn’t eating.

Food was in short supply. None of the houses or buildings you looted turned up anything edible, and wild game had been elusive for weeks as the weather turned wetter and chillier.

You’d noticed him doing it a few times before, but nothing like then. Joel would dole out carefully rationed food and not allocate any to himself. The bags under his eyes deepened. His temper was shorter. He’d gotten pale and hollows appeared in his cheeks that meant he hadn’t been getting enough. Joel had always been huge, broad and strong and tall, with thick arms and thighs, but when he dropped weight, it always showed in those little hollows first.

Then, one evening, after clearing out a barn of infected, he’d stumbled, hand to his forehead, pale as you’d ever seen him. “Christ,” he’d mumbled.

“Joel?” Ellie’s voice had pitched up with worry. She’d looked at you, and said, “He hasn’t been eating.” The words were all a rush, accusatory and begging for you to do something.

“Ellie—” He’d growled.

“I know she’s right, Joel,” You’d interrupted with a snap. “You think we wouldn’t notice? You think I wouldn’t notice?”

He’d gotten pissed off and marched off into the woods to the stream to refill your canteens. You’d given him a wide berth for several hours, making the newly cleared barn into something livable for the night with Ellie. When dark had started to set in you went after him, boots crunching through frozen leaves.

He’d been sitting by the creek bed, an inscrutable expression on his face. “We ain’t got enough,” he’d said, not looking at you. “You and Ellie need it more. I’m fine.”

“But you're not. You can’t just not eat. You can’t take care of us if you aren’t okay, Joel.”

The air had smelled like earth and decaying leaves and stagnant water and ice. The scent reminded you of better times, of apple cider and cinnamon and new beginnings, of autumn fairs and coffee shops.

You’d sat behind him, pulled him against you for just a moment, chin on his shoulder, and said, “It’s all right to let me look after you, too.”

You figure that even with the change in circumstances, things are still like that with Joel. He’s always doing the metaphorical equivalent of making sure everyone else eats first, even if it means he’s starving.

He’s never been one to give up or give in or let go. When Tess was bitten, Joel hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d wanted to stay and fight. To fight a useless and unwinnable fight. That mindset was never going to fade.

You don’t speak for a few days. Guilt swallows the whole of your heart and leaves you dry and empty. Joel blames you, you think, even if he won’t say it.

He comes to you late one night.

It’s dark and the bedroom is overly warm. He sits heavily but without help at the edge of the bed. He’s getting better at that, even if he doesn’t think he is.

His hair is longer and it falls into his face when he leans over you, fingers against your forehead and temple and then your cheek.

“When I was real young,” he says. “My dad died. We didn’t have much money and my mama worked all the time.”

You turn on your back and try to make his face out but his expression is unreadable.

Joel hardly ever talks about his folks.

“I got my first job when I was fourteen, to help with the bills. Money was better on account of half of it not bein’ drank away, but we still needed the cash.” Joel pauses and you scoot over. It takes a minute for him to find a comfortable position with you but when he does, he continues. His voice echoes against your ear, the beat of his heart pounds against your cheek. His chin rubs against your forehead, one large hand splayed across your shoulders.

“Since she worked so much, I was always takin’ care of Tommy, of damn near everything else. And my mama, too, sometimes.” He swallows, and you feel the bob of his throat against your forehead. His chest is warm beneath your cheek, even through the two layers he always wears. “So I knew I was young when Sarah came along, but I didn’t really feel it. I took care of her and her mother, ‘til she went her own way. Just the way I always had.”

The rise and fall of his chest is steady. He cups his free hand around yours and tucks your palm against his heart.

“I know I’m not easy, in any sense of the word. I never have been.” A heavy tug of shame weighs his voice down. “Too mean and bitter, I guess.” There’s a long pause, and you want to protest but you’re sure if you interrupt, Joel won’t finish saying whatever it is he needs to.

“So anyway,” he continues. “I try to make up for it. By doin’ what I always have, even if it means I end up alone. I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t know what I’m good for if—” His hand slides up your spine, thick fingers resting at the base of your neck. “And I can’t do it anymore. Can’t take care of ya. So, it woulda been different, if it had been you. Because it’s you we’re talkin’ about.”

Joel goes quiet after that. His palm continues its nervous path over your spine. The bristles of his beard are soft against your temple. The rhythm of his breathing is still slow and even, but you feel the prickle of nerves in the way he touches you.

It isn’t easy for Joel to say the things he feels, even to you, even all these years later.

His body is so familiar to you, so warm and strong beneath you. Comfort, in short, in its purest form.

You aren’t expecting him to say any more, but he does. “Things. . .they always have a way of fallin’ apart, in the end.”

When you lift your head, he doesn’t look at you. You press a finger against the edge of his jaw, turning his head gently until his eyes meet yours. “Joel,” you touch your forehead to his. You aren’t good with words either, but you try. “You are more than that. More than what you can do for people.”

He’s quiet for a long time, eyes fluttering closed, his breath a calm pool against your mouth. “And I’m more than that? To you?”

“Joel, if I only wanted some guard dog, I would have gotten one that could listen better.”

He snorts, and a little of the tension melts away. “Yeah, I reckon you would have.”

The dark is a warm cocoon of things less easily said in the light.

“Yes,” you say quietly after a long, peaceful silence. “Joel. You’re so much more to me than that.”

It’s late spring again. The Wyoming air is mild, and heavy with the scent of blooming life.

Sage grows in dense clumps up in the mountains, deep between the ridges of the sharp peaks. The smell of it, earthy and crisp, chases itself on the breeze, all the way down to Jackson. It twines with the smell of flowers painstakingly planted along his front path.

Arrowleaf. Goldenrod.

Lavender, right by the mailbox, courtesy of some superstition held onto from before the outbreak.

It’s thick, cloying, pungent.

It’s overripe, rotting. It smells like death.

It’s making Joel fucking nauseous.

He squeezes your arm, a warning without words that he needs a break.

It’s the smell.

It’s the sun and the gentle breeze.

He tells himself the sick, crawling pain mixing sourly in his stomach has nothing at all to do with his newly fitted prosthetic leg.

Slowly, without a word, you turn and guide him back through his familiar backyard to the porch.

He sits heavily on the steps, just inside the cool pool of shade, and pulls in deep breaths that rattle in his lungs and do nothing to stave off the dizziness, or the pain.

Your hand slides up and down his back before your palm settles against the back of his neck and urges his head down between his knees.

Joel feels like a fucking kid. His hands are shaking.

“Damn thing is useless,” he growls after a minute when the nausea passes and he can lift his head, because it’s the only thing he can do, because it’s goddamn humiliating.

Everything is, these days.

You just bump your shoulder into his and hum low under your breath, used to his attitude, used to his bark that only sometimes has a bite.

You’re patient with him, but tough, not willing to indulge his foul moods. “It’s just something you have to get used to,” you assure him. “It’s not going to be like before.”

Joel doesn’t want to admit that he wants to take the prosthetic off. It’s like admitting defeat before he’s even gotten a chance to fight.

And he’s tired.

Exhausted, really.

“Hey,” you dig your nails into his wrist. He meets your eyes, pragmatic, practical, his match in everything. “We aren’t supposed to go at it so hard anyway, remember? You did really well.”

He doesn’t want to admit that, either, that your praise washes pink in his veins, that he likes to hear it, thrives on it. If he’s doing right by you, good in your eyes, things can’t be awful as they might seem.

That’s what he latches onto. Your pride. Your acceptance.

“This was just the first time, Joel,” you continue. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

He ain’t so sure about that, not with the way his leg aches. A leg that isn’t even there anymore, chopped off right above the knee, to save his life, apparently. It’s part of why it hurts so goddamn much. Feels like he’s pushing his calf into something it can’t fit in, like the long gone meat and bone are getting ground up into his thigh.

But if he gets the hang of it, then things will be better. He’ll at least be able to move on his own. He might be able to find some way to work again. Wall duty was looking pretty good, because all you really have to do is sit there and watch the horizon and be able to shoot pretty well.

There is hope in the future. There is hope in you reminding him of that, realistic to a fault, pragmatic to your core.

And unlike Joel, you’ve never had it in you to lie.

Joel tightens his hand on your forearm again, pressure on your sun warmed skin. It’s a poor substitute for the thank you that you deserve. You seem to get his meaning though. Your hand feathers through his hair again and the sun doesn’t feel so abrasive, and the smells of spring don’t seem so weighed down by death.

“Ellie’s coming for dinner,” you offer. “Said she’s got a movie or a game or something that she wants to show you.”

Yeah, so maybe the day ain’t so bleak as he thought it was.

“All right.”

You offer him a hand up, and slip your arm behind his back. He carefully drapes his arm around your shoulders, mindful, even now, of his weight against yours. “What a strong thing you are,” he comments, not able to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. You look so determined.

It’s the way you always look, when put to task.

You roll your eyes. “Lucky for you.”

“Lucky for me,” he says, soft about it.

The stairs are the worst part of getting back inside, but it's much easier than it had been before.

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch and take the prosthetic off. The phantom pains still ache and stretch painfully tight, like the skin is being pulled taut, like there was a knot that just needed massaged out. He grits his teeth and represses the urge to reach down and rub sore muscle that no longer exists.

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch, even if guilt punches him in the chest for it.

It’s an even bigger relief when you press yourself into the space next to him. He doesn’t know how you stand it sometimes. How you can look at him and still not hate him for every mistake he’s ever made.

“Knee always fuckin’ bothered me anyhow,” he comments, turning his head so his words brush against your temple. “Don’t gotta worry about it gettin’ stiff now, I reckon.”

You reward him with a snort, the scrape of your fingernails against his cheek, a kiss.

It’s easier to get around, with the prosthetic that he hates.

But he’s slow. Slower than he’s ever been in his whole life. And sometimes, most times, it frustrates him.

Being able to walk is one thing. It’s a fine thing. But he needs to be able to do more than that. Run, fight, shoot. A fucking pipe dream. But he’s back to building, carpentry, and that’s something at least. Something useful.

Joel has tried asking you about that day, because he doesn’t remember a whole lot besides the pain. But your chest goes fluttery with panic, the rise and fall of it unfamiliar to him. You don’t get nervous. You never have, not over anything.

But when he asks about that day, you mutter something about Tommy and blood, and he can’t get anything else out of you. Tommy does the same, eyes cast to the side, thumbs hooked in his belt, foot starting a nervous rhythm.

He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with either of you, what the goddamn problem is.

In some ways, Joel’s always thought you were tougher than him, a balance of brutal and rough and unforgiving with softened sweetness. Bash the skull of a hunter in with a metal pipe, then use your unsullied hand to stroke back Ellie’s hair, to offer help to strangers, to pat the nose of your horse gently.

He would never want to be on the other side of the wrath you kept wrapped up inside your heart.

But, now, you don’t leave Jackson anymore. You haven’t been outside Jackson’s walls since that day.

Tommy tells him you can’t even bear to take a shift on the wall, which mainly comprised of sitting at the top of the wall and doing a whole lot of nothing, looking at the horizon, shuffling your feet to keep warm.

It’s unlike you. You love to patrol, just like him.

That’s his fault, too. Your nightmares, your sleeplessness.

Ellie plays the guitar for him, even after he gets the hang of it again, even after he’s walking on his own again, the chords coming back to him easier and easier. They don’t have to talk much, that way.

She’s still mad, but he almost died, and she’s willing to try with him.

She comes over for dinner. She always brings a movie.

It gets easier.

And slowly, by the end of the summer, she smiles when she sees him.

He’s gotten the hang of walking again, which is never a sentiment he thought he’d have about himself. Joel always assumed he’d be killed before something like really old age could set in, or something like this, a disability he doesn’t want to learn to live with.

It’s rained recently and the yard smells like perchitor and the ever present mountain sage. The grass is just a little muddy from the many loops around the yard. “You’re going to fall and break your neck, old man.”

“Breakin’ my neck can’t be much worse than what it is right now. We ain’t goin’ around the yard anyhow. Now c’mon, put your shoes on, kiddo.”

“It’s still raining,” she complains.

“Means no one’s outside to see me humiliatin’ myself.”

Ellie only rolls her eyes but does it anyway. He doesn’t need a hand anymore, but he’s shaky sometimes and despite your best efforts he’s still refusing a cane. But he also hasn’t been using the track in the yard in weeks.

That, and he actually has somewhere to be these days, figuring out better security for Jackson, looking after the patrol teams, assessing who was ready to be put into rotation. Managing is what he should be calling it, though he doesn’t care for it. He and Maria butt heads too often for it to be anything close to enjoyable.

When they pass the mailbox, Ellie points to the lavender. “I never thought to ask about it before. It’s everywhere. Some nailed above the door and everything.”

“Some kinda thing about protectin’ the home,” Joel explains. “Far as I remember, it protects from bad energy. Somethin’ like that.”

“I thought that was sage?”

“Sage you burn,” he explains. “And we get plenty of that too. Whole damn house smells like it.”

“Seems like the kinda thing Dina would do,” she says and then seems to realize who she’s said it to. But she doesn’t change the subject. “Didn’t take her for the superstitious type. Doesn’t seem like it really works anyway.”

Joel shrugs. “She was before the outbreak, I guess.” He watches Ellie from the corner of his eye. She’s steadfastly not looking at him, but she also doesn’t usually say so much to him. “Didn’t have reason to think of it for a long time. Lavender wasn’t exactly in high supply in Boston.”

Ellie nods.

“She used to, uh, put some in your backpack when she knew you was goin’ out. Same with me, always put some in my pocket.”

There’s a long silence. Jackson’s streets are oddly empty in the pouring rain. Lights glow in the windows; inviting, homely. “She didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugs and his shoulder only aches a little for it. “It’s just the kinda thing parents do, even if it don’t make any damn sense.”

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees as the turn toward the center of Jackson. “You wanna stop in the Bison?”

“Sure,” he agrees. “For a minute.”

“Full schedule?” She teases. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your sunset years?”

“Well, gotta have something to fill up the days, kiddo. Maybe one day you’ll actually be able to keep up.”

She just scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

Joel tries not to smile.

Being mobile again, busy again, feels good.

It feels good, but it also means he’s in near constant pain.

He tells himself it’s good, that pain sharpens him, makes him better.

Until he’s slumped on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, heaving his guts up from the ache in his leg.

You find him there, sweaty and panting, with a glass of water in hand. Joel pushes himself upright against the wall with a sigh as you close the lid of the toilet and flush it before sitting beside him on the cool tile.

“You’re overdoing it again,” you say, not unkindly.

“I ain’t tryin’ to,” he mutters and takes the glass of water when you offer it to him.

“I know.” You cover his free hand with yours. “Wanna get up?”

You smell faintly of peppermint, burned incense.

When he shakes his head, you stretch to flip the light switch over your head. He’s plunged into darkness, alone, for just a moment, before you settle again. The warmth of your head against his shoulder feels stolen.

For a long time, neither of you say anything. He breathes through the pain still crawling around his knee, the phantom flesh of his calf.

