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justagalwhowrites · 4 months

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Yearling - Ch. 26: Carved

You and Joel search for Savvy outside of Jackson. A continuation of Yearling ch. 1-25 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Angst because... duh when do I not serve everything with a side of angst. I wish I could tell you why. Canon typical violence. Past suicide attempt. Suicidal ideation. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ Only

Length: 10.7k (I'M SORRY I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE EITHER OK)

AO3 | Chapter One | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

It had gone unsaid for at least a day now.

Joel had been outside of Jackson with you for nine days and there was no sign of Savvy and it was time to turn back. He’d let you lead the way, picking directions, deciding when to stop for the day (within reason, he’d had to suggest breaks and point out the conditions of the horses at least once a day.) But there was nothing that pointed to her.

Your fourth day out, the two of you tracked a small group but it was about 10 people - three families with four kids between them - traveling to Seattle. When you found them, they were low on food so the two of you handed over the bulk of your rations. Joel told them about Jackson while you showed the younger kids the horses, keeping the occupied with a soft smile on your face as you patiently taught them how to pet Renaissance, how they had to hold their palms flat when offering her food. Joel wondered, not for the first time, how he’d never realized that you were a mother. It was so clearly built into you now that he knew to look for it. The families said they were heading for the coast and Joel hoped they found their way.

Day seven led you both to an abandoned camp that had been occupied by some kind of small party but nothing to indicate if it was raiders or someone else, though there was at least one horse. The two of you tracked that group for the last two days but they went into a stream they didn’t immediately ford and you lost the trail entirely.

“Fuck!” You dismounted into the water after you’d followed along the stream for several miles and seen no sign of the group on the shore. You kicked the water and screamed - the sound shrill and almost feral, more animal than human - before you fell to your knees. You collapsed back onto your heels as the stream flowed around your legs. You didn’t seem to notice.

Joel got down from his horse, too, gathering the reins of both animals and tying them to a nearby tree before meeting you in the water. He slowly lowered himself down on one knee, careful to leave some space between the two of you. Your hands were limp atop your thighs, palms facing to the sky, head bowed, prostrate to whatever higher power would bring your daughter back.

“Bambi,” he said softly. You didn’t even lift your head. This loss hit hard, he knew. The sign of a horse had perked you up. You had sat up straighter in your saddle, your eyes had more life in them. Your body had carried the signs of hope and those signs were gone now. “It doesn’t mean anything. It could have been anyone, just because…”

“What if she’s gone, Joel?” You asked, your voice cracked and broken. “What if it wasn’t a lie, what if…”

“Don’t know that,” he cut you off.

You’d told him what Mitchum had said to you, what he’d shown you as proof that your child was gone. The thought of it had nearly made him vomit, all but choking down bile as you spoke.

It had broken you for a while. More than a year, from the sounds of it. But, one day, you decided you couldn’t know what had happened to her, not really. Mitchum hadn’t given you any actual proof. He’d told you something he knew would torture any parent, gave you the piece of a beloved animal as a trophy. But the horse had been the older one, the smaller one. The one that could have been caught while Savvy slipped away on the younger, larger animal. So you made yourself move again, made yourself start preparing for a life beyond the place they kept you chained. You made sure you were ready to search when the time came.

Joel wasn’t sure if it was delusional or if it was discerning, if your mind was just desperate to find a reason to keep living or if you were seeing the holes in the logic of the cruelty forced on you.

“You can’t know,” he said. “Not for sure. Not unless we find her.”

“What if she died afraid and alone?” You asked, like you didn’t even hear him. But you lifted your head at least, your eyes finding his. “What if she was cold or hurting? She gets cold so easy, she always wears socks, even in summer… I could have held her, at least, I could have made it easier…”

Joel tried not to think about Sarah. About holding her, telling her that everything was going to be OK. About how his last words to her had been a lie. About how he wasn’t sure the last time he’d told her that he loved her. About how he wasn’t sure if telling her that as she bled out in his arms would have made it better or worse.

“You don’t know,” he said instead. “You taught her everything you knew, right? Means she’s smart, she’s resourceful. She’s out there, Baby, she is.”

You just looked at him, your eyes flat and dead and he wondered, for a moment, if that’s what Tommy saw looking back at him in the years before they made it to Boston.

“C’mon,” he said, putting a hand on your shoulder. You didn’t shrink away from him. “Let’s get out of the water, it’ll be dark real soon, anyway. We can find a place to camp here, get you dried off.”

You didn’t say anything, you just hung your head, looking down at your hands again.

“Bambi,” he said after a minute. “Can’t help her by stayin’ here. We gotta keep you going and that means getting out of this cold water, now let’s go. Not going to do her any good if you get sick out here, let’s go.”

You nodded a little at that and Joel got up himself before helping you to your feet. He guided you to the horses and gave you Renaissance’s reins before leading you to a place far enough away from the stream that anyone following it wouldn’t see you but close enough that it would be easy enough to refill canteens.

He set up camp and got out dry clothes from your pack.

“Bambi,” he said gently. You at least looked at him, even though your eyes still looked dead. “Should get changed out of those wet clothes. I’m going to go get us somethin’ to eat real quick, you get dry. OK?”

You took the pants and socks from Joel but just stared at them for a moment.

“Have to change, OK?” He said, watching you. “Can’t help her if you’re sick or hurt. Not good to sit in wet clothes for too long, gotta change.”

You nodded then and he slung his rifle over his arm.

“Gonna be alright for a bit?” He asked. You nodded. “Gonna come back to you in one piece, right?”

You nodded again, though Joel still felt uneasy.

“Back soon,” he said.

He picked his way carefully through the forest, back toward the stream where there’d been plenty of signs of animal life. Since the two of you had given most of your rations to the travelers, he’d hunted almost daily. It reminded him of crossing the country with Ellie and, under other circumstances, he’d probably enjoy being out here like this with you.

In another reality, he’d bring his guitar. After the two of you hunted together, he’d play and you’d sing and then he’d hand the instrument to you and he’d sing while you played and you’d sit so that your body was against his, where he could feel the heat of you beside him. When the fire died, you’d climb in the same sleeping bag and he’d hold you close and tight and kiss you all soft and needy. You’d moan against his mouth and he’d slip inside you as though he belonged there, at home between your thighs and burrowed against your chest.

Instead he was alone and worried about leaving you unattended.

He remembered what he’d been like after Sarah died.

It wasn’t a pleasant memory. It was hard to recall the exact feeling in those early days of loss. When he focused on it, tried to actually get an idea of that hell, he was often reminded of the idea that mothers forget the pain of labor when it’s done. How the agony fades so they can face the idea of giving birth again. He wondered if that’s what his mind had done, too. If his head made that time hazy and lost so he could keep on living because surviving that again would be impossible. He’d never risk it.

He hadn’t wanted to survive it then. He’d tried not to, lasting not even a day without his daughter’s kind smile or keen gaze or smart mouth before he pressed a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

For a very long time, he didn’t know why he flinched. For a very long time, he wished it had worked. And something told him that he had the same look in his eyes then that you had now.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got you back to Jackson. The two of you needed to turn back, you couldn’t just stay out here forever. Maria said he could have two weeks and he figured it would be OK if he pushed that by a bit but he couldn’t disappear with you for the time it took to comb every square mile of the wilderness.

What if you gave up like him? You were so much stronger than him. You wouldn’t flinch away from it, he knew that. What if you surrendered to it and he wasn’t there to save you? What if you just didn’t show up at the stables one morning and he went to find you and instead found your body, cold and empty and alone? Just what was left of you, surrounded by your music collection and the guitar he made you and the books you scrawled notes in, all these signs pointing to your life that would be gone. His might be gone, then, too.

He settled in what he thought was a good spot, signs of rabbits plentiful. Joel set up behind a fallen log, setting up the gun, and waited. It didn’t take long. A bush rustled nearby and he turned, quickly, before going still, gun set and ready. A minute passed, then two. Finally, a rabbit emerged, taking a cautious hop into the open. He fired and it fell. He slung the gun on his back and picked the animal up - carefully, deliberately - its hind legs still warm, sinews pliable.

He turned to start back to camp when he froze. Ahead of him was a deer, graceful and fragile, eyes wide and soft and watching him like he was watching her. Something in a nearby tree rustled and she startled for a second, wild and cautious, but stilled before looking back at Joel. At her feet was a tiny fawn, its coat speckled and its legs spindly and splayed. The mother watched him closely, like she was trying to figure out if this two-legged creature in her forest was a threat. He wondered if she’d ever seen a person before.

“It’s OK mama,” he said softly after a moment. “Not gonna hurt you or your baby. You’re OK.”

She watched him for another moment, not jumping when he moved - slowly - to stand up straight. It was like part of her could feel that he was safe, that she didn’t need to be so on guard with him. Eventually, she hung her head low, nudging her baby forward. Joel watched them until they were swallowed by the forest, mother leading her child through the wilderness.

***

Life in the forest around you felt loud.

You couldn’t make much out, all of it melding together into a drone that you could feel in your ears. There were crickets and birds and frogs and the rustle of leaves and it meant you couldn’t hear the blood in your ears anymore. Or maybe you could and the wilderness had swallowed you up, too.

That seemed like the best option. To disappear into the earth with the untamed things. Maybe it would stop hurting then.

You weren’t entirely sure how far you’d gone. Joel had woken you early that morning. You’d been in the middle of a dream, one that you couldn’t remember now. You just knew that your heart was racing and you kept feeling like there was something just out of your reach, something you desperately needed to get to.

“Bambi,” he said gently, a hand on your shoulder. There was something in you that wanted to pull away but you didn’t. You stayed where you were, fumbling through your mind as you tried to remember why your heart was threatening to race out of your chest. You looked up at him, a sad look in his eyes. He always had that look now, it seemed. He took his hand back. “Sorry… You were dreaming… Didn’t seem like it was anythin’ good.”

You just nodded and pinched your eyes shut for a moment. It didn’t seem to make a difference.

Joel gave you something to eat - you couldn’t really taste it - and you stared into space between bites, back propped against a tree.

“Bambi,” he said, in a tone that made it seem like it wasn’t the first time he’d said it. You turned your head to look at him, fidgeting with some of the meat Joel had given you. “We… we really need to consider heading back to Jackson.”

You frowned.

“But…”

“I know,” he said gently. “And I’m so sorry we didn’t find her yet. But we need to turn back, this is day 10 and it’s gonna take a few days to make it…”

“I can’t just give up on her, Joel,” you said quietly. “I can’t, I…”

“I’m not saying give up on her,” he replied. “I’m saying that we go back to town, let the horses rest, plan where else to go next time. If… if we’re smart about it, we can search a good portion of the region without backtracking and covering the same ground twice, give us a better shot. But we can’t do that out here, Baby, we just can’t. We don’t have the rations, we’ll run out of ammo if we run into trouble, the horses will be pushed too hard. We need to go back.”

You knew he was right. But it still felt so wrong, going back to Jackson without her.

“We can take a different route back?” You asked, ready to fight him if he said no.

“Course,” he said. “We’ll see what we can find, OK? But we need to head back.”

You sighed, looking out to the forest you hadn’t searched, something tight and sickening settling in your stomach, like if you just pushed a little harder, went a little further, you’d find her.

“OK.”

The sun was high and you thought you’d been riding for a while but it was hard to know for sure. You were trying to focus on everything but you had been for more than a week, and you were worried you were missing things in the haze of fog that had over taken you. Joel kept looking back over his shoulder to you, like he was making sure you were still following him even though you knew there must be the sound of you behind him.

He looked back over his shoulder at you 13 more times - some part of you was keeping count, always aware of him - when you saw something off the trail and frowned.

You pulled Renaissance to a stop and dismounted, Joel doing a double take back at you when he realized you were no longer following him.

“Jesus, Bambi,” he brought Ares to a halt and got down, too, coming up alongside you. “Gotta tell me when you see something…”

“Sorry,” you said, not looking at him. Instead, you picked your way through the brush toward what had made you stop to begin with. It was a trap, a slender branch from a young tree pulled down toward the ground, rope pulled tight.

“Is that…” Joel frowned, so close you could feel him next to you. It didn’t bother you the way it had back in Jackson. It still sent a thrill of fear through you, making your muscles coil and tense, body preparing to defend yourself even though you knew you didn’t need to. But part of you found it oddly comforting, too. In some ways, it felt good to have him close.

“It’s a snare,” you said, kneeling beside it. You looked closer at the rope, the fibers turning green and fraying at the edges. You reached out, delicately tracing the curve of the branch with one finger. “I think it’s been here for a bit.”

Joel was silent for a moment.

“Do you think…”

“She makes these,” you said softly. “I showed her how to make a few snares, this is the one she uses the most.”

Joel knelt beside you and you looked at him. His face was soft and eyes warm, looking less pained than you’d seen him in weeks. He got closer to the pins that kept the snare ready to snap up whatever might trigger it.

“Think you’re right on the timing,” he said. “There’s some moss startin’ in down here, been here at least a month. Probably closer to two.”

“She wouldn’t have just left it here,” you said as Joel sat back from the trap. “She was good about that, she always got her traps, she remembered where she put them and she got them back. She wouldn’t have just left it here…”

“Is it OK if I take it down?” Joel’s voice was so gentle and soft, like he was holding a delicate thing with his words. “You can take a closer look at it, see if it really looks like hers…”

You just nodded, not sure if you’d be able to speak around the knot in your throat. Joel delicately released the snare and freed the pins, one from the rope and the other from the ground. He set them, almost reverently, in your open palm and set about untying the rope from the slender branch.

You held the pins tightly in your fist for a moment, as though you could absorb some part of Savvy through them if she’d held them like that once. When the wood felt as warm as your fingers and Joel was still beside you, holding the coil of rope, you opened your hand, picking up one of the pins and looking at it closely.

You’d been the one who showed Savvy how to carve these pins. You’d never been particularly good at woodworking, nothing like Joel with his even, guided knife strokes that shaped the material into something that seemed to have been held within the grain of it from the beginning, he just helped reveal it. Your daughter was better at it than you. Where your pins were always jagged and harsh, hers had an elegance and smoothness to them, precision in her cuts that you’d never been able to find on your own. You’d always wondered if she’d gotten that trait from her mother or her father, if Mark had been able to shape things and you just hadn’t known. Maybe he hadn’t even known.

The pins in your fingers were fine and almost smooth and your hand shook as you traced the arc of one.

“Bambi?” Joel said softly.

“These are hers,” you said, voice thick. “She… she is so good at making these, hers are always so precise and smooth and almost artistic and…”

He gently took one from you and you let him. He examined it, too, looking closely.

“I don’t know where she got it from,” you said, looking at him. “I never… I couldn’t teach her to do it that well, I taught her the basics but she is just good. Even when she makes them quick they’re just good and these are hers, Joel, I know they are.”

“What would make her abandon a trap?” He asked after a moment, looking back at you.

You thought for a second.

“Bad weather, maybe,” you said. “If… if she got hurt. If something drove her out of the area and she didn’t have time to collect everything or if she was too hurt to go back for it, that’s the only thing.”

He nodded slowly, looking back at the pin.

“Joel,” your voice trembled. “Joel, what if something happened to her? What if she’s hurt? What if someone took her, what…”

“We don’t know anything yet,” he said gently. “It could have been bad weather and she packed up quick. Or she saw a threat and left before it saw her, too.”

“We have to look around here,” you said. “Please, Joel, I know we’re heading back but we have to look, I can’t…”

“We’ll look,” he said. “We’ll look, it’s OK.”

You just nodded and pressed your forehead into his shoulder. You did it without thinking, it was just instinct. Joel was stable and warm and smelled like home and you needed that. You needed him. He was still for a moment before he put an arm around you, holding you gently.

“We will find her, baby,” he said gently. “It’s OK.”

The two of you looked for signs of her immediately around the snare but you weren’t that discouraged when you didn’t find any. It had been weeks, footprints in mud and the scars of missing bark from trees would be long gone.

“Which way would she go?” Joel asked, watching you.

You sighed, looking around. Your heart was beating like you were running from something and at a fork in the road, forced to make a life or death choice.

“There’s water, northeast of here I think, right?” You said, trying to orient yourself. “She knew to stick near where she could find water, I think she’d head that way.”

Joel nodded slowly.

“Then that’s where we’ll go.”

He watched you closely for a moment. Your jaw was tight, whole being taut and tense. He slowly, cautiously, reached for you, giving you every opportunity to pull away from him. You didn’t. Instead, you let him pull your worn body against his, his arms wrapping around you, his lips brushing your hair. You put your arms around him, looping them up and over his back, fingers splaying wide and clutching him close for a moment.

“It’s OK Bambi,” he said. You could feel his voice in his chest. “It’s going to be OK.”

You took the lead again, every direction change and choice feeling bigger than any other you’d ever made. Every path not followed hurt, a chance that you were losing. You tried not to think about it but your mind kept getting stuck, as though if you concentrated hard enough you could pull yourself apart and the pieces could keep searching. It didn’t matter much if you couldn’t put it all back together again. If you found her, it was worth it. If you didn’t, what would be the point.

Dusk was on the horizon when you started looking for a place to stop for the night.

“What’s that?” Joel said after you’d started looking for a good place to rest as well as for signs of Savvy. “To the east a bit?”

You looked back at him to see where he meant and followed his eye line. There was a bright spot through the trees about a football field away. You frowned a little.

“Worth looking at,” you looked back toward Joel. He just nodded before nudging Ares toward the bright spot and you followed with Renaissance. When you went to overtake him, he held his hand out.

“Should stay behind me,” he said. “Just… in case.”

You frowned a little but nodded and fell in behind him, watching as he brought his rifle forward. Your grip on Renaissance tightened and she huffed, her ears twitching.

It was almost a let down when it was just a small clearing. For a moment, you thought it was just a quirk of the forest but you saw another spot just beyond that was brighter, too. You dismounted.

“Got the map?” You asked, tying Renaissance off on a nearby tree before working your way through the brush to the other bright spot. It was a clearing, too. “Looks like campsites.”

“Here,” Joel said as you came back over, Ares tied off near Renaissance, the map in his hand. “We’re toward the north end of the Shoshone National Forest. Or should be, anyway.” You nodded, looking at the map. It didn’t have things like camp grounds marked that you could see. “Thinkin’ we’re about here.”

He pointed to a spot on the map and you nodded again.

“Near water,” you said, looking back up at him.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’d be a good spot.”

“Let me just…” you looked out toward the other clearing. “I’ll be back.”

You didn’t wait for him to respond. Instead, you just went back toward the other site, crossing it this time and working your way through the brush to another site. There were five all told and you found the remains of a fire at the fourth one. You knelt beside the small fire pit, the ash pile tall enough that you could tell it was from more than just a day or two. Joel appeared beside you.

“Someone was here,” you said, nodding at it. “For a little while.”

Joel’s hand went to the middle of your back and you jumped a little at his touch before you relaxed into it.

“Could be,” he said, replying to the words you couldn’t say. You just nodded.

The two of you settled in for the night, finishing off the rabbit from the night before. You tried not to think about patrolling with Joel. How you’d sit near him and find comfort in his presence, how you wanted to do everything beside him. Part of you still lived in that feeling. The rest of you was still chained to a wall, begging for help but getting none.

Joel hummed quietly as he carved - some small figure that you were curious about but couldn’t bring yourself to ask after - as you stared at the fire, watching the crackle as the wood popped and sparks flew.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” You asked, arms looped around your knees, looking across the flames to him when you couldn’t take the silence and distance anymore.

Joel frowned, raising his eyes to yours.

“No. Why would I think you’re crazy?”

“For doing this,” you said. “Searching with no real idea of where to go, endless space to look, all for someone I don’t…”

Your voice broke and you looked back at the fire.

“No,” he said gently. “Not crazy. I’d do the same thing.”

“Is that why you’re helping me?” You asked, looking back at him.

He considered you for a moment, a brief flash of hurt in his eyes.

“Part of it,” he said eventually. “But, Sweetheart… I’d do anything for you. Lookin’ for your girl… that’s… there’s no question. I’m always going to want to help you, always going to want to take care of you. Doesn’t matter what it is but especially with this.”

You nodded and buried your face in your arms for a moment before you sighed.

“I’m scared I’m losing my mind,” you said before looking back at him again. “I don’t know if… If what I’m thinking and hoping and basing all this around is real or if it’s just… For a while, when I was with them, when I thought she was gone, I wanted to die. There just wasn’t a reason for any of it and everything just hurt all the time but I couldn’t do it. I just kept living and I resented it. But, after a while, it’s like I talked myself out of it. I convinced myself that she could be out there. Just enough that I could forget how much it hurt. And then I got out. But every time I saw something that made me think that it could be a sign of her… I think I’ve been moving toward this for a long time. Where I can’t be in limbo anymore and can’t just avoid it, where I need to know and… I don’t know how much of it is real and smart and how much of it is something just made out of the hurt and the fact that it seemed like it should have killed me but it didn’t. I don’t know how sane any of it is, Joel. I don’t. But I don’t know if I can survive without it and…”

You buried your face in your arms again, tears stinging your eyes.

“I understand, Bambi,” he said gently. You looked up at him, frowning a little. “I did a lot of that when… after Sarah died. I knew she was gone, there wasn’t a question of that. I felt it happen. But… I couldn’t live with it, either.”

You frowned a little, watching him closely.

“Tried to end it,” he said, sniffing once, his voice tight. “Next day. Put a gun to my head, figured it’d be quick. Didn’t work, obviously. Flinched.”

“Joel…”

“Spent a lot of years after that hidin’ from it,” he continued, turning his carving over in his hands. “Tried not to think about her. Regret that now. Who knows what I forgot because I was so busy trying to not hurt. Tommy never even said her name. We never talked about her. But it seemed like the best part of my day was the half a second after I woke up when I didn’t remember she was gone. Always felt like she was in the next room, that I’d need to make sure she was moving to get out the door on time for school… It took a long time before I found something else to live for. And it sure seems like she found me, not the other way around. Then we came to Jackson and I… I found you. With her and with you, seemed like there was a reason I flinched back then. Like part of me knew there was a reason to go on and I’d find it eventually.

“You’ve got that, too. Even if… even if it’s not me and even if it doesn’t seem like it. You have things to live for, baby. Promise you do. You may not even know what they are yet but you have ‘em. You just have to keep living, that’s all. Just keep survivin’. Please.”

You watched him through the flames for a moment before you got up and came around the flames to sit beside him, close but not so close that you were touching. He froze as you leaned over, slowly, to rest your head on his shoulder.

“I’m glad it didn’t work,” you said quietly.

“Me, too,” he replied after a moment.

“I don’t know what I want right now,” you said, watching the fire. “But I know that I’m glad you exist. That I want you to be happy.”

You felt him turn ever so slightly, his lips and his nose brushing the top of your head.

“I’m here for you,” he said softly. “However you want me, I’ll do whatever you want. As long as you’re safe and happy, I’ll do whatever you want.”

He held his large hand out to you, a small carving of a deer in his fingers. You took it, turning its delicate body in the light.

“It’s yours, if you want it,” he said quietly. “All yours either way.”

***

You wanted to follow the river the next day. Joel was fine with that, especially since you picked the route that curved back toward Jackson. Or, at least, in that general direction. It was still a few days ride and he’d already made notes of where you’d found signs of Savvy to come back and check again if the two of you didn’t find her on this trip out.

You were more yourself than you had been in a long time. The two of you stopped for lunch and to give the horses a longer break and Joel started carving again, just to give himself something to do besides look at you. That hurt too much.

“Can you teach me?” You asked after a few minutes. He looked at you for a moment, surprised you were talking to him at all. It had been a quiet almost two weeks with you.

“Sure,” he said before you had a chance to take it back. “Want to come sit by me? Grab…” he looked around for a moment before finding a hunk of wood on the ground that looked like it would work. “That there?”

You nodded and moved to be next to him. Careful, he noticed, to not touch him but close enough that you could easily see his hands. He cleared his throat.

“Want to find the grain of the wood,” he said, watching as you turned the chunk of wood in your hands. “Want to work with it, go against it and it’ll split.”

“Makes sense,” you said. Fuck, you were so close to him.

“Start with a rough cuts, get the outline of what you want to make,” he said. “Knife in your dominant hand, wood in the other. Hold it real firm and cut away from your body in thin slices, don’t go too deep or it’ll fracture.”

You nodded and looked at the wood again, frowning down at it.

“What do you want to make?” He asked after you didn’t move to cut it.

“A moose, I think,” you said. “Just not sure where to start.”

He nodded slowly.

“Can I?” He asked, hand out. You shrugged and handed the wood over. He turned it in his hands for a moment, getting a feel for the shape of it, finding the grain. “Here,” he said, holding it close to you. “Back’ll probably be this part here…” He notched the blade against the wood and cut into it. “That’ll make this the neck.” He adjusted the knife and cut again. “Legs down here. You try that one.”

He handed the wood back and your fingers brushed his as you took it. He clenched his hand into a fist in his lap, squeezing some of the tension swelling in him out before releasing it.

“Here?” You asked, lining up your knife.

“Yeah,” Joel said. “But turn it a bit so you’re cuttin’ more away from yourself…” He helped you adjust and felt your skin on his again. You made the cut. “There ya go. Go back over the whole thing like that, shave off a bit more…”

You nodded and set to work and Joel tried to not watch you too obsessively. He didn’t want to push you away or make you uncomfortable but fuck you were so close and you weren’t mad at him. So much of what he remembered of how you felt in his arms had gotten mixed up in the night you’d left Jackson, how he clutched onto you while you screamed. He wasn’t sure you’d ever let him close again and now you were beside him because you chose it. He couldn’t ruin it. He went back to his own carving.

“Alright,” you said eventually, holding up the wood. “Think I’ve got it. Now what?”

He looked at it and nodded.

“Good job,” he said. “There are two other kinds of cuts you’ll use for the rest of it. One where you pull the knife toward yourself - most common one - and one where you push it. Pull is a lot like paring, you’re gonna brace the wood with your thumb and then pull your knife towards it.”He showed you on his carving and you leaned in close, nodding. “Keep your thumb back so you don’t get hurt, though.”

You nodded and positioned your hands like his before pressing into the wood. The first cut was jagged but the beginning of the technique was there. And you didn’t cut your thumb, so it was enough for him to call it a success.

“Good,” he said and you looked up at him, smiling a little.

He showed you how to do the push stroke, too, and the two of you sat in near silence for a bit, working at your carvings. Joel kept glancing your way, trying to not look too long so he didn’t distract you but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t grateful for it. He was close to you, close enough that your elbow brushed against him now and then and he could hear you breathing, with a reason to look at you. He’d have been happy to stay like that for hours, with birds singing and you breathing, like nothing bad had ever happened to either of you at all.

You’d made good progress when you cursed and hissed, dropping the wood and bringing your hand to your mouth.

“Cut your thumb?” He asked, setting his carving and knife down. You nodded, thumb between your lips. He held out his hand. “Lemme see.”

“Uh uh,” you muttered as you sucked on your injured finger.

“C’mon, Bambi,” he smiled a little. “Happens to everyone, especially when you’re learnin’. Lemme see it.”

You looked at him with those wide eyes of yours like you were half expecting him to judge you for your slip. But you sighed and pulled your thumb from your mouth and thrust your hand at him. He took it gently, yours so much smaller than his own that it seemed delicate even with the callus from guitar and riding on your fingertips and palms. The cut on your thumb started beading with blood before he had a chance to look at it and he frowned for a second before raising your hand to his mouth, putting your small hurt between his lips and pulling the salt and copper of you into him. Your breath hitched and Joel felt you stiffen beside him and it was only then that he realized what he’d done without thinking, the casual intimacy of caring for your body with his own. There was still a part of him that couldn’t accept the separation from you. It felt like an unnatural thing, you existing so separate from him that you could be hurting next to him and he was supposed to ignore it hadn’t even crossed his mind. He pulled your hand carefully from his mouth.

“Sorry,” he said, voice gruff, as he delicately examined the cut. It was deeper than he’d hoped but not to the bone. “S’not too bad, lemme just…” He released your hand and went into his bag, pulling out a scrap of fabric he had just for this kind of injury. He took your hand back and poured a little water over the cut before he wrapped it tightly, knotting the cotton around your thumb. “Keep that elevated for a minute, should stop bleeding before too long. When it does, we’ll get going.”

You nodded and Joel picked up your carving from where you’d dropped it. The moose was starting to take shape, though its form was jagged and rough. But the ruggedness suited it, something powerful not easily contained by the wood. Your blood stained the side of its chest, near where its heart would be. Joel tried to wipe it away but some had already seeped in, a red splotch on its chest.

“I ruined him,” you said, sounding a little sad. Joel glanced over at you, your eyes focused on the small creature in his palm, lips turned into a small frown.

“Think he’ll be alright, Bambi,” Joel smiled a little. “Besides, he only exists because of you. Don’t think you can ruin him.”

After a moment, Joel took your bleeding hand back and checked the bandage. It looked to be holding.

“We should go,” you said, a little breathless, watching him.

“Yes,” a voice from behind the two of you said. “You really should.”

Joel jumped to his feet and drew his gun, aiming it at a group of five men who - while he was distracted by you and your proximity and your blood - had managed to sneak up on him. He cursed himself silently as he glanced quickly to where you’d been. You were on your feet, too, gun drawn and held in front of you. He adjusted so he was between you and them.

“Not lookin’ for any trouble,” Joel said. “Just passing through. Appreciate it if you’d let us.”

“Not too fond of folks passing through,” one of the men stepped forward, lowering his gun just a bit. The other four kept their weapons trained on Joel. He wasn’t in a good position to take out a group like this. He wished he had his rifle instead of his handgun but the rifle was strapped to Ares and he was tied to a tree a good 20 feet away. He ground his teeth. “Because it never seems like they’re just passing through.”

Joel stepped back until he felt you at his back and he breathed a little easier. He just needed to keep you in one piece, that’s all.

“Well, we are,” Joel said. “Looking for someone, think she might have come through here. Once we look for her, we’ll be on our way.”

“No one out here but us,” the man said. “Took this territory few months back and believe me, we’re not about to let anyone just take what’s ours.”

“She wouldn’t steal from you,” you snapped, stepping out from behind Joel.

“Bambi,” he hissed but you ignored him.

“She’s a teenager,” you said. “Brown skin, brown eyes, curly hair. She set up a snare about a day’s ride from here so she was probably around for a while…”

“Told you,” the man said. “Don’t let people take what’s ours. This is our territory, don’t let just anybody hunt on it. We got folks to look after, can’t have just anyone taking animals on our land. Including you. So you can come with us or we can handle this here.”

Joel glanced at you, trying to do the calculus of what was the best move. Did he risk taking a hand off his weapon to throw you behind him? Did he start shooting and move himself in front of you? Did he try to talk these idiots down?

“We haven’t hunted in days,” you bit out before Joel had a chance to decide. “Haven’t taken anything of yours, just want to keep looking…”

“See, now, don’t think I can believe that,” the man said. Joel clenched his jaw. “Sure as shit can’t trust you to just stay in our territory…”

“We’ll leave,” Joel said, catching a glimpse of your head whipping around to stare him down. “Already heading back toward ours…”

One of the the four men toward the back took a step closer to you and Joel reacted before he really thought about it. It was instinctual. There was a threat to you and he took that threat down, the gunshot cracking through the air as the man dropped to the earth.

Everything happened quickly then. There was a split second of near silence, the echo of the bullet hanging heavy over the shocked silence of the surrounding forest, and the shooting began.

Joel moved for you as one of your bullets hit one of the men. Joel threw you behind a tree and kept shooting as the other men scrambled for cover.

“Three left,” you said, scrambling to reload before looking up at Joel, panting for breath. “Should leave at least one alive, question him.”

Joel nodded, gun low. A chunk of tree trunk exploded near his head and he flinched.

“I’m gonna draw their fire…”

“No,” you shook your head, cutting him off. “No, you can’t…”

“You cover me,” he said, ignoring you. “They’re gonna expose themselves to take a shot, take ‘em down then. Stay back. Something happens to me, get out of here, OK?”

“Joel,” you said, voice sharp and eyes wide, but he pressed on. There was the sharp crack of another bullet hitting the tree.

“You need to stay alive for her, OK?” He said. “Understand? You’re the only one who knows she’s missing and how to find her so you stay alive for her.”

He didn’t wait for you to respond. Instead he looked back over his shoulder and around the tree, as much as he dared to catch a glimpse of their positions before looking back at you.

“I’m going on three, OK baby?” He looked in your eyes for what he hoped wouldn’t be the last time and took a deep breath. He wanted to touch you, promise you it was all going to be OK, but kept his hands on his gun. “I love you. No matter what.”

He counted down before you had a chance to say anything back and ran for a tree that would give him cover while also giving him a chance to get closer to the last of the men. A bullet passed so close to him he felt it on the air and you started shooting almost immediately, your second shot hitting one of the men in the chest. Joel kept shooting and so did you, but he was pretty sure it was his shot that felled the next man, just as he reached the other tree. That left one who was alive. He reloaded and looked over to you from his new position, your chest heaving but face set firm. He jerked his head back, hoping you’d understand what he wanted you to do. You nodded once. He held up three fingers and you nodded again. He counted down and you both moved. He tracked you with his eyes for a moment, thankful you got what he’d been trying to communicate with you. You moved quickly but delicately around the edge of the trees, going to loop around the back side of where the men were hiding. Joel went the other way. With any luck, he’d meet you in the middle by the final man.

“You two sure cause a lot of trouble for folks just passin’ through,” the first man called. Joel was quiet. That meant he probably hadn’t seen the two of you start to move. “Should understand why we kill everyone who comes through. Probably killed that girl you’re after. If she was around here few months back we did.” Joel clenched his jaw. He was getting close to the man’s position, having to move slowly to not make a sound. “Cleared the land when we took over, folks could join up or they got handled. If she’s anything like you two, she got handled.”

Joel barely had a chance to hope you didn’t take the bait when you roared, the sound sharp and harsh. He moved quickly then, just in time to see you knock the man’s gun out of his hand as he got a shot off. It grazed your arm but you didn’t seem to notice. You tackled him but couldn’t leverage yourself to stay on top fast enough and he slammed you into the ground with a sickening thud. You were still as he scrambled to his feet and brought his foot down, hard, on your arm. Joel heard it snap half a second before you screamed and he finally - finally - reached the man, looping an arm around his throat and pulling him back, pressing the gun to his temple.

“That was a fuckin’ mistake,” he growled. The man clawed uselessly at Joel’s arm. “If you’re smart, you’ll cooperate. If you ain’t, that’s OK too. Don’t mind forcing you.”

Joel looked down toward you, tears in your eyes as you lay flat on your back, pupils blown.

“You still with me, baby?” He asked, resisting the urge to snap the man’s neck. You nodded and blinked tears from your eyes. “Good. Stay put, just a minute, OK?”

Joel wrenched the man around and shoved him to the ground before pressing him back against a tree. He flinched back for a moment and Joel almost smiled at him. He was afraid. Afraid was good.

“Gonna ask you just a few questions,” Joel said, gun still pressed to the man’s chest. “And you can tell me what I want to know or I can hurt you. Either way, I get what I want. Don’t matter much to me which way it goes.”

“Sure we can work something out,” the man said, his eyes darting and wide. “We’ve got a good crew, we’re setting up something permanent, could use someone with your skills…”

“Don’t need a place,” Joel cut him off. “Especially not with someone who would kill a kid. That what you did? You kill a kid?”

“Look…” he said but Joel turned the gun down and pressed it to the man’s thigh, pulling the trigger. The shot was nearly deafening and the spray of blood was hot as the man screamed, his hands flying to his mangled leg, his torso arching over his injured limb. Joel calmly wiped the man’s blood off his gun using some denim that had missed the splatter before he holstered it. He pulled out his knife and opened it before pressing his knee into the shin of the man’s injured leg. He screamed again and Joel held up the knife.

“Got plenty of places I can put this, too,” he said, voice calm. “So answer the question. Did you kill a kid?”

“I’m sorry,” he slumped back against the tree, his hands clutching around his injured thigh, as though that would hold him together. “We… we killed a lot of people when we moved in here, there were people all through this area but they… they weren’t organized, just nomads. They were a threat, we’ve been running from another group, made it far enough from where they mark their territory, needed to stake a claim before we lost that, too. We offered… anyone we found we offered a place but if they didn’t hold up their end or if they turned it down we killed ‘em, couldn’t let ‘em live, they knew too much, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Still haven’t answered the question,” Joel said. “Did you kill a kid?”

“My kid,” you said, voice closer than Joel had expected it. He glanced back to you and you were standing just behind him, cradling your arm to your chest. “She’s 14, brown skin, brown eyes, curly hair. She was out here about two months ago. Seen anyone like that?”

Joel tried to not picture Sarah trying to navigate the wilderness alone.

“No,” the man shook his head quickly. “No, I haven’t I swear I haven’t, not back at the settlement, not out here, I haven’t, I promise! I promise.”

“Any of your buddies mention someone like that?” Joel asked, knife still in hand. “Any of your buddies take a liking to teenaged girls?”

“What?” He frowned. Joel sighed and thrust the knife into the man’s good leg at the knee. He screamed, shooting forward in pain. Joel waited for the choking sobs to turn to whimpers.

“Asked if your buddies might have mentioned her,” he said. “Or if any of ‘em like teenaged girls. Think you know what I’m askin’.”

The man panted and looked up at you, as though you’d help him. Joel grabbed the man’s chin, yanking his gaze back to him.

“Not at her,” he said. “You’re with me. Answer the question or I’m gonna make things a whole lot worse for you. Any of your buddies mention a girl like her? Any of them have a habit of taking up with girls?”

“No,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “No, none of them mentioned her but…”

Joel was quiet for a moment, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, he gripped the knife, adding just enough pressure that the man yelped and started panting for breath.

“But?” Joel asked.

“But they wouldn’t have mentioned her!” He cried out, opening his eyes to look up at you again. “We didn’t talk about who we took out, there were a few dozen and… I’m sorry, if she was here… if she was here when we came through…”

Joel pulled the knife out before he could finish the statement. You didn’t need to hear that.

“Where’s your settlement?” Joel asked, wiping the blood on a clean spot on the man’s shirt before pressing the point to the man’s throat, just enough that he’d feel the sharp of it.

“Northeast!” He said. “Northeast, just south of the road going into Cody, about 20 miles west of the town. We… we’ve claimed through here all the way about five miles south as ours, we’ve got about 250 folks up that way…”

Joel nodded and closed the knife before standing. He looked over at you, at the cold and detached look in your eyes.

“Bambi,” he said gently, but you ignored him.

Instead, you pulled out your gun and aimed it at the man’s head. He barely had a chance to raise his hands, didn’t have a chance to beg for his life, before you shot him point blank, his blood splattering your good hand as your broken arm hung, limp and misshapen, at your side. The man’s body slumped over and you screamed at it, the sound seeming like it was ripping up from the center of you. You screamed until you were out of breath and you stood there, standing over the man’s broken form, the gun dangling from your fist, tears in your eyes.

Joel wordlessly went to one of the other men, one he’d shot in the head. The blood splatter on his shirt was minimal. He pulled it off the corpse and brought it over to you.

“Give me your arm,” he said gently. You didn’t seem to hear him. He gingerly took the elbow of your broken arm and you jumped, looking at him like you were surprised he was there. “Here, it’s OK sweetheart.”

He tucked your arm into the soft flannel before he tied the sleeves of the shirt together and draped it around your neck. He went to your other arm, the one that had been grazed by the gunshot and looked at you for a moment, a silent request for permission. You gave him a single nod before he poured water over the wound, cleaning it as best he could. It didn’t look too bad, at least. It would leave a scar but the damage shouldn’t be anything more than that. He got a bandage from his pack and wrapped it around your bicep before tying it off.

“Bambi,” he said again, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

“We should move,” you said, your voice flat. “Sure that drew plenty of attention.”

You stalked back over to where the horses had been tethered - thankfully safe from the gunfire - and stopped to pick up the carving and your knife from the ground. Joel followed behind you and watched as you carefully packed the half-formed moose away before tucking the folded knife into your pocket. He went to help you up onto Renaissance but you brushed him off.

“Broken bones before,” you snapped. You tried to glare at him but your eyes were so empty. “Know how to get on a horse with one, I’m not useless.”

“OK,” he said softly. “I’m here if you need.”

You mounted up fine - not that he should have been surprised - and Joel got on Ares, both horses surprisingly serene given the gunfight that had happened not far from them only 20 minutes earlier. But Joel knew you’d worked to desensitize them to the sound of guns. You’d made them all but warhorses, sturdy enough to withstand anything the apocalypse would throw at them. It had served the two of you well.

“They said northeast, right?” You asked, looking back over your shoulder at him.

“Bambi…”

“If they killed her, I’m killing them,” you said. “I don’t care.”

“You don’t know that they did,” he said, bringing his horse alongside yours.

You stared him down.

“Sounds like they killed enough to deserve it either way.”

“Maybe so,” Joel said carefully. He tried to imagine how someone would need to talk him down from killing everyone who’d planned to kill Ellie. If someone would have even been able to stop him from killing every person in that goddamn hospital. “But you’re hurt…”

“Joel.”

“We’re low on ammo. Goin’ now will just get you killed and…”

“So?” You yelled. “Do you think I care? You think it matters if…”

“It matters!” He yelled back, his chest tight. He fought to stay in the present, stay with you here in the wild and not in a field outside Austin as he felt his daughter die and not on the floor of a broken house with your cold, barely breathing body pressed against him. “It matters to me and it matters to Ellie and, goddammit, it matters to your daughter! You don’t know, Bambi, you can’t know if she’s gone. But you’re the only one who knows how to look for her and I’m not going to let you throw that away, I’m not. I am not takin’ you there and we both know that, without one arm, you ain’t gettin’ far without me. We’re going back to Jackson. Now.”

You stared him down for a moment, a shadow of rage in your eyes before that died, too. He made you take the lead so he could keep a proper eye on you and the two of you made decent progress before stopping for the night, Joel hunting on the way so he wasn’t going to leave you unattended. He took your weapons when you did. You glared at him but handed over your side arm.

“Knife, too,” he said, his hand out.

“Fuck you.”

He didn’t take the bait. He just kept his hand out. After a moment, you wrenched it out of your pocket and smacked it into his waiting palm.

“Thank you.”

You kept your distance from him that evening, just staring blankly into the fire and cradling your broken arm.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Bambi,” he said as you set up to sleep and he got set to keep watch. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“I know,” you said quietly.

It took days to reach Jackson, your arm discolored and pain the only thing visible in your eyes when you got there. Joel brought you straight to the clinic and walked you inside, still not willing to let you out of his sight. He couldn’t hold your body. Not yours, too.

He took the horses to the stables, giving a confused Renaissance an extra apple as she chuffed, looking for you.

“Gettin’ her taken care of, too,” he said gently stroking her neck. She bobbed her large head. “She’ll… she’ll get there. It’s OK.”

He went back to the clinic after and sat on the steps outside, waiting for you to come out, hoping he wouldn’t see Ellie until he went home for the night. He wanted to see her, hug her, but he wasn’t sure if you could handle it. And he didn’t want to try to explain everything to her, at least not everything about you.

Joel wasn’t sure how long he sat there waiting when the door behind him opened with a creak and he turned to see you standing at the top of the steps, your arm in a proper cast with more than a makeshift sling this time.

“You’re still here,” you said, your voice flat.

“Figured I’d walk you home,” he replied.

“What, haven’t had enough of me over the last few weeks?” You asked. It seemed like you’d meant to put your usual bite behind the words but they were just hollow.

“No,” he replied. “No such thing as enough of you.”

He carried your pack for you, walking alongside you on your slow path home.

“How are you feeling?” He asked after a few minutes of silence.

You shrugged.

“Took some doing to get my arm set. Had worse.”

Joel nodded.

“And how are you feeling… outside that.”

You were quiet for a moment.

“I don’t know.”

He nodded again, making his way to the front gate of your home. You opened it and didn’t stop him from coming up the walk so he followed you to your door. You stopped there, holding out your good arm for your bag.

“Thanks for your help,” you said, looking at his chest instead of really at him.

“Course,” he said. You went to open your door but he stopped you, a large hand cupped gently around the elbow of your intact arm. “Bambi…”

You looked at him with those wide eyes. He sighed.

“I don’t know if it’s right, leaving you here alone.”

“I’ll be OK,” you shrugged. “Not your job to worry about me.”

“I want to worry about you.”

You sighed.

“Joel…”

“I do,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what you do or say, I do. And I’m going to.”

You looked at him.

“I don’t think it’s good for us to spend time together right now,” you said.

He tried to not let the hurt show, the feeling of a knife twisting in his gut.

“You want something different than me,” you continued. “And I just… I can’t. Not right now. And I don’t think us spending time together is smart.”

Joel nodded slowly.

“I can wait.”

“You shouldn’t,” you said, chin jutting out defiantly. The knife twisted again. “You should move on. It’s for the best.”

“And what are you gonna do?” He asked.

You sighed and looked back out at the street. There were birds in the distance and the wind blew in the smell of apple blossoms from the orchard just outside the walls. It would be idyllic if his heart wasn’t cracking open and bleeding on your porch.

“Survive, I guess.”

“Bambi,” you looked back at him. “Meant what I said out there. You can’t give up, OK? You have to find something to fight for. You can. I know you can. And we don’t know if what they said was true, we can’t know. We can keep looking. Once you’re healed, we’ll find another window, we’ll search. She got out of there in a hurry, she probably just…”

“Right,” you said. It didn’t sound like you believed it.

“Promise me,” he said.

You frowned.

“Promise you what?”

“That if I leave you here you won’t do what I did,” he said. “That you’ll be stronger than me and live with it. That if you need someone you’ll come to me and you won’t try to do it alone. Because I meant it, all of it. May not be the same for you anymore but that’s OK. Think I can love you enough for the both of us, just come to me when you need it, please. Need you to promise me, sweetheart. Please.”

“Joel…”

“Promise me.”

Your eyes met his and, for a moment, he could have sworn he saw a shadow of the spark of you there. That you were there, buried deep in grief and pain and betrayal.

You took a deep breath.

“I promise.”

Joel slowly, cautiously, raised a hand to cup your cheek. You didn’t stop him. Instead, you closed your eyes and leaned into his touch, your lips parting like you were going to kiss him. But you didn’t and he didn’t try to take it. Instead, he tilted your head and nuzzled against your forehead for a moment before kissing you there, pressing his lips against your skin, breathing in the smell of your hair. He lingered against you as long as he could before he stepped back, taking a moment to memorize you.

You took a deep breath.

“Goodbye, Joel.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Goodbye, Bambi.”

Next Chapter

A/N: I am so so sorry for the wait on this and for the fact that it's a bit of a monster chapter. It got away from me, I admit. I'm trying to get back into the swing of my regular writing cadence now that the holidays are through and I so appreciate you being here and your patience ❤️

Taglist: @ashleymsnodgrass@planet-marz1@kalea-bane @juneswonderlust@ilovepedro @h-annahayy @starstruckmusiciansartghost@beccerjune@mumma-moonchild@netonetoneto@mellymbee@purplelye@n7cje@flugazi@evyiione@randomhoex@aliengirl99@orcasoul@reds-ramblings@pedropascalsbbg @fupoola @tinypotatothing @knopes-waffles @lilmizmoz @ayamenimthiriel@jenispunk@panda-pascal@sarap-77@flugazi@your-slutty-gf@daniegraceg@partyofone3413@cumberpegg@noisynightmarepoetry.@fifia-writes@grumpygrumperton @srmacaroni @txlady37 @bigboiseason123

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #yearling #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x oc

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infernalodie · 7 months

Text

𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 (𝐏𝐭.𝟑) || 𝐀𝐛𝐛𝐲 𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧

"𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘺 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥"

Inspo: Jacob Banks - Devil That I Know Hozier - Son of Nyx Hozier - I, Carrion

Pairing: Abby Anderson x Black!Fem!reader

Summary: Lightness comes in the form of acceptance...

Warnings: Angst, torture, and a splash of fluff

Part One - Part Two

Words: 6069

DNI YOU'RE YOUNGER THAN 18!

You’d never been to the aquarium. Abby mentioned it a few times and how beautiful it was in the summer. She’d even apparently seen a seal with Owen. Of course, you found it hard to believe but still held some hope that maybe you would get to go there one day with her.

But you wished it might’ve been under better circumstances than this.

Escaping the F.O.B. wasn’t as difficult as you thought it would’ve been. It was travelling the streets at night that made the travel difficult. What hadn’t helped was the daunting reunion you would be faced with.

As far as you knew, Ellie was killing WLF all over Seattle in search of getting to Abby. So, in the back of your mind, you thought this might be the end for you as well. That would be at least in the card if Ellie saw you as her enemy. But you had hope that if you showed up, maybe you could resolve this chaos. Maybe with you, someone who knew them both might be able to create a common ground for the pair.

Still, that hadn’t meant you weren’t taking precautions.

You took a spot near the aquarium and sat there for a good 10 minutes. Moving around the perimeter of the building to see if any other points of infiltration were possible and spot any possible ambush points. Turns out, there were only really three and one of them was blocked off. So, with that in mind, you could go in and just expect Ellie to be there with Abby. Or you could take the back door and move through from there. Possibly get the drop on Ellie and maybe Dina if this was indeed an ambush. But if Ellie had Abby close by she could just kill her without any form of thought.

That would be her fulfilling her entire point of coming to Seattle.

Of course, you believed Ellie would keep her word. A tradeoff was all she had asked for after all–you for Abby’s freedom. So, maybe you should go through the front door and not give the idea that if you had to choose between her or Abby, you would choose Abby.

So, with whispered encouragement, you made your way down the street to the front door. Keeping a tight grip around your pistol as you pushed open the door and stepped inside. The dim lighting of the moon hitting the glass ceiling allowed you to see the center of the room. A giant whale prop hung from the ceiling displayed shadows, manipulating your vision in certain positions.

“Ellie?” You called out, cautiously moving inside. “Ellie, I’m here! Alone! Just like you asked!”

From the other end of the room, Ellie appeared with a gun in her hand. Her jaw clenched as she stepped forward, aiming at you. “Toss your gun to the side.” With no hesitation, you did so after ejecting the magazine and bullet from the chamber. Kicking it toward her with your hands raised exhaling heavily.

“All right.” You swallowed thickly, glancing around with pursed lips. “Now, where’s Abby?”

Lowering her weapon, Ellie shook her head. “I’m sorry, Y/n.”

You could barely get a word out before you were hit in the side of the head, toppling to the ground in a daze. Groaning, you looked around and found a familiar face standing above you. Frowning, you whispered, “Tommy?”

“I’m sorry, kid.” And he then hit you in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocking you out.

“Just. Tell. Me. Where. She. Is!”

The metal in your mouth made it hard to breathe. Its aroma plugs your nose. You cough and cough and cough until you're gasping for air, a string of saliva mixed with blood dripping from your bottom lip that was cracked from one of Ellie’s ruthless punches.

You could barely see from your left swollen shut and your right one stinging in pain from the cut above your eyebrow. Blood had dripped inside and blinded you partially. But through the haze, you could see Ellie’s towering figure standing in front of you. Her knuckles dripped in your blood and her body trembled with rough gasps shaking her being.

Who is she?

In hindsight, you probably shouldn’t have trusted Ellie in the first place. You knew that she was too far gone to even care about remorse or whatever connection the two of you had. It’d been left the moment she left you. She saved Dina. Either for feelings she garnered for the girl or because she was pregnant–there wasn’t a clear answer for you to see. But she chose her over you.

There was very little to no connection left between the two of you.

Panting, Ellie collapsed in the chair behind her. Grabbing the water Tommy had given her before she decided to try to extract information from you. Running the back of her hand over your forehead, she took a sip of the drink. Allowing the cold liquid to simmer her warm body as she stared at you.

“Why can’t you just tell me?” She muttered, sounding almost defeated by your lack of cooperation. “Just tell me where she is Y/n and I’ll stop.”

You choked on your blood for a moment, spitting out a glob of it before resting your head against the beam you were tied to. The eye not completely blinded stared back at her. Unable to shake the smile that crossed your face.

“Why do you think, Ellie? Hmm? Could it be because you left me for dead?” You questioned angrily, sucking on your bottom lip momentarily as your head lulled forward before snapping back up to look at her.

Ellie stared at you, expression unwavering. Although nothing on the surface gave way, you knew she felt something. Either guilt or false self-justification, none of it was hidden from you. If you learned anything from your relationship with the girl, it was how her mind worked. Her inability to think before acting and when things blew up on her, she would brush the responsibility off her.

That’s what she did with you. She brushed your existence away to continue her soulless mission. “There was nothing I could-”

“You fuckin’ left me! You! Of all fucking people, you left me!” You cried, tugging at your restraints. “I fucking waited for you as Issac tortured me. I did everything to make sure he wouldn’t hunt you or Dina! I denied you would leave me. But you did nothing! I gave you my heart, my loyalty, and my soul, and you treated me like I was disposable.”

And you had waited for this moment. Finally coming face to face with her and just getting the answer to the question you needed. Trying to line up all the picture-perfect memories in your mind and see where it all went wrong. But nothing gave way. Nothing could show how and when her feelings changed for you. And it made each blow of pain make the connection you two have crack further and further until you were left with fragments in your blood hands. Wondering where you fucked up for her to treat you in such a way.

Ellie’s face strained as she clenched her eyes shut. “I had no other choice. I had to cut you loose. Dina or I could’ve died trying to save you.”

A loud laugh fell from your lips. Staring at the girl in disbelief as you blew a raspberry. “Do you tell yourself that before you go to sleep so you don’t feel guilty? News flash, Ellie, you are the root of the fucking problem!” You exclaimed in exasperation.

Her lack of response made you scoff, shaking your head. “You say Joel would do this same thing if it meant getting payback for your or Tommy’s death. But I think this just shows you never actually knew him.” The dangerous look in Ellie’s eyes would’ve usually made you recoil and instantly apologize–scared of the outbreak of emotions that might arise from the fiery girl’s uncensored personality. Although the wound of the man’s passing was still fresh in your mind, you had to accept the loss of someone before you could heal yourself. And the last thing you would do was back down from something you full-heartedly believed.

“Shut the fuck up!” She growled, standing to her feet.

“You complain and complain about the fact your life could’ve meant something if you were turned into a cure, but you can’t even see that your life–you living–means something to everyone you know,” you stated. “Joel loved you like his daughter. I loved you for the amazing girl who took care of me when I didn’t think I deserved it. And all your friends care about you. You mean something to them. But, oh God, Ellie wanted to be used as a power move for the Fireflies-”

“You don’t know anything about what happened!” Ellie yelled. “You wouldn’t understand jackshit of what I went through and the shit Joel did!”

“The fuck I don’t!” You shouted, shifting to sit on your knees and slowly rising to your feet. Groaning from the ache across your abdomen. “Who cried on my shoulder when he was alone because some snarky little fucking bitch couldn’t just be glad someone cared about her? Joel did! He told me everything because he knew I would go to the end of the Earth for you. I know what he did and I know enough about the Fireflies to know Marlene wasn’t planning on giving the cure to anyone. She would’ve kept it for herself and made herself in charge since she had the cure to keep people from dying.”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you scoffed. “So, get a fucking grip, Ellie Williams,” you spat. “You don’t know anything about Joel and you never will.”

“Shut up!” She punched you in the stomach, making you double over with a wheeze, collapsing to your knees. Grabbing a handful of your dreads, she yanked your head back before repeatedly punching you. Time became obsolete and it took you a few moments to realize she’d stopped. The pain scattered across your entire head hurt to even think or keep yourself awake. “I should’ve expected this from you. To betray me and side with people you don’t even know.”

Lifting your head, you frowned at the girl. “What the fuck did you just say?” You babbled, lips swollen and a few teeth missing disfiguring your speech. “You wanna act like I’m the bad guy? Really? Ellie, you killed everyone! You are the reason I am siding with them!”

She scoffed. “I did what I had to to get to Abby. You know that,” Ellie murmured. “What she did to Joel is unforgivable. Nothing could save her from what I’m going to do.”

“Justice and vengeance are not the same thing, Ellie,” you muttered. “What you want needs to be earned. You murdered people, then you got Dina to go because you couldn’t live with the idea of just continuing to live for Joel!”

Ellie huffed. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t care to listen. But it would be a lie if she said that you were piercing her thoughts with your words. And maybe it was because she did feel guilty about what she did to you.

You were her biggest regret and the greatest evil in her thoughts. “Even when there was a different way around what you did. When there was someone pleading for their life, for forgiveness and mercy, what did you do? What did you do?!”

It’s been long enough for you to see and admit to yourself that Ellie had never cared about your self-interest. She never cared if you ended up dying on this suicide mission. Because all that she cared about was killing Abby. Everyone close to her was used as another step closer to Abby. Even if they didn’t die, she used them to her benefit to get closer to her goal. How the others couldn’t see it was astonishing.

And the most impressive part about it?

Ellie couldn’t even realize she was doing it. And you weren’t sure if you felt sorry for her or not.

“You don’t see it.” Ellie listened to every quiet word whispered from your broken lips. How they sounded almost of disbelief of your observation of her. But why that was, was still lost upon her raging thoughts. “You don’t see they will despise you when Abby gets here. You think you’ll kill her. But have you thought of what happens if you don’t?

Sitting flat on the ground, you sat there with a defiant look on your face. Not daring to give her the satisfaction of tears. Not after all the shits put you through. “I’m never going to tell you where Abby is, Ellie. So, you can kill me for all I care,” you spat. “But know that if you do, I will fucking haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Footsteps approaching drew Ellie’s attention to find Tommy entering the room. His eyes widened slightly, gaze flashing between her and you. But he didn’t say anything, merely clearing his throat. “Jesse and I need you upstairs.” And like that, he walked away. His boots thudded against the steps retreating until they were a mere distant sound in the back of your head.