“I was a goddamn fool,” he whispers into the silence. “You know what I was thinkin’ that day?” He’s not sure where the words come from, the confession. It feels a little like the words are being pulled up out of his body, yanked right from the center of his chest.

“Tell me,” your nose is warm when it bumps against his collarbone.

“‘Bout Ellie. How I’d want someone to help her, if she needed it. So I helped that girl. Almost got all of us fuckin’ killed.”

You don’t answer, not at first. But eventually, you lean into him and say, “If you want me to blame you, I won’t. I will never find fault in kindness.” Your thumb strokes his knuckles slowly. “Never. Especially not yours.”

He brushes his mouth along your hairline, skin silken against his mouth. “Y’know when we was on the road, I was sure you’d get us killed. But y’always knew when to trust someone. How much to trust ‘em.”

“I. . .” you start and then trail off, fingers squeezing around his. “I was always lucky, and I always knew I had you at my back. If I messed up, you were always there.”

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the bathroom, and when he meets your gaze, he can see the glaze of tears in your eyes. You suck in a shaking breath and clear your throat but don’t continue. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there the same way.”

“This ain’t on you,” he says. “Don’t think that. It’s me. It was a long time comin’ somethin’ would catch up to me.”

You settle in against him, one hand digging into the sore muscle of his thigh. The heat feels like, the flex of your gentle fingers even better. The pain that doesn’t exist fades just a little.

“And for the record, darlin’, you were there the same way.”

It’s autumn again when you go back onto the patrol rotation. There’s frost on the windows and on the spikes of overgrown grass in the front yard. He just got back from a night watch on the wall.

You’re taking his old routes with Tommy, and you don’t tell him about it until the morning of. Not a fucking soul breathed a word of it to him, and he’s the one figuring out the goddamned rotations.

And Joel realizes though he’d been worried about you not wanting to leave Jackson anymore, not even being able to go near the gates, he was glad you hadn’t wanted to. It meant you were safe. Even if he couldn’t keep you safe anymore, the walls of Jackson could.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” you say before you leave, pretending like he can’t clearly see your hands shaking before you walk out the door.

He follows you onto the porch. He can’t remember what he says, just that you look upset and then hurt, just that you don’t say goodbye when you walk away and that you probably don’t have lavender tucked into your pocket like he always did.

“Please.” A word he hardly ever says, a plea he never gives into.

He says it to your retreating back as you pass the mailbox, but you either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him.

Maybe he didn’t say it at all.

That day is hell. It’s long and pocketed with anger and anxiety. If something happens to you, he isn’t sure what he’ll do. He doesn’t like that you left him upset.

Maria doesn’t entertain his outburst about it when he finally corners her after looking for her all morning. “She was ready.”

“I didn’t even know we were considerin’ sendin’ her back out!”

Maria just levels him with a glare that could freeze hell over. “That isn’t up to just you. And why do you think she didn’t want to tell you?”

He’s at the stables with Ellie that evening when you come home, waiting. It’s cold and his leg is aching something bitter and awful but he doesn’t move and Ellie doesn’t suggest going back home because she knows he won’t hear it. Dina stops by and he listens to them talk. Ellie’s face softens when she looks at Dina, cheeks a soft pink in the fading light, ducking her head and fidgeting with her fingers.

Joel tries not to pay them any mind, but it's hard not to find endearing.

When you and Tommy get back, it’s full dark. He wants to throttle his brother for not telling him you were going back out on the trails, but it’s too cold for much of that. All thoughts of strangling Tommy fly from his head as soon as he sees you, because you have a smear of blood on your cheek and down your neck.

“Goddamn it, what happened?” He demands, hands against your face before you’ve even fully dismounted.

“I’m fine.”

“That ain’t what I asked,” he sweeps his thumb over your skin, flakes of red shifting to the ground. The knot in his chest tightens as he watches it flutter through the air. “What happened?” He growls again. “Tommy?”

“The usual, Joel,” you pull his attention back to you. “It was just cleanup. A couple of infected. Nothing.”

“Uh huh,” he tilts your face one way and then the other.

“Just some splatter.” You shrug and smile at him; your mouth twitches, and he realizes you’re teasing him.

“Splatter,” he repeats flatly. “That ain’t funny. You ain’t funny. C’mon, let’s go home.”

Ellie and Dina have disappeared with your arrival but they aren’t far; he can hear their chatter as they walk along the street toward the center of Jackson, the echoes of their voices reaching back towards him. “I’ll deal with you later,” he says to his brother.

Tommy just raises his hands and says he’ll stable the horses. But he’s grinning and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s been awhile since his brother has seemed himself. It’s been awhile since the two of you have given him grief together.

“Leave Tommy alone,” you say as you walk toward Rancher Street. You seem steadier than you had been that morning, more confident, more yourself. It isn’t a long walk back, even with his leg, though he limps worse than usual because of the cold. You wrap an arm around his waist, your fingers digging into his back pocket, body warm against his side. “We did good together today.”

“Mhm. I’m sure you did.”

“You mad at me?”

“I wish you’d tell me,” he murmurs. “When you’re goin’ off to do somethin’ stupid. I need you to talk to me. Worried the whole goddamn day. You ain’t exactly in practice out there anymore.”

You hum and then nudge closer to him. “Put your arm around me.”

“I’m fine,” he grunts, maybe a little harshly.

“Joel,” you laugh and nuzzle your face against his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m cold and I had a rough day. Put your arm around me.”

So, he does. And he leaves it there until you’re in the bathroom, sitting on the counter in front of him, lavender plants stacked in the sink behind you once again as the colder weather sets in.

This is better. So much fucking better, than the other way around. This is right.

He cleans the blood away, finds the swell of a bruise on your shoulder and a cut lengthways over your collarbone.

It’s easy enough to take care of. It isn’t as bad as what he’d been imagining all day long.

He’s well in practice for this sort of thing, for bandaging and assessing wounds.

“Sorry,” he says as he works. “For this mornin’.”

“Mhm.”

“I worried all day. Not much I can do now, if you get into a spot of trouble.”

“I handle myself fine. Tommy was there. He’s a good partner out there.”

Joel grunts, dabs rubbing alcohol along the cut. “He is,” he agrees reluctantly. He supposes if you had to go on patrol with anyone, he’d prefer you go with his brother.

You touch him as he works, fingers patting over his jacket, the collar of his flannel, the frayed edge of the t-shirt beneath that. “I had to go back out, Joel. You would have argued with me and I can’t be afraid and useless forever.”

“Useless,” he scoffs and unspools a length of bandage. “You don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“Joel,” you say softly, exasperated. “Baby, you don’t know what it was like that day. I thought you were already dead.” Your voice trembles and you have to swallow harshly before you can continue. “Helpless and useless doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt. What I still feel.” You shake your head and cup your fingers around his. “I dream about it every single night and I still don’t really remember what happened. That scares me a lot.”

He slides his thumb along the gauze, your eyes wide and worried when he meets them.“I’ll never be who I was, sweetheart.” His voice sounds mournful to his own ears.

“You’re exactly the same man, Joel. I’m just happy you’re here and alive and you’re worried you aren’t alive the right damn way.” You shake your head. “I can’t ask for much more than what I have. Than what we do. Me and you. Ellie back in our life. A home. Food. Family. You,” you touch his jaw and smile. “Still here. Still taking care of me.”

There’s a lump in his throat, hard as a stone. “Yep.” He coughs in an attempt to clear his voice but he sounds just as wrecked when he speaks. “Patrol musta been real good to y’today.”

You just laugh, and the sound of it is wet. “Yeah. It was. I thought it would be terrible but I missed it.”

“I know you did.”

“You should come on a ride with me sometime,” you say slyly. “I bet it’d feel good to be back in the saddle. You’ve always been a good shot from the back of a horse.”

He has.

Maybe he should.

💞 If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

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

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suuuupernovaaa · 1 year

Text

kavuk si

kavuk si [English] vin. betray

Neteyam has chosen a woman, and you know it isn’t you.

1,471 words

Fishing was supposed to clear my mind and calm my nerves, but I was throwing my spear too forcefully, and it was making the fish almost unusable. Plus, I was missing a lot, and that was only serving to further fuel my anger and frustration.

“It’s just a rumor,” my sister said again as I huffed and pulled my spear from the sandy riverbed.

“It is not,” I replied. “His own mother is said to have confirmed it. He has chosen.”

Even without looking at her, I knew Kawti was rolling her eyes behind me. It had been my wish to come fishing alone, but there wasn’t much I had truly done alone since Kawti was born 13 years ago. Despite our seven year age difference, she was my best friend, and I was usually happy to have her along.

Just - not today. All morning, all anyone at home could talk about was how the eldest son of Toruk Makto was finally going to choose a woman, and he was going to make his declaration soon. I knew, in my heart, that Neteyam would have told me already if I was his choice. Just last night we had gone hunting together, and I had eaten the evening meal with his family - he had plenty of opportunity to tell me himself.

Even though we hadn’t exactly expressed how we’d felt, I thought I had been pretty clear in my affections and desires, and I’d thought Neteyam was just shy. Now I felt like a fool. He had not stolen any kisses, or any other affections, and I had been leading myself on. He simply wasn’t interested.

“Come, Y/N. Mom will be expecting us back soon.” Kawti hopped down from her seat atop a tree branch, and extended her small hand to mine.

I grabbed my meager bag of mangled fish, and followed her back to Home Tree.

When the rest of my family went to dinner, I stayed back. I wasn’t hungry, in fact I was feeling a little ill, and really did need a little bit of time alone.

Kawti was annoyed, but her optimism was childish. Not only did she think it was just a rumor, but she claimed to be sure Neteyam was ‘completely in love’ with me.

As if she knew anything about love. She was just a kid.

I could only sit in our little alcove of Home Tree for so long before becoming restless. I was feeling ridiculous, too. If Neteyam did not want me, and had chosen another, then I would have to grow up and move on. There were many fine men in our village, and I knew one would choose me - and I would choose them in return.

I could only barely lie to myself, as dread gripped my chest at the thought of mating with anyone else. So I stood up, trying to shake the thoughts from my head, and walked outside. It was quiet, as most were gathered for the evening meal, and the quietness left me too much to my dark, depressing thoughts.

Without direction, I began walking towards the forest.

“Y/N!” a familiar voice called, and I hesitated before turning.

“Teyam,” I said through gritted teeth. I looked over my shoulder to see him jogging to catch up, a wooden bowl full of food in his hands.

He looked handsome, I thought before I could stop myself. Neteyam always looked handsome, but there was something different... he was wearing a large necklace made of leather that was reserved for special occasions, and his face was painted as if for battle or a ceremony.

“Your mother said you were ill. I brought you this.” He extended it to me, and something about the gesture turned my sadness to rage.

He could choose another woman, ask her to be his mate, and still pretend to be concerned about me? To bring me food? How dare he!

“Bah!” I said, waving my hand. “Leave me, Neteyam.”

He furrowed his brow in confusion and tilted his head to the side, his ears flicking back and forth. “Do you need the healer?”

“No. I need to be alone.” I stepped back, but he stepped forward to follow.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, his voice firm, and extended his hand to me.

I looked at him skeptically, tilting my head to the side, and sighed. It had always been hard to stay mad at Neteyam, and the look on his face was very serious.

I put my hand into his, noting how much larger his was, and we went back into my family’s alcove in Home Tree together.

Neteyam did not let go of my hand when we stepped inside, and I tried to savor it. If he was to belong to someone else soon, this might be the last time we were ever truly alone.

“Well, what do you need to talk about?” I asked, trying not to let my voice waiver. “My family will be back soon.”

This was not even close to the truth, and Neteyam knew it. My mother could talk for hours every night, and my sister was usually exhausted by the time they returned from their socializing. It would be at least an hour before they returned.

Neteyam looked everywhere in our modest home but at me, and I squeezed his hand. “Teyam, spit it out!”

“Damn, you don’t make it easy, Y/N!” he replied in a huff, and my eyes widened in surprise.

“Sorry,” I said, unsure of what I was apologizing for. He was the one who should have been apologizing to me.

Why had we gone on all those rides together? Hunted together? Taken meals together, spent time with each other’s families, if he had not intended to be mine?

“You are mad at me,” he said quietly, and I finally allowed myself to look into his eyes.

“Yes,” I said in a near-whisper. “I am.”

“Why?”

I took my hand from his and crossed my arms over my chest. “They are saying.. they are saying you have chosen a woman. Everyone is to celebrate the mating of the Chief’s son.”

His eyebrows rose up and his shoulders fell. “Well... this is true.”

I nodded, stepping away from him. “Who is she? Ni’awtu? She’s a fine hunter. Or... Petani? She has a fine skill on the loom, and would make a good mate.” I blinked hard to stop the tears rushing into my eyes.

I jumped with surprise when Neteyam laughed so hard that he threw his head back. “You are joking!” he exclaimed.

“I am not! Tell me who it is!”

With considerable effort, Neteyam stopped laughing and closed the gap between us again. He reached out, gripping my upper arms with his hands, and leaned in close.

“You are mad because you are jealous, but you are jealous of yourself, Y/N. Ni’awfu may be a fine hunter, and Petani weaves very well on the loom, but I do not love them. I do not love anyone else.”

Blinking hard, it took me a few moments to understand what Neteyam was saying to me. I stood, slack jawed and stunned, forcing him to continue speaking.

“I wish to ask you to be my mate before Ewya, to spend your life with me, to mother my children, Y/N.”

I took in a long, deep breath. My hands were shaking and the tears had filled my eyes, I could no longer hold them back. It was so hard to find any appropriate response. I had spent years pining over Neteyam, and all day today sure that my chance was gone and I was going to have to watch him with someone else - which would have been a fate worse than death.

“Neteyam, I... of course, yes. I, I have always...” I stuttered and stammered as tears fell down my face.

Graciously, Neteyam stopped our needs for words by leaning down and pressing his soft lips to mine in a kiss I felt as if I had waited so long for.

My body felt on fire instantly, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned into him, deepening the kiss.

It felt like a long time before we pulled apart, both smiling like a couple of idiots.

“You are mine, Y/N,” Neteyam whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. “How could you have thought I would choose anyone else? I have always been yours.”

Tears spilled freely now, and I put my hands on either side of his face. “I feel foolish. I have always been yours, Neteyam.”

He hugged me tightly, pulling my body completely flush with mine, and I breathed him in deeply.

“Always.”

#neteyam #Neteyam x reader #avatar #avatar 2 #Neteyam fic

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tsimvkas · 8 days

Text

come back home — mason mount

A/N: really sad to hear about the new injury so maybe this can distract u guys a bit. im ngl, this one is pretty personal to me so please take care of it. tbh this is a special fic for mi amore elisa, and i hope it matches her expectations. this story wouldn’t exist without you bestie 🫶🏻

word count: 8.5k | masterlist

content: reader has mommy issues, dad!mason, angsty and fluffy end

When your mum called, you didn’t think twice.

She asked you to spend a week with her, and you accepted straight away, incapable of believing that your brother left her alone without warning you.