“Ellie, you want to know something?” With parted lips and a dazed look in your eyes, you lifted your gaze to the girl. Her lips were pursed and the faint tilt of her knuckles made apparent of her clenched fists. She was holding back. “The moment you came out here, you became just as bad as Abby. But you want to know the difference between you and her now?”

“What’s that, Y/n?” Ellie murmured, looking down at her shoes for a moment before her eyes met yours.

And you grinned sadistically. “You act on emotions. You never learned how to shut that shit down. But Abby…” you chuckled, “when she finds out I’m captive and what you’ve done, she’ll act with every fibre of rage inside of her. And I won’t stop her.” Sighing, you shifted in your spot and rested your head against the beam behind you. Shutting your eyes and saying, “Remember that when she has a knife in your gut.”

She mulled over your statement for a few moments before following Tommy upstairs. Leaving you to collapse against the collum and close your eyes. Almost unable to feel the tears over the white-hot flash of pain whispering into your skull. Face scrunching at the images of Owen and Mel.

Ellie had thrown the fact of her killing the pair in your face. A man stuck between two women and a once soon-to-be mother. You were disgusted by the fact that Ellie seemed to have taken satisfaction in the act. Like they were just any other pair of survivors just trying to get by and coincidentally were in her path. You hadn’t been able to shake the nauseating churn in your stomach for hours now.

You were unevenly on the back foot of the situation. From the moments of clearness, you’d been unable to spot anything to assist you in your escape. Then again, perhaps this was the best solution for right now. Wait them out and find an opening available to take advantage of. At least then, if you died here, you died with some fucking dignity and not like some sick helpless puppy.

The sound of hinges crying made you snap your head in the direction of the door. Finding a very tired and slightly rattled Dina standing at the doorway. Dark purple circles under her eyes were more apparent by her ghostly complexion.

“I’m just here to clean your wounds,”

Straightening in your slouch, you lifted your chin suspiciously. “Tommy send you?”

“No, I came here on my own,” Dina whispered, crouching beside you. “When this is all over, I’m bringing you back home, Y/n. I won’t let Ellie dictate how your life plays out.”

You believed her. Dina was one you trusted to keep her word because, at the end of the day, she was the only one with a sensible mind. That did not mean you held any fondness toward her. She was intertwined in the problems occurring in this damn city and the reason everything was playing out the way it was. So, she was as much on your shitlist as Ellie.

Dina patted your face with a wet cloth, rubbing away the smears of crimson from your chin and cheeks. And you held an expressionless face as she tended to your wounds. Tolerating her presence enough to allow her this close. If the bindings didn’t restrain you, safe to say, a knife would be pressed to her throat.

And something about that destroyed your entire inner being. How could a friendship you had tended to and protected for years come tumbling down in a week? Let alone over one girl. Ellie came into your life like a light of hope and she was leaving it as a dark figure and reminder for yourself to not trust anyone. And Fina was falling into her trap and you couldn’t care to save her. Because in the end, she would end up understanding how you felt and you hoped it would hurt tenfold.

A gentle sigh fell from Dina’s lips, grabbing your attention. “What?”

Dina shook her head, biting on her bottom lip. “How did we turn out like this?” She murmured, wringing out the bloody cloth. “I can still remember the both of us reading books in my room when we were 10. Now, 8 years later, we stand on opposite teams?” She sniffled. “I never wanted this.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat, blinking tiredly. “You know why we’re here. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”

She pursed her lips. “Y/n, they knew there would be repercussions when they went for Joel-”

A laugh fell from your lips, staring at her incredulously. “Is that you saying that or Ellie?” You said. “You, Ellie, Jesse, and Tommy are the reason they need saving. You let Ellie ruin everything!” You growled. “You were willing to leave me for dead-”

“I didn’t want that-”

“-then you fucked Ellie who left me in that school to die and put me through hell with the WLF! I’ve fucking suffered because of you!” You sniffled, tilting your head to wipe your nose with your shoulder. Letting out a breath with a shake of your head. “And to think I could trust either of you.”

Dina pursed her lips, sniffling as she wiped her eyes aggressively. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

You grounded your teeth, nose twitching. “Of course, you didn’t,” you muttered. “How could you when Ellie used her sweet words on you, right? ‘Cause at the end of the day, Ellie is the sole reason we’re in this situation.”

Spitting out blood, you scoffed. “You want to know where our relationship went wrong, Dina?” You inquired aloud, meeting the girl’s gaze. “The moment you met Ellie.” The thought made you laugh humourlessly. “I fucking let you get close and this is how you played me.”

“Okay, that’s unfair!” Dina exclaimed defensively. “It’s not like I planned for anything to happen, alright? People’s hearts are spontaneous, Y/n. I never planned on falling for Ell.”

An incredulous laugh fell from your broken lips. “Now you’re using the nickname I gave her?” You said aloud, leaning forward slightly, a hint of amusement. “You guys using the safe word I came up with- Ugh!”

Dina’s hand wrapped around your neck on a dime. Like she’d been possessed. It’d only been for a moment, but she quickly realized what she was doing and let go. Looking away shamefully and wet the cloth further. Continuing what she was doing before.

You swallowed, clearing your throat as you shifted in your spot. Hissing at the cloth dragging over a cut along your eyebrow. “You know, we wouldn’t be in this situation if you just killed Abby.” Her drags of the cloth became harsher. More forceful and irritating your already scarred skin. “Joel would’ve done it if you-”

“Don’t you dare try and use him against me!” You hissed, a warning look in your eyes. “You may think that me being tied keeps you safe, but you aren’t untouchable Dina-”

Gunshots alerted the two of you, looking toward the doorway. A smile formed on your lips as you looked at Dina. “Why not go see who showed up?”

If Dina had the time, she might’ve slapped that smirk off your face. But her feet were already carrying her toward the door up the steps toward the commotion. You were left to tug at your restraints, keening in on the gunshots that drew louder and closer.

Now thinking about it, there was a chance it wasn’t even Abby in the first place. It could’ve just been a group of infected that spotted them or something. There were many possibilities and that made you hesitate. Long enough to finally allow doubting thoughts to creep from the darkest corners of your mind and torment you.

Would Abby try to find you?

It hadn’t been a thought that crossed your mind–solely focused on making Ellie’s life a living hell had taken priority. But now, with the ever so often crack of gunshots, you were aware of how little importance you actually held. Abby may have not seen you the way you saw her. You, searching for connection and love, could’ve easily misunderstood any of her actions and built a fort around the two of you when she had no point of being there.

She’d be just like Ellie.

And as much as you wanted to cry and fight over it, deny and deny and deny, you knew it was fruitless. Abby had encouraged you to move on from Ellie, and so you would do the same with her. Accept it and suffer in silence where the walls could come down. A denial conception fogging sensibility and prolonging the pain like salt in a fresh wound.

A small fracture of dust hit your face when a loud thud could be heard above. Straining your eyes as you heard the thud come again with more dust getting in your eyes. But when it came again, the entire patch of rotting wood fell apart. It was all a blur and sudden with the destruction of timber and yells of pain.

But when you managed to steel your eyes forward, your heart clenched at the sight of Abby., Her own found yours and you might’ve mistaken it, but it looked like a flare of light shot through her eyes. Lips barely twitched into a smile before she rolled to cover with Ellie firing a slug at the woman.

And when the two continued to sneak around one another, looking to get the upper hand on the other, you struggled with your ties. The texture of the rope continuously scratches against your wrist, deepening the tenderness of your flesh. The reddened marks are likely not to go away for another few days if you get out of here.

When Ellie came into sight, her attention half-hazardly focused on you, you brewed some sort of plan. From the bruise on her cheek, you can guess they’d engaged in some fight whilst you were struggling with your restraints. Going through the banks of memory on this trip; with Ellie and Abby, you came up with something they’d both know.

A sharp and loud whistle.

The moment it was heard, Ellie turned her attention to you, frowning. But she was far too late to realize her mistake.

Abby came in and took the attention away from you. Ellie’s knife, the one she’s had since before you met her, fell just in reach of your foot. Adjusting yourself, you used your foot to slowly drag the knife closer and pull it back to your hands. Grasping it and beginning to cut through the rope with a painful ache in your wrist echoing through your mind.

Glancing up, you spotted Dina sprinting over with a knife. “Abby, behind!” The girl turned but was far too late to disarm Dina as she slashed at Abby’s arms, yelling out. Until an arrow pierced Dina’s shoulder, creating enough of an opening for Abby to reclaim the upper hand.

“Stop!” Ellie choked on her blood. “Stop! She had nothing to do with this.”

Finally breaking from your binds, you tossed the rope to the side and rubbed your wrists. Stopping when you saw Abby holding Dina by her hair and a knife at her throat. A furious and thunderous rage in her orbs. And under this lighting, she seemed like something out of your nightmares. Usually, it was Ellie in her place. Bathed under the red lighting, blood covering her arms, a true sign of her mindless thinking.

“She’s pregnant,” Ellie whispered, eyes blinking away the blood that threatened to drip inside.

“Good.”

“Abs!” The bigger girl snapped her gaze at you. Her heart clenched at the sight of your broken lips and puffed eyes. Cuts along your eyes and areas that were only known to her based on the splotches of blood on your shirt. You gently shook your head. “Don’t be like her.”

It was a painful ask, you knew that. If the roles were reversed, you would’ve already sliced their throats. But this was Dina you were talking about. If you knew anything, you knew she’d fallen under the lies Ellie spewed. Following her lover because it might’ve been worse to leave her. And at that, you respected her enough to try and save her life tonight.

Abby pursed her lips in contemplation. Shoving the girl off half-hazard and standing to her feet to help you up, you shook your head. Moved to Ellie with a snarl. Straddling her waist, you pressed her knife to her throat and panted out breaths.

Kill, kill, kill, kill…

The panted breaths had morphed into sobs. Unbridled with tears streaming from your eyes. “I’m not fucking scared of you anymore! Do you hear me?” You grasped her jaw, forcing her gaze up at you. “You are nothing and will continue to be nothing!”

You should kill her. After everything she’s done to you. All the pain, the denial, you’d felt everything since coming here and she was the problem.

But you’d be just as a monster as Ellie if you killed her.

“If you’re lucky, I won’t come back here to kill you. But you know why I won’t, hmm?” She choked on her blood, coughing weakly. But you made no move to help her breathe. Your eyes stared down at her with a certain layer of fury paramount to anything else Ellie had ever seen. “Because then you wouldn’t be able to live with the failure of your entire goal of coming to Seattle.”

Standing to your feet, you took Abby’s hand and exited the basement of the theatre. Exiting through the front, but waiting a moment as you patched Tommy up. Telling him you wouldn’t be home for a while or ever. And you had to painfully listen to him plead that you’d come home and not go with Ellie. But you told him that they both made their beds and they had to sleep in them.

From there, you, Abby, and a boy you soon learned was named Lev, searched for somewhere to sleep for the night. Deciding one of the many tall buildings and going to the top floor where the three of you set up a little camp. Whilst the pair ate, warming by a tiny little campfire, you situated yourself by one of the windows with your rifle resting on your pack, supporting the front end of your weapon. Searching for any sign of enemies that might’ve followed you guys. And as much as you’d love to fall asleep, it wouldn’t be helping anyone if Seraphites were roaming the area and spotted the three of you. At least now, you could get the upper hand if anyone came to the single entrance of the building.

A soft yet rough palm pressed to your shoulder blade. Your gaze never wavered from the scope. Purely knowing it could only be Abby who’d have such a warm touch. “We should patch you up.”

With a bite on the inside of your cheek, you pulled from the scope and scooted back a foot or two. Peeling your shirt off and turning to her. In certain cases, you’d feel maybe a bit self-conscious from your scars. Knowing that in someone’s eyes, you looked disgusting with these imperfections. But Abby never let her eyes fully speak. Instead, she helps you lean back into your pack whilst she grabs a medkit from her own and starts patching up the cuts.

“I have a plan for where we can go next. It was something Owen told us before he was…” Abby didn’t finish her sentence. It was far too soon to simply acknowledge that her ex/friend was gone. It’d mean she had already accepted he was dead. “There’s rumors of Fireflies out in Santa Barbra. That’s where we were planning on going before Lev for the Seraphites island.”

“Any of the WLF survive?” You inquired softly.

“Not that I am aware. Everyone likely was killed in the assault and couldn’t get off the island,” Abby guessed, pursing her lips. “When I found Mel and Owen, I radioed back to the F.O.B. They told me they couldn’t find you anywhere and I thought…I thought-”

Your hands gently held her face, a warm look in your eyes. “I’m here, Abby.” You smiled. “Thank you for saving me.”

Although Abby wished to smile as well, the look in your eyes told her enough that something else was eating away at you. “What is it?”

“This pain…” The words were measured. A culmination of every little feeling you’d felt since meeting the pair. Love, dread, doubt, fear, and anger. Each had their time at the wheel, driving you from one precipice to another, and they didn’t come to the closure they needed. “This fucking pain has gnawed at me and I don’t think I can shake it. And what I say next, I don’t want you to think you’re responsible..”

“Y/n, what’re you trying to say?” Abby grabbed your hands, gently squeezing.

And somehow, that pained you more? It must’ve been because your own trivial thoughts seemed to become more real than you first expected. You weren’t girlfriend material. At 19 years old, you never once you’d think that of yourself. But everything you offered hadn’t been enough to save yourself from pain. You’d put others in tough positions and perhaps seclusion from the ones you loved was the best decision.

“You’ll leave tomorrow. Without me.” As Abby’s lips parted, you shook your head. “If you don't leave, I’ll leave before you.” Gently caressing her cheek, you said, “I need to go on my own from this point forward. After everything that’s happened. Ellie, WLF, the Serpahites, I don’t want to burden you any longer.”

“You aren’t a burden, Y/n. Please, just come with us-”

“This isn’t up for discussion, Abs,” you interjected, pursing your lips. “I love you more than anything in this world. But this spiralled out of control since you met me. So, please, forget me until we meet again. And if we never meet again, I’ll be waiting for you on the other end of life.” Smiling, you kissed the corner of her lips and pulled her flush to your chest. Warm breath fanning her neck as you whispered a soft demand. “Find me when the time is right.”

“I’m just trying to understand if Landon likes me or not. The signs are clear, right? Like, I’m not crazy and overthinking it?”

Grace’s tirade of thoughts had been flushed out for the past 30 minutes or so. A never-ending stream of conscious thoughts that you couldn’t help but think were childish. Thinking about some sort of fantasy of love felt odd nowadays. Maybe you would’ve felt the same way, but those days seemed long gone from the present.

Placing a cigarette between your lips, you peeked at the woman sitting beside you. She’d definitely seen better days compared to now. Likely the cause of all this overthinking she’d been doing since last week.

“You’re overthinking it, Grace.” Lighting the cigarette with a match, she parted the corner of her lips to exhale a small cloud, waving out the small piece of wood. “A person I used to know always said I froze. When I was put on the front of death's door, and I had the chance to escape if I just killed the dude beside me, I would freeze. And I think that’s what’s happening with you now.”

“That I’m at death’s door?” Grace questioned.

You laughed. “No. You’re freezing. If you think Landon likes you and the signs seem to point in that direction, just say how you feel,” you explained, simply. “The worst thing that happens is he rejects you.”

“Or he shoots me out of pure shock!”

The childish ulterior made you snicker in amusement. Eyes flickering to your radio that crackled. “Hey, Y/n! We got a boat at 2 o’clock!” Randy, a scout, announced from his post in a foxhole.

“Affirm!” You checked your magazine before injecting it into the rifle and pulled the charging handle. “Grace, let’s go.”

The two of you walked down the steep and winding path made of stones. The tall grass masked your approach on the people who could be around 500 feet from where you and your squad were stationed for the day.

Making it onto the beach, you could spot the boat. Flipping the switch on your rifle, you steadily approached. Glancing up at the ridge, you could see Randy on his sniper rifle watching the two of you closely.

And that’s when you saw two figures hop out of the boat. Stopping, you levelled your rifle to the pair, the pad of your index finger resting on the trigger. “Hands up!” They turned toward you, legs wobbling beneath them with their hands raising above their heads. “Alright, now, slowly approach. Don’t do anything stupid because I got a buddy very eager to kill something today.”

They followed your orders and the closer they got, the more details you could make out. It was a boy and a woman. Both looked malnourished judging by their figures that looked terribly slim. The woman had cuts across her arms and her skin was burnt. The boy looked ready to pass out by his stuttered steps.

And by 30 yards out, that was when you could make out the woman’s identity. Your breath caught in the back of your throat with your rifle falling to your side before hitting the sand. It took a moment for your mind to catch up with what you were seeing. Balance slightly shifting with you taking a step back with a shaky exhale. Tears clouding behind your eyes and nose burning vigorously. Then, you smiled. Grace wasn’t able to stop you from suddenly sprinting toward the pair.

“Abby!” You cried, seeing her eyes brighten at the sound of your voice. Her own began to form with tears as she quickly started to walk, fumbling over her own feet until you were holding her tightly. Supporting the weight of a frail body that didn’t resemble the look you last remembered.

Sliding to your knees, you held Abby around her waist and looked over your shoulder at your companion. “Grace, get Lev some medical attention and have food ready for them!” The blonde acted with haste, lifting the child into her arms and carrying his frail body up the trail.

You turned your attention to the girl in your arms, pulling away slightly to cup her cheeks. Meeting her tired gaze as blinked the tears away. “You’re ok. I got you. I got you, baby.”

And after what felt like years, Abby smiled. Her scabby hands holding your tear-stricken face and said,

“I found you.”

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roarriita · 1 year

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Crowded Room - Ellie Williams

fem!reader x ellie williams

WC: 3.2k

Content warning: explicit language, mentions of death, girls kissing obvi haha, barely proofread so i am sorry for any errors!!

Tags: @prrimordiais @prettyplant0 @elliesflower @sparkleswonderland @frogychu @scandalcus @trilogyss @flapkack @addisonnie @minustwofingers

Summary: just you, ellie, drinks and a whole lotta of pain and pent of feelings for each other.

Inspired by: Selena Gomez - Crowded Room

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The bitter taste of alcohol settles on your tastebuds as your eyes roam around the room. The smile plastered on your face possesses no trace of authenticity. Anyone who cared to look into your eyes for more than a couple of seconds could see that, yet everyone was too enthralled in the event Maria threw to notice.

Rodeo night.

The people of Jackson came down to drink, dance and forget about the monsters that tormented the earth beyond these tall and sturdy walls. It was also a way for Maria to try and help the community recover from the loss of Joel and Jesse. Though in all honesty, it's been six months since Seattle and it seems like most of Jackson had recovered… most. Maria really threw this event for the few that were still bewailed over the deaths. Though a simple rodeo night could not heal their scars, it would at least encourage them to get out of the house.

The sound of a tequila glass shattering, pierced your ears. Your eyes shut in an instant as the memory of Abby shooting her firearm mobbed your mind. You were with Dina alone in a room, soothing her to sleep after she puked her guts out for what seemed like the 100th time that day. You sang her a lullaby, one that your dad used to hush you to sleep with. You pulled yourself away from the sickly girl to check out the sound. To your dismay, you found Jesse dead on the floor and your father bleeding out only a few feet away from him.

It was a horrid scene. Grim, cruel, savage. Your faith in whatever sinister god that's supposed job was to protect you and your loved ones had diminished into nothingness.

“(Y/N).” A hand on your shoulder pulled you back from the horrid memory. “Are you okay?”

It was Robin. Her back curved, knees wobbly and her eyes as warm and welcoming as ever. Your eyes immediately softened at the sight of her. Telling Robin and her husband, Woojin, that Jesse had passed was one of the most difficult things you’ve ever had to do. Every time you saw her you were reminded of that disheartening memory. “Yes, Ms.Bai, I just— I um—” You’re brain ran marathons trying to figure out what to tell her. Instead of saying anything about your sudden flashback, or making up a lie, you shifted the topic of conversation. “Where’s Mr.Bai? Maria said he’d be showing up tonight. I miss him.” Robin detected the raw sincerity in your voice and smiled sadly.

“He wasn't feeling well. I think he’s catching a cold.” Ms.Bai lied. A once optimistic and gleeful man now broken into something unrecognizable. The loss of your firstborn… of your only child can do that to you.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. I send him my best wishes.” You mustered up a small smile.

Robin held back tears thinking about her husband, all alone and waddling in his own self hatred and grief back at home. “Well, the sun's gone down and I don’t think I can keep my eyes open for much longer. I should start saying my goodbyes and go home.”

You went in for a hug, immediately easing into her arms. Her warmth and comfort reminded you of how your mother used to hold you. “Take care, dear.” Robin hushed into your ear.

“You too and tell Mr.Bai I really hope to see him around soon.” You replied. Robin gave you one last smile before approaching Maria and your dad. You watched as she thanked Maria for the event. Your step-mom smiled, shook her hand, and replied with sweet words of her own as your dad sat on his wheelchair, a cold look of aggravation and displeasement written all over his scarred face.

It looks like Mr.Bai wasn't the only person who seemed to completely lose themselves after the events of Seattle. Saddened with what your dad had become, you dropped your smile, turned back around to the bar, ordered yourself another shot glass and chugged it down. Your throat burned as tears brimmed your eyes. You slid the empty glass back to the bartender and took a seat on one of the creaky barstools. You palmed your face, waiting for the alcohol to take effect as you pushed down the dispiriting emotions that fought so desperately within you to escape.

From across the room stood an auburn haired girl, her green eyes pierced your back. They haven't left you since the moment you arrived. You and Ellie were never really close. When Ellie and Joel first arrived to Jackson, after the events with the fireflies, you two kind of got off on the wrong foot. It was the anniversary of your mothers death, which usually caused you to be in a state of numbness. When it was time to introduce yourself to Ellie you sounded monotone, uninterested and honestly just over the whole interaction. Ellie didn't care all that much at first, she thought maybe that was just your personality. Yet a few days later, when she saw you all enthusiastic and excited to be around others; she felt sour about the way you treated her. She wondered if there was something about her that you didn't like in particular that caused you to act so indifferent towards her during your first interaction.

And though you had grown to like Ellie and vice versa, something stood in between the two of you that hindered the ability to make amends and become friends. Something Ellie had suspected could be sexual, maybe even romantic feelings. A scoff left her lips. ‘Maybe’ As if the romantic feelings didn't come before the sexual ones. At least for Ellie they did. She’d observe you in class— admired the way you scribbled on your journals, sang in choir, spoke in debate club, ranted about your dislikes, passionately spoke about your interests and etc. She could hardly keep her attention elsewhere whenever you were in the room.

A few feet away stood Dina, it was her turn to say her goodbyes to Robin for the night. Ellie could tell Ms.Bai was coming for her next. She shuffled between her feet uncomfortably, not wanting to look into her eyes and see the man she used to call her best friend. And though she missed Mr.Bai and sympathized with his grief, she was almost relieved to have not seen him tonight. They were carbon copies of each other, the only difference in their appearance used to be their age.

Ellie swirled the liquid in her glass, before looking back at you. You were still in the same position, still trying to barricade your emotions and waiting for the alcohol to do its job and make you numb to it all. Ellie felt much guilt, of course she did. The things she had said and done since Joel’s death weighed heavily on her. Not only did she turn Seattle into a ghost town but she felt responsible for what had happened to Jesse and Tommy. Jesse’s dead and Tommy isn't Tommy anymore. He’s a changed man, an unrecognizable one.

Ellie remembers how good he used to be with you, how he’d greet you after school with a hug and a kiss to the temple of your head, how he would speak proudly about you to those in Jackson after every one of your small and huge accomplishments and how he would spend days outside of the walls, trying to scavenge you a piece of new jewelry for your birthdays.

Now he’s just a man with a daughter. A daughter in which he cares little to keep up with most days.

You finally took your face out of your hands and scoffed in frustration. The alcohol wasn’t working in the way that you hoped and your emotions were only getting worse. Ellie saw you emerge from your seat and without thinking, Ellie gulped the last bit of her beer down before making her way over to you. She moved slowly within the crowd, small and barely audible excuse me’s left her lips.

Your back was slightly leaned against the bar, your elbows propping you up as you looked up at the ceiling. You took a couple of deep breaths in and out before looking straight forward again. You were more than pleasantly surprised to see Ellie standing shyly in front of you. A small and effortless smile made its way onto your lips. “Ellie.” Your voice came out small. The green eyed girl rarely ever approached you and vice versa. You both really only counted on your mutual friendships with Jesse and Dina to have a reason to interact with one another.

Ellie took a closer look at the iris’s of your eyes and smiled once she detected a small twinkle within them. The girl’s been staring at you all night, every smile beside hers and the one you gave Ms.Bai were complete B.S. and she knew it. She did spend most of her high school career just admiring you so of course she would notice. “(Y/N).”

The two of you stood in front of one another, hearts palpitating and palms growing sweaty. Ellie stared at you with swirls of adoration and grief in her eyes. You knew she was still hurting. The pain you two shared felt all too familiar for you not to catch on to it. Ellie decided to break the silence between you too first. “So, Rodeo Night? Having any fun?”

You chuckled. “No.” The word came out quicker than intended. “You?”

“Definitely not.” Ellie said as she took a few steps closer to you. “This was all very nice of Maria but I don’t think it’s helping me in the way she hoped it would.”

“Yeah…” You quietly agreed. Ellie took a seat on the barstool nearest to you. “Well, at least it looks like D’s having a good time.” You looked at the laughing girl who’s small hand caressed her baby bump. “How’s the baby by the way? Is everything okay?”

“Uh yeah, the doc said they're both perfectly healthy.” Ellie delayed her answer, almost like she got distracted by something and wasn't really listening to what you were asking.

You took a seat back down, wanting to ask what was wrong but just as you were about to ask, you closed your mouth. You didn't have to ask what was wrong, you already knew what it was. Grief, regret, anger, a never ending feeling of loneliness. You could go on for hours about it. The anguish that you both felt was one you were almost certain would never go away, kind of like the night terrors you frequently experienced. “I get it.” Your voice slightly cracked.

Ellie looked at you, the iris’s of your eyes holding an immense amount of self-hatred and tournament. “I know you get it. I wish you didn’t but I know you do.”

You placed your hand over Ellie’s and gave it a small squeeze. “I wish you didn't either. Neither of us deserve this, we’ve both lost so much. It’s not fair.”

The whole room didn't exist when it was you and Ellie. With her it always felt like it was just the two of you. And yet neither of you ever tried to take it a step further. It’s a shame really, pining after each other for so many years and it never being the right time for either of you to fess up. Without thinking, you grabbed Ellie’s handand stood up. “Come on, this alcohol shit isn't doing us much good.”

“Where are we going?” Ellie asked as she trailed behind you.

“To the kitchen. I know where Seth likes to stash his chocolate powder.”

Ellie smirked at your mischievousness. A glimpse of what life used to be like before Joel’s death flashed through her mind. Countless, endless nights with you, Dina and Jesse. Oh how she missed that way of living, it held a sort of an innocence to it.

Once you two arrived to the back, you immediately went over to one of the bottom cabinets. Ellie looked around the cold and empty space. “Got it!” You cheered. Ellie smiled at the accomplished look you gave her. You then made a pot of water before putting it on the stove. Ellie grabbed two mugs as the water warmed up. “So, I heard you and Dina are looking to move out of Jackson.”

“Huh?” Ellie’s face scrunched up. “Who said that?”

“I heard my dad and Maria talking about it.” You answered. “Maria said you asked her of any good farmhouses in the area. I know one of Dina’s dreams is to live on a farmhouse one day oh and not to mention the fact that you guys are dating—”

Ellie stopped you. “Dating? No, Dina and I are not dating.”

“Oh?”

“I get why you would think that. Dina and I were dating but after Seattle, I don’t know we both just sorta drifted apart. We broke up a few weeks ago.” Ellie nervously explained.

In your defense, you barely left the house, let alone keep up with your friends. “I’m… sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be, it was a mutual decision. It was for the best.” Ellie assured. “And about the farmhouse, I did get the idea from Dina. The more I thought about being on my own, the more I gravitated to the idea of living on a farm and raising my own cattle and growing my own food.”

You smiled sadly. “Oh, so you are planning on leaving Jackson.”

Ellie scratched the back of her neck. “Um, yeah, sooner than later hopefully.” You felt a piece of your heart break. You let a tiresome sigh leave your lips as you turned around to turn off the stove. “Well, don’t get too excited for me. You might break a hip.”

You chuckled at Ellie’s cheesy remark before making the hot chocolates. “I’m sorry, El. It’s just—” You looked into her eyes. “I’m really gonna miss you.”

“Me too.” Ellie replied. You sighed again, before handing her her drink.

“Hmm, you’ll manage.” You took a small sip from your mug. When you looked back up at Ellie, you noticed the confused look on her face. “What?”

“I’ll manage? Do you not believe me when I say I’m going to miss you too?” Ellie stepped out of her comfort zone to ask as she wasn't really the confrontational type.

“Sure, I do, but I don’t think you mean it in the way I mean it.” You spoke your truth.

Ellie sat her mug down. “And in what way do you mean it?”

You thought about whether it was finally the right time to tell Ellie about how you truly felt. Was there ever going to even be a right time? And even if there is one, it seems like it won’t really matter in the long run. She is soon to be gone, out of Jackson and on her own little farm, far away from you and your years of brewing and pent-up feelings. You grinned behind your mug as you took another sip of the sweet beverage. “It’s just, I’m really going to miss you and think about how differently I would’ve done things if I had known you weren’t going to stick around in Jackson forever.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what? What would you have done differently?” Ellie asked.

“You remember that time in 10th grade when we made plans to skip 3rd period and go to Dina’s to smoke but then Dina and Jesse bailed on us and went to the park instead?” You asked.

It took her a second to recall the memory. “Yeah and then you said you would rather just go back to class then hangout with just me?”

“Hey, I didn’t say it like that!” You defended yourself.

“Yeah? Well that's how it sounded.” Ellie replied.

“Oh yeah, cause you've never done anything similar to me?” You watched Ellie think about it and could see her recalling a few of her own moments of avoiding alone time with you. “Yeah exactly.” You said, confidently. “But that’s besides the point, Ellie. What I wanted to say was that I would have just asked you if you wanted to hangout with just me instead. It is what I wanted to ask you, I was just scared.”

“Scared? Scared of what?” Ellie asked, her heart sped up at the possibility of you feeling the same way she did.

“---Of what I’d do if I was left alone with you. El, I had a really big crush on you.” You mustered out.

“Had?” She questioned. “As in past tense?”

Something in Ellie’s eyes told you she felt the same, maybe she still even did? “Had, have. Does it really matter now? You’re leaving soon.”

Ellie tried fighting back a giddy smile and instead shook her head. “Uh, yeah, it kind of does. I— um,”

“Feel the same?” You finished her sentence knowing it would have taken ages for her to get there.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Ellie asked.

“Always had a hunch.” You answered. “Which I think made it even scarier to be left alone with you.”

Ellie took a deep breath in, thinking about how the girl she's been pinning over for years just confessed her feelings for her. “But we’re alone now and you’re not scared?”

“Who said I wasn't?” You took a step closer to the auburn haired girl.

“Prove it.” She told you.

Without given it another thought, you grabbed her hand and placed it against your chest. She blushed at the gesture, smiling as she felt your heart thud rapidly. Ellie held a hand up to your face, caressing your cheek as she stared lovingly into your eyes. “You’re so beautiful.” Ellie commented in a low tone.

A small grin made its way onto your lips as you leaned in to kiss Ellie. She stood there for a second, frozen, not knowing what to do. The kiss sent shivers down your spine, your arms, your legs, your inner thighs. You felt it everywhere. When you tried pulling away, Ellie snapped back into the moment, grabbing your face with the palms of her hands and pulled you in deeper to the kiss. Her tongue swiped across your bottom lip and without a second to waste, you let her tongue in. Years of pent up hunger and desire spilled out all over you. A small moan left Ellies lips as you bit her bottom lip.

Ellie pulled away for a short minute, letting you catch your breath. “Fuck, I need you.”

“I’m all yours, baby.”

Ellie smirked, caressing your cheek with her thumbs. She looked around the cold and empty kitchen before looking back into your lustful and lovey dovey eyes. “Have you ever done it in the kitchen of a diner before?”

“No,” You tried holding back a laugh. “Have you?”

“No, but…”

“But what?” You questioned.

“Don't know if I can wait until we make it back to my place.”

“Well, I mean…” You thought about it, not being able to ignore the growing sensation in between your thighs for much longer. “There is a first time for everything.”

Ellie held her smirk, her eyes shifted from your lips to your eyes. “What’re we waiting for? I think we’ve done enough of that. Don’t you think?”

“Oh, I know.” You replied before reuniting your lips with hers.

#ellie williams x y/n #tlou2 #elliexreader #ellie x fem!reamder #grief #slowburn #friends to lovers #oneshot

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niceminipotato · 11 months

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Hello guys.

So for Pride month this year I really don’t have the capacity to do what I did last year with a one-shot a day. Sorry. Still I wanted to do something. So I will be posting 5 one-shots for 5 different fandoms. Hope you enjoy. The first is of course Meddison 😉

PRIDE - Panicked

She was breathing. Wasn’t she? Her heart rate spiking and the tingly feeling at the tip of her fingers didn't mean anything. The jumbling prickling sensation running up and down her spine was nothing. She was ok. She was alright. But… maybe this thing she was feeling wasn’t entirely normal?

No. She was fine. She just needed to breathe and clear her head. She only had to calm down. It didn’t matter that he knew. Everything was fine. Everything was—

“Denying it won’t make it be less true, Red.”

“Go away, Mark.”

Just how the heck had he found out? This whole thing was platonic. It wasn’t as if she had let anything show. Had she? Not even she herself believed this was true. Oh the lengths she’d go in her denial.

“You are in love with a woman. And hey that’s ok. I’ve been in love with women before.”

They were in the middle of the hall, where just about anyone could hear. As soon as the words left him she covered his mouth and glanced around. The last thing she needed was one more rumor about her to become part of the general circulation of Seattle Grace. And they didn’t need much to go off of…

First people had found out she had cheated on McDreamy and that’s why he ran. The amount of dirty looks she had gotten for that one made her laugh some times. Then people heard about things not working out in bed. Honestly, how they had found out about that one was a mystery to her. News of their divorce wasn't really a secret. Still the whole hospital was buzzing with it before lunch. The last bit had been her little arrangement with Mark, which of course led to nothing between them. Not that she wanted it either way. But after so long being in the front page she wanted to be out. She really didn’t need anything else to be part of the gossip cesspit that was this damned hospital.

“Shut up.” She seethed and Mark only chuckled.

Uncovering his mouth he gave her one of his shit-eating grins. “Red, this is fine. Falling for a w-”

“I told you to shut up.”

“Are you really that ashamed to have joined us in the rainbow?”

“Us? And I’m not—”

“You’re acting like it. Do you think it dirty? Are you not proud of what you are?”

Proud? It had nothing to do with pride(ahem). And she really wasn’t ashamed. She had never had issues accepting people and their preferences. Hell, it wasn’t as if anyone would need to have her blessing to love who they loved.

No. No one had the right to judge people. Not even Satan herself. Not that she’d ever want to or feel the need to. People get to be happy with whomever makes them happy. They get to be happy in whichever way they choose and no one has the right to keep them from their happiness. That was what she believed at least.

Back to the present conversation though. Mark really didn’t know what he was talking about. He was wrong (he wasn’t though).

“Mark, I-I’m not…” not what? Yes, I am.

Mark only watched her as she struggled with her own acceptance, his grin still as irritating as ever. In reality, it wasn’t hard to accept her inclinations. See, she had already had an inkling as to where her preferences lie. What was hard to accept was the reason or rather the person who finally cemented the notion for her. It was so messy and complicated.

“Why her?” She whispered the question echoing in her head.

“I think your heart chose the best person.”

“I don’t even know if she’s-”

“Meredith Grey is as colorful as you and me, Addison.” He took a deep breath and continued to smile.

“Do you hear yourself, right now?”

“Oh come on, Addie. Gotta throw in the jokes wherever I can.”

An eye roll was her only response as she went back to panicking over the fact that she had utterly fallen for the blonde with baby blue eyes. That same blonde who had been her ex-husband's mistress. The blonde she had thought she’d grow to hate but didn’t. Why did she have to be her ‘gay awakening’? Truthfully her gay awakening was probably that girl from med school but still not even her slight panic then could compare to her panic now. This felt more real. It felt true. But…

What was she supposed to do with all of this? What could she even do? Denying this whole thing was becoming increasingly harder. Making it seem as if Meredith being close didn’t affect her was just not something she could do anymore. Not now. Not after she let herself sorta accept the issue. She was freaking out now and she didn’t even have the other woman in front of her.

“Speak of the devil and she will appear. There’s Grey.”

Addison spun around, only years of experience kept her standing after moving so quickly on her high heels. Her heart, that traitorous thing, beat furiously as she noticed said blonde at the end of the hall with her person, as she called Cristina.

Mark chuckled beside her, no doubt noticing the bigger shift in her state. “Now what?”

“What do you mean now what?”

Mark let out an exasperated sigh, “do I need to spell it out for you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Mark?” Her gaze was still on the blonde when Mark leaned in and whispered the craziest thing in her ear, sending her into a stuttering mess. “W-wh-what?”

“Go over there and ask her out on a date.”

“Are you out of your mind? You hit your head before you got here, didn’t you? You need a CT.”

“My head is perfectly fine. And you just need to go over there and ask her out.” Mark wrapped an arm around her shoulders while she looked at him as if he had grown three heads.

“You must be delirious. Why would I go ask her out?”

“Because you like her and you’re both single so why not?”

Pulling away from him and turning to face him she shook her head. “I can’t just go ask her out. Sh-she’s… Meredith Grey.” She whisper-shouted the name and Mark only chuckled.

“Addison, what do you do when you’re interested in someone?”

“Nothing. Because I’m not interested.”

“Again. Denying it won’t make it less true.” He raised a brow when she opened her mouth to argue but closed it again. “Listen, trying won’t cause any harm. Just get over there.”

“Mark, I’m her ex’s ex-wife.”

“What I heard in that statement is that, as I said before, you’re both single.”

“That has nothing to do with—”

“What’s got you so scared, Addie?”

“If she’s not… and then even if she is… what if… what if—”

“You’re acting like a scared little baby. You won’t know what’ll happen until you try.”

“Can you give me a break? I just figured out that I—”

Mark laughed and she went on to shush him. “You did not just find out. You already knew.”

“I… whatever. What about Derek?” She asked and noticed Mark stiffening slightly, which was pretty strange.

“What about Derek?”

“You know what. Why are you being so defensive all of the sudden? Anyway, I don’t even know if he’s over her.”

Mark glared, “he is.”

“How would you even know?”

“I just do.”

“Well, I don’t believe you.” She crossed her arms and watched him almost pout before letting out a sigh.

“I know because we’re as colorful as you.”

“We’re…”

Suddenly Mark’s defensiveness made sense as well as the slight blush creeping along his neck. She looked at him a moment and watched him shift uncomfortably, which made her grin. There had always been something about Mark and Derek. The way they acted after that little drunken adventure which had led the three to bed. Oh yes. She could definitely see the two of them together and happy.

“I’m happy for you two then.”

“Yeah?”

There was a vulnerability to his words that made her reach out and squeeze his arm. “Yeah. Definitely.”

He relaxed, “good.”

“Mhmm.”

“Ok well now, as I said, Derek won’t be an issue so…”

“Mark…”

“Addie, just go over there and ask her out. What have you got to lose?”

‘Everything’, she thought to herself and Mark seemed to read the thought on her face.

“Don’t be a chicken. Do it or you’ll regret it. Trust me.”

The ringing of Meredith’s laugh floated over to them drawing their attention. Ignoring the chicken bit Mark had said she focused on the rest. As she watched the giggling blonde she wondered what could happen should she listen to her friend.

Did she have it in her to get hurt again and survive? Wouldn’t it be better to stay safe and away? What would Meredith do if she told her? What would she do if she didn’t? Would she really regret not acting on this? There were so many questions that she couldn’t find an answer to. What if it didn’t work out? But then… what if it did? What if Meredith felt the same? Could the blonde feel that draw she felt? That never ending pull? Did she also freak out when she figured it out? Was she stumped just as she was in her panic?

Meredith’s laugh rang once more, shaking her out of her haze. As she looked at the happy blonde she wondered how it would feel to be the one to make her smile. The one to make her laugh.

She could picture late dinners, rushed lunches, small juju breaks, late night movies, small conversations, wordless conversations. It was the little things she’d like with her. Coming home after a long day to just sit and be with each other. The other things that came from a relationship would be most welcomed as well. She would never deny that but just the small things, the things you don’t think about. She wanted those with the blonde. How would she get any of it if she didn’t try? At least once.

“Fine.”

“Yeah?” Mark beamed and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yeah.”

“Ok. I’ll wait here. Then I’ll celebrate with you or go drown in beers with you.”

“I’d rather drown in wine.”

“Fine. Wine it is. But I don’t think we’ll need to drown.” Mark wiggled his brows and she shook her head.

They waited a few minutes for Cristina to finally leave Meredith on her own. Mark had been impatiently waiting, throwing glances towards the blonde. Addison had almost smacked him a few times for being so obvious. Once the brunette had gone leaving just Meredith at the nurse’s station he practically shoved her towards it.

Addison had half a mind of turning around and kicking him on the chins but resisted. She took a steady breath and made her way towards the blonde. Her usual strut was less impressive, less threatening. That confident gait of hers has been replaced by a nervous, almost hesitant, one.

Heart knocking violently against her rib cage she managed to get to Meredith, who was writing down notes on a chart. With absolutely no idea how she managed, she cleared her throat to call the blonde’s attention. Baby blue eyes met her jade and she almost turned around with her tail between her legs.

“Hey, Addison.” Meredith smiled softly and honestly why would she do that to her.

“H-hi.” ‘What the hell was that sound?’

“Umm hi.”

“Uh, busy?”

“Just charting.” Meredith watched her a while and the silence became awkward and almost unbearable. The blonde gave her an almost pained smile before she spoke again. “Well umm, yeah. I’ll see you later I guess?”

Addison resisted the urge to pinch or slap herself out of her haze. She needed to say something. She hadn’t come here to stand in front of Meredith doing nothing and looking like an idiot. She had come here to ask her out, like Mark had said. But her mouth wasn’t moving and the air was so thin. Still, though she had to say something, anything.

“A…” she began but stopped taking a quick breath before resuming. “Are you on a twelve?”

“I uh no. I’m not. Finishing a sixteen.”

“Oh, I see...” ‘Dammit, Addison. Talk!’ Another steady breath and she continued, “are you going to be busy after?”

Meredith frowned, curiosity evident in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“You’re probably going to Joe's, huh?” Addison forced a chuckle and all she could think about was the cheer amount of awkwardness and tenseness in the air.

“M-maybe? I don’t know. I think I’m the only one that gets out early today.”

“Ah…”

“Addison, are you ok?”

“Yep. Are you ok?”

“Yes. It’s just you seem umm…”

She needed to stop. She was making things worse. Meredith was looking at her as if she had gone crazy. Frankly she felt was going crazy. Who in their right mind would do this? This thing wasn’t real. She didn’t—

“Denying it doesn’t make it less true, Red.”

One big deep breath and she grounded herself. “Meredith… let’s go out.”

Meredith stared blankly at her, her lips parting as her mouth hung slightly open. Briefly the image of staring into a computer blue screening entered her mind and she fought to contain her laughter. Soon the blonde’s gaze softened and she bit her lip almost nervously.

“Go out? You and I?”

The questions floated softly towards her and Addison couldn’t tell what emotion was swimming in those baby blue eyes. All she could tell was that now, now she was really freaking out. Her palms were starting to sweat and she had the sudden impulse to jump in the balls of her feet while chewing her bottom lip. She resisted in both instances.

“W-well, yeah. I mean umm well you and I… you know… and I thought that Joe’s was a good place. Unless you’d rather… if you’d like… uh…”

For a moment Meredith’s gaze drifted away from her and focused on something or someone behind her. Where her gaze had been blank then surprised then a bit soft when it returned to her once more it was hard and closed off.

“Is this a joke?”

“Huh? W-what do you…” Addison turned and found who the blonde had been looking at.

Mark had stayed right where they had been still staring towards them with a grin. It seemed as if he were poking fun and he probably was. Though Addison suspected the blonde had the completely wrong idea of what Mark was making fun of.

Spinning back to the blonde she began to blabber on. “No. No. No. Meredith I would never… he’s just— it’s not what you think… why the hell does that sound worse? No wait. Listen, he’s only making sure—”

“Goodbye Doctor Montgomery.”

If she thought she was panicking before she was wrong. Seeing the flash of pain etching into Meredith’s features sent her reeling. Quickly she made her way around the nurse station and thoughtlessly grabbed her hand.

“No. Please, it's really not what you’re thinking.” Meredith’s eyes locked on where she held her hand and she quickly let go. “ sorry. I… This really isn’t a joke. I’m not trying to make a fool out of you or … or anything like that. He, Mark, is only there because he’s trying to make sure that I go through with it. Wait no… that sounds worse than before.”

“Doctor Montgomery, I really am busy.”

Meredith’s low tone made her ache. Why was this going so wrong? All she had to do was tell her she wanted to go out with her. Why had it become so much more complicated? Meredith really thought that she was playing her.

“Meredith, wait. Please let me explain. See what’s happening is that I well I just wanted to uh you know… God I’m acting worse than a child. I’m being ridiculous.” She groaned and covered her face before taking a steadying breath. “Ok, I wanted to ask you out. I… well… I really…”

Why couldn’t she finish the stupid sentence? It was simple. Just three words and done. One more deep breath and keeping her gaze on the floor she went on.

“I’ve never done this before. Y-you’re the first um woman that I ask o-out. I sorta uh l-like you…”

Once the words were finally out she felt a bit more relieved but as she dared a glance at the other woman’s face her rising panic overtook her. Meredith stared blankly at her with her bottom lip stuck between her teeth. She didn’t know what to make of the reaction. Was this good or bad?

Her panic only rose higher as the seconds ticked by with silence being the only response from the blonde. She felt a pang on her heart as she realized that maybe coming to tell her had been wrong. That now Meredith was quiet because she couldn’t think of what to say to get out of the conversation. Maybe Meredith was straight unlike Mark had suggested. Or maybe she wasn’t but she still felt this was wrong.

“I… I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” There was a deep void spreading through her heart but she continued to force the words out. “Don’t mind me or what I said. I’m sorry. Just forget it all, ok? I’ll s-see you around.”

She turned away from the blonde, ready to bolt, and feeling her heart breaking. She needed to get out of there. Mark was frowning at the other end of the hall, seemingly confused, and she turned away from him too. As she made to step away a slender hand wrapped around her wrist.

“Addison, wait!”

Turning to the blonde she saw panic in baby blue eyes. Panic she supposed she had put there when she told her she liked her. She really should go before she broke down in front of Meredith. There was only so many times her pride would allow her to make a fool out of herself.

Trying to pull her hand away she began to beg the blonde to let her go. “Please—”

“I get out in, in an hour and twenty.”

“What?”

Meredith bit her lip nervously, a slight blush dusting her cheeks. “I get out soon. So maybe we um we could go out?”

“Y-you want to?” Addison only blinked in disbelief.

“Yes. I also um well me too. Same like you.”

The blonde’s sentence was a complete mess but she understood. Suddenly, Addison could feel a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. A smile, which Meredith nervously mirrored. Soon butterflies sprung to life in her stomach. Her fingers tingled, but it wasn’t a bad tingle. It wasn’t the nervous and panicked one. It was the excited one, the expectant one.

“You want to go out?” She asked and Meredith nodded vigorously. “O-ok. In an hour twenty?”

“Y-yeah. We can um go to Joe’s. Though I’m a little hungry—but Joe’s is fine.”

“Well there’s this sushi place I want to try. We could uh maybe go there instead?”

“Sushi’s good.” Meredith beamed at her and before she knew it the blonde had left a peck on her cheek.

Her brain almost short-circuited at the action. She could feel heat rising on her cheeks and the top of her ears. Her breath hitched, and she felt herself shudder. She was definitely going through it, but one glance at Meredith told her that the blonde was going through it worse than she was.

The pinkish hue from before had intensified into an almost crimson. Her baby blue eyes were wide in shock. It appeared as though Meredith had acted on impulse, and now it was catching up to her. She rambled incoherently and Addison found it so very cute. The blonde waved her hands around, trying to explain, maybe? Addison wasn’t sure what Meredith was saying because she was on cloud nine at the moment.

“…uh s-so an-an hour and change?”

Addison shook herself out of her stupor and nodded with a grin. “Yes. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Ok.” Meredith grinned back nervously before turning around to leave.

Before she could talk herself out of her own impulse Addison gingerly grabbed the blonde’s wrist making her stop. Before Meredith could fully turn to look at her she was already placing a soft kiss on her cheek earning herself a surprised gasp.

“Thought I’d return the favor.” She whispered before pulling away. “I’ll see you soon.”

Meredith nodded wordlessly before scurrying away with her adorable flushing self. A chuckle escaped her at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

She had been needlessly drowning herself in panic and anxiety. She had been so scared without needing to be. It appeared as though Meredith was having the same issue she was. Oh but was she ever so glad she had done it. Glad she had listened to her friend, even though for a moment that same friend had almost cost her everything.

“So… you’re going out with Grey?”

She wasn’t surprised when Mark appeared beside her. “I am. I am also going to kill you.”

“What? Why?” He brought a hand to his chest in mocked offense.

“She thought I was playing her because you were so not subtly watching us.”

“I just had to make sure you did it. I’m taking my duty as a friend and wingman seriously.”

“Oh, be quiet. Anyway, I have to go. I need to leave my written orders for tonight.”

Mark wiggled his brows suggestively, “why the hurry, Red?”

Narrowing her gaze she sized him up before speaking, “because, Mark Sloan, I have a hot date to get ready for.”

“Wow, the panic went away. Good.”

“I wasn’t panicking.”

“Denying it doesn’t make it less true.”

“Bye, Sloan.” She rolled her eyes and began to make her way to the elevators.

“I’ll walk you. Need to give you pointers.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Mhmm. So listen, take her to a nice place then you start a simple conversation. Don’t do heavy things first. Just ease into it and—”

“I know how to go on dates, Mark.” She let out already exasperated.

“I know but still I’m nothing if not a good wingman.”

“Manwhore is more like it…” She muttered under her breath.

“That’s besides the point plus I’m taken now. “ He shrugged. “So as I was saying when you so rudely interrupted. Take her to a nice place and…

Hope y’all enjoyed this messy little thing 🤭 until the next one. Stay awesome 😎

#addison montgomery #meddison #meredith grey #meredith x addison #addison x meredith #greys anatomy

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runwithwolvcs · 2 years

Text

You Know I'm No Good - Twenty Seven

I Mean It, 100%

No warnings

“My dads a wolf, isn’t he?” she asked, leaning up against the counter where she had just finished washing dishes from the lunch they had cooked together. All the pieces were falling into place in her mind. The reason why her parents split up, how both her mom and dad know more than most about the tribe secrets, why her dad never came to see them in Seattle. It still didn’t excuse his absence from her life, or the way he was behaving now, but she understood a little bit better considering if she were to leave, Paul wouldn’t be able to follow.

Paul gave her a sympathetic look before nodding.

“And you weren’t allowed to tell me.” she continued.

“I wanted to, trust me. He didn’t even want me to tell you about the imprint, let alone that I was a wolf.” he admitted to her. He looked relieved, and she knew that because she had figured it out on her own Sam’s gag order didn’t exactly matter anymore.

“Why?”

“He never wanted you to get involved with this life.” he pointed out, clearly knowing something she didn’t

“He had to know there was a possibility that someone in the pack would've been imprinted.” she stated, now knowing only a few other members had imprinted.

“I’m sure he did.” he said, pausing slightly before adding, “He just didn’t think it would be me.”

“What do you mean?” Now she was confused.

“I have this anger thing,” he admitted quietly, his head not looking up from the table

“You’re never angry.” she said, confused. While they had, had their moments, the only time he had gotten really angry at her was the day at the beach when he found out she was having sex with Chase. She remembered his entire body shaking but not once did she think he was going to hurt her.

“Not with you. Never with you. But when you’re not around, or when we argue, I sometimes lose it. Phase accidentally, that sort of thing.” he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face, “It's gotten a lot better since I imprinted on you, but I don’t think he sees that. He may not show it well, but he's protective of you.”

“That’s kinda hot.”She stated, imagining him angry enough to phase accidentally.

“It's serious, Lu.” he chastised her.

“I know, can I offer a suggestion?” she asked him, using a rag to dry off a pan.

“Mhmm.” he said looking back at his work on the table.

“Maybe next time you get the angry when im not around, just think about how you cant fuck me silly if you phase, but you can if you just call me.” she said lightheartedly, though deep down she wouldn’t mind.

“Fuck, I love you.”

Tallulah paused, putting the plate she was drying back onto the counter. Tension quickly filled up the room as the both came to terms with what Paul had said. No boy had ever told her they loved her before. Especially a boy who technically was not her boyfriend. They were still feeling eachother out, and though they haven't known each other that long, the imprint was definitely fast tracking their feelings for eachother, or at least it felt like it was for her. It was scary and wonderful at the same time.

“Tallulah..” he started before she held up her hand to stop him,

“Don’t,” she said looking over her shoulder at him, though he had already shifted his entire body in her direction, “I’m not going to say it back. I want to mean it 100% when I do, not a heat of the moment type of thing. And not because you said it.”

He nodded his head in understanding, “Just so you know. I meant it 100%.”

“I know.” she gave him a genuine smile before turning back to continue drying the dishes in front of her. “I need Embry's number by the way.”

“No.” Paul scoffed.

“What? Why?” she asked, picking up a plate and wiping it dry.

“Whatever you need Embry for, I can help with.” he said adamantly.

Tallulah rolled her eyes, “Not this thing. It's for your birthday.”

“How do you know when my birthday is?” he questioned with suspicion in his tone.

“A little birdie told me.” she teased. Emily had mentioned it to her after class one day and she made sure to write it down. Tallulah loved celebrating other peoples birthdays. It was the few times a year she could paint for the sole reason of making someone else happy, instead of a painting that would be graded. She couldn’t remember a time she physically bought someone a present, homemade gifts just seemed more personal.

“I don’t know when your birthday is.” he stated, the realisation of not knowing everything about her dawning on him.

“January 23rd.” she said nonchalantly. It had passed already and she was grateful she got to spend it in Seattle, but she was excited to see how her 19th birthday would play out with the new relationships she had created in La Push.

“Noted.” Paul said she could tell he was smiling even with her back to him.

“Can I have his number now?” Tallulah asked.

“No. You can have Jareds.” He denied yet again, causing her to groan in frustration.

“But I don’t know Jared as well as Embry.” she argued back, which was true. Embry was the first pack member she had met and felt more comfortable with him than any other wolf. They were similar in a way. Both quiet in nature, yet willing to confront people when needed.

“And how well do you know Embry?” He asked. The question caused her to turn towards him. She knew he couldn’t help, his inner wolf was the issue here but it still annoyed her.

Tallulah groaned, “you’re so annoying when you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.” he grumbled and she placed the towel on the counter and walked the few steps it took to get to his seat at the table.

“So give me his number then.” She challenged him.

“Fine” he said, scribbling out the ten digits on a sticky note from the pad he had laying on the table.

“Thank you, duckie.” she grinned, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

---

Tallulah had messaged Embry the next day, asking him to meet her at the trailhead by her fathers house. He agreed without any hesitation, probably knowing she was going to do this with or without him, and that Paul would rip him a new one if he found out he let her go alone.

“I just need a couple reference photos.” she said, answering his question of why they were hiking up this specific trail. Embry had brought up when he arrived that Paul knew this trail just as well as he did, and she had to explain that he doesn’t know where she is at the moment. Leading into her explaining the birthday gift she was planning on giving him.

“And then you're going to paint them from that?” he asked for clarification.

“Yeah, it's just easier than lugging everything up here.” she explained.

“Makes sense. He doesn’t know at all?” the slight hint of concern in his voice made Tallulah laugh

“No, that's why you're here. And don't tell him,” she said sternly. The last thing she wanted was for his wolf to ruin the surprise.

He laughed, “I won't.”

“I gotta say, Tallulah, I don’t think Rachel would’ve in a million years done anything like this for him.” Embry said as he walked behind her, passing the half work mark of the trail up to the clearing.

“What do you mean?”

“She was all about the material things, you know, like flashy.” she looked back at him as he emphasised the word flashy, with a raised eyebrow. Paul was not flashy. He was bonfires and cookouts with friends and family, or laying in bed with his head on her chest listening to her heart beat until the morning sun forced them out of bed. Not once had he given her the impression he valued material things.

“Well, I don't have any money, this is the best that I’ve got.” she said, before adding, “Besides, he doesn’t have anything on his walls. It’s so boring.”

“Again, Rachels doing.” He said, helping the younger girl over a fallen tree, “That's why we all like you with him better.”

“You do?” she asked, and although she would never say it out loud, she appreciated what he was saying to her. Their age difference and lack of life experience on her end was an insecurity she would never vocalise. She felt like they were such different people who just happened to mesh well together, but when alone, no one would ever suspect they would be together long. Not that they really had a choice.