To be fair, you know you’re not on speaking terms with him, but it's your mother. How could he let her alone?

When you told Mason, you could see the insecurity on his face. Since you gave birth to your baby boy, you had never ever left the house without him, and leaving Manchester to go back to your mum’s in London was a big thing, but eventually he sighed and nodded.

“Just make sure you call me everyday” he kissed your forehead before kissing Leo. Just a week, you told him. In a week you would be back to your husband.

You met Mason at the Champions League final im the 20/21 season, and you like to say it was love at first sigh, the way your relationship instantly clicked is still surprising. You dated for a year before he asked you to be his wife, and you thinks you would’ve said yes another million times.

You’ve been together through the good enough season of 21/22, and all the shit of 22/23. You got pregnant in the middle of his last season for Chelsea, and Luke was born already in Manchester, in October.

Since Mason’s injury in November he’s been able to participate more, spending lots of time with his son as he doesn’t need to go to away games, and you know that this week away will make both of them sad.

You tried to tell yourself that since Mason is back at the regular training and ready to be back on the pitch, they would spend less time together anyway. It didn’t make the decision any easier.

When you packed for a week and got into the car, your husband helped to put Luke in the baby seat before kissing you lovely.

“Call me every night. Don’t let her be alone with Luke, please? And come back soon” he whispered against your lips, stroking your chin. “I love you”

“I love you” you kissed him, before reluctantly driving away from your husband.

Sundays are usually already sad and gray, but Mason is sure his just hit another level of depression.

—

It was already night when you got to your mum’s house, not talking much to her before settling on Matt’s old room and texting Mason.

You instantly found out that it would be a difficult week: it was the first time you were away from Mason since you gave birth, and the first time Luke had to sleep away from daddy.

The thing is that he couldn’t. You couldn’t put your baby to sleep, not even if your life depended on it. Luke kept loudly crying, tossing and squirming in your arms.

You tried your best to calm him, thinking it could have something bothering him like his current clothes or the weather difference, but not even breastfeeding calmed him down.

Mason tried to help you every time he FaceTimed you, and it was when Luke seemed to feel better but never lasted long.

You were feeling exhausted the whole week, but that didn’t stop your mother from asking you everything she could, like you were still fifteen years old with the responsibility of helping her to clean a house isn’t yours anymore.

Plus, she seemed incredibly bothered about Luke and the fact he wasn’t feeling well, dropping comments about him. You tried your best to ignore, because you know your mother isn’t the easiest person to live with, and since you were leaving soon you didn’t want to fight.

Wednesday night you were missing Mason like crazy, wanting nothing more than to be wrapped with him under the covers, and your heart twisted when his face showed up on your screen.

“Hi baby” Mason murmured, already tucked in bed and making your heart ache with the need of being there and snuggling with him.

“Hi Mase. How are you?”

“Training was fine, and I’m getting closer to come back” he smiled, and you instantly matched his expression.

“I can’t wait to watch you again, love”

You think that is adorable how Mason’s cheeks still got red when you show him affection.

“And how’s your week going?”

“It could’ve been better if I was with you. I miss you” you sighed. “But the week is almost over and I’ll be home soon”

“Good” he yawned, getting more comfortable. . “Show me my little man”

Luke was still wide awake and paying attention to what you were saying, and you showed Mason to him.

“Hi buddy, you’re being a good boy, yeah? Be good to mumma, please. I miss you”

When Luke babbled to him, Mason giggled before wishing you a good night and telling you he loved you.

—

When Saturday came your mother talked to you, saying Matt had some problem and he wouldn’t be back for another week, begging you to stay a little while. The hardest part was telling Mason about it.

“She needs me to stay for one more week, Masey” you murmured, feeling guilty. When Mason didn’t answer you tried again. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll be home next Sunday”

“It’s okay. I was just hoping you’d be here for Liverpool’s game tomorrow, I think I’ll be subbed on. But it’s okay, you can travel to Brentford's game with Luke” he assured you. “I wish I could go see you during the international break, but they want me to stay in rehab”

“I’m really sorry baby, I tried to contact my brother but he’s being petty” you sighed.

“I understand, princess. I just miss you” he told you gently. “How’s my buddy going?”

“He’s good, he’s just so irritated lately, I think it’s his tooth” you sighed again, feeling tired. “He misses you”

“Poor bubba” Mason pouted, making you smile. “Give him a kiss yeah?”

“Sure” you smiled. “We’ll be back at the end of the week. I love you”

When the week unfolded, you weren’t sure about your decision anymore.

You choose to stay with your mother for one more week over living your husband’s comeback, and in gratitude she spent this time talking bad things about you.

It started with innocent comments. How she would never buy the clothes you were wearing. How you were raising a clingy kid by never letting him sleep alone. How you should breastfeed him less or your boobs would get flaccid.

You tried to shrug it off, like you did when you were younger. You used to believe that your mother was always right and that she was always the mature one, but you’re not so sure anymore.

During the second week you kept calling Mason every night, sharing about your day and showing him to Luke, who would try to grab the phone and put dads on his month. When, without a question if you could or wanted, the second week turned into a third, you could feel Mason losing his patience.

“It’s okay, you can still go to Brentford’s game this Saturday” he repeated, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself instead. “You can bring Luke, Brentford is friendly. How is he doing?”

“He had a fever but he’s fine now” you showed Luke sleeping next to you, his face a little red.

“Let me know if something changes” Mason asked you, and his concerned look just proved you chose the right dad for your son.

You nodded to his image on the small screen, his adorable face almost hidden by the sheets, the bed looking incredibly big.

“Can we sleep on call?” you asked, missing him so much it was physically hurting you. Mason’s face softened and he nodded.

Some people might think that you could just go back home. If you really miss him you would do it, right?

But you know Mason understands your relationship with your mother, how you feel you owe her everything. She raised you, gave you everything you needed.

She was rough sometimes, yes. And there were days you didn’t feel loved at all, but she was still your mum, even when she couldn’t tell you she was proud, even when she couldn’t hug you during storms.

Even when she couldn’t believe you would be someone successful one day.

So you kept there, living your days boringly, washing the dishes and the clothes, playing with Luke, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. For her, so she would be happy and proud.

And you were losing your mind.

—

When Brentford's game came, you weren’t able to go. You apologised to him the day before, spending hours on the phone, and even though you could see the sad look in his eyes Mason was still comprehensive.

“She needs me to accompany her to the exam” you told him, and Mason himself could see you weren’t funny about your current situation; you just weren’t brave enough to hurt your mother the way she hurts you and leave.

You were able to watch the game when you came back from your mother’s exam and it wasn’t a surprise to you when Mason changed the whole game by being subbed on.

Luke was already sleeping, so you tried your best not to scream when your husband scored, tearing up to see he dedicated the goal to you by pointing to his ring finger.

You were able to talk with him only for a few minutes before he desperately needed to sleep, whispering that you was proud of him and the way his voice cracked when he told you he loved you made your heart hurt.

Following the week, you weren’t able to talk much with him. Only quick calls at night before he dozed off still holding his phone, feeling much more tired now that he’s back at attending games even though he doesn’t play the full match.

Your Wednesday started with Luke’s little sobs waking you up, and you were sure he wasn’t feeling well again. After breastfeeding and showering with him, you managed to get you both changed and ready to start the day.

When you got downstairs your mother was already in the kitchen, and you could hear her complaining that you were late.

“For what?” you surprised her, and despite being early in the morning she seemed grumpy already.

“For breakfast, what more could it be? I had to cook it myself” she snorted, and you took a deep breath before

“If you’re capable of it, I don’t see what’s wrong” you shrugged.

The truth is that you’re starting to wonder what he hell you’re doing there and why Matt hasn’t come back. What should be a week turned into a month and you was living her life instead of yours.

When you sat at the table for breakfast, after managing to cook your own meal with Luke in one of your arms, you had to take a deep breath as soon as she started to talk.

You’ve heard in silence when she talked about you and Luke, but never makes you more furious like when your mother decides to talk about Mason.

“He could spend more time in the gym” she told you, suddenly. “Your husband”

You were only capable of frowning at her, not understanding why she would brought this out of nowhere.

“What do you mean?”

“He could train more. Maybe some more muscles would make him prettier and better at football” she shrugged, making you laugh in disbelief.

“He’s already pretty and good at football”

“I don’t know, Y/N. I feel like he’s not the right man to you, and I want the best to my little girl”

Mason is the most caring and gentle man you’ve ever known, and you knew you couldn’t sit there and hear her talking shit about him day after day.

“Mum, you can’t be serious. He’s my husband. Not only this, but he’s Luke’s father. Don’t talk about him like that”

“Are you sure he doesn’t cheat on you?” she innocently asked, making you choke on your coffee.

“Mum!” you gasped, not believing what she was saying.

Luke’s eyes widened and you tried to recompose yourself so he wouldn’t cry out of fear

“I mean, he could have anyone… everyone. A skinny and tanned woman, with pretty features…”

There it was. The reason why you grew up so insecure, something that would annoy lots of men — but not Mason. Not your boy, who would reassure you every time and make you really believe that you’re pretty and loved.

Her words still stung though, but you shrugged them off.

“Mason loves me” was everything you told her before leaving the table with Luke.

You went out for a walk with your baby, trying to make the day pass faster and see if he’d feel better after some fresh air. When it started to get dark, you came back home and gave Luke a shower, laying in bed with him.

Later that night Mason called you like he always does, and you were happy to see his name shining on your screen.

“Hi baby” you whispered, but to your surprise he didn’t greet you back.

“How’s Luke?” Mason murmured, and you could sense the tiredness and loneliness in his voice. “Don’t you think you should bring him back home so we can get him to our doctor?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want to do. But I can’t leave my mum alone and Matt won’t answer the phone-”

But Mason had enough, and suddenly he lost his patience.

“And why, exactly, can’t you leave her alone, Y/N? Enlighten me, please. From what I can remember, she can do everything perfectly. She’s not sick, she’s not weak. She’s just using you”

Mason never liked your mother, much due to how she treats you, and you understand. It just hurts that you have so many good things to talk about his mother whilst yours is always giving him reasons to hate her.

“Mason… she’s my mother. Can we not talk about her like that?” you murmured, but you know he’s right.

On the other side, Mason did his best to not scream at you, something he swore he would never, even if it’s out of frustration.

“She’s your mother, yeah. And I’m your fucking husband. I know you never chose to have a narcissist as your mother, but you chose to marry me and I thought I would have an important spot in your life. I know family comes first but I thought that someday you’d start to prioritize the family you made”

You could feel how tired he was. How he needed you to understand his point.

“I’m trying, Mase” was the only thing you were capable of whispering.

“You say you are but you keep choosing her. You keep going when she calls even though you know she’s only going to hurt you. You keep choosing your mother over your husband and I don’t know if I can do this anymore”

“Mason…” your heart dropped. “Don’t say that”

“Do you have any idea of how much I miss my son? How much I’ve been missing my wife? It’s been a month, Y/N. And I feel like you’re not thinking about my feelings, at all”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, it was supposed to be just a week” you tried to defend yourself. “I don’t know what’s going on or why Matt isn’t back yet. It has been hard for me too, yeah? I miss you so much and I’m sorry”

“Well I think you should set your priorities” he murmured before turning the call off on your face.

You instantly felt the tears forming. He hasn’t said it was over, but it was obviously a warning that it wasn’t over just yet.

With a sick Luke in one of your arms, you started to clean the room you had been staying in. Cleaning always helps you, and you let your cry reach out to you during the process, feeling overwhelmed and tired.

You wanted your home and your husband, but as a daughter you feel like you need to take care of your mother. Like you’re supposed to give her everything she’s been giving you your whole life.

After tidying the room you went downstairs to prepare the dinner, and whilst you mixed the sauce something snapped. What were you doing there?

You should be cooking for Mason, so he would have a proper meal after his nap. Luke should be sitting in his baby chair whilst you were humming happy songs. Not there, where your mother can cook her own dinner and clean her own house.

It wasn’t your fault that she couldn’t understand that you have your own family now.

When you set the table for dinner your mother wasn't home yet, and you ate with Luke’s little screams, trying to smile at him. She finally arrived an hour later, and whilst she entered the house you decided that you had enough.

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning” you told her whilst she closed the door. “Mason will face Chelsea and I need to be there. And Luke is sick, so I’m heading back home after the game to take him to his doctor in Manchester”

“What are you talking about? He looks fine”

“I’m his mother. I know when he’s not doing well” you snapped at her. “And don’t come to me saying you don’t wanna be alone. You’re not alone, are you? Because I spent the day here to be with you whilst you’re walking around the city or going to your friend’s house” you tried not to snap. “And getting drunk every Saturday even tho I tell you how much I hate it. We’re leaving tomorrow, whether you like it or not”

Not leaving her time to answer, you went upstairs to sleep a bit. When Luke finally slept you debated whether or not you should send a message to Mason letting him know you would go back home after the game.

Deciding not to disturb him any more and imagining that he was still upset with you, you laid with your son and tried to sleep, but the shooting thoughts wouldn’t let you.

What if Mason had enough? What if he doesn’t want you anymore, what if you are too late?

—

When you woke up, you took Luke in your arms and started to pack. Since you were supposed to stay only for a week you didn’t have much to organise, and soon you were ready to go.

Your plans were to drive to Stamford Bridge and see Mason after the game before heading to Manchester whilst he came back home with the team.

But as soon as you checked beneath the pillow and under the bed, you realised your phone wasn’t anywhere.

Taking Luke downstairs and looking everywhere you could, you tried to ask your mother.

“Have you seen my phone? It’s not where it should be”

“You should take care of your stuff, Y/N. I thought I taught you that your things are your responsibility” she told you with a flat look and you stared at her for a few seconds, in disbelief.

After hours of searching for it, you gave up. There was only an hour left before the game and since you only started to drive recently the idea of driving around without following the GPS terrified you, so you had to make a choice.

Plus, you were tired from searching for it and all you wanted was to eat something and watch the game with Luke.

Deciding to bath with your baby and cook dinner, you sat on the couch to see the game, your stomach churning with the need to be there.

A few minutes into the first half, your mother looked at you from up the stairs.

“I thought you were going back home today?” she teased you, making you frown.

You chose not to answer, paying attention to the game instead. When Mason was finally subbed on you pointed at him, bouncing Luke in your thigh.

“Look at dada, Luke. We’ll see dada soon”

“Dada” he babbled, making you gasp.

“Yeah, dada. It’s your dada” you poked his waist, the teas already forming. Luke couldn’t stop calling for dada once he said it for the first time, and he kept repeating it until the game was over.

You were incredibly sad by the result, knowing you should be at home when Mason gets there so you could hold him and scratch his scalp after his warm bath.

Deciding to sleep early, you waited for your mother to go to her bedroom and carefully brought your bags downstairs before laying with Luke and forcing yourself to sleep, determined to leave the next morning — even if you had to drive like the old ones, asking for instructions and following the signs.

On the other hand, Mason was desperate. He knew from the moment he turned the call off that he needed to apologise for how he talked to you.