“Yeah, I mean, when he was with Rachel. He did what she wanted because it was just easier for him to do what she said, even if it made him miserable. You’ve never asked him to do something you knew wouldn’t make him happy, right?”

Tallulah shrugged, “I asked for your phone number. He wasn’t impressed by that.”

“Your intentions were good though.” he countered.

“I guess so..” she said, though she knew she would be upset if he had asked one of her friends for their numbers ominously and refused to explain why.

Entering into the clearing, she walked straight to the picnic table that was in the same spot they had left it in. she knew exactly the picture she wanted to paint, she just had to get the right angle and lighting

They sat in silence as Tallulah took the pictures she needed,some in different angles or with different exposure until she had what she was looking for. Even standing on top of the picnic table her and Paul had shared their first kiss, to capture the right landscape.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Embry?” she asked, changing the topic from the previous one. Looking at the photos she had taken absentmindedly. From what she knew, he didn’t have an imprint of his own.

“No. It’s too complicated.” he said, resting his elbow on the picnic table to lean his head on his hand.

“What do you mean?” she questioned, the wolf thing could be complicated but not if it was someone within the tribe who knew the stories.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, you know? Like one minute you're in love with someone, knowing they're not your imprint, and next you see her and your entire view changes to just see that one person. I don’t think I could do that to someone.” Embry explained.

“That seems quite lonely.” Talllah muttered quietly, she wondered if Paul felt any remorse the day he had imprinted on her. Having been with Rachel for so long, even if they were on and off, they probably had made many future plans that would never pan out due to her arrival in La Push.

“Sometimes, but at least I'm not hurting anyone.” he said, the slightest bit of optimism in his voice.

Taglist: @cperry0516 , @bhasbhabiessss, @fuzzyfingersandcavier @haventdecidedyet @alwayshave-faith @emmettcullenswife @kingniazx @sorrow-and-bliss@swidkid

#you know im no good #paul lahote imagine #paul lahote x oc #paul lahote #paul lahote fanfic #twilight wolf pack #twilight wolves

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transmissionsfromthebattlefield · 2 years

Text

Kent Let It Go

In the past week, I became the subject of numerous jokes about how I was going to need four blog entries for that past weekend alone—it later multiplied to six—because of all the events that got jam-packed into three and a half weary, weary days. Three days that contained my personal favorite nerd gathering, the DEVOtional, and would go on to comprise possibly the most roller coaster-like weekend of my life thus far.

Welp, after over a week, here it comes.

The aforementioned weekend really kicked off on Thursday (though I had a class the next morning). The members of DEVOtional veteran act Fight Milk, having come in early for rehearsals, found time in their schedule to come down to good ol’ Kent State so I could show them around.

I’ve been seeing Fight Milk at DEVOtional since 2019, and it’s been wild seeing them morph and mutate into what they are now. Not only do they always bring the most extreme amounts of fun, they also really get what DEVO is all about in a way. They are dedicated, and they respect what those old fogies were doing while still maintaining a Gen Z flair. Add that all three of their performers this year were coming from such long distances—lone constant Jackson from Seattle, Tavi from Finland, and Max from San Diego—and it only felt fitting that they should get to see where DEVO all began.

The first up important locale was Governance Chambers, the site of both the “Jocko Homo” music video and DEVO’s second ever show, in the Student Center. Luckily, one of its sets of doors was unlocked and no one was in there, so we slipped in without even a whimper from anyone actually working in the building. URBAN EXPLORATION! It was a great joy seeing the guys be such nerds in there, ESPECIALLY Max, the guy who, you know, covered the entirety of that second show.

They also did some obligatory Mark Mothersbaugh poses:

Before heading into town, I got to show them the site of the shootings on May 4, 1970, which DEVO’s bassist witnessed and credits with being the catalyst of the band. You would figure that the place where DEVO was born, and a place so historical at that, would be at least somewhat noteworthy for people to visit when they’re coming up for the DEVOtional every year. At least we got to do our part.

It was a solemn experience walking down to the victory bell on the commons and looking down on the Taylor Hall parking lot from the perspective of the National Guardsmen who killed four and wounded nine that day. But it was a worthwhile and important one, and all three also enjoyed the visitors center inside Taylor Hall as well, with all its artifacts providing context.

(Here they were looking for coin offerings that matched up with 1970 at I believe Allison’s parking space:)

We also stalked through McGilvrey Hall, which has some May 4 related displays on its first floor and is generally an incredible time capsule of the mid century in terms of its hallways. We peeked into the auditorium in Cartwright Hall, where DEVO have performed—there was a recital going on!—as well.

After some aimless wandering, we headed down the esplanade into town, got handed some Get Out Of Hell Free cards by some old dude, and made our way towards Water Street, which contains a row of buildings that can be seen in the video for “Secret Agent Man.” More nerd behavior ensued.

When that was all said and done, our next goal was sustenance. Taco Tontos was on the menu. On our way down, we ended up running into a poster for DEVOtional, the whole reason these three nerds were here in the first place. We still don’t know the culprit.

We would then discuss all the secrets of the group’s set list while Tavi ate the best burrito he’d had in his life. Actually, we all ended up getting burritos. What weirdos. How deviant from the norm. Another important lesson realized by these friends: Taco Tontos never disappoints.

We made our way back to the campus one last time so the guys could get an Uber and rest up for Friday’s activities.

It was an absolute blast showing the guys around, and it felt like a natural way to kick off the weekend. For me, it was definitely more than satisfying getting to see Kent State finally get some acknowledgment—especially from some talented nerds who have been finding themselves on the forefront of...whatever this modern battleground is. After all, you can’t go forward without knowing your history.

Or an empty stomach.

#blog #blogging #blogosphere #blogger #Kent State #Kent State University #Kent Ohio #Fight Milk #Fight Milk band #Zhir Vengersky #DEVO #DEVOtional #DEVOtional 2022 #May 4 1970 #history lessons #nerds #my boyfriend

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mercy-burning · 3 years

Text

My Forever — Part 1

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Y/N runs into Spencer for the first time in seven years, and a whole new chapter of their story begins. Category: SMUT (18+) Content: Strong language, drinking, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, daddy kink, thigh riding (If I’ve missed anything, let me know!) Word Count: 3.3k

MAIN MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST

NOTE: Welcome to the new chapter of the You Favorite universe!! I’m so excited to share it with you!! I do recommend you read the first three parts, which you can find in the series masterlist (I combined both that series and this one there), before you read this! Thank you for being so patient and so excited for this journey! I hope you like it ❤

———

You'll never believe who I ran into tonight...

Normally when I come home for a week, I don't make it a habit to go out. But since I was here here for Grandmother's funeral this weekend, I felt like I needed at least one drink. Though, truth be told, I'm not sure that's the real reason I showed up here at all.

I was on my way to Mom's place, and I passed a bar with bright lights and a busy parking lot. Not typically my scene nowadays, but as I approached, this strange tingle ran up my spine, and before I knew it my hands were turning the wheel and I was pulling in, trying to find a parking space.

The feeling didn't go away, not even as I ordered a sangria and convinced myself that the alcohol would do the trick. In fact, it seemed to grow stronger—which, looking back, was pretty damn obvious—and I was about ready after my second drink to go back while I still felt safe enough to drive, and shake off the feeling entirely.

And then I turned and saw him.

It wasn't a shock. I'd seen him a lot, actually, over the seven years we've been apart, in just about every person who had a similar stature and style. So I expected to blink and see that it was only a stranger who looked like Spencer Reid and wasn't actually staring back at me with a fire I hadn't felt in ages.

But I blinked. And it was still him.

I blinked again.

Still him.

Time stood completely still for a few moments, and when he took a step forward and my name formed on his lips, I knew I wasn't hallucinating.

"Y/N..."

We were right in front of each other, toe-to-toe in less than five seconds, and the closer I was to him the more intense that tingling in my spine got. It spread through all my limbs the longer I saw him smile, and when his hand reached out to lightly touch my own, I swore I even felt it in my fingernails.

"Spencer," I greeted, returning his smile and trying not to fall apart at the way his eyes softened when I said his name.

We sat and drank, another sangria for me and a Long Island iced tea for him, and in no time we found ourselves talking like old friends. I sipped gently on my sangria, still unwilling to drive home completely under the influence, though it seemed it wasn't the fruity alcohol I had to look out for.

"So, what are you up to these days?"

"I live in Seattle," I tell him with a smile. "Writing articles for this media magazine about music and tv and stuff. It's lots of fun, I've even been invited to a couple movie premiers..."

"And you're happy?"

The question makes me feel all fluttery inside, and his beautiful face isn't helping. "Yeah. Yeah, it's a really good space for me."

"I'm glad. And uh... Your mom, is she... How's she doing?"

I can tell he's a bit embarrassed about the question, like I'm going to be pissed for even bringing it up, but after everything that happened, I'd hope he knew that I was never angry at him for leaving the way he did. If anything, it was probably the easiest, most painless outcome for all of us.

"She's great. I mean, Grandma died back in December, and we were waiting to do the funeral this week, so right now she's kinda going through it, but... Yeah. We're both really good. She's even married."

"Really?" He was bout to apologize for Grandma, but at the mention of Mom's marriage, he perks up.

"Yeah, four years now. His name's Adam, he's a dentist.... Super nice. They're really great together."

When he laughs, I laugh right with him. "Yeah I know, Adam and Eve..."

"That's not why I'm laughing," Spencer says, but he can't meet my eyes.

"Why, then?"

"Nothing, I'm just... surprised you haven't tried to steal him from her."

Obviously it's a joke, meant to be lighthearted, though the look he's giving me mixed with the sangria singing through my bloodstream makes me warm all over. There's a sparkle in his eye that serves to taunt me, and I want to taunt it right back with something of my own.

So I return the favor with a sultry smile and lean forward, dipping my eyes down to look at him—No, that's not right... I'm practically eye-fucking him, remembering his hands on me and his tongue drawing patterns on my skin... I'm enticing him the way he's enticed me for years, every waking second of my existence itching to dial his number and hear his voice like it hasn't inhabited my brain since I met him.

When my eyes finally lock onto his again, I purr, "The only one I ever wanted to steal was you, Doctor..."

"Looks like you got what you wanted," he says flatly, his eyes doing all the talking.

"Well then, now that I have you... What ever shall I do with you..."

"Can I offer a suggestion?"

"You have the floor."

With every sentence we pass back and forth, our bodies draw to each other like moths to a flame. We're utterly mesmerized by each other, and I'm waiting for the moment where I'll inevitably get burned...

"Let me take you home with me."

What happens next is a rollercoaster that's miles long, spanning nearly a week with butterfly-inducing highs and panic-inducing lows.

Our first high approaches when I let him do precisely what he asked, the two of us taking my car to his apartment and navigating familiar waters. Really, it's like no time has passed. It certainly makes it an easier trip to the bedroom when I already know where it is, and without the awkward pleasantries tagging along for the ride, our time together is better spent enjoying the moment.

I don't even kiss him until we've made it to the bed. We've taken our shoes off at the door, and all that's left now is the rest.

For a moment, Spencer and I just stare at each other. We're here, there's obvious attraction and sparks flying between us that are pretty damn hard to ignore. But I think for a split second we hesitate, wondering if maybe we should ignore it. After all that's happened, it's more than fair.

But again, it's a split second.

And we've never really been good at doing what's fair.

So we collide for the first time in seven years, mouths and limbs and hearts connecting like puzzle pieces, and I feel like this massive weight has been lifted off my chest. This buzzing, low hum that's settled in my heart due to his absence flares to life and sets my body on fire, and I feel more alive than ever before.

And then he slips his fingers through my belt loops and pulls my hips to his, groaning softly into my mouth, and I'm a fucking goner.

My hands grab at whatever hair I can find, which isn't a hard task. His brown locks are just as luscious and tug-able as ever, and with the more dominant approach to sex that I've grown over the past few years, it comes naturally for me to be a little more urgent than he's used to from our sexual encounters. So, my fingers tug hard, and he actually whines into my mouth.

"Someone's happy to see me," he teases, recovering quickly and pulling away briefly to tilt his head and kiss me deeper.

I can't help but whine right back, our roles easily reversed. Had it been anyone else, I probably would have been annoyed at the switch, but it's just so easy to fall back into this familiar rhythm.

It's as comforting as it is sensual, his hands reaching up to grab the sides of my face and hold me there as he takes what he wants. My mouth opens effortlessly for him, welcoming every sweet slip of his tongue, and feeling each low groan as shared relief that whatever magic we once had hasn't been lost after seven years.

My body sinks into his with every passing second, and it feels like I'm weightless. The sweet buzz of the sangria combining with the even sweeter strokes of Spencer's tongue make me dizzy, and before I know it, we're tumbling onto the bed.

The clothes take no time at all to remove. Our movements from then on are practiced and seasoned to perfection. Every inch of my body burns hot at his every touch, every thrust, every kiss... And even still, I want more.

With Spencer, I've always craved more.

Where before, we would have had to keep our desires private and contained, stored away to never be opened and discovered... Now we have no strings. There's no guilt or danger headed our way, nothing holding us back from giving in...

So I offer him more.

"I missed you, princess," he whispers as he holds himself deep inside me. His fingers brush the matted hair from my face, revealing more of the saccharine smile I'm wearing and eyes that swim with mischief.

"I missed you too," I whine, reaching out and grabbing handfuls of his ass, shoving him even farther inside of me and wrapping my legs around him tighter. "...Daddy..."

Spencer loses all semblance of cool, pulling back and slamming back into me with full force. I cry out with a playful laugh as he repeats the movement over and over again. Meanwhile, his hand sneaks over to my chin and slips a thumb into my mouth. I take it with great pleasure, of course, and the way he looks into my eyes right then sends a new wave of tingles through my system.

"Oh, is that how you wanna play it, baby?" he coos, fucking me through the start of what I assume will be the best orgasm I've had in seven years...

A whimper-y "Uh-huh" squeaks from my throat while I continue sucking his finger.

My eyesight is starting to go blurry now, as I try to keep my eyes open the best I can. But it's hopeless. As much as I'd love nothing more than to see his face as I come undone at his mercy, all my ability has abandoned ship, leaving me to let go fully and without restraint.

Truthfully, I think he prefers that, too. I can feel it in the way his body tenses against mine. Over the sounds of my own whines and incoherent curses, I can hear that Spencer's lowly groaning out, "Yeah... Yeah..." over and over again... All of it together—the sound of our voices, of our bodies, and of the gentle squealing of the springs underneath us—makes it sound like some cheap porno.

The irony isn't lost on me as I finally come, remembering our time at the beach house all those summers ago, when we last-minute decided to make a little "movie" to commemorate the trip. (Like I really needed a physical reminder, when even years later I swore I could still smell the salt air and feel the sun beaming onto my skin through the bay windows, only second to the crushing guilt of our betrayal weighing on my chest...)

We watched it together once after we got back from the trip, and he insisted I keep it and that he could remember it whenever he wanted to. I wonder if he's ever done it in recent years...

Long after we settle down and clean up, Spencer and I lay in bed and make out some more. Many times I pull away, telling him I need to leave, but then he whines and kisses me again, and I'm pulled back in for at least another five minutes.

Right now I'm close to coming again, rocking myself over his thigh while he starts to suck on my tongue. It's the breaking point for me, and naturally this excites him. He lets go of my tongue with a smile in favor of grabbing my face and kissing me so deeply that my head starts to spin. The orgasm fizzles out of my body, and butterflies take its place when he breaks away, only to come back with a soft, featherlight kiss to my nose.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?"

Of course I'm not sure. Hell, I'm pretty positive that I want to stay forever.

But I would have a really hard time attempting to tell Mom where I've been, when she'd inevitably ask for oddly specific details about who I'd been with... With my luck she'd figure it out. Though, I think back to how she clearly had no idea about him and I back then, and for a moment I seriously consider his offer to stay...

But in the end I realize it wouldn't be for the best. It's better to quit now and turn him away while things aren't awkward.

"I'm sure..." I gather a few of my things and turn back to him just before heading to the bedroom door. "But, uh... Maybe if we both have some free time before I head back to Seattle..."

He laughs at my suggestive trailing off, tilting his head to look at me in a new light as he stretches his arms out. It's one of those times where I wish I could forget everything else and just give into him, to stare at him and stay in his arms and kiss him and hear him sigh out my name...

I shake my head and turn to leave before his presence on its own can convince me to go through with it.

"I'll call you some time," he calls out.

"You better," I throw over my shoulder, winking at him before leaving the bedroom and already feeling my heartbeat start to fade with every step.

But as I talk to mom about a half hour later, it picks up again. I debate whether or not I should even bring him up, but he's all over me, he's in my soul again, I'm thinking about the night we've just shared, and before I can even think against it, I'm telling her, "You'll never believe who I ran into tonight..."

"Oh, was it Andrew? I liked him..."

Something else that reminds me of that weekend we made our little movie... It was also a double-date weekend with the four of us when Mom and Spencer were still together that summer, and Andrew's only purpose was to make Spencer jealous... He didn't know about it of course, and I still kinda feel bad for leading him on the way I did...

"Uh, no, he's in New York now, I think. No, I ran into Doctor Reid...."

"Ah," Mom concedes with a small laugh... "That's a name I haven't heard in years... What was he doing in a bar downtown?"

"No clue, but he seems to be doing well. We talked for hours."

"It... It wasn't awkward for you at all? I know that whole breakup was kinda rough on the both of us..."

"No, it was... surprisingly not awkward." I'm just glad she isn't freaking out that I mentioned him at all, let alone talked to him.

"What'd you guys talk about?"

"Just catching up. He wanted me to tell you hi, by the way. Thinks it's funny that you're married to a guy named Adam."

Speaking of, she and Adam both laugh at the joke, and I'm surprised that he isn't asking more questions about this mysterious Doctor Reid... I guess it's a good thing, though, so I don't dwell on it too much.

"You know what, we should ask him over for dinner," Adam says then, and I try not to choke on air.

"What?"

Surprisingly, Mom turns to her husband and nods. "Hey, that's not a bad idea..." Then she turns to me. "Y/N, why don't you invite him?"

"Why? Won't that be weird?"

"I don't think so... Adam already knows about our breakup anyway so that wouldn't be so bad. And he was always so nice, wasn't he? He may have fallen out of love with me, but at least he was nice about it. Plus, you two always seemed to get along! Maybe we could all be friends."

My mother has to be out of her mind drunk... She was devastated after that breakup, she can't honestly believe she could be friends with him after all this time, could she? And Adam being on board, too?

I love being an optimist, but this much optimism is too much to bear.

But by this point, Mom is exhausted from planning this funeral service for Grandma, and even though she's had about a year to grieve, having to deal with all of this has been emotionally draining, and I could see it in her weary smile. And this is the first genuine one I've seen on her in so long. She's so excited about the idea of inviting Spencer over for dinner that it would hurt to deny her, even at the expense of my sanity.

So, I head up to bed, but not before agreeing to call him up and invite him over for tomorrow.

I know that he'll be awake still, so once I'm showered, changed, and settling into bed, I give him a ring.

Unsurprisingly, he picks up on the second ring. "You miss me already, princess?"

As much as I'd love to indulge him in some over-the-phone excitement, I want to get this over with. "Actually, I gotta ask you something..."

"Anything."

The way he's willing to listen, to offer anything to me before I even say too much, warms my insides, but I try to stay on topic anyway. "So, I told Mom that I ran into you tonight... And now she has this crazy idea in her head that all of us can be friends now, and she and Adam want to invite you to dinner tomorrow."

All he has to say is, Absolutely not, and I can live peacefully. But instead he laughs, and then chirps, "Yeah, why not? She still living in the same place?"

"Spencer!" I whisper-yell. "You're not seriously considering taking her up on this, are you?"

"Oh, come on, Y/N, what's the harm? If your mom wants to be friends, and that means I can spend more time with you, then I really don't see a problem."

"You don't really see a problem? Are you out of your mind!"

He sighs. "Fine... If you're really that weirded out by it, then you can tell your mom I'm busy and can't make it... It would have been nice to see you again, though..."

"You can still see me again, just... I mean, don't you think it's weird? Seeing each other again like this while you're trying to be friends with my mom?"

"Truthfully, no. But it will make sneaking around much easier."

"I mean it, Spencer... Tell me this is going to be easier... That we can pull this off, and it won't be weird..." He sighs again, and I hear the sincerity in his voice when he tells me, "I really do think this will be okay. But if it's not, then we don't have to go through with it anymore, and we'll figure the rest out from there. Does that sound good to you?"

"I... I guess so... We'll see how dinner goes."

"Great. Maybe after, if you're not busy, I can take you out somewhere?"

Despite the nerves coursing through my system just seconds ago, I find myself smiling like a lovesick fool at his words. "Yeah. Sounds like fun."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Yeah... Goodnight."

"Goodnight, princess."

———

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superhero--imagines · 3 years

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* “Everyone in school thought you were dead.”

* Jessica says bluntly as you walk down the pink streamer filled hallway

* you offer her a fake yawn and a smile.

* “My dad came by for a surprise visit.” She looks confused before her expression smooths

* “Oh your real dad, not Carlisle”

* Carlisle contacted his counterpart, Eleazer to tell him you were running away with a man 300 years your senior

* So of course Eleazer came running -after he probably had a spat with Carmen about who would handle this situation better- to Forks on the first flight he found

* Only to burst through the door to see you and Emmett playing kingdom hearts in the living room

* “Oh, I see the rumors have been vastly exaggerated.”

* Cue -figuratively- sweating Carlisle who takes a sip from his mug

* Since he was already here you figured you would take a few days off from school and show him around

* “Is there anything in particular you might want to see?”

* Edward and Carlisle are looking pretty smug thinking that they’ve already shown you everything of note in the area.

* “I’ve always wanted to see the space needle in Seattle.”

* They both falter when they hear that. All the things they’ve shown you are things humans wouldn’t be able to see, hidden meadows, waterfalls, underwater caverns

* They never thought to show you human landmarks. Eleazer nods a growing smile on his face

* “Seattle has a lot of museums that I’ve wanted to visit as well”

* Carlisle let’s out a sigh of relief, none of his kids would be caught dead at a museum outside of a field trip

* To their dismay and Eleazer’s delight your eyes sparkle

* “Can we go to the pop culture museum and the arboretum too?”

* You don’t even pack, Eleazer tells you you can just buy whatever you need when you get there. You do take a duffel bag full of blood bags though

* And then you’re gone, you leave care instructions for your animals with Edward and you and Eleazer drive off towards Seattle in the rented Mercedes he got at the airport

* “Is it just me... or do they look happier with Eleazer than they are with us.” Edward’s only talking to himself, but Carlisle hears and the oncoming doting parent verbal and mental sputter makes him regret saying anything at all

* “it’s okay Carlisle, I’m sure they’re happy here with us too.”

* You guys stay at a pretty upscale hotel downtown, in the penthouse

* “Are you here on a trip with your boyfriend?” The receptionist asks, and Eleazar straight up starts laughing

* “This is my dad.” You say with a straight face and you can tell the receptionist wants to die

* “I-I’m so sorry, we usually get couples this time of year.” Right, it’s almost Valentine’s Day. Makes sense.

* Still there’s something super gross about people thinking you’re romantically linked to Eleazer

* The penthouse is very nice. There’s an infinity pool on your balcony, and three different bedrooms.

* The trip is really fun, you have a -pretend- meal at the revolving restraint at the needle, and spend the rest of the week museum hopping

* “She feels so familiar....” you mumble to yourself as you gaze at a portrait of a woman with long dark hair

* “That’s Carmen” Eleazer tells you

* “What?!?”

* “She was popular with artists even before she turned, it’s always been a hobby of hers to model” You’re just glad it’s not a nude portrait

* You take super cheesy pictures at the natural history museum, and even better pics at the pop culture museum

* On one of your last nights in the city Eleazer took you to a laundromat

* “I know we’ve been running out of clothes, but I’m sure the hotel has a laundry service”

* Eleazer just grins, talking to the attendant, who takes him to a hidden door.

* Well this isn’t sketchy at all

* Eleazer takes your hand in his as he leads you down a long narrow hallway. When you teach the end there’s a pretty nice bar and what appears to be a jazz club

* “It’s a speakeasy, I thought it might be a little fun for our last day”

* Being beautiful has its perks because the waiter doesn’t even card you, just brings you your dink

* “So...Garrett huh?” You groan, and Eleazer smiles

* You knew this was coming

* “Don’t worry, I’m not like Carlisle, if you like someone I like them too.”

* Well at least he isn’t acting like a total freak about the whole thing

* “I am surprised someone like Garrett is more your flavor though” you raise an eyebrow.

* “In comparison to who?” Eleazer gives you a funny look

* “Edward of course”

* You almost spit out your drink

* “Oh, is this one of those situations where the three of you are a couple together?”

* You start coughing and the waiter brings you a glass of water

* “We’re not together!”

* “Well of course you and Garrett aren’t together yet-“

* “Edward and I aren’t dating.”

* Eleazer just looks at you like you told him you’re pregnant

* “That can’t be right” he mumbles and you sigh

* “Why would you think we were dating?” The jazz singer belts out a high note and Eleazer patiently waits for her to be done so he can talk again

* “Well you went with them to Forks, and when you came to visit last year with him we all just figured it had happened naturally”

* Besides, Eleazer see’s the way he looks at you.

* Like you’re the epitome of your gender, like there’s never been anyone like you and there never will be again

* “We all? The entire coven thinks that?” Your fingers thread through your hair.

* What does Tanya think about that? She must be feeling pretty smug what with that talk she gave you all those years ago about how you would eventually date Edward

* Edward probably knows and just doesn’t even care, the criminal probably thinks it’s funny

* Eleazar watches you have a breakdown, taking a small sip of his brandy. It looks like you haven’t realized the way you look at Edward yet

* You look at him like you don’t have a single doubt. You trust him unconditionally, you know exactly who he is and where he will be.

* You look at him like he’s home

* “This is so embarrassing” you mumble and Eleazer smiles

* He guesses it’s not time yet for you to realize your feelings. Maybe it’s for the best, he’s not as bad as Carlisle, but the thought of giving you away at your wedding makes his heart ache.

* “The best cure for embarrassment is alcohol, drink up.” He grins when you clink your glass against his before gulping down the contents of your drink.

* Who knows, maybe in a few years someone completely different will show up and sweep you off your feet.

* You do talk about something really important with Eleazer though

* “Eleazer when do you think Aro will send for me?”

* Eleazer stops mid motion, his glass halted halfway between the table and his mouth

* “If I’m being honest, I don’t think he will for many years” Eleazer has an awkward expression on his face. “I think he’s afraid of you”

* You sputter

* The great and powerful Aro?! Alive for 1000’s of years. AFRAID OF YOU?!?

* “Oh don’t look at me like that, try and think about it from his perspective.”

* Your power is on par with Janes, but unlike her over the decade you’ve been a vampire your power has only gotten stronger. Your body’s natural despair and your desire to be human feed off of each other, compounding on each other to make your power that much more potent

* The only difference is that now you’ve learned to hide it, keeping your emotions in check so others aren’t hurt

* There isn’t a person alive that stands a chance against you at your full potential. You’re the strongest known vampire

* “Chelsea can’t bind you to coven with her loyalty like she does the others,” Eleazer takes a sip of his drink. “his only choice is to let you come back on your own volition, otherwise he risks a war.”

* A war he wouldn’t win, on your own it was dicey, all of them against just you could go either way

* But you weren’t alone anymore, now you have Tanya, Kate, Irina, Carmen, Eleazer

* And Edward. You know without a second thought Edward would follow you into hell if you asked.

* “Saving any discovery of remarkable talent”

* A discovery like Bella

* You’re not 100% certain, but you’re pretty sure your powers don’t work on Bella, the same way Edward, Jane and Alec’s powers won’t work on her

* And if she can really spread her shield to others-

* You’re f*cked

* “but the chances of that are slim to none.” Eleazer reassures you

* You give him a reassuring smile

* “Salud” you raise you glass and he smiles

* “Salud” he grins as your glass clinks

* You weren’t expecting the week to go by so fast, or to be having as much fun as you did.

* You were pretty sad when the end of the week rolled around and Eleazer dropped you off home

* “He’ll be back before you know it” Edward says, his arm over your shoulders, giving your arm a comforting squeeze

* “Yeah I know, it still feels bad though”

* Edward doesn’t say anything, he just holds you a little closer

* You’re thankful to the Cullen’s for taking you in and giving you an opportunity you might not have had otherwise

* But they’re not your coven, they’re not really your family

* And so now you’re here, walking in a bright pink and red construction paper covered hallway next to Jessica who’s talking about Valentine’s Day

* Ah right, today’s Valentine’s Day

* “Do you think maybe...Mike bought me a carnation?” She asks twirling a strand of hair around her finger

* “I’m sure he did”

* You’re actually sure he bought one for Bella, but you’re hoping the courtesy extends to the whole friend group

* You bought all your friends valentines, and that includes the Cullen’s and everyone on the cheer team

* The money wasn’t the worst part, they were only a dollar each, the worst part was having to write notes for all of them, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the girl at the table wasn’t giving you a dirty look as you pretended to struggle through writing 30 cards

* “How much do you want to bet Bella gets the most flowers out of all of us?”