But he was angry, stressed and frustrated. He wanted you there, supporting him. Cuddling him after his tiring games, listening to him when he needs to. He wants you there talking about your day, warming the bed, bringing Luke to him after a shower so you can change into your pyjamas.

He wants his family and he can’t cope with the fact they’re not with him.

Mason can’t believe you and Luke weren’t there watching his first goal, and scoring felt bittersweet. He wanted nothing more than to share this moment with you.

Since he met you, Mason knows how hard your mother is. Narcissist, dramatic, always trying to make you feel sorry for hurting her — when you were only setting boundaries.

And he also knows how hard had been for you, not finding the courage to break the circle and move on from her. But in all this time he never had to deal with this, you and his son so far away from him because of a woman who doesn’t even respect her own children.

When he went to bed a few hours after the call, Mason started to worry and he knows you were mad when you didn’t text him before bed, but at the same time he wanted to apologise for the way he talked he still meant everything he said, so he took a deep breath and choose to wait until the next day so he could talk to you properly.

His heart hurt knowing he was going to bed without telling you he loves you, something none of you ever did, but Mason was sure you’d figure it out after the game since you promised you would go, so he did his best to sleep and rest.

—

He looked everywhere. He asked everyone.

You just weren’t there.

When the game ended, Mason just wanted to bring you and his son and tell you he needed you home when he got there. He needed someone he could cry to, someone he could tell how overwhelming being back felt.

All he wanted was to survive the bus drive with all his teammates feeling sorry — for the loss and for him. And then lay in your arms so you could reassure him he’s doing well and that he makes you proud, whilst Luke’s little fingers tried to make him bald.

But they told him you weren’t in the United box and soon he found out you never entered the stadium Mason’s heart twisted.

First he felt a shameful feeling of anger. Why the fuck couldn’t you do this little thing for him? Relationships are supposed to be about making sacrifices and he watched you put yourself first for an entire month, always being understanding. The only thing he expected in return was for you to be there.

And you couldn’t? You say love him so much, but still couldn’t be there?

Then, when he finally showered and changed into some trainers before heading to the bus, Mason was able to check his phone just to see you hadn’t answered his pre-game messages, and quickly his anger turned into worry.

He called you five times, but every call went to voicemail. Mason pondered if you were ignoring him — or if something bad had happened.

Knowing you for four years, he doesn’t think you would give up on your relationship like that. But the way he hung up on you the night before, and how he accused you of not caring about him… he just can’t help but overthink.

With his heart pounding, Mason opened his Instagram app and searched for the only person who could help him, whilst he was forced to come back to Manchester when all he wanted to do was come to you.

—

The sound of the doorbell ringing woke you up, and you checked the hours just to see it was just past 2am. Luke instantly started to cry, and you took him in your arms before rushing downstairs and opening the door to the person you never thought you would see there.

“What are you doing here?” you frowned to your brother.

“Mason called me. Where’s that freak you call your mother?” he said harshly. “Why don’t you answer your phone? Your husband is losing his mind. He thinks something bad happened”

“I’ve been looking for my phone since yesterday morning, I don’t know, it’s vanished” you explained, following him. “Matt! What’s happening?”

“She’s been lying to you, Y/N. She’s probably hiding your phone right now. These are yours?” he pointed to the things you’ve packed, and you nodded. “I was never meant to come back. I told her I was leaving, cause I was tired of the manipulation. I was tired of her telling me my girlfriend doesn’t deserve me or telling me I owe everything I am to her. I owe her nothing”

You could feel the lump already forming in your throat, and you wanted nothing more than to call Mason. Matt silently put your bags in the front door, and soon his girlfriend got out of the car to take them.

“I realised something was wrong” you told him. “And Luke has been feeling sick so I packed, but then the morning I told her I’d go to the game and then head back home I couldn’t find my phone anymore. What Mason told you?”

“Not gonna lie to you, he’s feeling awful. I think he’s been crying, too. He told me you were supposed to go to the game tonight?” he asked, and you nodded, your heart dropping. “He said he tried to call you before and when you ignored him he thought you were still angry, but now that you didn’t show up at Stamford he thinks you either were kidnapped or decided to leave him. There’s only these bags?”

“Yeah” you quickly nodded. “She asked me to spend just a week”

“Compulsive liar” Matt snorted. “Let’s go, get in the car. I’ll take you to my home and we can go to yours in the morning”

You nodded again, but before you could obey him you mother showed up in the stairs.

“What’s going on here?” your mother’s voice made you jump as you were still two kids doing something she wouldn’t approve of.

“Please, don’t. Just go back to your room, I’m taking Y/N’s home”

“You can’t do that!” she raised her voice, trying to show a mother authority she doesn’t have over him anymore.

“What do you mean I can’t do that, you psycho? Leave us alone. You used me for years, I’m not letting you do the same with her”

“Don’t be stupid, Matthew. All I ever asked you was for you to take care of me like I took care of you your whole life. All I ever expected was you both to love me like I loved my childs” she gestured, and you could feel your heart hurting. She’s your mother and you should be so tough with her…

“Why can’t you understand that we have our own family now?” Matt snorted, his big body trying to hide you from your hysterical mother. “Y/N is a mother. She has a child to take care of, she can’t look after you when you’re capable of looking after yourself”

When you realised Luke was about to cry from all the noise, you started to rock him back and forth, trying to protect his ears.

“I am your family. All those years I left my life in standby to raise you. I gave you two food, a home, a warm bed to sleep” your mother shouted, gesturing.

“And as a mother this was exactly what the world expected from you. You did nothing but your obligations. No one asked you to be a mother, so you can’t point your fingers and act like we should be grateful for the simple things you gave us. The minimal” Matt kept his tone low. “But you lacked the essential. The respect for your kids. The love, acceptance. You only love yourself. Now you say we’re not returning everything you did for us but guess what: this is what you did for us. You reap what you sow. You can not raise a child thinking about what they can bring you in the future”

“Everything I’ve done, everything I say is because I care! But go on, make me the villain, take her thy stupid footballer” she turned to face you. “Go back to him and raise this stupid child. Just don’t come back running to mummy when he changes you for a prettier and hotter girl, leaving you with only his clone to remind you of what you’ve lost!”

It was unconscious, the way you left the safe space Matt had created for you and advanced in her direction. You never believed you were capable until it was done, the echo of your hand meeting her cheek spreading in the silent room.

“Talk about me as much as you want. But do never, ever again talk about my husband or my son. Is not our fucking fault dad couldn’t handle your behaviour anymore, and is not our fucking fault he left you for a prettier and hotter woman” you pointed a finger to her face. “I’m done with you. I’m done with you forever, and if cutting you from my life is what I need to do so I won’t be the wife and mother you were, then I’m doing it right now”

“C’mon, Y/N” Matt put a hand on your shoulder, slowly bringing you closer to him. “Let’s go home”

You checked Luke on your arms afraid your impulsive action had hurt him, whilst Matt took you outside.

“She still has my phone-” you realised before you could enter your car.

“Leave it behind, yeah? Mason can buy you a new one. Look at it as a new beginning” he squeezed your shoulders, and it felt like having a brother again.

In that moment you understood that this was what had happened to him, too. That this was the reason he never replied to you anymore.

When Matt left his mother’s house in an attempt to be free, he had to leave everything behind, including you.

You think you won’t ever really understand what it cost him to come back there, but he did it.

He could never leave his little sister behind.

—

You took Luke out from the baby seat before following Alice inside. She came back driving Matt’s car whilst he drove yours, so you hadn’t had the chance to talk to her.

Once inside, Matt put you in the biggest guest room of his house, trying his best to make you comfortable. You used the sheets and the pillows to make a fort around Luke, and went downstairs to talk to your brother after so long.

After making you all tea, Alice sat besides him and you genuinely smiled seeing how they clearly completed each other.

You started by explaining to them what she told you in the first place, and how she was trying to keep you there for more and more days every time another week ended. When you told about your fight with Mason, Matt was quick to reassure you that he knows Mase will understand you, but you were still feeling reckless and seeing your husband was the only thing you wanted.

“I tried to contact you” Matt told you shyly. “It’s been months since I left her house, maybe six?”

“Around Luke’s birth” you whispered.

“But I left my phone too. It was a choice I had to make. Since you don’t have an Instagram, I tried Mason’s but-”

“He’s too famous to see your message” you giggled.

“I think he unfollowed me when he thought we weren’t on speaking terms- when you thought we weren’t. He’s a good one, you know?”

“He is” you smiled, thinking about your boy.

“I’ll get the car ready for the trip” he murmured, suddenly looking awkward.

As soon as he left, Alice saw you were still processing your feelings and came to sit near you. After a few seconds in silence, she started to talk.

“You don’t have to love her just because she’s your mother” she told you, holding your hand. “Mothers aren’t saints, Y/N. It’s okay to dislike our mothers when they act bad, when they hurt you. It’s okay to even hate a mother that does no good to her kids”

“But she’s my blood” you told her the same you’ve always told your brother, but as a woman your age Alice understands your feelings and is delicate to answer you.

“That doesn’t mean anything. Do you see Debbie? Matt told me about her, and how much she cares about you. She’s your blood? No. But she’s been treating you better than your blood has” she ran hiii her fingers through your hair. “I know it’s hard to make this decision, but a mother that hurts and lies, a mother that tries to get in the middle of your marriage isn’t a good mother. Just think if you’d ever do to Luke any of the stuff she did to you”

When you looked up your brother was by the door, and you know he’s the only one who actually shares this controversial feeling with you.

“I wanna go home” you sniffed. “To Mason”

“We’ll take you there” Matt assured you, stretching his arms out to you. “But give me a hug first”

“I’m so sorry she got between us” you murmured after hugging him, resting your face on his shoulder.

“Me too. But see? We’re free now, princess. Your big brother is here”

—

When he opened the door for you early in the morning, Mason’s heart dropped. With Matt and his girlfriend waiting in the car, he was sure you were there to pick your stuff and leave.

“Mase?” you called him nervously, since he wouldn’t move or make any indication of hugging you.

“Are you leaving? I- I didn’t mean it you know, I didn’t mean to be rude with you I was just so tired and angry and I came home after training and you weren’t here and I got so pissed off” his voice was shaky and he didn’t stop talking to breath. “And then I thought we could solve things after the game but you weren’t at the game and I tried to call you so many times and I swear I wanted to go there and talk to you but the gaffer told me I was supposed to come back with the team”

You quickly entered the house so your brother wouldn’t be worried. The last thing you needed was him and Alice wanting to stay — you needed to talk with Mason alone, your family needed this time together.

You circled his waist with one arm, the other holding Luke between you two, and waited for him to hug your shoulders. When Mason calmed down you pulled away just so you could look at him.

“What’s going on?” you asked him, a hand going straight to his cheek. “Are you having panic attacks again?”

Mason shook his head, calmer now that you were inside the house and Matt’s car was gone. Luke stretched out his tiny arms to Mason and you instantly passed him to your husband.

“I thought- I saw Matt’s car parked and I thought you were here to take your stuff” he shyly admitted, his cheeks blushing.

“Oh baby, I would never leave you” you ran your fingers through his hair and your heart tightened when he hugged Luke like his life depended on this.

A lonely tear went down his cheek and you brushed it.

“We’re not going anywhere big boy, you can relax. I think you’re close to suffocating him” you giggled, your heart hurting at how tight he was holding Luke.

“Am I?” Mason’s eyes widened as he pulled his son away, to be sure he wasn’t hurting him.

“Sorry, I was just kidding” you laid your head on your husband’s shoulder. “We missed you so much. I’m so sorry, Mase”

When Luke laid his head on daddy’s other shoulder, your eyes watered.

Since you gave him birth, since he grew inside you even, you could never understand how someone could hurt their own child. You would die and kill for him, and you know Mason feels the same way.

Being a mother like yours turned out to be your biggest fear since you saw the first positive test. Now, each day he grows more you’re sure you could never.

You could never treat him like his opinions and wishes aren’t valid. You could never tell him he can’t simply answer you his point of view no matter what, even when you’re wrong. You could never put yourself first when your son depends on you.

“Believe me, I missed you more. The bed was always cold, every night, and the house is so quiet without Luke, the food doesn’t taste the same, there’s not a single drawing in the bathroom wall and everything looks so lifeless” his voice cracked, and you looked at him to see uncountable tears spilling down his face. “Ever again. You’re not leaving my side ever again”

You nodded, trying to reassure him and ease the panic you could see in his eyes. Hugging his waist, you peppered kisses to his jaw, feeling the salty water on your lips.

“We’re not going anywhere, baby. I swear”

Mason’s sobs caught Luke’s attention, and he looked at his dad with the prettiest face you’ve ever seen, full of confusion.

Your words weren’t enough to stop Mason’s breakdown once he was feeling safe to show you how much the last month affected him and his body started to shake, so you guided him to the couch and sat with your back against the arm so he could lay between your legs.

With Luke sitting on one of your legs and Mason’s head resting on the other, you let your husband cry.

“It’s ok, Mase” you scratched his scalp, trying to soothe him. Your heart physically hurt when he clinged to you, hugging your waist tighter. “I’m here now”

“Sorry” he whispered when you started to brush his tears.

“Don’t feel sorry for being hurt, Masey. You can cry to me whenever you need to, I’m here to protect you too”

“You, protecting me?” he giggled, and you smiled at the sound of it. He got up from your lap and gave you a shy smile, stretching his hands out for Luke who immediately tried to go to him.

“Yeah, it’s your turn to be taken care of” you shrugged, giving your baby boy to him.

“Oh so you’ll take care of me?” Mason gave you a smirk and you rolled your eyes playfully before remembering what you wanted to show him the most.

“Daddy is being a naughty boy, Luke. Tell him to be better, uh? Tell dad to behave”

“Da” Luke babbled, and Mason pinched his chubby cheeks.

“One month alone with mum and you already forgot that I’m your partner in crime?”

“Da-dada” he kept going, and you wish you could get Mason’s reaction tattooed, the way he confused eyes looked at you.

“What the fu-“

“Don’t curse” you giggled, covering his mouth, but Mason could hear the sad tone on your voice. “He said if for the first time last night, we were watching the game and I told him we would see dada soon. He can’t stop anymore I guess”

Mason kissed Luke’s cheek, laughing between sobs when he squirmed, giving little screams.

“You have training today?” you whispered, afraid of ruining the moment but Mason shook his head.

“I’ll call the gaffer to explain” he brushed his fingers through Luke’s face.

“I’ll run his bath then” you told your husband before kissing his head and quickly going upstairs, trying to give them some time alone.

In reality, you feel so bad for separating father and son for an entire month. Seeing Mason’s cry made it hit you how bad your actions hurt him, even intentionally.

Imagining how you would feel if it was the opposite, your heart physically hurt with guilt, how hard this month apart was for Mason and you could feel a few hot tears spilling down your face. Now, you can only hope he won’t hold any grudge against you, despite what you did.

Less than ten minutes later, Mason was entering your shared room and walking straight to the en-suite so he could find you.

“Babe? You can’t leave your boys alone, we don’t know how to take care of ourse- ei, what’s wrong?” he cupped your cheek, and just the warmth of his hand was enough to make you feel better.

“Nothing” you shook your head, drying your face with the back of your hand. “Can you take off his clothes?”

“We’ll talk about it once he’s sleeping” Mason kissed your forehead, squeezing your waist. You nodded, letting him go and undress Luke whilst you chose some toys for your son.

You put the toys in the bath, checking again to be sure the water wasn’t too hot and turning around to Mason.

“Can you bathe him?” you asked him and he instantly nodded, holding your waist before you could leave.

“Go bath in the guest bathroom if you need some time alone, yeah?” he caressed your chin, and your heart pounded even more with how gentle he could be with you even though you hurt him.

Since he seems to know you more than you know yourself, you obeyed. Taking what you’d need, you headed to the guest bathroom and took a warm shower.

You wanted to cry. You wanted to let it all go when Mason and Luke weren't around, but you couldn’t. There was just a whole in your chest, but no tears.

After washing your hair in an attempt to feel freshened and lightened, you wrapped yourself in your robe and came back to your room. Mason wasn’t there, so you imagine he was at Luke’s room putting him to sleep, and not wanting to get in the middle of their father and son time you changed in your pyjamas and tucked in bed.

Half an hour ater you still weren’t able to close your eyes, staring the wall. You’ve heard when your husband entered the room and changed from his trainers, wanting to lay down with you.

“You can go to training if you’re not too late, Mase” you told him softly, not wanting him to get in trouble.

“No way” was his only groaned response, and you sighed when Mason cuddled you seconds later, his arm circling your waist.

Your eyes instantly teared up.

“Go on” Mason kissed your shoulder. “You don’t need to hold it, it’s just us”

“I can’t believe she did this” you tried to tell him without crying, but with every little kiss on your shoulder you could feel the breakdown coming. “Lying would’ve been bad enough but hiding my phone? Not caring that Luke was feeling sick- oh we need to take him to Dr. Linn”

“I’ll take care of it. Keep going” he encouraged you, and you couldn’t understand how he was the one left behind for a month but still so worried about you.

“I don’t know why she wanted me there. The entire month, every day she had something bad to say about me or you, or even Luke. Always leaving to see her friends or get drunk, so in the end I was alone most of the time. She hates me and my family, but she still wanted to keep me around for some reason” your eyes were burning at this point, and Mason’s soft skin against yours made you feel safe enough to finally let the tears spill. “I’m so sorry you had to live an entire month without him”

His hug tightened a bit when you sobbed.

“It’s not your fault. And I lived an entire month without you too, you know? You were missed just as badly”

“It is my fault, Mason. You said it yourself, I chose her over my family and I’m really sorry about it. I want you to spend more time with him, make up for lost time”

Mason pulled away just enough so he could helo turn your body to face his, his hand going straight to cup your chin.

“Y/N, what’s that? I don’t wanna spend hours alone with Luke, even though I love him more than anything. I wanna make up for lost time with my family, not only with half of it. I was angry that night, yeah? I was tired and missing you and I was so pissed you weren’t here when I got back home, I just snapped”

“You had every right to” you murmured, his thumbs never stopping with caressing your face.

“And then the next morning you weren’t answering my calls and when the time came you weren’t at the game like you said you would and I was so scared you had given up on us. So during the night I couldn’t sleep and I realised… I know you, I know you wouldn’t deprive me of my son even though you didn’t want to talk to me yourself, so I panicked. I’m sorry I called Matt, he was my only option”

“Matt and I were good” you smiled at him, and the way his eyebrows raised made you giggle. “I could never give up on us, silly. You’re my everything. Not going to bed with you every night, not making your breakfast every morning… it was the worst month of my life”

“That’s why I gotta give you my attention too, babe. You’re my girl, and Luke knows how to share, you know? He’s not selfish”

“Well, I don’t think I deserve your attention. Look what you had to go through for an entire month” you groaned, but Mason just sighed before placing his forehead against yours.

“You were manipulated, by someone you love a lot. You were worried and wanted nothing more than to help her, and I understand that staying away from me was a consequence of what you needed to do in your head, even tho in reality you didn’t have to do anything. I don’t really like your mum but I love mine, and I know the feeling of being able to do anything for her” he held you tighter. “You don’t need to feel guilty about it”

“Mason, you can’t pretend it’s alright. I lost the most important game of the season. I lost your fucking goal. I should’ve been there to support you and then I should’ve been here to comfort you” you chocked, the guilty feeling eating you alive.

“Babe-”

“It’s not ok! And I’d feel better if you just admit it, let me apologise and forgive me” you tried to breath and calm down. “You lost the first time he called for you and it’s my fault”

“We’ll, I’m listening now. And he can’t stop, isn't it adorable? The tiny human we made. With so much love” he kissed your forehead. “I missed you so much I think I feel like making another one any time”

“Mason!” you gasped, feeling your cheeks getting warm.

“What? The day we made Luke was so hot. A mess, but incredibly hot” he closed his eyes, licking his lips and you had to look away with flaming cheeks. You know exactly the day you got pregnant since it happened in a month you and Mason only got to sleep together once. Mason laid on his back and helped you lay half of your body on top of his. “Fine, baby. Let me hear your apologies”

“I’m really sorry for missing your first goal. You have no idea how awful I feel, because I should be there to celebrate it with you, to scream loud with the fans, to show how proud I was. And I’m sorry I lost the most important game for you. I hope you know I would never do that on purpose, and we wanted to be there for you. But I watched on TV and I’m so proud of you. You did so well with the time you had, and I’m sorry about the general result. You were so pretty though”

“Was I?”

“I’m starting to understand the hair now” you giggled. “It filled my tummy with butterflies”

“Are you sure you don’t wanna make another baby? Because you’re sounding like you do” he teased. “You’re forgiven, princess. And I don’t wanna you beating yourself about it, yeah? I already told you, I understand what happened and how stuck you were. It’s your family, after all”

“No” you shook your head, clinging even more against him. “You are my family. You and Luke”

“And the babygirl we’re gonna make soon?”

“Stop” you groaned, burying your face in his bare chest. “I want another one too”

“Really?” he pouted, and you could never say no to him.

“We could try your girl or start the Mason Mount FC” you hummed, content when he kissed you.

“Perfect” he murmured, lips brushing yours softly. You stared into his eyes, smiling when he raised his eyebrows. “Wanna start trying now? Cause I honestly missed you so much-”

“Shut up” you giggled, relaxing in his embrace. Brushing your nose against his neck, you inhaled the after shave smell and focused on how soft his neck is.

After a few minutes appreciating his warmth, you allowed yourself to sleep deeply, finally in your home. Where you are loved for who you are, not for what you can offer. Where you are wanted and your presence is valid. Where you feel safe.

Not your perfect three store white house, no. Your home. Mason Mount.

#✧･ﾟ: *✧ tsimvkas — works #mason mount x you #mason mount #mason mount fanfic #mason mount fluff #mason mount angst #mason mount x reader #mason mount fics

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skzstannie · 5 months

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“We’d never want you to struggle alone”

SKZ-> ot8 x 9th member! reader

genre: angst wc: ~2100 cw: mentions of depression and death of family members, hatred for the holidays

Hi guys! Here’s my attempt at some Christmas/holiday angst. The fluffy Part 2 is posted and linked at the bottom of this post!

Feedback and likes/reblogs are greatly appreciated! I haven't got the chance to interact with too many people on here yet, so reach out if you'd like!

Happy scrolling!

"Hey guys, I'm pretty tired. I think I'm gonna head to bed. Chan Oppa, I'm gonna go lay down in your room until everyone's ready to go back to our dorm," you wave off their comments asking you to stay with them and make your way to the leader's bedroom.

It's December 20th, and the guys are all gathered around the television in the 3Racha/Hyunjin dorm, binge watching Christmas movies. During a normal year, you'd all be at your own homes with your families, cozying up to the fireplaces and drinking hot chocolate with your siblings. However, this was no normal year, and your comeback ran too close to the holidays, not allowing you nor the boys to go home for Christmas. Not that you particularly minded; you hated the holidays.

You imagine what you'd be doing at home right now, no doubt curled up in your bed with an exciting romance novel, listening to some dark academia playlist you'd found on YouTube.

But you're not home, you're stuck here with a bunch of Christmas-crazed dorks who have spent the last few weeks decorating your dorms full of all things Santa Claus. You've been managing to sneak away whenever any holiday-esque activities are taking place. You've not told them of your hatred towards the holidays, and you're not really planning to, either, not wanting to be the reason their fun-filled nights are ruined; they're already sad enough about not being able to head home for the holidays, the last thing you want to do is be a scrooge. So, you’ve resorted to humbly excusing yourself, busying yourself with your own activities when the occasion arises.

As you walk into Chan's room, you take notice of all the little trees he has decorating his room. Cute. You pick up the picture of his family he has resting on his nightstand beside his bed. You stare at his mom, dad, siblings, and grandparents smiling faces, feeling the familiarly unavoidable pit in your stomach form.

Your parents and one set of your grandparents passed away in a car wreck about five years ago, before you debuted with the guys. Your other grandparents, your mother's parents, passed away before you were born, never getting the opportunity to meet them. So, that left just you and your brother. Your brother, being a few years older than you, started his own family the summer after your parents passed. He has a beautiful wife and two children now, one boy and one girl. They got right to baby-making after they got married, so excited to start a family of their own. Unfortunately, that family never included you. You only know of their children because you’re mutuals with your sister-in-law on social media.

Your brother essentially ghosted you after his first child was born. You two were never the closest sibling duo, but you never expected him to completely drop you and ignore your existence. But he did, and that's just something you have learned to live with.

You were not in a healthy place after all this happened. You had no one to go to when your heart was breaking, grieving the loss of both your dead and alive family members. You put all your focus into the trainee program, all your sadness and anger towards the world into your dance and song. Chan eventually found you on that one fateful day that you deemed saved your life. You were at the lowest of your low, and you thought you had finally reached your breaking point, but then walked in Christopher Bang Chan, all smiles and laughter. He recruited you to be in his group as one of the first, right after Han. From then on, you had another reason to keep going, to keep fighting.

You've never told the guys this. You have always been a more reserved member, keeping all of your personal life out of the spotlight. While the boys never heard you talk much about your family, really only knowing you have a brother, they always thought that, when you went home for the holidays, you went home to a nice big house filled with love. They thought when you walked in the doors to your childhood home, you were welcomed in by your parents with opened arms, beckoning you in. They thought you spent your Christmas mornings opening nicely wrapped presents, followed by a home-cooked breakfast that'd be shared amongst your family.

They didn't know of the single bedroom apartment you called yours. They didn't know of the bareness that captured your living room, baren of all things Christmas and the lack of Christmas cookies and presents on Christmas Day. They didn't know you've always spent your holidays alone.

Honestly, you were completely fine with their assumptions. You didn't need nor want their pity. Your family was still an incredibly sensitive topic to you. Before their passing, you were so very close. You'd spent every holiday together, enjoying your time as a family, doing all the cliche things. You'd even gone caroling a few times, walking around your childhood neighborhood singing the classic Christmas songs off-key to your friendly neighbors.

Afraid you'd spiral, leading you right back to how you'd been before Chan found you, you never brought it up, and the boys never pushed you to talk about your family. They figured you were normal with a mom, dad, and a loving brother-so what's to talk about?

The holidays have never felt the same; you knew they wouldn't. So why try? Why go through the effort of making yourself a nice Christmas dinner, attending church on Christmas eve and waking up early Christmas morning, when you knew your parents wouldn't be there to greet you. When you knew your grandmother wouldn't be there to give you the biggest hug she could muster in her old age. When your grandfather wouldn't be there to give you a hearty pat on the back, his only true form of physical affection you'd ever experienced in all your years with him.

A quiet knock pulls you out of your thoughts, and in walks Felix with a glass of milk in hand. You quickly set down the picture frame you didn't realize you were still holding and give him a warm smile.

"Hey, what's up?" you ask him, taking the glass from him and sipping on the cold beverage.

"I just wanted to make sure you were feeling alright. You've been pretty distant for a couple weeks now. Is everything ok?"

You're a little caught off guard, this being the first time anyone's noticed your pulling back since the beginning of December. You honesty didn't even realize anyone was paying attention to you, all of them too caught up in the festive activities and excitement of the season.

"Yea, I mean, I'm fine. Just a bit of seasonal depression," you write off his concerns.

"I didn't know you had that," Felix ponders his thoughts for a minute, giving you a loving look. "Is there anything I can do to help? Have you always had seasonal depression?"

While looking into Felix's warm, brown eyes, you decide that keeping all these things from them all these years has been unfair. They're never afraid of sharing their personal struggles with you. You think back to all the times Han's came to you with anxiety, and how you've wanted nothing more than to take away all his worry and pain. How Seungmin's came to you with his insecurities, and you always hyping him up, calling him the most beautiful boy. If any of them had kept their struggling to themselves, it'd crush you. How dare they feel like they couldn't come to you? Why would they want to struggle alone?

You realize that these feelings are most definitely reciprocated by the guys. Now, feeling vulnerable after being left alone with your thoughts for so long, you have the dire urge to come clean about your family.

"Actually Felix, I've been struggling with this for quite some time now. Can you, maybe just, listen? I've never talked to anyone about this, but I want to now. I want you guys to know," you fiddle with your hands, sliding one of your rings on and off your finger.

"Of course! You can always talk to me. Go ahead, I'm listening." He grabs your hand, halting your fidgeting. You look up at him, take a deep breath, and let it all out. Everything you've been holding onto these last few years. It probably sounds like word vomit, all your feelings and hardships falling out of your mouth at lightning speed. You finish your rambling, and you finally have the courage to look up at his face again.

He's crying. Equipped with all the theatrics, the wobbly lip and rosy cheeks. You made Felix cry with all your problems. You reach up to his cheek, wiping a few of his falling tears.

"Ok, I think I'm done," you freeze as Felix also brings his index finger up to your cheek. You flinch when he pulls away, seeing the dampness of it.

You're crying, too. You didn't even realize. I mean, it makes sense. You just trauma dumped all of your troubles onto Felix, the world's most renowned empath, of course you'd be crying.

You guys sit in silence for a minute, before Felix's whimpers become audible. He's so visibly distraught, and your heart breaks even more just at the mere sight of him.

He launches himself at you, clinging to you so tightly you think your ribs may crack. He tackles you back onto the bed, resting on top of you.

"Why did you never tell us this?" his sobs wreck through his body, his arms trembling around you, "We could've helped you."

"I was scared," you wriggle one of your arms free of his embrace, using it to affectionately run your hand through his hair. Your sobs join together as one, both of you a mess. "I was scared you guys would pity me, or look at me less. I was scared that I'd spiral again if I talked about it."

"Well, we're here now, Jagiya." He sits up after a few minutes. His cries have quieted, and so have yours. "We aren't going to let you continue going through this alone, ya know. We are one, and if one of us is hurting, we're all hurting. Please don't keep things like this from us anymore." He begs, standing from the bed. He grabs your hand and pulls you up, making his way towards the door.