* You would bet the entire contents of your bank account, but you’re pretty sure Jess can’t match your bet

* “Well, she’s something new to look at, and boys are dumb”

* Jessica blows a strand of hair out of her face. You know she’s probably a bit bitter since she’s started to notice Mike is interested in Bella and not her

* But you kind of get it

* Bella’s cute, but she’s no Cindy Crawford. And to add...she’s really shy, not exactly someone with a charismatic personality.

* The attention she’s garnered will fade in due time, Edward had told you as much

* “It’s the same thing as when we moved to town, most of these kids have gone to school together since childhood, so when someone new gets here it’s all they can think about. They don’t really like her, they just like the idea of her. The illusion of a choice”

* It made you a little sad to be honest, even worse was that Bella didn’t seem to enjoy the attention. She seemed uncomfortable every time a boy flirted with her

* “I almost feel bad for her, I get the feeling she’s not really into any of these guys that are chasing her” Jessica says, so you’re not the only one that’s noticed

* You’re a little surprised that when the student comes by with carnations you get two entire bouquets worth

* And then they come back the next period and give you another bouquet

* “Oooo someone’s popular!” Angela teases and you shrug. Most of these are from Alice and Rosalie, they each bought you three each

* You got a whopping 12 from Conner which feels a bit surprising

* You knew he was going after it, but you didn’t think he would bother to actually put any effort into his attraction outside of flirting with you

* You’ve got one from everyone in your friend group, a handful from others on the cheer team, Emmett and Jasper both bought you one

* The only person who didn’t get you one was Edward

* You wonder if he got Bella one? The thought seems unlikely since they were basically at each others throat the last time they were together

* So imagine your surprise when you walk into the hall to see Bella and Edward talking

* You’re gone for a week and it’s like they’re suddenly insta-friends

* In fact, Bella’s actually blushing, a carnation twirling between her fingers

* A light red carnation

* So he did buy carnations after all, just not for you

* And Edward...his eyes are sparkling as he looks down at her. A lopsided grin curling onto his face

* Oh, there’s that smile

* He says something to her and she pouts, slapping him lightly with the carnation

* They’re getting along just fine without your matchmaking efforts

* So you were the problem

* You should be happy, relieved even-

* But all you can feel is the sharp twist in the bottom of your stomach

* “Hey (Y/N/N), I see you got my flowers”

* You turn around to see Conner who’s looking at your half zipped bag, 3 bouquets of flowers popping out of the top

* “Oh, yeah thanks they’re beautiful.”

* “I’m glad you got them, I noticed you weren’t at school and for a second I was worried you wouldn’t be here today too.”

* He really is cute. He’s got chocolate brown hair and clear blue eyes, a splatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He plays tennis or baseball or some other irrelevant sport.

* He’s popular with the girls too, he dated Lauren a few times, and Jessica admitted she had a crush on him freshman year.

* “Are you feeling better now?” He asks, he looks genuinely concerned and it takes you back a bit

* “Yeah, my dad came for a surprise visit so we went to Seattle”

* “Oh that’s cool, what did you guys do?”

* You’re a little surprised that Conner O’Malley, f*ckboy extraordinaire, is Trying to engage you in an honest conversation

* “We just did all the tourist stuff, space needle, museums, food, the usual.”

* Conner smiles at you, hands fidgeting together

* “That’s cool, did you um-did you read the note with the bouquet?

* You didn’t notice there was a note, you swing you backpack around, picking out his bright red bouquet with ease.

* You hadn’t paid attention to the note attached than reading the name on the front to see who they were from.

* “Will you be my valentine” you read the note out loud, feeling confused. What does that mean

* He fidgets in front of you, from here you can see his ears are bright red

* “So would you want to go out sometime?”

* He’s asking you out? On a proper date????

* “We could go watch a movie, or um I know you like to ride those bikes in Port A-“ you do like to ride those bikes in port a

* You watch the his human boy fumble over himself. There’s no future with this boy, one day he’ll grow old and want things you won’t be able to give him.

* “I have a ton of homework to catch up on-“

* “Oh, yeah no, I get that”

* But maybe... maybe it’s okay just to pretend and let yourself be entertained by the experience

* “Would you want to come with me to the library? I’m totally lost on Trig”

* You know it’s not the most romantic place, but that’s part of the reason you suggested it. You want to give him an out

* He looks a little surprised but recovers quickly.

* “I’ll meet you after school then, we can drive to the library together”

* You don’t bother telling Edward, you just look to the spot where he’s with Bella, he must have heard

* His eyes meet yours, his mouth pinches into a slight smile and he gives you a nod before turning back to Bella

* What so just because he’s got a new friend you’re invisible now?

* Stupid Edward. Not like you care, you just wanted him to know he’d have to ride home with the others

* Maybe his new best friend Bella can give him a ride home

* “So you’re going out with Conner tonight huh?” Mike asks when you take your seat in biology

* Edward doesn’t so much as spare you a glance

* “He’s just helping me catch up on school work.” You shrug, pulling out your biology homework

* “I bet he’ll help you catch up on-“

* “You’re going out with Conner?” Bella interrupts, you’re grateful for it but at the same time: those doe eyes and innocent face irritate you

* “He’s just helping me catch up on homework I missed”

* “Couldn’t Edward hell you do that?”

* You try to not look at Edward

* But what the f*ck?!?

* Last week the two of them couldn’t even sit in a car together for a short ten minute drive, and now all of a sudden she’s asking why you’re NOT spending time with Edward?

* It’s so... irritating

* You feel a tap on your arm, and turn to look at Edward

* “Control yourself”

* Oh great so the one time he decides to acknowledge your presence is to tell you to control your powers because he’s worried about his little human girlfriend getting the whiplash?!?

* Seriously, f*ck off Edward

* “Mr. Barnes I have to go to the nurse.”

* You don’t even wait to hear his answer, you just grab your bag and walk out

* You keep walking, practically fuming until you get to the parking lot

* Well you can’t leave, you already told Conner you’re going with him to the library after school

* Not to add it’s going to look real weird if you don’t go the nurses office eventually after storming off like that

* But you don’t want to go there yet

* Queue you discretely crouching under a window, lightly tapping the glass

* “Rosalie, Rosalie can you hear me?” You whisper

* Rosalie head turns to the window, her eyebrows threaded together, you poke your head just slightly above the ledge and give her a small smile and a wave

* Well at least it’s always interesting with you around

* “What are you doing?” Rosalie asks when she meets you under the school staircase

* You give her a nervous smile before collapsing onto the floor

* She gives you a knowing look before sitting beside you

* “So what did king Brood do now?”

* Queue the Edward rant

* “I leave for one week and all of a sudden he’s besties with some human, when just last week he told me not to get to close to her”

* “That’s Edward for you, king of the brood and hypocrisy.” Rosalie leans her head back against the wall

* “You know he didn’t even get me a carnation?”

* Rosalie rolls her eyes

* “That sounds like him, if it helps he didn’t buy me a carnation either, he just doesn’t think things like this are important”

* “He bought Bella one.”

* Rosalie sputters at that, so you retell her all about the flirting you had to watch

* “What color was the carnation?” Rosalie asks, and your eyebrows thread together

* Why is that important right now?

* “Um I don’t know, not quite pink, not quite red, something in between.”

* Rosalie’s expression smooths

* So that’s his game

* “Don’t worry about it too much as long as it’s not a deep red it doesn’t mean love”

* Now it’s your turn to sputter

* “W-what why would I be worried? Edward can do whatever he wants, even if it is with some human”

* Rosalie gives you a knowing look, and you avert your eyes

* If Rosalie were cruel she might ask why you’re sitting out here with her instead of in class, if you don’t care about what Edward does

* But Rosalie isn’t cruel, at least not to you

* She pats your shoulder, and you sigh

* “Come on let’s go to the nurse so you can pretend you have cramps or something” you nod

* “Besides don’t you have a date with the hottest human boy at our school?” You groan and a teasing smile curls onto her lips

* “Not you too.”

* The date is over hyped for sure, it’s mostly you and Conner sitting at the end of a small table asking each other questions about the trig homework

* “So...are you supposed to use the radical formula for this one?”

* “I think so..do you remember the formula?” Conner scratches his head

* “Um I remember there was a story about a mixed up guy going to a party that’s supposed to help”

* Basically it’s more like you’re helping Conner with home work than him helping you Totally underwhelming

* “Sorry, I bet there are better ways to spend your Valentine’s Day” Conner scoffs

* “Are you kidding? I’m spending it with the hottest person at Forks HS, as far as I’m concerned this is a win” he grins and you smile back

* Well, it wasn’t completely a waste

* You roll around back home around 11:30, everyone’s gone, on with their own Valentine’s Day plans.

* You’re not surprised to see Edward’s not in his room either He’s probably out watching Bella or doing god knows what

* You know this is the way it supposed to be, it’s the best thing for you too, you know even with Bella in the mix Edward would never betray you

* Once she’s on your side you don’t have to worry about the Volturi. But still, there a twist in your stomach You don’t like this new Edward, even if it is who he really is.

* You want your Edward back

* You sigh as you walk down the hall and into your room Stopping in the doorway when you flick on the lights

* There on your desk is a bouquet of roses

* You have half a mind to think they’re from Eleazer or Garrett or something

* So imagine when you pull off the card to see Edward’s name attached

* “Glad to have you home, happy Valentine’s Day” - Edward

* You toy with the card, a small smile curling onto your lips

* Maybe he’s still your Edward

* Your Edward just more anti-social

Tags: @moonlights27 @thebluetint @the100thtwilight @awesomebooklover17 @oneofthepotterheads @smileygirl08 @imdoingathingmom @iconicgguk @yrawn @alyciaswhore @little-horror-show @wicked-watering-can @lazydreamers @ xxxmuxxx @ideas-for-you-to-adopt @poisoinedhope @maryleigh8796 @moose-squirrel-asstiel @hotmessgoodness @jaimewho @corabmarie @what-am-i-doing10

#twilight #twilight imagines #twilight reader insert #twilight headcanons #waking up in twilight #edward cullen headcanon #edward cullen x reader #edward cullen imagine #edward cullen #Conner twilight imagine #Conner x reader #Edward Cullen x bella swan #Volturi imagine #superhero—imagines

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anna-kendrick · 3 years

Photo

holding my breath ('til i can say all of the words i wanna say)

Beca goes home with Chloe for thanksgiving.

For @beca-mitchell

Read on AO3, or below.

Chloe regrets asking the moment it comes out of her mouth.

“Come home with me.”

It's not that she doesn't want to bring Beca—her wonderful and loving girlfriend of over a year—home to visit her family, it's more the fact of how do you tell your wonderful and loving girlfriend of over a year that you didn't actually tell your parents that you two were dating because they're homophobic.

Yeah, she has a slight problem.

Chloe wasn't even sure if Beca would even say yes to begin with. It's her third year at Barden, and her third thanksgiving that she'd be spending on campus. Rather than taking a trip back to Seattle to visit her mother, Beca had explained that she prefers her alone time in the comfort of her room, away from all the reminders of her rocky childhood. Chloe gets it.

But more selfishly than not wanting to leave her girlfriend back in Atlanta alone—aka with most of the Bellas and very much not alone—Chloe didn't want to spend a week away from Beca. That's what brings them to this very moment.

Beca’s clearly taken aback by the question, and Chloe finds the slight blush that's creeping across her cheeks absolutely adorable.

“You're serious?” This is her out, Chloe thinks. Make it sound less appealing, tell her the truth, or just completely take back the offer and—

“Totes serious.” Well fuck.

The smug grin that grows on Beca’s face is enough to vanish all her worries for the moment. Chloe’s quick to reflect one back as Beca pulls her in for a kiss, a version of a ‘yes’ in her own, sweet language.

When Beca mumbles an “I love you,” against her lips, Chloe feels her knees go weak.

***

She doesn't bring it up.

It's sitting in the back of her mind at all times in the weeks following, but she doesn't bring it up.

Beca's seemingly excited to go on this trip to Portland. She says she's never been, and Chloe finds herself looking forward to showing her all of the places where she grew up. She ignores it when Beca tells her that she's excited to see her parents again, and jokingly teases her that she thinks they like her better.

Beca really has no idea.

It's on their final descent when Chloe realizes her mistake. She feels Beca’s hand squeeze in her own, looking over to see her wearing a soft smile—one of comfort and warmth—as if Beca could read her mind. She wishes it were true, it would make things so much easier.

But Beca simply mouths ‘you’re okay,’ and attributes Chloe’s nervous energy to flight anxiety. That’s truly the least of her worries right now, honestly the plane crashing to the ground seems like it could be a better scenario to what she’s going to have to do. Easier, and chances are less painful, too.

Beca squeezes her hand again, waiting for Chloe to squeeze back—their own little form of communication, a way for Chloe to say ‘I’m okay,’ without saying it aloud. Chloe shakes herself from her morbid thoughts, and kisses Beca’s cheek instead, before nuzzling herself into Beca’s shoulder. She feels herself relax slightly as Beca drops her head onto hers, and lets out a quiet hum.

She knows she's messed up. She goes over all the possible outcomes in her head as she watches other passengers deboard the plane. It's the one where she breaks Beca’s trust, and her heart that sticks out the most to her.

Beca never lets go of her hand as they walk off the plane. Chloe can hear her speaking, probably talking about all the new music ideas she thought of on their long flight over, but she can't make out any of the words—she's too lost in her own mind.

“Chlo?” She’s snapped out of her non stop reel of scenarios when Beca stops in place, tilting her head in concern. Beca knows her so well, it makes her want to cry. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just tired.” She lies, and offers a smile. It seems to satisfy Beca, who grins back and squeezes her hand again gently before going to resume their trail to the baggage claim.

This is it. She has to do it.

“Bec, wait—” Her voice catches in her throat when Beca looks back, eyes full of questions and concern—so patient and so loving. She thinks she might throw up.

She lets go of Beca’s hand.

“They don't know you’re my girlfriend. Please don't tell them, I’m sorry.” Chloe takes a deep breath, fighting back her tears, because God forbid she cries in the middle of this damn airport.

One glance at Beca’s face and her heart feels like it's being crushed inside her chest. She can't say anything else, she can't even look at her.

“Um— Our bags, lets go get our bags.”

***

They meet Chloe’s parents outside of the airport about a half hour later, the silence that had been deafening between her and Beca finally breaking.

Alice greets Beca with a smile and a tight hug. “We’re so happy Chloe was able to talk you into coming home with her.”

“She didn’t have to say much, I’m glad to be here. Thanks for letting me stay with you guys.” Beca says it so sincerely, it only makes Chloe feel worse.

“Please, Beca, you know you’re a part of the family. You can visit anytime, even without this one here.” Dale points to Chloe, giving Beca a wink and one of his signature Beale smiles. Beca giggles and looks over to her Chloe with a soft smile.

Chloe turns to look out the window instead.

The drive to the Beale family home is longer than Chloe remembers—louder too, as her dad sings along obnoxiously to the songs on the radio, and her thoughts continue to echo inside of her head. Beca’s more silent than usual though, and Chloe takes the risk of glancing over to check on her.

Beca’s the one peering out the window now, headphones plugged in as she listens to her own music. It almost makes Chloe smile, just seeing Beca next to her, as they drive through her hometown. The feeling is fleeting however, as Chloe takes note of Beca chewing the skin on her thumb—a nervous habit most likely brought on by all of the shit Chloe sprung on her at the airport. She wants nothing more than to reach over and pull her hand away, entangle their fingers together and squeeze Beca’s hand tightly.

She meets her mothers gaze in the mirror, and immediately realizes how bad of an idea this was.

***

It’s later that night—after Chloe had spent ten minutes convincing, more like begging, her mother to let Beca sleep in her room upstairs and not in the basement

(“It’s freezing down there. I’ll just make a bed for myself on the floor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Chloe.”)

—that Beca finally broaches the subject.

“Chloe?” She hears Beca whisper through the dark. She lays silently, debating whether or not she should answer, or pretend to be asleep and hope that Beca lets it go—she already knows what she's about to ask.

“Baby, I know you're awake.” She could insist that she is asleep—continue to hold her breath and fight back the tears that are already pricking from behind her eyelids—but she knows that Beca knows her better than anyone else, knows that Beca’s worried about her from the way that her hand now softly brushes through her hair.

“Chlo—”

“Yeah, I'm awake.” Chloe whispers, rolling around to face her girlfriend. She feels the guilt swirl in her stomach immediately with just one look at the sad eyes in front of her.

She knew it was coming, but when Beca mumbles “Why didn't you tell them? I—I don't mean to pry, I’m sorry, I just—Are you okay?” tears immediately spill from her eyes, and she has to choke back the sob that threatens to come out.

It makes her heart clench to think about how far her and Beca have come since that day at the activities fair. It had taken so long to get Beca to open up to her, to even just accept a hug from her. It makes her sick to think about how disappointed her parents would be if they walked in on the two of them at this moment—their daughter wrapped up in her girlfriends arms as Beca continues to rub her back soothingly.

She feels so fucking guilty. A disappointment to both her family, and towards the woman she loves. She hates herself for it.

Beca's hands feel so soft against her cheeks as she holds them and lightly brushes her tears away. It's dark in the room, but she can still clearly make out Beca’s features in the moonlight that spills in from the window. Beca looks beautiful, she looks sad, but she’s so beautiful.

“I didn't know how to tell you.” Her voice sounds unrecognizable to her own ears, it's raspy with tears, and she can hear the lie within her own speech. It's not that she didn't know how to, it's that she didn't want to.

How was she supposed to tell her best friend—her girlfriend—that her parents would hate her? How was she supposed to explain that yes, they had met her before and treated her like a second daughter, but as soon as they found out Beca was more than just a friend, they'd look at her with pure disgust and detest? How was she supposed to bring that up in a conversation where Beca’s telling her that her father has been putting more effort in, that he's happy for the two of them and that he’d like to have both over for dinner one night?

She's never wanted Beca to feel as if she was a secret, that their blooming relationship was something that Chloe was ashamed of. And now, Chloe doesn't even know why she invited Beca here in the first place, because while reserved, Beca’s the proudest of their relationship, and she can see it in her face right now how much she's hurting.

Chloe knows it's her fault.

“I'm not mad at you.” Beca's smiling softly at her—a sad smile—one of encouragement, or one to try to deter the situation, because she knows that Chloe’ll be upset if Beca shows that she’s upset, Chloe doesn't know. She doesn’t really care either, she just wants to go home. Atlanta home, away from this life she had so happily left behind.

What she does know, is that Beca is one of the most patient, and selfless people she's ever met. She knows she doesn't have to say anything, that she could simply ignore the situation entirely, tell Beca that she's tired, and it'd get dropped. She knows Beca wouldn't push her if she wasn't ready to tell her.

But she also knows that Beca deserves an answer.

“They would hate me if they found out, Bec.” She realizes that it's been a while since she admitted this dark secret of hers aloud. Not since her first year at Barden, when she confided in Aubrey over a bottle of cheap wine.

“It's not that I'm not proud to be with you, I promise. It's just that— I’m scared to lose them. I don't want to lose you, but I can't lose them either, Beca. I'm so sorry.”

She's crying again—she doesn't know if she ever really stopped—but Beca’s soft lips are soon pressed against hers; familiar, comforting, safe.

“You'd never lose me.” Beca whispers against her lips in between kisses, and it's like a blanket of warmth courses through Chloe’s body. It's still crazy to her how in the midst of feeling so sad and confused, Beca can make her feel so loved, make her thoughts that had just moments ago felt so jumbled, suddenly so clear.

“I will tell them.” She states, breaking apart from Beca’s kiss, nodding her head in affirmation.

“You don't have to.”

“I will. Eventually, I will. Maybe not this week, but one day I will.” And Beca’s smile in response is enough for her to know that she’s supported, that Beca will hold her hand through it all.

“I think you're really brave, Chloe.” She doesn't expect that as a response, and she's ready to open her mouth and argue against Beca’s words—tell her that she doesn't feel brave at all—but Beca beats her to it. “No, you really are, and it's one of the things I love most about you. Thank you for telling me.”

There’s something about Beca Mitchell that Chloe finds so captivating. Perhaps it’s the way she smiles so genuinely and so lovingly at her, before she breaks out into a cheeky grin and pulls Chloe back in for another kiss. Maybe it’s the trust that she seems to give Chloe unconditionally, something that she’s seen Beca struggle with so much over the course of knowing her. Beca’s passion, loyalty, determination… Perhaps it’s just Beca’s big heart, that tends to tug on her own, and make her feel weak in the knees.

“You know I love you, right?” Chloe can tell Beca’s getting tired by the pure laziness that’s beginning to leak into her kisses, her heavy hands that are no longer roaming, but holding her close and still against her.

“You’ve told me a few times. I love you, too. I’m fucking exhausted, your family is insane. Sorry that was—”

“Bec, it’s okay.” Chloe laughs softly squeezing Beca’s hand that continues to lay softly on her hip. “They really are, you’re right. But I have you, I think I’m pretty lucky.”

“Oh, my God—you’re gross. So gross. Go to sleep or I’m moving down to the basement.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Watch me.”

#bechloe #beca mitchell #chloe beale #pitch perfect #anna kendrick #brittany snow #au #i'm so nervous anytime i post stuff like this it makes me wanna vom #but theresa ily and this is for u #ignore the fact that they look like whole ass 30 year olds in this gift when they're supposed to be pp2ish era #anyway.. *logs off*#my writing #edits #mine #mine:au #mine:fic

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mctwcsty · 3 years

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What Do I Do?

@sxtanshepherd paged Meredith Grey

Hello?

Hi, is he in the lab?

What?

I know this is Derek Shepherd’s phone, who is this? Who is this? Who is this.

Hello.

SIX MONTHS. Six months had passed already since Derek had left for D.C. to run the brain mapping project for the President. Six months of running their life and home alone in Seattle. Of taking the kids to school every other morning, picking them up every other night, the rest of them thankfully handled by Lynn, the nanny Meredith had found to help her out with them. Because her husband was off to Washington to take his career to the next level while she had stayed put in Seattle with their kids, which was her choice and she had taken responsibility for it. She still ran her department, alongside Bailey, and she was still working on her research. She was doing it all. She was exhausted, running on little sleep and a lot of caffeine, but she was doing it.

She was doing it all until a small detail added in, a change of scenery she had not seen coming. A unplanned turn of events that made doing it all by herself a little less possible: she was pregnant. And the best part was, she had just found out. Right in the middle of a surgery, a feeling that had taken her breath away, a pressure in her lower back and a movement. Thing was, she recognized it because she had felt it before. What she did not understand was how was it possible. And then she had the resident close and rushed out, straight to OB, all the while calculating when her last period was, the days and the weeks adding up leaving her running her way up to OB and throwing herself in the nearest room with a monitor, self-examining herself until the OB came in and shut the door, offering to help. 24 weeks. She had not been showing, she still was not. Her stomach was flat, the way the baby was located left her bumpless, even though she had been pregnant before. Those cases happened, it was not out of the ordinary, and the baby was healthy. She was 24 weeks pregnant and practically a single-mother of two, soon three children, her husband was across the states and they barely managed to talk here and there because of their irregular schedules and they were going to have another baby.

She had sat by the phone that night, after putting the kids down to bed, staring at her phone screen, unable to pick it up. She could feel it now, she could feel the baby moving inside of her. It was moving, it had a heartbeat, it had arms and legs and fingers and toes, ears, eyes, a mouth and a nose, hell it even had hair at that point and she was freaking out. And Derek was not there. She was all alone. She knew she had to pick up that phone and call him, but she could not bring herself to do it. She did not want to tell him they were going to have another baby over the phone? And yet she had to. She forced herself and picked up that phone, tapped on his contact and rang his cell. She leaned back in the couch and waited, hearing the ringtone incessantly ringing, her stomach in knots, just hoping he would pick up. They rarely caught each other, he often called while she was in surgery and she often called when he was in the lab and away from his phone. But the ringing stopped, he picked up. Or at least someone did.

“Hello?” “Hi, is he in the lab?” “What?” “I know this is Derek Shepherd’s phone, who is this?” “Who is this? Who is this.” “Hello.”

Well if you keep answering his phone, at least you could have the decency to tell me who the hell you are. Where the hell is my husband?

EIGHT MONTHS. 34 weeks, to be more precise. At least from her calculations since their last sexual encounter, which was about their last actual general encounter - the day before he had left for D.C. - he had never returned to Seattle since, and the measurements of the foetus from her last ultrasound, she measured at about 34 weeks. Exactly ten weeks since that phone call. Not a day went by that she did not think or analyze that phone call, especially because the rare times Derek and her managed to reach other on the phone, he never said anything about it, about any woman answering his phone. She had not told anyone about it, not even Alex. Because saying it out loud made it real, and the truth was, she could not bare for it to be. The idea that she had become the woman who wonders if that woman on the phone was the woman who had been screwing her husband, she could not be that woman. She could not have gone from the woman screwing the married guy, to the woman whose husband is screwing another woman. Not after everything, not after spending literally the past eight months handling everything alone and keeping the boat afloat, and growing that husband’s child in her belly.

She was sitting in the attending’s lounge, the empty lounge with the big couch where she had come to rest her feet as they were killing her. It had been about four weeks now since she had started showing, and she had been telling everyone that Derek knew, but the truth was, he had no idea. He did not know she was pregnant yet. Over two months and she had not told him. Because the rare times where they had managed to actually get a hold of each other on the phone, she had let the kids speak to him because they missed him terribly, and then he was either rushing back to the lab or was off to some meeting with the President. He did not even know she was pregnant, because he was halfway across their world, busy making his career count while she was back home, keeping it all together, alone. And he was not even seeing it.

But Zola had almost spilled it once over a call, thankfully she had caught it in time and spared an awkward way for Derek to find out, and selfishly she did not want him to know until she felt it was the right moment to have the conversation... the whole conversation. She knew she had to tell him. And so she had decided to do it. After all, she was only a few weeks away from her due date. It sure had flew by way quicker than any pregnancy usually would, especially with everything she had going on, but also because she had only just found out and half the pregnancy was done, it would certainly be a shock for him, but she knew he loved their kids and she was convinced he would be excited, deep down. It would be a shock, but he would be excited. At least she convinced herself of that as she picked up the phone and called him on his cell, then brought the phone to her ear, repeating herself those words again and again and again as the tone rang a while. She was sure she would fall on his voicemail and was about to hang up, but the line picked up.

“Hello?”

That voice again. It literally sent chills up her spine because she knew. That was not some secretary, or some random woman finding a lost phone and picking it up. This was not a coincidence or an accident. It had been two months, and she still answered his phone. And all Meredith could think about was the fact that she never answered her husband’s phone, at least not until they were actually married and it had happened on rare occasions. She felt the blood in her veins turning to ice and like something was wrapping tightly around her body, suffocating her. She managed to swallow through her tightened throat and speak up. “Well if you keep answering his phone, at least you could have the decency to tell me who the hell you are.” She snapped, pausing a moment before adding, “Where the hell is my husband?”

The woman hung up. Again. Meredith’s hand fell on the couch and she stared straight ahead, her heart dropping in her chest. It felt like her whole world had just collapsed around her. Shattering, into billions of pieces. Ten weeks of tossing so many questions around her mind, but every time shutting them out because no, Derek would not do that. The he loves me and he loves our family and we’ve been through too much for this to happen - she had told herself it all. But the woman answered his phone again, and hung up, again.

The next day, she had called Alex and within ten minutes he ended up at her front door. She told him Derek did not know about the pregnancy, told him about that previous phone call, and then the one from the previous night. Convinced him not to hunt Derek down for her in a trip to D.C. or to give him hell in any type of way. She tried to ring Derek’s phone again throughout the day, every time winding up on his voicemail, until she stopped calling. Maggie and Callie both tried to convince her that he could not be cheating, while at the same time understanding the way she felt. Callie offered to go find him in D.C. but Meredith turned the offer down. She did not want any of them to contact him. She had made the decision to stop contacting him, that he would have to contact her, and she made all of them swear to not try to call him, to respect her request and to above all not tell him about the pregnancy.

And within the next 24 hours, what Meredith thought were simply Braxton Hicks turned out to be pre-term labor. Thankfully she had been in the hospital when it started and Alex had forced her to get checked out, and her water had broke on the OB table. Everything else from that point forward went extremely fast, she was dilated at three and within two hours was fully dilated and ready to push, so grateful that she would not need C-section because that had been hell the first time, and the last thing she needed on top of everything was a post-partum C-section recovery. The baby was born within the next ten minutes, a little girl, and Meredith ordered Alex to go with her to the NICU and to not leave her side, as well as ordered everybody not to call Derek, or she would kill them. Literally.