"Where are we going?" your voice shakes and you pull away from Felix, standing in the middle of Chan's room. You wrap your arms around your middle, feeling more exposed than you ever have before.

"You know we have to tell the rest of them. They deserve to know, too."

"Felix, I don't think I can tell the story again. Once was enough for a lifetime."

"OK, do you feel comfortable with me telling them? I'll tell them exactly what you told me, no more, no less, ok?"

You frantically nod your head, grateful for Felix's suggestion.

He blows you a playful kiss, no doubt trying to make you feel better, and he leaves to go to the living room. You take your seat back down on the side of the bed and wait patiently for Felix to finish.

You don't hear much for the next few minutes, but you're startled by the swinging open of the door, the handle cracking against Chan's poor wall. Han stands there, a dazed look on his face. His glassy eyes meet yours, and you shriek when he takes off, leaping onto the bed onto your small frame. He wraps you up in a big hug, squeezing the life out of you.

"We love you, and we'd never want you to struggle alone. We're in this life together."

One by one, the rest of the guys make their way into the room onto the bed. We're haphazardly thrown into a cuddle pile of sorts. A cuddle pile filled with the love and adoration you've been missing during the holidays.

You all lay in each other's arms, and you feel incredibly comfortable and safe. Chan's the first to break the silence, "We have five days left until Christmas. What do you say we make some new Christmas traditions? We don't want to replace what you used to have, and you’re entitled to spend your Christmas season as you'd like. But, if you'll let us, we’ll give you something to look forward to about the holidays again. Please?" The guys are all looking at you now, each of them displaying a face that could rival a sad puppy.

You realize now that there's nothing to be scared of. These are your best friends you're talking about, who want nothing but to shower you in love and happiness.

"I'd love that."

Part 2

#stray kids #skz #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz oneshots #stray kids oneshot #stray kids imagines #skz imagines #skz angst #stray kids angst #skz 9th member #stray kids ninth member #stray kids 9th member #skz ninth member #part 1/2

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getoed5725 · 6 days

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Maybe you already know: how SatoSugu gain a whole new word for their relationship

- brought to you by JJK's production team (including Gege Akutami)

The tweet above is a QRT from one of the video producers for Gojo's 11-hour long tribute video, streamed on 3rd April till midnight to celebrate the release of JJK volume 26, "Heading South", on 4th April 2024. The video title is 孤高、廻想、融独 (Solitary, remagine, [fusion/melting]), revising Gojo's nice moments in his life with his friends and students.

The tweet says:

"We were involved in the planning stage. A "best friend" (「親友」/shinyuu) is a "toxic" (「有毒」/yuudoku [1]) and "melting" (「融独」/yuudoku [2]) existence. This is just our interpretation, but with everyone's thoughts, we have the final answer. We hope to able to encourage you to get Volume 26 even just a bit." (this is rough translation)

What is really the center of attention is this word 「融独」/yuudoku [2]. This is the 3rd word of the video title, but surprisingly, this word doesn't exist in the Japanese dictionary.

It is a completely new word created by the production team to describe part of Gojo's life. At the beginning, even Japanese fans had a hard time understanding what this word means. However, after Vigneravan's (the video producer) tweet, it is confirmed that 「融独」 is related to 「親友」/shinyuu/bestfriend. Gojo only has one and only one bestfriend, so this new term points to Geto.

The producer says "a bestfriend is a 'toxic' and 'melting' existence" when talking about Gojo's bestfriend, Geto. There is a wordplay here: both "toxic" 「有毒」[1] and "melting" 「融独」 spell the same way, "yuudoku". This fact is actually realized by fans in the way they assume how these characters are spelled when parts of them are used within other more common terms (especially when the referred term doesn't exist). 「融独」 is a combination of 融 (fusion/melting) and 独 (loneliness) - in literal sense, it means "melting the loneliness". In other words, the video producer's interpretation is "Geto, Gojo's best friend, is like toxin to him, but at the same time he melts away Gojo's loneliness".

Let's go back to Gojo's tribute video. This video starts with Gojo's birth, his youth, then his days as a teacher, and ends with him joining the battle with Sukuna, and finally going to the airport in the afterlife. Out of 11 hours, Geto appears in nearly 5 of them. The common vibe of the video is Gojo's happy moments with his friends, colleagues, and students. If you notice, there are NO scenes where he is fighting or in danger. The only distressing moments in the video are: when Geto becomes depressed, when Geto leaves Gojo, and when Gojo is left mulling in his own thoughts afterwards, sitting right where his bestfriend used to:

This means that the saddest and most depressing thing that ever happened to Gojo's life is when Geto left. And we all know how Gojo never forgets about him, and in fact, delays the time to execute Geto by order, only going down on him when Geto declares war 10 years later. This can be interpreted as part of the video producer's view, "toxic".

Yet, Gojo doesn't let Geto out of his mind. At the start of the video, after the images of him as a baby, Geto is the first person to appear in Gojo's life:

The above image gradually adds Yaga and Shoko afterwards. You can say that Gojo had no significant memories as a child, because he was born with powers and expectation, and thus, as a lonely kid. Meeting Geto, he has the first ever friend, an equal, someone who can understand him. So the memories when he first had Geto in his life, also indicating the start of his 3-year treasured bluespring, is when he finally turns from a lonely child to no longer lonely.

Yet when he loses Geto, he's become lonely again. Note that, Gojo has never been "alone", but he has been "lonely" (there has been many analysis for this, from Shoko's thoughts about him right before he gets released from Prison Realm, and in c236 when he confesses). Which turns out, Geto's existence is too big for him. Isn't it unhealthy to give so much leeway to an enemy, "the worst curse user of the jujutsu society", when he's supposed to execute Geto as soon as possible before he becomes a big threat? Yet, whatever Gojo has for Geto is too much and enough for him to give Geto freedom until he can't anymore; and after that, Gojo still wishes Geto had been there to pat him on the back before the fight with Sukuna, in order to fully feel satisfied. To wish for something impossible as an existence of the dead, who was supposed to be an enemy but wasn't.

It is "toxic", but Geto is exactly the only thing that can "melt his loneliness". That is why Gojo, who's been lonely all his life being the strongest, cannot let go of Geto in his mind. Geto has been the first one to make him change for the better, to stand by his side despite his status and origin, and even though he left, he's still Gojo's main source of inspiration to build his dream of changing the jujutsu system for the better, and to not let children fall for the same fate as his best friend once did, preserving their youth. Despite all the unfortunate events, Geto still stays as the special "toxin" to Gojo, the only one that can melt away his loneliness, the only person whose existence brings him satisfaction. (there's a whole topic on how the word "satisfaction" Gojo uses to describe his feelings when fighting Toji or Sukuna and the one used when describing Geto below are 2 similar terms with different connotations, but I'll leave that for another time)

For our own assumption, it is also likely that Gege Akutami is the one to come up with this word 「融独」. As the author who created Gojo and Geto as a contrasting pair, he is the one who understands their relationship the most. But mostly because he's one of the few people (involved in the series) who has deep understanding of Japanese language and often plays around with words. JJK very often includes highly complicated Japanese words and terms (even for Japanese readers), so for him to come up with a completely new word to pay tribute to Gojo is not out of possibilities.

And it leaves you in awe again how important Geto is to Gojo.

Watch the 11-hour tribute video:

youtube

P/s. by coincidence (or not), Tatsuya Kitani, the singer/songwriter for JJK Hi/pd arc's OP "Ao no Sumika", includes "Love Song" in the album Ao no Sumika. And this song is... well. A bit familiar.

Would the song somehow reminds you of how the video producer perceives Gojo & Geto's relationship? It's up to you.

Funfact: in "Love Song", there is an interesting term: 眩しい常闇 (mabushii tokoyami) - "eternal dazzling darkness". This term is also the title of JJK volume 0 chapter 4.

#jujutsu kaisen #geto suguru #gojo satoru #jjk #satosugu #gege akutami #i don't feel like i explain everything i want to say #but im out of words T-T #you don't often have a ship whose relationship is so much you need a whole new word for them #personal

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fanfic-obsessed · 3 months

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Duty

Here I try a hand at Emperor Obi Wan. It just feels right.

It starts after Order 66, after the march on the temple. When Obi Wan says that he cannot go after Anakin, Yoda believes him. Instead of Yoda going for Sidious and Obi Wan for Anakin, they reverse it. Yoda heads for Mustafar.

Obi Wan goes for Sidious.He’s so done, traumatized and tired. He is also somewhere between passively suicidal and actively suicidal. He attacks Sidious in front of the newly formed Imperial Senate and no one is more surprised than him when he takes Sidious’s head off cleanly (Sidious did not consider this one tired, hurting Jedi to be a threat and Obi Wan went in full throttle, hoping to do some damage before his death). Even though the Empire is only a few days old at this point, there are some old rules that are already in place, backed by the Force (which is why no one really questions what happens next). One of those rules is the right of conquest.

To the winner goes the Empire.

Now Obi Wan is the recognized Emperor, including to the chips in the Clones. Obi Wan does not want to be the Emperor. Obi Wan wants to go sit in a depression cave and contemplate his infinite sadness in peace, please.

Bail Organa manages to convince Obi Wan that being the Emperor and helping to unfuck everything is his duty (Bail is both semi reluctant-he knows that duty is Obi Wan’s buzzword and hates that he needs to take advantage of that-, and not, as he is pretty sure that is all that is keeping Obi Wan alive right now).

So Obi Wan agrees to be Emperor until they can figure out how to undo the Sith’s great plan (while all 1000 years was not spent creating a web of fucked up laws that slowly built the trap they all fell into, a good portion of that time was). He manages to rescind the Order that the Jedi are traitors, but is not able to deactivate the chips (this is another where the chips turn the clones into Automatons, with no independent thoughts). There is some code phrase that will shut the chips off, but only Palpatine knew it. The Kaminoans are sure that, now that the chips are active, removing the chips will cause brain damage and death to the clones (this is not true, but we are still several months away from Ahsoka and Rex-as the only two who have proof this is patently false- coming back into Obi Wan’s life). Obi Wan has recalled the 212th, unable to stop himself from wanting them around him, even as they are. Yoda successfully captured Anakin, who is currently being held in a medically induced coma until they figure out what to do with him (he is decidedly fallen, but also is coming off as being in middle of a clinically psychotic episode-also both Yoda and Obi Wan are not so secretly hoping there is something that makes his actions…not Anakin of his own free will slaughtering children). Now Yoda is off in the galaxy trying to find Jedi survivors. Mace Windu was found and is Bacta and would be there for a minimum of a year.

Padme is on bedrest for her own safety, and the safety of her children. She is also subject to frequent lectures on seeing an actual medical professional while pregnant. It turns out that she had an uncommon, but not rare, condition that meant that a natural birth would kill her. This condition can only be diagnosed in the third trimester (also notably that this condition could not be fixed with the Force, Light or Dark). Obi Wan cannot bring himself to visit her, if asked he would have the excuse of ‘too busy’ ready to go but the truth was he couldn’t face Padme, whom he had considered a friend, after she had spent so much time lying to him about her relationship with Anakin (Also he now has access to all the instances that Palpatine knew about where both of his dear friends abused their power for the sake of the other). Even after the children are born, Obi Wan keeps his distance.

So we have Obi Wan, holding himself by a thread as he simultaneously tries to: figure out how to undo hundreds of years of damage against democracy, run an empire (if he has to do this, he will do it right), deactivate the chips (this means going through every single Palpatine has ever recorded in hopes of discovering the code- no matter how horrific), figure out a place that the remaining Jedi can live (the temple is out of the question with the death that clings to the walls like a slime). There is no one he can truly trust, not even Bail (For all that Bail entreaty to remain emperor was 100% necessary, it did damage Obi Wan and his friendship in a way that it would take a decade to recover).

It will eventually get better. Other Jedi will come from hiding, giving Obi Wan people he can fully rely on. But right now, about a year into the Empire, Obi Wan is running on the barest fumes, heart sick. He is surrounded by the Senate, whom he does not trust, and the puppeted bodies of the clones, whom he forces himself to treat just the same, to never forget that these are people. He has had to order the clones to ignore any order that contradicts his (in order to prevent abuse by senators) and make an explicit order for the clones to defend themselves and to see to their own needs. He is facing the prospect that there may be no way to undo this damage.

However there is something that no one knows about the chips. Like in cannon, they do eventually break down, as the clones are forced to go against their own morals and fight the chip, it wears it down. The irony is that Obi Wan treating them as sentients causes less wear than Palptine’s treatment.

The 212 love their general, none more so than Cody. As part of that, each one made a point to memorize the signs that Obi Wan was overworking himself. Now Obi Wan is, to the clones trapped by the chips, overworking himself beyond anything they had seen. The chips do not allow for this kind of care, which starts to cause the same kind of wear that cannon saw. While most of the clones do not fight the chips with Obi Wan in charge, the 212th begins to fight even harder.

Their general needs them.

It starts around the 1 year mark, and is so small that Obi Wan thinks he is imagining it. It starts with Cody frowning faintly at a senator bringing another unnecessary problem to the Emperor to solve (something that they should have been able to solve themselves). Then Obi Wan realizes his cup of tea keeps getting refilled (Boil does it when Obi Wan isn’t looking-it both is and is not a breakthrough, the chip means that if Obi Wan had asked for the tea Boil would have provided it, but it is Boil himself that is able to anticipate the need and choose Obi Wan’s favorite tea). Several of his guards (all members of the 212th) subtly herd him down lesser known hallways and paths to his destination, causing him to avoid other senators trying, badly, to curry favor. All the while not able to say anything but “Yes, Sir” or answer direct questions with the least amount of words in a monotone.

Something shatters, just a little, in Obi Wan’s heart at those responses. He continues to talk to any of the clones,including promises that he will find a way to fix this, but does not ask as many questions.

The first substantial sign that the chips were wearing out on their own came from Cody. It was late, Obi Wan had not slept in days, had not eaten in even longer. Cody's voice was raspy, and his words were slow, deliberate (if you have ever spoken to someone with mild aphasia, think of that with long pauses between words). He looked right at Obi Wan and said “You…have…not…eaten.”

Obi Wan found himself whipping around so fast he nearly tripped on the pretentious robes he had been forced into to stare at Cody, whose face was twisted into this incredibly focused look.

“Cody?” Obi Wan asks, breathless.

“You…need…to…eat”

Obi Wan takes another step closer, almost close enough to touch “Cody?”

Cody’s jaw tightens, “We…are..still…here…we…we…we...can…hear…you.”

Then all at once Cody’s face smoothed out again, responding to Obi Wan with a monotonous ‘yes sir’, back under the chips' control.

It is both better and worse for Obi Wan. He now knows for sure that the clones are in there, but he still does not know how to free them. His mindset and self care is bad enough that he actually cannot make the connection between what seems to bring members of the 212th forward in spite of the chips (and Cody is only the first, the spark is usually Obi Wan taking particularly bad care of himself, and that definition is variable for each clone-Helix the head medic is almost himself more than he is controlled within a few weeks).

It is a few weeks after this that Rex and Ahsoka finally arrive. They had been found by Yoda, who convinced them that it was safe to return to Coruscant. Part of the reason they had not believed it before hand was that it was clear that the Clone were still controlled by the chips.

They are the ones to break the news to Obi Wan that the Kaminoans were wrong (and it was they were wrong, not they were lying, they truly did believe that the chips could not be removed after they had been activated), the chips could be removed.

Obi Wan takes that news in, asks a few questions on what is needed to remove the chips, then makes arrangements for the medics to have their chips removed (with the idea that they can then supervise the surgery of everyone else-Obi Wan currently has trust issues and cannot think of letting anyone who is not a clone operate on the 212th, in particular). At that point he sits on the floor of the room they were in and has a small breakdown (Disturbing both Rex and Ahsoka, and bringing his current guard, Wooley, to the point of breaking the chip entirely).

There is still so much to do. Obi Wan still knows that. He still has a duty to keep the Empire together and undo enough damage that it can become a republic again. He still has to live with the horrific things that Palpatine had recorded (experiments, thoughts, his plans for Anakin) and figure out what to do with Anakin (who is still being held in a medically induced coma). The knife’s edge of the politics he has been balancing on has not grown any easier (in fact Ahsoka and Rex, having internalized Anakin's beliefs more than they realized are going to make it more difficult not less).

But Obi Wan has hope, hearing that the clones would soon be free. Through he does not make any kind of suggestion or let himself have an opinion on who goes when for choir removing (save that all of the medics needed to go first so they could sort out who was going next), the medics in charge prioritize the 212th, because Obi Wan desperately needs his battalion back. Also because no one is completely sure that they won’t all give themselves brain damage fighting against the chip.

There are enough medics that Ghost Company is dechipped at the same time, with minimal recovery. Boil and Wooley immediately take charge, while the others lock Cody and Obi Wan into Obi Wan’s ‘temporary’ apartment (What had been Palpatine’s living space- the senate insisted) opening the door only for to provide food while Obi Wan is made to take an enforced ‘vacation’ or at least a ten day (They accept no criticisms, or questions from the Senate. The first senator to protest was shot with a stunner and told to be glad for it-the others decide that they will accept Wooley and Boil as a substitute Emperor).

Cody cuddling Obi Wan produces the first true sleep he had since Utapau. Obi Wan sleeps for a full 24 hours.

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #obi wan kenobi #star wars au #fanfiction prompt #codywan #sheev palpatine #bamf obi wan

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kiss-me-muchoo · 9 months

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𝐃𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐚 || 𝐌𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐎’𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐱 𝐅𝐞𝐦! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Do you want a baby? part one || Suddenly, we have a baby part two || part three

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲_ Miguel and you finally have a baby. Your little family attends Pavitr’s party. Things are not okay though . During Pavitr’s party, Miguel and you finally explode and everything is a chaos that night in Mumbattan.

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬_ this is long, Miguel has men postpartum depression, grumpy! x sunshine!, age gap (legal), implied short reader, mentions of pregnancy and breastfeeding. NO PROOFREAD!

𝐀/𝐍_ <3 Indian culture and religions, inspired by M.I.A’s/ KSHMR songs, listen to Legendary Lovers from my playlist :)

♪ ♫ my miguel playlist ✰ Index (+ fics here)

One night, a young marriage lies on the wife's bed after a warm shower and a light dinner. Her round belly is getting more uncomfortable, but they happily wait for their little bundle of joy to arrive.

“Miguel?” you ask softly. He hums and looks down at you.

“Did you ever imagine you would be a father again?” it took him by surprise and pulled him out of reality. The image of Gabriella instantly appears.

However, his hand on your bump brings him back. He smiles, taking your growing belly with both hands, rubbing it up and down.

“Before you, not really. But the moment I married you, I kinda suspected it,” you giggle. Miguel smiles again before kissing your head, but you leave him thinking about the issue.

Somehow he wants to fill that void of his lost daughter. And while he knew he already had everything, trauma unconsciously haunted him.

“Do you want more kids?” He asks, and he hopes you say yes.

“I don’t know. As long we are okay, and the babies come healthy, I could have ten… Or just this little one,” you admit pressing your hand on his.

The man liked your answer, but the feeling of nervousness and a mix of panic and insecurity slowly started to grow bigger.

…

Miguel O’Hara was looking at his wife feeding his baby daughter; Magda O’Hara was about to turn five months old, and although she ate like a champion, she was still a tiny human.

You were sitting in the cafeteria, a lilac blanket covering your chest and the baby. Your eyes looked tired, your suit had a visible baby burp on the right shoulder, and your hair was very curly. However, there was a big smile on your face. A soft blush that made you sparkle and send the most motherly smile to your daughter.

Miguel smiles too, but he’s still watching, hiding behind a wall.

“Are you avoiding your wife and baby?” Lyla pops out of nowhere. Her heart-shaped sunglasses judge Miguel. He sighs, frowning at the AI.

“No.”

“I think you are,” she pushes.

“I think I’m not.”

“You are…” Miguel huffs in annoyance.

“NO. I being NOT,” Lyla shrugs, leaning to glimpse you and Magda. You are still feeding the baby.

“You know? One out of ten men get PPND after their baby is born” he had an idea of what the annoying AI was trying to imply; he wanted to ignore her for some seconds, but soon the worry assaulted him.

“What?”

“Paternal Postnatal Depression,” Miguel sighed. But then remembered how much he loved Magdalena, her round cheeks and dark hair like his, her tiny hands wrapped around his thumb every night. Then you, the kisses you spread over his face every time you greet him, his intense desire for you even when you claimed your body was slowly returning to what it was.

He wasn’t depressed; he was fine.

“Nonsense, Lyla. I’m fine” his tone was firm, confident, and intimidating. So the AI would not push it further.

“As you say, boss,” and with that, she disappeared.

When Miguel returned to see you and Magda, the cafeteria was full of spiders with lunch breaks, but you and the baby were gone.

…

Your boots with heels sound across the reports room of the HQ. Jess turns at the sound and smiles after seeing you. With a little wave, you pace toward her.

“Look at you, girly pop. If I didn’t know, I would say you have never been pregnant,” she explains with a big smile.

“Almost five months, Jess. I can’t believe it…” you admit, thinking about sweet baby Magda and her adorable yawns daily.

“I know, girl. My baby boy is almost a year now. Time flies…” Both of you nod. You start helping her with the reports.

Now you had been taking more missions and were happy to be back at work.

As you slide the pile of papers, Miguel stomps inside the room.

“What are you doing here?” He asks after spotting you beside Jess.

“Filling reports?” you don’t look at him, your eyes focused on the papers.

“You should be with Magda” His tone annoys you, finally pulling your eyes away from the papers and focusing on your husband.

“I spent the whole morning with her. She’s on daycare with Mayday and Peter” He rolled his eyes. And without another word, he sprint out of the room, leaving you very confused.

Jess kept staring at the door, where Miguel left but then turned to look at you.

“How has Miguel been dealing with parenthood?” you sigh.

“He’s amazing. He makes sure everything is fine with Magda and me. He also makes time to spend together, and…well, now I notice he’s stressed” Jess nodded, placing a new pile of paper on some shelves and opening a virtual screen to check the anomalies that had been reported.

“Maybe he’s…depressed?” her implication makes you break the focus on the report.

Having a baby was something big; you were okay, you felt amazing, just tired, but you felt healthy. However, even when you thought you had psyched Miguel that he was going to be a father again (with numerous methods. Like brief late-night talking, books, blowjobs, and fantastic sex). Maybe it wasn’t enough.

“You think he has it, right?”

“Maybe. Even if I tried to warn him, maybe…Yes.”

“I’ve known him since college, y/n. He’s a good man who loves you and that gorgeous baby girl so much. But he’s Miguel, and his damaged side will never leave.” It would never stop to amaze you how much Miguel changed after the events of Gabriella and her universe collapsing. You had to meet him just after that happened, so you would never know the man he was before that.

“However, you are his new chapter and a new chance to be better again. Just try to talk to him…” Her hand on your shoulder makes you feel supported. You smile, nodding at her.

“Thanks, Jess. I highly appreciate it.”

“Of course, girl. Now let’s finish these damn papers to have a break” a little less worried about Miguel, both Jess, and you had a good moment laughing and finishing the reports.

…

“Dear empress?” You roll your eyes, turning to your right to spot Lyla.

“Why do you call me like that?” You ask, laughing, chewing at your burger. Once again, a meal with your husband’s mask imprinted on the bun was a good idea.

“You are my boss’s wife, and Magda is the legitimate heir to the HQ” Again, you laugh. Lyla was funny and sweet; you really liked her and the dynamic she had with Miguel.

“To be an AI on earth-928, you are using medieval terms, Lyla,” she giggles.

“No, but Peter called. Magda woke up and demanded your company” You can’t even find yourself mad or annoyed. Your baby needed you after three hours separated.

Thankfully, you had taken a shower after the mission you had. Magda couldn’t be held with toxic particles and lizard’s spit.

“I’m on my way,” Lyla pretends to high-five you before opening the door of the balcony area where you were eating.

…

Soft cries flood the big daycare room. Lyla and you exchange looks before she speaks.

“Yikes, that’s my cue, bye bye” With that, she disappears.

When you open the door, you see Peter Pavitr, Gwen, and Miles showing baby Magda some toys to stop her from crying. Mayday is beside her, sitting, looking confused.

The closer you look, the better you can see Magda in a short sleeves onesie and her matted hair hidden under a little flower diadem.

“Oh, look, Magda. Mama is here,” Peter tells your kid. She’s very tiny, yet active to be four months old. Your eyes light up after taking her in your arms.

“Hi Bebé, I missed you so much,” Magda coos and plays with her little fists.

“Thank you so much for entertaining her, guys,” you tell your friends. They say it’s nothing. But you feel loved and welcomed, how well they treated your baby, and how much effort they made to include her even at her young age.

“It’s nothing. But… now you owe me in particular,” Pavitr says with a smile. You wonder what he wants. But then, he pulls out a pink envelope with orange and golden details and hands it to you.

“Happy Diwali season…” Immediately, you remember the party he mentioned months ago when you were still pregnant.

“Pavitr! This is so sweet, thank you” he offered a hug, which you accepted.

Few people dared to spread love like anything, and Pav was one of them.

“I want to see your little family there. And all of your too,” the guy threats smiley. Instant happiness succumbs you because you can’t wait to be at that party.

It was rare when you had the opportunity to hang out with every one of your HQ friends. Jess, Peter, and Mayday are the most recurrent since Miguel was very close to them as they were to you.

“I’ll bring my best clothes, man,” Peter calls before Pavitr leaves through a portal.

“I’m so excited!” You squeal along, Gwen.

Peter rolls his eyes, taking care of Mayday.

“We need some traditional dresses,” you comment.

“Oh, and we have to get Mayday and Magda matching dresses” The thought makes you die out of cuteness. Even Peter seems happy, claiming he will take many pictures if MJ can’t make it.

It has been a long time since you had a big party to attend.

The parties with your family were small gatherings where Miguel would likely get drunk with your father. Your mother and grandma would help you with Magda, and you had to be active.

So yeah, you were excited to celebrate Diwali with your friends and family.

…

That night, you are cooking some tray of peaches with cream muffins and jericallas, Miguel’s favorite desserts. Magda is sleeping in the pink carrier you bought for her and you (cause Miguel refused to wear every single day that carrier he got a grey one).

Dinner was quiet, which was weird in the past, but slowly grew normal.

You had wanted to ask Miguel about his possible PPND, but he always brushed it off before you could start.

Learning to look at the oven, there are five minutes left. You go to Magda’s room to put her in the crib.

You take some minutes to see her. She’s a carbon copy of Miguel. The sun-kissed skin, the dark hair, and you suspected she would have his spider abilities rather than yours. Oh, and her round puffy cheeks that you constantly filled with kisses.

You loved being a mother.

You preferred your own house on your earth; it was smaller, cozier, and homey.

And Miguel’s place was… an expansive apartment with minimalist colors and designs. It was still home… but not the same.

Still, you loved your family. No matter where you were.

So you clean the kitchen as the muffins cool off.

Miguel spent the whole evening locked in his lab. Claiming that he was finishing a new device for the HQ. Which you believed at the beginning, but soon you felt like he didn’t want to spend time with you, Magda, leaving the baby and yourself to play and read alone.

So you remembered what Jess said. Maybe Miguel was depressed or having a mix of emotions after Magda arrived.

Slowly, you open the door of the lab. He’s sitting, back facing you. He looks massive, being slightly hunched to work.

“Corazón…” you call him; he doesn’t flinch.

Miguel sees through the corner of his eye your silhouette, holding something.

A little plate, a jericalla, and a muffin slide in front of his face.

The smell of peaches and cream cheese invaded him. The small was enough to set him in a better mood.

“I made your favorites…” he knows he’s not the best husband material. But he was constantly irritated, and the last he wanted was to take it out on you or Magda. He would kill himself if something like that happened.

“Oh, muñeca. You didn’t have to “

“Yes, I had to… Miguel?… Are you okay?” You ask shyly, honestly scared of his reaction.

“What do you mean?”

“Lately… you’ve been weird. Is the work too much? I can take more; the master's program is basically finished. I have time, and with Magda-“ you want to find an answer before he even answers.

“Magda should be your priority.”

“She is. But I’m concerned about you too.”

“I’m fine.” You sigh. It wouldn’t be easy, you knew that.

“Just… you must know you can tell me anything, amor. I’m your wife…” his tense shoulders relax when you hug him from behind.

“I know that, mami.” A little smile peaks on your face, so you lean down to kiss your husband’s cheek.

He giggles before capturing your hands to give you a proper kiss.

“We love you so much, Miguel,” you add one last time.

“I love you and Magda too” Another little peck, and you're out of his lab.

Only that you tried to ignore the pain in your throat as tears threatened to spill as you lay in bed, waiting for him to come.

…

The sound of a phone taking pictures hits Miguel. When he enters the main bedroom of your house, he sees you in a traditional Indian gown in hot pink and orange colors, along with gold details.

He can’t help but think that his wife is perfect and that you gave him the best present ever; a daughter.

“Look at you, Magda!. You look gorgeous, my love,” she coos, stretching in the bed while chewing her feet. It makes you laugh, and Miguel feels relaxed.

You are taking pictures of Magda, and when Miguel gets closer, he sees his daughter in a colorful linen dress.

You turn to face your husband. Surprised to see him smiling.

“Look, Miguel. She’s totally ready for this party,” he finds himself sighing.

“Do we really need to go?” If you had to be honest, things with Miguel weren’t their best.

He continued to act desperate, less soft, and constantly irritated.

Last night, it didn’t work out.

He was fucking you on your back, but he was being rough. And not the type of wild you liked. It was rough where. You felt like a rag doll like it wasn’t lovemaking.

“Mig-Miguel. Can… Can we stop?” He had been so close, seconds away from painting your walls with cum. But you asked him to stop. That never happened.