The baby stayed a week in the NICU, but was thankfully perfectly healthy and Alex had kept her in a few extra days just to be sure, also hoping that Meredith might change her mind in the mean time and give Derek a call. But she was strong-headed and when she made a decision, she made it firmly. The worst part was, Derek had not even called once since that day. Not once. Meredith was done. She was done trying to keep their family together, done doing everything to make him still be the good guy when he did not have the decency to at least show her enough respect to call her back. She was done. She was exhausted, heartbroken, she felt like dying literally, but she was done. She would not be her mother, this would not destroy her.

And so when she made it home, Alex having insisted on taking her home himself, Amelia and Maggie waiting for her with Zola and Bailey and a Welcome Home! banner that the kids had made, just stepping into the house had paralyzed her. It was a house, but it was no longer home. She did not feel home anymore in that house. She was suffocating. Being around the house that Derek had built them for their family, it was suffocating.

Ever since coming home, actually ever since that first phone call, there was only one person she could not get out of her mind. And for those ten weeks she had desperately tried to toss away, as all the questions and interrogations spinning around in her mind. But that night, after that phone call, she could not get her out of her head. And standing in that house, it was all she could think about. And so while Amelia was off to the bathroom, Maggie putting Zola and Bailey down for the night, Alex had ran out to get them dinner, Meredith stole Amelia’s phone that she had left on the low table in the living room and entered her password that she secretly knew, and she searched for a specific contact, and a specific address.

Came night time, Meredith had ordered everyone to leave her be for the night, said she needed her space and to figure things out alone. Alex had promised to be at her door at 7 sharp for breakfast and to take the kids to school and daycare, Maggie promising to come by to help out with the baby and Amelia offering to help if Meredith needed it. The minute they were all gone and she found herself alone at the house, she went to her room while the baby napped in the bassinet, pulled out a bag and filled it with some of her clothes, then she quietly went into Zola’s room and grabbed some of her clothes, then some of Bailey’s, grabbed diapers and bottles from the kitchen counter. Thankfully the diaper bag was freshly packed so she had everything she needed for the baby in there. She packed all their stuff within twenty minutes, and as she found herself standing in the middle of the living room, seeing all the packed up bags, she felt like she could breathe a little better. She nodded to herself and pulled what was left of energy in her, called a cab and then went to wake the kids. She left them in their PJs and just threw a coat over them, put their shoes on, got the baby in the carseat and got them all outside. She stopped at the door and turned around to take one last look at the house, feeling completely numb as she shut all the lights, then turned back around and headed out of the house, closing the door behind her and locking it. She then slid the key out of her keyset and left it under the mat on the front porch, and turned around just in time for the cab to pull in the drive way.

Meredith got to the airport and bought three tickets for herself and the two oldest kids, and within the next hour they were off on a plane to Los Angeles. Sitting in that plane alone with her two oldest kids and a newborn in her arms was not quite what Meredith had expected her life to turn into, but it was. “Are you traveling alone with all of them?” Some old woman had asked on the plane, to which Meredith had forced a smile and nodded in response. Planes. She hated planes. She would panic the whole flight through. But with a newborn and two kids, there was no way she would sit them in a car for a 18+ hour drive, or a 35+ hour train ride even less so. And she just had to go, she had to do it. She summoned whatever force might be up there to make sure they all got to destination safely and finally breathed again when they landed in LA. She was lucky she had good kids, they had done amazing the whole flight through, had slept it right through, even the baby who had only fed once shortly before landing, which meant she would be good for a while and it was perfect timing. They all got off the plane and Meredith got the help of a man that worked at the airport, helping her getting her things together and even escorted her to a cab. She gave him a good tip and insisted when he refused, thanking him before hopping in the cab and giving them the address.

As they pulled in front of the address she had taken from Amelia’s phone, Meredith felt her heart beating so fast in her chest. She paid the cab driver and got all the kids out of the cab, then picked up their stuff. The man was kind enough to help bring the bags up the stairs to the door for her, and she offered him an extra tip that he refused, then watched as he drove away before turning to face the door. Bailey half-asleep in her arms, Zola tiredly leaning against her, her arms wrapped around her legs, the carseat at her feet, next to their bags. Swallowing thickly, Meredith leaned forward and knocked on the door. It was the middle of the night, half past 1AM, surely she would wake her up, but she had nowhere else to go. And so she stood there and waited until the door opened, feeling her heart dropping in her chest with relief when it did and her eyes locked with Addison.

“He did it again,” she breathed out exhaustedly, her shoulders sinking, the last bit of strength she had going into holding Bailey in her arms and keeping him from falling - or was it him that kept her from falling. “I’m you,” she shrugged. “He’s found another me.” She gulped thickly. “We weren’t supposed to run or walk out on each other, we were supposed to love each other even when we hated each other and to take care of each other when we were old and senile, it was supposed to be forever. It was the post-it. We were supposed to be it but we’re not, I’m not.” She shrugged helplessly. “We were supposed to do this together and he left me to do it all alone, and I don’t know what to do. But you know what to do, so I need you to tell me.” She paused, staring at Addison as she breathed out so desperately, “What do I do?”

#Para: Addison Montgomery #sxtanshepherd #( What Do I Do? )#omg this hurts on so many level BUT IM SO EXCITED OMG

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miracleonice87 · 3 years

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Begin Again, part two

with Mathew Barzal

a/n: in honor of @kerwritesthings’ birthday (that’s right, go wish her a happy one if you haven’t already!)… Hayden and Mat are back! part one was one of the earlier pieces I wrote, and it was a combo of a reader/oc, which I don’t really like to use in my writing now, but I’m sticking with it for consistency’s sake. title is based on T Swift's song, which I obviously don't own and all that stuff.

warnings: swearing, allusions to sex, nothing graphic

word count: 5.3K+

_____

“Hayden!” you heard from across the Coliseum concourse, just moments after you’d stepped through the doors of the main entrance. A stunning platinum blonde with a dazzling smile quickly approached, waving excitedly. Your first instinct was to look over your shoulder to try and determine who the woman was speaking to, since you didn’t recognize her, but she had called your name.

Instead, you forced a small smile and tentatively stepped toward her. As soon as she was within arm’s reach, she gathered you into a tight hug.

“Sorry, I’m a hugger!” she exclaimed, then stepped back and fanned a hand across her chest. You couldn’t help but notice the rock on her left ring finger, not to mention her perfectly manicured nails and pristine blue silk Islanders jacket, paired with a white t-shirt, black jeans, and snakeskin boots. “I’m Sydney, but you can call me Syd. It’s Sydney Esiason Martin, actually. I’m Matt Martin’s wife, but all the guys just call him Marty,” she explained, her hands gesturing animatedly all the while.

It was all coming together in your brain now, that Mat must have arranged for Sydney to be on the lookout for you, and you nodded slowly, your smile growing.

“I’m Hayden,” you offered, but of course, she already knew that, you thought as you mentally kicked yourself. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you, and Marty, too.”

Sydney beamed, her eyes glittering. “Yeah, you, too!” she said. “It isn’t often Barzy brings a girl around the group. Well, honestly… it isn’t ever, actually,” she said with a lighthearted giggle. “You must be pretty special.”

You breathed a chuckle and swiped your tongue along your bottom lip, lost for words.

Sydney must have sensed your unease, because after a beat, she gave your upper arm a light squeeze and nodded her head toward the escalators leading to the suite level.

“C’mon, I’ll show ya where we’re sitting,” she said. “I’m starving. I think I want a pretzel with cheese. Are you hungry? They have the most incredible nachos up there, just wait…”

And as Sydney rambled on about the delicacies to be found in the family suite, your anxieties about meeting the people there suddenly shrunk, and you found yourself thinking that you were going to like this “Syd.”

_____

The game was a blowout.

New York beat Ottawa 6-1, and Mat had a goal and three assists, not to mention the night’s second star. You had held your own in the family box, and Sydney had been the perfect guide — introducing you to the kindest of the guys’ partners and avoiding the ones that side-eyed you standoffishly, whispering in your ear that so-and-so had dated two NHLers in the past, and so-and-so and her boyfriend were constantly on and off, and that Syd didn’t expect them to be around for long, so don’t worry about them. You mostly spent the evening nodding along politely to various conversations, giggling at Sydney’s over-the-top antics, and making small talk with some of the veterans’ wives. They all seemed relieved to know that you were familiar with the hockey world and, therefore, had at least a hint of what you were (potentially) getting yourself into.

But one thing you hadn’t expected? When Syd turned to you a few minutes after the game ended and said, “Oh! Matt just texted me. He said Barzy wants me to bring you downstairs.”

You swallowed your last sip of beer, hard.

“Downstairs?” you asked softly after a long pause.

“Uh huh!” Sydney nodded emphatically, tucking her phone into her Louis Vuitton bag and patting your knee. “He probably wants to introduce you to some of the boys. Don’t worry,” she said with a nonchalant wave of her hand, doing her best to calm your nerves.

You nodded slowly and reached for your own, much less expensive, bag. “O-okay.”

Ten minutes later, you were in the depths of the Coliseum in a lounge across from the locker room, Sydney chatting away about how when playoffs start, you’ll have to join her and the other girls for tailgating in the parking lot before the game, because it’s such a blast, and it’s a lot easier to watch your significant other knock the shit out of someone (or get the shit knocked out of him) when you’re tipsy. You stayed noncommittal, all the while questioning in your mind whether Mat would even want you around once playoffs started.

But you didn’t have long to dwell on that, because a moment later, the locker room door swung open, and two tall, broad, light brown-haired men stepped through it, Mat close on their heels. You could have sworn you heard him sharply whisper “please don’t embarrass me” before they crossed the hallway, but then again, maybe that was just in your head, because immediately after, Mat gave you a huge smile and stepped forward to pull you in for a hug.

“Hey!” he greeted warmly, then completely caught you off guard by pecking your lips, right there in front of half a dozen of his teammates and their partners.

You touched your fingertips to your lips, feeling them buzzing at the unexpected contact. You recovered as quickly as you could and smiled back at him, lost in the way he looked in his sharp grey suit and in how he smelled fresh out of the shower.

“Hi,” you said quietly.

And just as you studied Mat’s appearance, he was studying yours — taking in your royal blue blazer, the way your light-wash jeans hugged your curves perfectly, and, of course, admiring the Manolo Blahniks you’d scrimped and saved for two years to purchase.

“Nice shoes,” Mat commented, winking flirtatiously. You giggled, his words echoing the very first he had ever spoken to you back in the coffee shop. “Seriously, though, you look beautiful, Hayden,” he added.

Your cheeks warmed, and you tucked your hair behind your ear as you glanced down at your feet.

“Thanks, Maty,” you said quietly. “You look great, too.”

With an appreciative nod, he pressed his hand to your lower back and guided you nearer to the men accompanying him, who had already greeted their significant others — Syd kissing Matt, and Grace, you remembered, hugging her husband, whose name you couldn’t quite recall.

“Well, Hayd, you know Syd and Grace now, but I want to introduce you to their husbands, Marty and Anders,” Mat said, motioning toward them. “Anders is our captain, and Marty’s like my team dad.”

You giggled at that, glancing up at Mat fondly before focusing back on his teammates and extending your arm.

“It’s so nice to meet you both,” you said, shaking their hands.

“You, too,” Anders said. “I’m glad you came out tonight.”

“Yeah, Barzy won’t shut up about you, and now we see what all the fuss is about,” Marty said, laughing at his own joke as Sydney poked him in the ribs playfully.

“What’s this about Barzy not shutting up?” you heard from behind the wall of well-dressed men in front of you, before an icy blue-eyed man stepped forward. Mat rolled his eyes.

“And this is Tito,” Mat said, waving his arm toward the man you knew to be his close friend. “Don’t let him fool you — he doesn’t ever shut up, either.”

Tito smirked at that and held out his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Hayden,” he said kindly. “You’ll have to come back — you must’ve been our good luck charm tonight.”

You shook your head shyly. “No, no, I can’t take the credit,” you insisted. “That was all you guys. But yes, it’s so nice to meet you, too, Tito.”

Tito smiled, looking between you and Mat, and before Tito could offer a response, Mat spoke into your ear.

“I got us a reservation at this place nearby,” he said, his low tone making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. “I don’t wanna rush you, but we should probably get going. Besides, hopefully this is far from the last opportunity you’ll have to hear my friends chirp me.”

You smiled up at Mat, admiring the way his still-damp hair fell perfectly around his sculpted face, and nodded.

“Sure, let’s go,” you told him.

_____

“Okay, favoriiite... NFL team.”

“Seahawks," Mat answered. "Since Seattle’s not far from Coquitlam, you know?”

You nodded. “Plus Russell Wilson and Ciara are everything.”

“Everything,” he agreed dramatically, knocking his knuckles on the table for emphasis. “What about you?”

“Oh, Pats all the way,” you proclaimed, sitting back in your chair. “The day Brady signed with the Bucs was top five worst days of my life,” you added emphatically.

Mat clucked his tongue. “Awww, poor baby,” he said teasingly, throwing you a wink. You rolled your eyes.

“Okay, okay, your turn. Next question,” you said, reaching across the table for his hand, tracing the veins there with your fingertips as Mat beamed at you, unable to think immediately of another inquiry as he was too distracted by your soothing touch.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “Alright, uh,” he began. “How about... oh, what was your favorite movie as a kid?”

A faraway smile spread slowly across your lips as you looked just past Mat, recalling laying on the floor of your den back in Maine, Nick by your side as you watched the same VHS tape over and over again.

“You’ve probably never heard of it,” you started, shaking your head. “But, uh, it was called Brave Little Toaster.”

Mat stilled.

“Shut up,” he deadpanned.

Your brows pulled together, puzzled. “What?”

Mat chuckled in disbelief. “Brave Little Toaster was my favorite movie as a kid.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “You’re lying,” you accused.

Mat put up his hands in innocence.

“Swear!” he insisted. “You can call my sister right now. We watched it every day for years.”

You could only grin stupidly. “Us, too,” you told him. “Sequels weren’t that good, though,” you added, taking a sip of your wine.

Mat nodded, looking pleased with that assessment, and thought not for the first time that night about how easy this all felt with you. How right. From the simplest thing to the most important.

“No, no, they were trash,” he laughed. “Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, and, uh... shit, what was the other one… uh, Brave Little Toaster…”

“To The Rescue,” you finished, Mat echoing the last word before you both fell into a fit of giggles.

“I cannot believe we have this much in common, Maty,” you said when you finally caught your breath.

“Yeah, pretty crazy, right?” Mat said. You nodded as he reached for his gin and tonic. “Feels like I’ve met my other half,” he said.

You pressed your lips together in an attempt to hide your shy smile, dropping your gaze to your lap. From across the table, Mat squeezed your hand. Then, a voice piped up from behind you.

“I hate to interrupt…”

You turned in your seat to find the maître d' leaning toward you, an apologetic look in his eyes.

“We’re going to be closing, so I just wanted to ask—”

“Oh, god, did we close the place down?!” you asked apprehensively, glancing around the room to discover that, indeed, you and Mat were the last two in the room.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Mat said, flustered. “I didn't even realize. We’ll get out of your hair. I’m so sorry, sir. Really.”

The man shook his head in understanding and left the table as the waiter approached with the bill.

Suddenly, your stomach dropped. You couldn’t even fathom how much two steak dinners and drinks for the both of you would cost at a place like this. You felt guilty for agreeing to come here instead of suggesting something less extravagant, and you braced yourself as you waited for Mat to make some noise of disgust at the number on the check, just like you’d been used to at the end of date nights for so long.

But, it never came. Mat simply tucked a few bills into the fold, and looked back up at you with a smile and a contented sigh.

“You ready?” he asked easily.

You nodded. “I’m ready for anything with you.”

Mat jutted out his chin proudly and came around to pull out your chair. With his hand gently resting on the small of your back, he guided you to the valet station in front of the restaurant while you waited for his car to be brought around. All the while, Mat felt his heart thudding against his ribcage as he contemplated his next move.

Unaware of his internal struggle, you turned to him with a smirk as you awaited the car’s arrival, and you slipped your hands into his jacket pockets as you leaned into his chest.

“My hands are cold,” you explained simply, while Mat nodded, thinking that there was no better feeling than you reaching out for him. He only wanted to be near to you, ever, always, which brought him to finally posing his long anticipated inquiry.

“Hey, uh…” Mat began, clearing his throat nervously. “I was thinkin’, maybe you’d wanna come over to my place, like, maybe for the night? Honestly I just… I just wanna spend as much time with you as I can, especially since we’ve got another roadie coming up. And I’d love to just curl up on the couch with you, maybe watch a movie—“

“Yes,” you answered softly, but firmly. You had never been more certain that yes, you wanted to go home with this person. Right now.

Mat was caught off guard by your confident answer, and he smiled down at you in disbelief.

“You sure?” he asked. “There’s no pressure, Hayd. I know this is moving fast and all.”

You nodded. “It is,” you concurred. “But it feels… good. It feels right. And I wanna come home with you, Maty.”

Mat grinned from ear to ear and grasped your face with both his hands, kissing you deeply just as his car pulled up to the curb. He took your hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Let’s go then.”

_____

You did spend the night at Mat's that night, and the next night, and the one after that. But the one after that, Mat wasn’t around, and was instead in Raleigh for the first half of a two-game road trip. So, you were surprised when, while you were watching the game, you heard your doorbell ring. Frowning, you jogged to your door and hit the intercom.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, Miss Parker?”

“This is she.”

“Got a delivery for you. Says it’s from an ‘M. Barzal’?”

You smirked, tucking your chin to your chest.

“I’ll be right down.”

Seconds later, you were bounding down the stairs to meet the delivery person, who stood on your building’s front steps holding a stout bouquet of full, white peonies. You thanked them as you took the bouquet in your hands, staring down at it wistfully as you closed the door behind you. Not bothering to wait until you were back in your apartment to read the note, you pulled the card from the envelope tucked within the bouquet.

Hayd,

Pretty flowers for my pretty girl. Be home soon. Don’t forget about me.

_____

“Baby sis!”

You heard your brother’s booming voice on the other end of the line three days later, sounding a bit distant. By that and the sound of papers shuffling, you knew he had you on speaker at his office. “What’s up, Hayd?”

You smiled at his eternally effervescent tone.

“Hi, Nicky,” you greeted. “Oh, nothing much.” Lie. “Just wanted to give you a call and check in.”

“Aww, I’m flattered,” Nick replied. “But you know that I know you better than anybody else, right? I can tell by your voice that you’ve got something to say. What’s goin’ on? Lay it on me.”

You bit your bottom lip. Damn him. Even all the way from Boston, he could still read you like a book. You couldn’t help the girlish giggle that escaped you as you admitted, “Okay, okay. I wanted to tell you that I, uh... I met somebody.”

You could practically hear his eyebrows shoot up over the phone.

“Really?” Nick drawled, lengthening both syllables dramatically. You rolled your eyes at his theatrics, but still, you beamed.

“Really,” you confirmed. “Somebody you’d, uh... somebody you’d actually probably recognize.”

“What do you mean? You cop yourself an attorney or what?”

“No,” you responded, fussing with the frayed hem of your cropped sweater. “No, not quite—“

“What, a Yankee then?”

Your eyes widened at his surprisingly accurate interruption. He was more on the nose than he knew.

“Well... not a Yankee, but...”

“Shut up,” he cut you off once more. “A Met? A Jet?”

You bit at the skin around your polished plum fingernails before you spat out, “An Islander.”

Silence. Then, a bellow.

“What?!”

That was Nick. Ever the thespian.

“It’s Mat Barzal, Nicky,” you answered matter-of-factly. “Like something out of a goddamn rom-com, I met him in a coffee shop about a month ago, and we’re… we’re dating. He’s my boyfriend.” You uttered the last words of your statement with an astonished laugh. It still seemed too good to be true just in your own head — telling someone else made you sound certifiably crazy, even to your own ears.

“I- … how... Jesus! What?!” Nick sputtered. “Hayden! What the fuck! Well, ‘m happy for you, but I’m just… I think I’m in shock right now.”

You groaned with a pained chuckle.

“I know. I’ve been in shock this entire time,” you concurred. “But Mat, he’s… he’s amazing. It sounds so cliché, but he’s just such a normal guy. He’s super polite, funny, thoughtful—“

“Plus he’s an absolute man rocket,” Nick added enthusiastically.

You put a hand to your forehead, rolling your eyes once more.

“Spoken like a true former hockey player,” you commented.

Quickly moving on from your remark, Nick asked, “So, when do Annie and I get to meet him? Seen him on the ice for years but I gotta make sure he’s good enough for my baby sis.”

You smiled warmly at his often-used term of endearment and replied, “Well, yeah. That’s kinda the main reason I wanted to talk to you. He plays the B’s next weekend, on Sunday, at the Garden. The game’s at 1, I think, so… uh… he got us tickets — three tickets. He wants me and you and Annie to go to the game and then he wants us all to go out together—“

“Done,” your brother spoke up firmly before you could even finish. You beamed at his confirmation, despite the fact that he had interrupted you for what felt like the hundredth time in your three-minute call.

“Really?” you asked, scrunching your nose tentatively. “I know you guys are really busy, especially with wedding planning and stuff, and I’d totally understand—“

“Hayden, stop,” Nick spoke sternly. “Seriously. It’s no problem. Sundays are good for us. Besides, even if I did have plans, I’d cancel them for this. Meeting my sister’s new boyfriend is a big deal.”

Absentmindedly, you nodded, though he couldn’t see it.

“Well, thank you, Nicky. It means a lot. I’ll let Mat know you can make it. He’ll be so excited,” you told your brother happily.

“Awesome,” Nick replied warmly. “So what about Mom and Dad? They haven’t met the kid yet, have they?”

You snorted. “Nicky, you’re only two years older than him,” you pointed out. “You can’t call him a kid.”

“Sure I can!” he insisted. “He’s dating my kid sister — that makes him a kid to me.”

You sighed, amused.

“Whatever. But no, they have not met him yet,” you said. “That’ll happen soon enough, you know? I mean, you know how Dad can be — he can come off as kinda gruff, even though you and I know he’s a teddy bear. And Mom, she’s just gonna fall in love with him, and I’m not ready for that just yet.” You chuckled as you heard Nick offer a hum of understanding on the other end of the phone. “Besides, he has a lot of respect for you, and you guys have a lot in common. I just think it would be great for the two of you to meet first,” you said.

“What do you mean he has a lot of respect for me?” Nick asked, sounding puzzled.

One of your brows quirked of its own accord and a smirk stretched across your lips. You’d unwittingly skipped over the best part — the best part for Nick, anyway.

“Oh, I didn’t mention that?” you asked smugly. “He remembered you. The first day we met, I told him my brother played in the Q, he asked my last name… and immediately, he remembered you.”

You heard Nick suck in a breath. “You can’t tell me shit like this, sis,” he said. “Annie always says my ego is already too big as it is, and you just inflated it even more.”

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter, amused by his declaration.

“Well, that’s facts,” you replied. “He remembered the injury, but most of all, he remembered how good you were. He was really glad to hear you’re doing well now.”

“Marry him, or I will,” Nick deadpanned. You could tell he was trying to use humor to mask any emotions your statement had stirred up.

“Oh, Annie would love to hear you say that,” you scoffed, then you glanced at the clock above you. “Listen, I gotta get to the Coli, but I’ll—“

“Oh, my god, my name is Hayden, and my boyfriend is an Islanderrr! I have to get to the Coli to watch him playyy!” your brother mimicked ruthlessly.

You growled at Nick’s playful mocking of you and spat, “Hey, you want these B’s-Isles tickets next weekend or not?”

Immediately, Nick shaped up.

“Just kidding, my darling baby sister! I’ll let you go, and I’ll see you next weekend,” he said.

“Deal. I’ll call you once Mat and I go over the details and stuff,” you promised.

“Sounds good. I’ll talk to ya then. Hey — one more thing,” Nick said hurriedly.

“What’s that?” you inquired as you swung your handbag over your shoulder and grabbed your jacket from the hook in your entryway.

“Are you happy?” Nick asked, his voice more solemn than it had been throughout your entire conversation — more solemn than it almost ever was. Your lips stretched into a slow grin.

“Honestly, Nicky…” you began, a dreamy sigh leaving you as you paused pulling on your jacket. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m super happy.”

You could hear Nick smiling as he replied, “Good. I can tell. You deserve it, Hayd.”

“Thanks,” you answered softly. “It feels really good.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Nick retorted knowingly. You hummed in agreement and he added, “Alright, I’ll talk to you later. I love you, baby sis.”

“I love you, too, brother,” you replied. “Bye.”

You tapped the red button on your screen to end the call and slipped your jacket the rest of the way over your shoulders as you headed for the door. Just as you reached for the knob, your phone dinged with a text alert.

MB 😍: See you after the game, beautiful. Sushi and sleepover at my place tonight? Up to you. Just let me know 😘

You felt your cheeks warm as a smile stretched across your face, grinning like an idiot at your phone as you had every day for the last month — not that you cared. In fact, it was a welcome change from the sighs and eye rolls you used to emit when reading texts from your last significant other. You felt grateful for this new beginning, this flood of long-dormant feelings you didn’t know you’d ever feel again.

Your fingers flew easily across the keyboard as you typed your response: Sounds perfect. Count me in. Good luck, baby 💋

Within seconds, as you pulled the door closed and headed for the parking garage, his reply lit up your screen.

MB 😍: 🥰

Yeah, you couldn’t have said it better yourself.

_____

The next weekend after dinner, Nick stood with his arm wrapped around Annie’s shoulders, waving goodbye as he watched you and Mat turn and walk down the sidewalk in front of the restaurant hand in hand. Annie squeezed Nick’s waist as he sighed.

“What’s the matter?” Annie asked with a soft smile.

Nick shook his head.

“Nothin’,” he said. “Absolutely nothing is the matter. That kid is… I mean, he’s somethin’ else, huh?”

Annie chuckled thoughtfully.

“He really is,” she agreed. “I’ve known your sister since she was a kid, and I’ve never seen her so giddy as she was today with him.”

“Yeah, me either,” Nick said, his voice sounding far away. “I feel like… I dunno, I feel like this might be the real thing. I know it sounds crazy to say that already.”

Annie grinned, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s crazy,” she said. “I think they’re really in love.”

Nick breathed a laugh through his nose, shaking his head. “Who woulda thought? My sister and an Islander. Shit.”

_____

“Don’t freak out,” Mat spoke, an anxious smirk on his face as his eyes glimmered.

“Maty!” you whined. “You’re scaring me. What the hell is it?” you asked, your eyes landing once more on the white box tied with a blue satin ribbon.

“Just open it,” Mat instructed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees as you studied him cautiously.

You shook your head, wondering what on earth he was up to, but pulled the ribbon to loosen the bow nonetheless. You pulled the top of the box off and peeled away the tissue paper beneath to reveal a denim jacket, the name “BARZAL” and the number 13 embroidered in blue and orange on the back, along with an Isles logo, a blue heart, and plenty of gemstones.

You silently looked toward Mat, who gazed at you expectantly.

“It’s a WAG jacket,” he explained. “You’ve probably seen some of the girls wear them to games.”

You nodded slowly, unable to think of even a single-word response. You knew what it was. You just couldn’t believe it was yours.

You looked back down to the jacket, then finally back at Mat. He moved from his seat on the couch to sit beside you on the loveseat, taking your hand.

“Listen, I know it’s still really early on, but, I… it just felt like a no brainer to me, Hayd,” he said, his words rushed. “You totally don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to — there’s no pressure. But with the playoffs coming up, Syd asked me if I wanted to have one made for you, and I said I did. I didn’t know if I should clear it with you first, but I wanted to surprise you with it, so I—”

“You… you want me to wear this to games?” you interrupted, your brows furrowed.

Mat’s own face contorted with confusion.

“Y-yeah… yeah, of course I do, baby,” he said. “You’re my girlfriend. And I want people to know it.”

You tried to hide your unsureness under a tight smile as you ran your fingers along the decals adorning the jacket, trailing your touch down the seams. You weren’t sure if you would ever get used to being someone that your significant other was proud of and wanted to show off to the world. Past that, you couldn’t believe that Mat had purchased this for you on his own, with no strings attached — just by looking at the custom item, you knew it had been far from cheap. Every day, Mat made you feel like the most special person in the world, and sometimes you weren’t sure why he bothered, or why he’d chosen you when he could have literally anyone else.

But instead of voicing what your insecurities and your past traumas were screaming at you, you simply decided to take Mat at his word — something you’d been working hard on since the start of this relationship. You flashed a million dollar smile and threw your arms around his neck.

“Thank you, Maty,” you whispered into his ear. You felt his arms tighten around you, his hands gently caressing your back. “This means so much to me.”

Mat smiled over your shoulder and kissed your temple.

“It means everything that you wanna wear it,” he told you, pulling back. “I can’t wait to see you in it.”

You beamed and glanced back down at the garment.

“You want me to try it on?” you asked excitedly, like a little kid just home from a back-to-school shopping spree.