“…Why?” He asked, confused and slightly angered.

“You’re hurting me…” it tears him. But the irritating demon creeped out for worse.

“Right, sorry. It won’t happen again,” without another word, he slipped out of you, locking you inside the bathroom and leaving you heavily confused.

Before last night, things had been like a rollercoaster, with ups and downs. They only didn’t make sense to you because you couldn’t understand your husband. He was taking care of pushing you away, and you were starting to feel hurt.

“It’ll be fun; it could help us to have a little escapade” he knows you want things to be better. But it seemed like the more you tried, the more he got frustrated. He was starting to believe Lyla about having PPND. And it scares him so much, already afraid of hurting you and Magda. So he had been a little secluded to avoid that.

In his mind, it was a good idea. But sure, it was not the best option.

“Fine. Do you want me to wear something specific?” His question made you pout.

“Just this…” you hand him a linen shirt in a cream tone. He sighed but surprised you by taking Magda in his arms and leaning to snuggle with you. Her tiny lips latched onto your neck, searching for milk, and Miguel peppered your cheeks with kisses. You started laughing at the tickles.

“Miguel! Stop!” You cry, laughing.

“Tell Mama she looks beautiful, Magda,” feeling her matted hair, your warms lips.

Of course, there were still some good moments. Like having a moment together, the three of you. Where there was only love in the air.

Miguel knew he had to change. He couldn’t lose his family.

Not again…

…

Whenever there was an anomaly on Pavitr’s earth, you would gladly stay longer than necessary. The colorful and loud city was always a sight.

But seeing the party he had spent months discussing was still a surprise.

There was a big rooftop with stone railings and details. Many plants partially covered the floor and every surface available.

And the colorful decorations in fuchsia and purple tones were breathtaking.

The Festival of Lights was the most exciting part for you. It reminded you of the movie of Tangled and how much you loved that movie.

The whole meaning of Diwali was beautiful, and having the opportunity to celebrate it with the locals, with your family, was even more special.

“This is beautiful…” you mumble, a big smile growing as you carry Magda. She seems attracted to the music and people talking around.

“Miguel! y/n!” Both of you turn around to see Peter and Mayday.

“AWW!” You let out once your daughter is reunited with Mayday. Both have the same linen dress, only that Mayday has her hair in a messy bun, and Magda… well, she was losing hair.

“They look adorable, Peter” Miguel says nothing, but he wants to smile so badly.

“I know; MJ took a whole album of her.”

“I can bet…” you add smiley. Peter looks at Miguel, and the tall and broad man looks annoyed, which makes him sigh.

“You look good, man,” Peter tries to soothe the strange air.

“Thanks.” It’s flat and cold. You are starting to feel anxious about Miguel and his consent mood swings.

“Man, you have to be happy. You are here with your gorgeous baby and wife. Smile…” You are surprised and thankful for your friend, not expecting him to speak.

To your dismay, Pavitr appears to say hi, but it’s not the best moment.

“Not now, Peter. You don’t know anything; stay away from this. It’s my family,” you frown, not liking Miguel’s tone. You and Pavitr exchanged looks before you turned to face your angry husband.

“Miguel, What’s wrong with you? Peter says it for good” he looks down at you, shocked to hear that you are not on his side.

“You’re letting him discuss our problems now?” To make the moment more stressful, Jess comes too; she looks confused at the scene but soon understands what is happening.

“What he said is obvious to everyone, Miguel. You’ve been off; we want you to be yourself again.”

“I am okay!” some people stare when your husband raises his voice.

“Miguel…” Jess warns him, hoping to avoid a bigger problem.

You came to a limit. All the weeks of dealing with an unstable husband, taking care of Magda on your own, working your part as a head of the spider society.

Indeed, you didn’t care that your friends were hearing.

“No, you’re not. You have been avoiding us!. We are your family, Miguel. If you weren’t sure of having a wife and kid again, you should have said it sooner.”

Ohh… everyone grows quiet. Peter holds your shoulder with his free hand, and Pavitr can’t believe what is happening.

“Don’t…” it’s all he says, but you cut him off.

“Maybe you’ve found someone else. Cause you’re rejecting Magda and clearly me. You don’t come home early; it certainly looks as if you were fucking someone else” Your baby is getting fussy, and your fears grow the more you talk. Now only waiting for his response.

“Yeah? Do you really think that low of me? Maybe I should go and make it real!” his words tear you a little. Making it impossible to not start tearing up.

Miguel realized what he had said when he heard Magda crying.

And he looked at you again; you were also crying.

He’s so embarrassed.

“Please take her for some minutes…” you say, handing Magda to Jess. The woman nods with a sad face.

And everyone looks at how you leave the party.

“I’ll go find her; please let me…” Pavitr tells Miguel, but he only stands there looking like an asshole.

“You’re right…” Miguel tells Peter, with his back facing him.

“I just want you and her to be happy.…” your husband nods, and Peter takes it as an apology and understanding of him.

“Can we talk?” Jess asks. Miguel knows he’s in trouble.

Both adults walk through the people to the most secluded area. Which seems to be a little garden.

“Do you want this baby?” Jess asks him, referring to the sleepy Magda in her arms.

“Or was it just for the lust of getting y/n pregnant?” It’s straight to the point, and it terrifies Miguel.

“Jess, you know I’ve always wanted a family,” he answers calmly.

“Then why the drama?. Everything seemed fine the whole pregnancy.”

“Lyla was right. I think I have PPND…” Jess sighed in relief because at least Miguel had an idea of his problem.

“That’s what I thought.” She replied.

“And now with this…I don’t wanna lose my girls” To hear Miguel in a vulnerable state was unusual. His eyes went straight to Magda. He walked closer to stroke her cheek.

He felt like a monster for what he did.

“You won’t lose them, Miguel. Everyone knows this baby, and y/n are beyond in love with you” Magdalena was his gift. And Miguel would always thank you for that.

The least he could do was be a supportive father and good husband.

“Go and talk with y/n. Then we can enjoy this peaceful party. It is almost time for the Festival of Lights” Miguel remembers how excited you were to see the lights. He worries that he won’t find you in time. Jess places a hand on his shoulder.

“Go. I’ll take care of Magda with Peter” The exit is crowded, so he hurries.

The streets are packed, people are celebrating, and some fireworks start.

Miguel ventures into the busy streets in hopes of finding you.

…

When Pavitr finds you, you are sitting on the long stairs that were the entrance of a temple. Your knees are pressed to your chest, your face hiding, and he can hear you sobbing.

“Oh… y/n,” he says, sitting beside you and hugging you. You are startled, but soon you are calmed to see your friend.

“I’m sorry for ruining the vibe of your party, Pav” He shakes his head, smiling.

“Nah, first of all, it’s my parent’s party. Second of all, nobody noticed what happened.”

“This was supposed to be a beautiful night. Not the start of the end of my marriage.”

“It’s not the end of your marriage, y/n. I can read people very well. Miguel and you hold an excellent dharma” You lift your head, looking at your friend. He offers you a kind smile that makes you feel comfortable.

“Call me ignorant, but what is specifically dharma?”

“It means a lot of things in my religion. But in this case, it means you and your husband have good energy. The connection is strong; there’s a balance that holds the love. And all of that is what Magda receives. This is just a bad season…” you analyze his words, trying to accept them.

“Then why do I feel like it’s not my fault? I feel that he needs to apologize…”

“Oh, because he does need to apologize. What he said was wrong. Even if he’s the one having a bad emotional moment, he caused this” It’s incredible how easy it was for Pavitr to understand when he was still a late teenager, only a couple of years younger than you, but wiser.

“Thank you, Pavitr,” he nods, hugging you again.

“Now come back, please. Gwen and Miles have been looking for you.”

“I’ll go. I need some minutes.”

He smiles one last time before leaving you alone again.

You sigh, and more tears spill, but quietly.

For a second, you don’t want to think about anything; you stare a the street in front of you.

The people laugh, scream, and look happy. A lot of them have the little lights in their hands already.

You try to savor the moment, so you sigh and breathe with your eyes closed, letting more tears run down your cheeks.

You could either fight for you and the love of your life and daughter… or move on, even if it was early to say it.

You don’t come to an answer because when you open your eyes, Miguel is on the stairs, going straight to you.

You’re startled, unconsciously standing up. You know you can’t enter the temple but you want to be away from Miguel.

He’s fast enough to stop you, grabbing your forearm.

“No. Not right now, Miguel,” you say firmly, with a broken voice.

“Wait. Please, bonita…” he hates to see you like that.

Finding you alone, crying on those stairs when everyone was happy and celebrating, was painful to him. Even more when he was the cause of it.

“I don’t want this night to be over with us fighting, please.”

You don’t say anything. You stare at him as he stays some steps under; you have him straight face to face.

“I didn’t mean anything I said before. I would never find someone else. Never, y/n” You remember his words.

Maybe I should go and make it real.

“That’s how it starts…” you say coldly. He shakes his head, grabbing both of your cheeks.

“No. No, mi amor… I only have eyes for you, and that’s how it’ll remain for the rest of my life,” he means it. Miguel fell in love with you one summer, months after meeting you. And from the day he accepted he was in love, the feeling never changed; it only increased.

“I must have… men postpartum depression” Immediately, you’re relieved. Because you had your suspicions, knowing that was the reason for the little downgrade of marriage soothed your worries about him cheating.

“Why have you always avoided it?.” You ask him. He only sighs, his hands leaving your cheeks to land on your shoulders.

“I don’t know. I guess I just… didn’t want to believe it?” you know he’s telling the truth. Miguel never lied; if he ever did, he would never babble. But he was looking defeated, showing vulnerability.

“It was stupid. I should have told you… agh, ¿soy un pendejo, no?” You nod, looking at him in the eye. Savoring his embarrassment, but not in a toxic way. You appreciated that he was recognizing his errors.

“We’ve talked about… Gabriella and what happened. But, now that Magda is finally here… I got scared again” It’s inevitable to not grow fond of him. He was guilty but also a victim of his own mind. And it was your role to help him.

“We’re not going anywhere, Miguel. I Can assure you that this family will last forever. Because I won’t let anything happen,” sometimes Miguel forgot that he married a brave young woman. Who showed him what he thought was lost in the world. And gave him a daughter to heal his past and grow better.

“I’d be lost without you and Magdalena, corazón. I’m so sorry for making you think otherwise.”

“And I’m sorry for not pressuring you to get help,” he smiles.

“No, y/n. You’ve done nothing wrong but being the most lovely and perfect mother and wife ever,” you blush. And Miguel will never stop loving his power to make you feel loved and blushed.

“Will you forgive me?”

“Are you going to the doctor?” He nods, so you sigh.

“And promise that this will NEVER ever happen again, Miguel O’Hara. Swear it…” he chuckles, but he knows it’s serious.

“I swear, this will never happen again. I swear it for my love for my wife and daughter”.

You smile, and that’s all Miguel needs to move his hands one last time. To your waist, to pull you closer.

As he hugs you, he enjoys the smell of your hair. That watermelon shampoo you loved to use. He’s at home.

“How can I begin with my apology?” He asks.

“Just hold me. Never… never, Miguel. Never let me go” his eyes get watery, and immediately his hands find their way to hold you, brush your hips, and lay his head on top of yours.

“I’m never letting go of the woman that saved my life” Tears flow across your face, but a smile grows too. No matter Miguel’s walls' height, you had all the power to crash them, and for the best.

“I love you, bonita,” you nod, sobbing and giggling simultaneously. Squeezed in his arms, you lift your head and smash his lips.

It’s warm, slow, and sweet. Both of you have flashbacks of the first kiss you shared. And it fueled the love, making the kiss even more adorable.

“I love you too. So, so much…” Between every so, you kiss his cheeks. It tingles him, so he laughs.

“Stop it, Nena” For some seconds, you stare at each other in silence, feeling the love slowly returning to reign.

You are thankful for having a husband like him. Someone who had problems like everyone else but would always stand up for his family and try to make everything better.

“Hear me out. I’ll never be able to give you back, Gabriella. But Magda and I will love and cherish you for her. This has been a big change for us, never forget that, Miguel” Magda was his light, just like you were the dawn he enjoyed every day. But the dread of his past wasn’t ready to leave yet. Nothing would compare to the time he had with Gabriella, but nothing would change the fact that she was gone.

“I’ll get over that someday. But now I have my girls, and it’s perfect. Simply perfect…” there was something about you that Miguel wouldn’t trade for anything. You gave him happiness, comfort, and a daughter.

The canon never warned him that you would appear, yet, there you were, willing to listen and help him. Even after all…

“I like the sound of that…. I can schedule an appointment with Doctor Spider-Man. He knows everything…”

“Yeah, that would be fine. I also think we should have a second honeymoon” Your eyes widen.

“What? Really?”

The first honeymoon was a fever dream. Almost a month in Oaxaca, in a boutique historic hotel, and fantastic food, outside activities, and… tons of sex. Thankfully you were cautious with protection, cause otherwise, Magda would have been a honeymoon baby.

“Yeah. Or we could have our first family trip. Magda is young enough to still make it pass as a second honeymoon” his playful tone makes you aware of what he meant, and it burns your cheeks.

“I’m also sorry about what happened last time we were…”

“I know,” you quickly answer.

“I would never waste the opportunity again. If I could go back in time, I would have apologized better and rewarded you with a big orgasm,” you laugh, punching his rock-hard chest.

“Miguel, shut up!. We’re at the entrance of a temple” he looks with curiosity and realizes it is true.

“Shit. Sorry… okay. Can we go back to the party?” You nod, and you gladly take it when he offers his hand.

…

When you make it back. The Festival of Lights is starting. Jess hurries and looks between you and him.

“Everything alright?” You nod.

“Thank you so much, Jess,” she says. It’s nothing, handing you a smiley Magda, who happily coos at you and Miguel.

The man smiles at her, kisses her hair, and takes her little hand.

“Oh, I got some perfect spots,” she adds. The balcony's edge is where a lake looks like a mirror with lights.

Peter, Hobie, Gwen, and Miles gather with you and your family.

But Pavitr leans closer.

“I told you it was all about the dharma you two hold,” the young man says, pointing at you and Michel.

Your husband frowns, confused.

“Dharma?”

“I’ll explain it later, man,” Pavitr answers smiley, leaving.

Miguel takes Magda in his arms, and he feels better; the light weight of his daughter and your head resting on his bicep was everything he needed as everyone watched the lights go up and illuminate the sky.

It was time to let go of his past at all. His present was right in his arms, and you were right.

As he would fight to keep his family, Miguel knew you would too, and that was a lot to say.

___________________________________

Sends ideas / requests 4 Miguel. I’m planning something based on hummingbird (I love that song so much) <3.

I’m seeing Taylor Swift tomorrow SEND HELP OMG :0

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#miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara x y/n #miguel o’hara angst #atsv miguel #miguel spiderverse #atsv x reader #spider man: across the spider verse #miguel o’hara #miguel o’hara imagine #miguel o’hara x you #miguel o'hara #miguel spiderman

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