Mat nodded, smiling. “I would love for you to try it on,” he assured.

You wasted no time pulling the jacket from the box and lifting it up. You put one arm into the first sleeve, and Mat guided the other arm after it. Upon closer inspection, you could see your own name embroidered into the wrist of the left sleeve, along with a date in matching script on the other sleeve.

“What’s this?” you asked, smoothing your finger along the thread as you held out your arm to Mat.

The corners of his lips ticked upward into a smile. “The day we met,” he said simply.

You met his eyes and immediately leaned in, grasping his face in one hand as you kissed him, overwhelmed by his constant thoughtfulness.

“Thank you,” you repeated, and Mat only nodded. He took your hands and squeezed.

“Stand up, show me,” he insisted.

You giggled and obliged, doing a little spin with your arms outstretched as Mat laughed.

“Wow, baby, it looks great on you,” he said, in awe. “I absolutely love it. Do you like it?”

You nodded, biting at your bottom lip.

“It’s perfect,” you said, smoothing your hands along the fabric. “I’m definitely wearing it to the next game.”

Mathew nodded, pleased to hear your declaration, and crooked his finger, inviting you closer. You stepped forward, rested your knees on the couch on either side of his lap, and looped your arms around his neck. Mathew began to peck at your lips, jaw, and neck playfully.

“You look,” kiss, “so good,” kiss, “with my name,” kiss, “on your back,” kiss, followed by a mischievous squeeze to your butt.

You felt heat rise from your chest, up your neck, to your face, and you leaned back to rid yourself of the jacket and carefully toss it onto the back of the couch, causing Mat to pout his lips.

You shook your head, placing your index finger to his pucker.

“For what I have planned to say thank you, I’m not gonna wanna be wearing anything nice,” you told him, removing your finger to kiss his lips.

Mat raised his eyebrows and hummed his approval.

“How about not wearing anything at all?” he asked, cockiness in his tone as he tugged at your t-shirt. Following his cues, you removed it from your body and tossed it onto the floor.

“Whatever you say, Barzal,” you said, though Mat was too focused on your lacy bra to think of a response.

Instead, he hoisted you over his shoulder as you squealed with laughter, hauling you to the bedroom and leaving the denim jacket to be worn another day.

#happy birthday ker #mathew barzal #mat barzal #m.barzal #m. barzal #my writing #mathew barzal writing #mathew barzal fanfiction #mat barzal writing #mat barzal fanfiction #nhl writing #nhl fanfiction #hockey writing #hockey fanfiction #new york islanders #islanders #barzal

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dr-spencer-reids-queen · 3 years

Text

Extreme Aggressor: Part One

Pairing: Eventual Spencer Reid x Reader

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, woman gets killed in an alley, talk of strangling and stabbing a woman

Summary: Jason Gideon is called back from a six-month leave from the Behavioral Analysis Unit to profile a killer. Meanwhile, the team flies across the country to Seattle when another young woman goes missing at the hands of "The Seattle Strangler," another serial killer.

Author’s Note: Here is it finally! After hard work, it is finally ready for your viewing pleasure! Please, feedback is always appreciated so let me know what you like about it and what you didn’t!

I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated.

So without further ado, please enjoy!

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad

Not everyone knows this but each and every person has an aura around their body as if it hovers to remind people like you that they have things to hide. Not many people can see and do what you can do, but then again, you don’t want them to. All your life, you have been able to connect with people on a much deeper level than the average human. Those auras contain energies that you are able to connect with, therefore see more than what the normal eye can.

This ability that you have has gotten you in places you should never be. It’s gotten you where another dare not to venture. It’s allowed you to see the true intention and personality of a person no matter how high and thick their walls may be. Now, some people are better at hiding their true selves than others, but you always manage to figure out what makes them tick.

Your abilities have captured the attention of a really great friend, Jason Gideon. When he figured out the thing you could do, he knew you would make a great addition to his team. Granted, he was on a “summer break” so to speak, but he would be more than happy to give you a recommendation. It’s not that you didn’t want to work for the FBI, you just didn’t know if you would be good enough.

Never have your abilities let you down even if they didn’t always give you want you wanted. No one really knew what you could do, not even your family. It made you feel like a freak, like you never belonged anywhere since all you could do was see on the soulful plane. Maybe the BAU would benefit from having you on board, but would you benefit from having the BAU on your side? Your father always told you never to join any kind of government work, and at the time, he gave a good enough reason to keep you away. Something about them always taking jobs right from underneath everyone’s noses, and you believed him when you were a kid.

Now, not so much.

It was hard to when all you saw was death wherever you go. You didn’t ask for this ability, but you got it, and it was your responsibility to help as many people as you could with it until the day you die. That was the only reason why you were considering taking Jason up on his offer. There was still some hesitation on your shoulder, and you thought a walk would do you nice.

The crowded city rushed on without you, but you only had one thing on your mind. It was the busiest part of the city, but you liked walking through there once in a while. Everyone’s thoughts and feelings came to light when they were in a rush. It bombarded you and often overwhelmed you, but nothing overcame the sickening feeling you got in your stomach when you stepped on Jefferson Rd.

The energy in the air swirled around you, but it wasn’t energy from the people around you; it was from the dead. Even spirits leave energy behind when they pass which allow people like you to snatch it up to figure out their story. The way it works is that you become so overwhelmed with the emotions and the energy that you begin to see some of the last moments that spirit went through before it passed. You are allowed to see it based on how well you connect with it.

Some people have called you being psychic while other people called you a witch. Being an empathetic person helped you see the picture clearly. Not always will you get a clear one, and sometimes, you may not even get a full body. It’s whatever the spirit left behind and wanted you to see. They laid down the stepping stones, and it was up to you to be able to pass them.

Standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, you looked to your left to see a woman appear out of thin air. She was a bit transparent which is how you were able to spot the difference between an energy source and a real human. She was maybe in her mid-twenties, and she was jogging with headphones in. She passed by you without a second glance, and everyone around you seemed to disappear since the only person you were able to focus on was her.

She jogged for a few more seconds when a black apparition came out of the alley not far from you. The black shape grabbed at the woman, but you needed to replay that scene over if you wanted to connect with his spirit. Sometimes, when a picture isn’t clear, you have to replay the mini silent movie over and over again until you can either get a clear picture or you knew that you weren’t getting anything more.

As if you had a remote in one hand, you pressed it which rewound the action. The woman jogged backwards past you to where she first emerged, and you hit the play button. Just like before, she jogged past you, minding her own business when the black shape came at her. This time, he was a bit clearer. Repeating this process over and over again, you watched the woman get kidnapped about twenty more times before you could see the exact details of the man’s face.

He grabbed her and pulled her into the alley, but you couldn’t seem to move. The clearer the picture, the stronger the energy. The stronger the energy meant the event you watched happened recently. The longer the event goes unsolved, the less amount of energy you are able to connect with.

Something happened in that alley, but you dreaded going anywhere near it. However, this woman’s story was untold, and her spirit won’t rest unless someone tells it for her. Taking a deep breath, you looked at the busy street and suddenly remembered that you were in the middle of a city with a bustling amount of people around you.

Pushing past the crowd, you made your way to the alley until you were completely alone as the rest of the world left the single girl who was in the alley alone. There was one particular spot that drew you in, and you took a few steps towards it before getting another vision. The man jammed a knife into the woman’s abdomen, and you gasped when you felt her emotional pain. Being an empath is really hard work since you had more than yourself to worry about.

The woman dropped to the ground with a loud thud, and the man kept stabbing her over and over again until she was way past dead. Once he was satisfied, he took the murder weapon with him and fled the scene, running right past you to do it. It took everything in you to look away from his eyes despite your body telling you to do so.

The noise of the busy city drowned out the sound of a body thumping on the ground, and you crept to the area where she was stabbed. Instead of a body, there was a thick blue tarp covering the ground. It looked like a body was underneath it, but it could be trash. Please let it be trash. Please let it be trash. Picking up the end of the tarp with your gloved hand, you peeked underneath it to see wide soulless eyes staring at you.

The shock overwhelmed you, and you dropped the tarp in shock. Tears threatened to escape your eyes, but if it wasn’t for you, this woman probably would have never been found—or, at least, not right now. From what you could gather, the body was still fresh with only sight signs of decaying. If you called the police now, they might be able to find her killer.

Taking out your cellphone, you dialed 911 and put in an anonymous tip before getting the hell out of there. It didn’t take long for first responders to arrive on scene, and you watched from the deli across the street as they uncovered her. She was found because of you. She is going to get justice because of you.

That was all the evidence you needed to make your decision.

Taking out your phone once more, you called your dear and beloved friend. It took him three rings to pick up.

“Jason, it’s me, Y/N. I’ll take it.”

Gideon was sucked back into the BAU on a case after he needed to take some time for himself. He was involved with a bomber that took out one hostage and six agents, so you could understand why he requested for your help. He trusted you to aid this team in finding a killer, especially when he saw what you can do first-hand. It was hard to explain your abilities to someone who couldn’t possibly understand, but you knew you had to since he had a jet full of his other teammates.

It didn’t take long to get to the airport where the jet was waiting, and before you ascended the stairs, you could feel everyone’s emotions—impatient, curiosity, calmness, and eagerness. They were all waiting for you, and you needed to show them that you belonged on their team. Walking on the jet, all heads turned at the new presence. Gideon stood up and approached you with a welcoming smile on his face.

“It’s good to see you again,” he stated.

“Well, you needed me. Here I am,” you nodded, looking at everyone else on the jet.

The person you noticed first was what you assumed to be the second person in charge. He had almost black hair and a hard gaze since he didn’t really like newcomers. The next person was a black male who emitted impatience since he just wanted to get in the air. The last person was a scrawny young male which is where the curiosity was coming from.

“Y/N, this is my team. Agent Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, and Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“Spencer Reid?” you asked, and the young man perked up at the sound of his name. “Sorry, but I’ve read everything you have ever written especially Identifying Non-obvious Relationship Factors Using Cluster Weighted Modeling and Geographic Regression. You have a very intelligent mind.”

“Thank you,” he smiled, clearly impressed that you read his work.

“Guys, this is my good friend Y/N that I’ve asked to help us on this case.”

“Is she FBI?” Hotchner asked.

“Not exactly.”

“I am what’s known as an empathetic psychic. If ‘witch’ makes you sleep better at night, then call me that. I see things that most people are not able to see. I connect with people’s energies, especially the dead. Believe it or not, I see events that lead up to someone’s death due to the energy and the spirit they leave behind. The more recent the event, the stronger of a picture I get. It doesn’t always give me what I want, but it always provides me with what I need. I’ll be a valuable asset to this team.”

“I already approved it with the board. She has her firearm qualification and she passed the academy with flying colors,” Gideon sided with you.

“We need to get going. We’ll see how you do on this case,” Hotchner nodded.

With that, the plane was off. It wasn’t until the pilot let you know it was safe to move around the cabin that everyone start to talk about the case.

“His first victim was Melissa Kirsh—stab wounds and strangulation,” Spencer read from the file.

“Wait, wait. Back up. Back up,” Derek interrupted. “He stabbed her and then strangled her to finish her off?”

“Other way around,” Gideon cleared his throat before turning to you, the hopefully newest member of the team. “Why do you think he started using the belt with the second murder?”

“Strangulation with your bare hands is not as easy as one would believe,” you said, earning a few stares from the others. You knew it would take some time for them to get used to you, especially when they didn’t even know you. The fact that you’re with them is because you’re friends with Gideon. “He tried and probably found that it took too long so he stabbed her instead and realized it would be hours cleaning up the blood.”

“Next time, our boy's got a method—the belt,” Derek added.

“He's learning and perfecting his scenario. Becoming a better killer,” Gideon stated.

“So, Y/N, where did you learn about profiling?” Hotchner asked, taking a break from the case.

“I have a PhD in Criminal Justice with a sole focus on profiling. Another one in Psychology which better helps me connect with others. I thought Gideon told you all of this,” you asked, looking at your friend.

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Spencer asked.

“Twenty-three. Well, I turn twenty-three in a few months.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. How did you get two PhD’s at your age?”

“How’d you get three at yours?”

“I’m a genius with an eidetic memory.”

“Yeah, well, I worked my ass off to get where I am so just know that you’re not letting just anyone on this jet with you. I’d be happy to prove myself to you guys. I’ve been doing it since I could read.”

“There’s a few more of us you still have to meet,” Hotchner stated.

“Lucky you, Reid,” Derek grinned. The young doctor stared at his friend in confusion. “You’re not the youngest one here anymore.”

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@averyhotchner

#extreme aggressor #series rewrite #criminal minds series rewrite #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds angst #cm #cm fic #cm fanfiction #cm fluff #cm angst #season 1 episode 1 #s1e1

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iamtrebleclefstories · 3 years

Text

that same kind of joy

98 - “You scared the shit out of me.”

Now, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about this fic when I first started writing it and I had no idea where it was gonna go, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It’s not exactly what you might’ve had in mind, but I hope you enjoy! @andreagraham

this takes place in a wonderful world where 16x16 never happened :)

She remembers a bang. It was loud and deafening to the point that when she comes to, there’s an incessant ringing in her ears. She wants to just lay there and sleep, but that’s probably just the mild concussion talking. Instead, she painstakingly cracks her eyes open just enough to get a good view of her surroundings.

Metal. Bright. Debris. Blood.

Blood.

It’s not her own. At least, Jo doesn’t think it belongs to her. It is a trail of blood that extends in front of her, leading in front of a woman with a swollen abdomen who is crying out in distress. Jo picks herself up from the ground long enough to realize what just happened.

She remembers getting on the train back to Seattle after a weekend medical conference in San Francisco with Carina Deluca. It had been a spur of the moment decision, something Alex had surprised her with when he presented her with a train ticket, booked hotel room, and a weekend off. She had been thrilled at the prospect of hearing Addison Montgomery speak as she considered a career switch to OB. It had been the perfect getaway, until about ten minutes ago.

Now, Jo stands in the remains of one of the train cars she’d been traveling in and looks around in horror to see multiple individuals in varying states of trauma. She quickly canvasses the area to determine who seemed okay and who looked as though they were in immediate need of assistance. After getting help from a nursing student, dental PA, and off-duty officer that happened to be riding in the same train car, Jo leaves the other passengers and makes her way over to the pregnant woman who was clearly in labor.

“Hey,” Jo crouches down in front of the woman. “My name is Jo Karev. I’m a surgeon at Grey Sloan Memorial in Seattle. I see that you’re having some contractions. Is it okay if I examine you?” Jo waits until the woman nods her consent before gently pressing her hands on the woman’s bump to determine position. “What’s your name?”

“Alyssa,” the young woman breathes out heavily. “My name is Alyssa Belmont.”

“Nice to meet you Alyssa. Can you tell me how far along you are?” Jo looks down at her watch to monitor the length and interval of the contractions.

“I'm only 35 weeks,” Alyssa’s voice betrays her anxiety. “It’s too early.”

“It’s okay, the ambulance is going to be here soon and we will be able to get you and your baby to a hospital safely where some really nice pediatrician will make sure that they’re just fine,” Jo takes the hand sanitizer from her purse and uses it to disinfect her hands and ruffles through her first aid kit to find a single pair of gloves. “Do you know what you’re having?”

“A boy,” Alyssa nods. “My fiancé is stationed overseas but is supposed to come home in two weeks. He was supposed to be here for the delivery. I’m not supposed to be doing this alone.”

“Hey, Alyssa. Listen to me. You are not alone. I’m right here with you and I promise I won’t leave your side until you are holding a healthy baby in your arms,” Jo locks eyes with the young woman in front of her. “I need to know some things if I’m going to better care for you. Did you get hurt when the train derailed? Did you feel a tearing or a sharp pain in your abdomen?”

“No,” Alyssa shakes her head. “Just the contractions. But I had already been feeling some sporadic contractions throughout the day and the past week if I’m being honest. That’s normal though, right? Like Braxton hicks?”

“Yes, it's completely normal to feel a couple contractions here and there once you’re nearing the end of your pregnancy. It’s your body trying to prepare itself for birth,” Jo takes off her jacket and drapes it over Alyssa’s lower abdomen and pelvis to maintain some semblance of modesty. “Okay Alyssa, I’m going to push up your dress and remove your leggings and underwear so that I can get a look at how much you’ve progressed.”

Prior to the surprise delivery she was pulled into a couple weeks ago where all she had to do was catch the baby, it had been a long time since Jo had delivered a baby that wasn’t a c-section. It had been years since she had to check for dilation and effacement and in that moment she found herself really wishing that Carina - who had opted to stay in San Francisco for a few days more with a friend - had been on this train instead of her.

“Okay, Alyssa. It looks like you're about eight centimeters dilated and I'd say somewhere around eighty to ninety percent effaced,” Jo informs.

“What does that mean?” Alyssa brushes her hair out of her face and winces as another contraction comes over her.

“That means that pretty soon it’ll be time to push,” Jo looks around to the surrounding passengers. “Does anyone have a clean towel or blankets in their bag? And water. I need an unopened water bottle.”

A few of the lesser injured passengers step forward after ruffling through their bags to present Jo with the items she requested, “Here are two bottles of water, one clean towel, and three blankets.”

Jo does her best to keep Alyssa comfortable and wait until the paramedics arrive. But within minutes, Alyssa is fully dilated, effaced, and ready to push. Jo looks down at Alyssa and keeps her face as calm as possible so as not to alert the young woman to the anxiety currently building up inside of her.

“Alright, Alyssa, once you feel your next contraction I need you to push. You’re going to push for ten seconds and then take a break. Do you understand?”

Alyssa grunts in response, “Yup.”

After what seems like an eternity, the train car fills with a sharp, loud cry. Jo feels some tears prickle at her eyes as she’s the first person to hold this little one as it enters the world, “Hey there, little man. You’ve got a set of lungs on you. That’s good. I was worried about your little lungs. Let’s get you cleaned up so your mama can hold you.” Jo uses the surrounding materials to clean and warm up the infant before placing him on Alyssa’s chest.

“Oh God,” Alyssa chokes out a quiet sob. “You’re here. Hi baby. I’m so sorry your daddy isn’t here but I know that he’ll be so happy to meet you.”

Jo wipes a straying tear from her eye on her arm, “I hate to intrude on the moment but we do have to cut the cord and deliver the placenta.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alyssa shakes her head. “Can I just hold him for one more second?”

“I don’t see why not,” Jo barely has time to get those words out of her mouth when paramedics come rushing through the train car. She breathes out a sigh of relief and flags one of them down. “Hi, I’m a surgeon at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle. This woman just gave birth to a premature infant at thirty five weeks. She and the baby need to go to the hospital immediately.”

The paramedic quickly calls her partner to assist her as they make quick work of getting Alyssa out of the train and into an ambulance. Just as Jo is about to turn around and head back inside to help in any way she can, Alyssa puts her hand on Jo’s arm, “Can you come with us? Please. You said you’d be there and I really don’t want to be alone.”

Looking up at the paramedic to make sure that it’s okay to ride along, Jo squeezes Alyssa’s hand gently, “Of course.”

+++

Jo shouldn’t have been all that surprised when she feels a familiar set of arms tighten around her, bringing her close to his chest. She sighs contently as she allows her husband to hold her tenderly. She whimpers in protest when Alex pulls away to get a good look at her.

“Jo,” he breathes out in relief. “You scared the shit out of me.” Alex presses a light kiss to her forehead. “When I saw the crash on the news I almost had a heart attack. I tried calling you and the hospitals but no one was saying anything. No one knew what was going on. All we knew was that the train derailed in the middle of nowhere Oregon and some of the cars detached and got flipped on their sides. What the hell happened?”

“I delivered a baby today,” Jo huffs a laugh. “After the crash knocked me out for a few minutes, I got up and there was a woman in premature labor. Her name is Alyssa. I-I delivered her baby. I was the first person in this entire world that got to hold him. The world was literally crashing down around us, but I got to deliver this beautiful baby boy with a surprisingly well developed set of lungs for how early he was born. I’ve been with her ever since it happened. They’re moving her up to a room right now. I’m supposed to meet her up there.”

“Baby, that’s incredible. But have you gotten checked out?” Alex asks quietly. “I need to know that you’re okay.”

“I’m okay, Alex,” Jo assures him. “I have a mild concussion and a couple of bruised ribs. Nothing that some ibuprofen and rest won’t fix.” Alex scowled unconvinced, causing Jo to laugh. “I’m fine. Really. Now do you want to come with me to see them?”

“Okay, fine.”

They make their way up to Alyssa’s room and Jo introduces Alex and Alyssa to each other. They spoke softly for a few moments until Alyssa’s doctor showed up outside the room.

“Sorry to interrupt,” the doctor smiles sheepishly at the group. “But you can go ahead and see your baby Miss Belmont. I can get one of the nurses to take you up to the NICU.”

“That’s okay, we can take her,” Jo and Alex help Alyssa out of the bed and into a wheelchair, carefully bringing her to stop beside her son’s warmer. “There he is.”

Alex looks up at the monitors as he listens to a resident list off the results of the studies they’d been conducting over the past few hours, “His SATs and his APGAR look great, all things considered. He’ll probably spend a week or two here before he’s sent home. He’s a strong and resilient little guy.” Alyssa and the resident both look at him in question. “I’m a peds surgeon.”

The hours go by quickly and before anyone knows it, night has fallen. Alex nudges Jo slightly, “Hey, I think we should get going. You need some rest. I got us a hotel room for the night.”

Jo nods in agreement and goes to move when Alyssa places a hand on her shoulder, “Wait. You can’t leave without knowing what the baby’s name is. I finally decided on a name.”

“What is it?” Jo asks expectantly.

“His name is Joseph Benjamin Harold. Joey for short,” Alyssa reveals. “It’s only fitting that he be named after the person who helped bring him into this world.”

“Are you serious?” Jo’s face breaks out into a wide grin. “I-I feel honored.”

“Thank you, Jo. For everything. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Those words stick with Jo all the way back to the hotel. As they’re getting into bed that night, Jo cuddles up to Alex and sighs dreamily.

“What was that for?” Alex’s face turns up into a half smile as he glances down at his wife.

“I’m just so happy right now,” Jo shakes her head. “I know I shouldn’t be. Today was a horrible day for a lot of people. There was a tragic accident. But in the midst of all of that, I helped bring a baby into the world and I feel so much joy because of it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Alex pulls her closer. “A big part of why I love peds is because of the joy you feel every time you’re able to save a kid and give them hope for a future. And I’ve assisted on quite a few deliveries and it’s pretty incredible.”

“I think I wanna switch. I wanna make the switch to OB,” Jo exhales. “I love surgery, don’t get me wrong. And maybe one day I’ll venture into maternal-fetal surgery, but I want to be an OB, Alex. I want to deliver babies and feel that same kind of joy every single day.”

“Okay. So as soon as we get back to the hospital, we’re going to talk to Bailey and see about getting a letter of recommendation to the OB program so that you can switch specialties without repeating an intern year,” Alex rubs circles on Jo’s back.

“Are you sure? I know this is a big decision. I’ll be a resident again. I’ll have longer hours and be making resident money again,” Jo eyes widen at Alex’s simple response to her desire to make the change.

“Jo, I make plenty of money for the both of us. We’re married, we have a joint bank account. You don’t need to worry about the money. We dated throughout your entire surgical residency and everything was just fine. I want to support you however I can, and if what you want is to be a part of the vagina squad then I’m going to support you in that. I’m going to be there for you every step of the way,” Alex’s lips curve into a smirk. “Besides, I think you’ll look really hot in pink scrubs.”

“Shut up,” Jo laughs and shoves him lightly.

“What? It’s the truth. But then again, I think you look hot in everything.”

“You’re so good to me,” Jo’s eyes shine with happiness. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

#jolex #jolex fanfic #alex x jo #jo wilson #alex karev and jo wilson #jo wilson x alex karev #train crash #surprise babies #switching specialties #pink scrubs #grey's anatomy #grey's anatomy fanfic #jo wilson fanfic #jo karev #grey's anatomy fanfiction #grey's anatomy au

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blush-and-books · 3 years

Text

call me babe for the weekend - juke x 'tis the damn season by taylor swift

Seattle was cold.

Or, LA was also hot. But she hadn't been back to the city in awhile, so her tanned skin had warmed to the climate adjustment and shaken off the frost layer from her childhood in the Pacific Northwest. Now, she was wrapped in a jacket and still warming up from the harsh winds outside when Luke brushed past her.

The air that swept her was cold as Seattle. And she supposes she couldn't blame him for it.

Even if he deserves it right back.

Coming home for Christmas was always on Julie's radar, but sometimes, it just wasn't able to happen. She had so much going on. And her father told her it was okay, so Christmas dinner would land whenever she was able to come home. Touring and writing and producing and travelling was holding her on her toes.

But it was what she wanted.

And when she knew she would definitively be back on the calendar date of Christmas - she thought of Luke, but only one time. One strong, lingering, overwhelming time. Of course he would be there, orbiting her friends and family back in Seattle somehow, seeing as how he never left.

He could have done so much more, like she did. But they both made their choices. That's that.

She got to town on a Thursday. Friday was Christmas Eve, Saturday was Christmas. She would go back to LA on Monday morning. Just a quick weekend to remind herself she still had a family waiting for her, that there was a life before cameras and commercials.

Flynn comes with her, obviously. Julie doesn't know how she ever could have left Seattle without Flynn, let alone survive Los Angeles in the early days of identifying as a struggling artist. When they land, and Flynn gets a message from Julie's adoptive brother Reggie that they're going to have a friends and family Christmas Eve party, Julie makes the dry comment that her brother only just sent that when they landed because Julie wouldn't be able to scatter back to the palm trees and forget about them again.

Because Luke would be there, and maybe it was about time they saw each other. It had been too long.

Too long, way too long, for Julie to still stare at photos of them and cry in bed on tough nights. Too long for her to debate fucking off to Seattle and buying a house on the lake and hiding with him forever.

Too long for either of them to ever grant each other forgiveness.

She didn't know what to say to him - not in the car on her way to her dad's house, not in her childhood bed that night, and not at the kitchen counter the next evening, trying to spoon eggnog into a cup and instead being hyperaware of the fact that Luke just walked behind her without so much as a passing comment.

When he disappears, in and out with intentional speed, Julie wonders if she imagined it.

"You alright?" Flynn slides up next to her, getting some of her own eggnog before leaning on the counter with her elbows. Julie tries to keep her eyes away from Luke and focuses on Alex showing off his engagement ring instead.

"Yeah."

"Go on. Socialize. Everyone misses you." Her best friend clinks their two crystalline glasses together in a one-sided cheers. "'Tis the damn season, after all."

Throwing back her drink, Flynn wipes at her mouth with a smirk, and cheerily goes back to the party.

Julie soon repeats the action.

'Tis the damn season.

When he slips out onto the porch, alone, she sets out to follow him in her tipsy state. He's been obviously avoiding her all night, but she just wants to say hi - just wants to hear his voice directed at her again.

Even if he tells her that he resents her for leaving and doesn't want to talk to her ever again.

At least she would see his eyes.

Even with alcohol toasty in her system and a fluffy jacket on, she shivers upon her exit. "It's cold," she says to no one, but he turns around at the sound.

He quirks a smile. She barely catches it, busy wrapping her jacket around her waist even tighter, but it makes her heart skip.

"Yeah," he agrees, "even for Seattle."

Her eyes are frozen on his face. He's older since she last saw him, obviously, and she never thought about how apparent that would be. How four years can make a twenty year old look twenty-four. She doesn't want to make him uncomfortable, but just being in his space is electric, and she can't help it.

"Mind if I... Uh..."

"Oh, yeah. Of course. I don't have any claim over your porch."

It's not her porch. Her porch is back in LA. But Luke doesn't know that porch, or LA, or her life there. He only knows the Julie of Seattle whose curls he would have to save from unanticipated rainfall.

The two of them are quiet for a long while as she drifts over to rest against the railing, right next to Luke. They don't touch - neither of them have even said each other's names. Julie may fall apart if he does.

She doesn't like to regret moving to Seattle. Her family was supportive and while she had gotten good and bad press, her career was huge. She did what she wanted, she made her mom proud, and she shared her voice with the world.

But a part of why she avoids Seattle like the plague is because Luke's name bursts from the graffiti on the streets, and in each honk of a car horn.

She's pretty sure it won't go away, either.

"I owe you an apology."

Julie whips her head to her left, too fast. She battles an oncoming wince, but she knows this may be her only chance where she'd have the nerve to reciprocate: "I owe you one, too."

They acknowledge that they both fucked up. Sometimes, when designers throw new couture to wear on red carpets in her direction and Carrie Wilson slanders her name in the press, Julie wonders if she got the short end of the deal.

(Maybe they both got the short end without each other.)

Now that it's out there, the acknowledgement is settled.

Julie holds out her hand, all too formal for the person she once made drowsy engagement plans with, but she finds it to be necessary.

"Let's call it even. I'm here for the weekend. We're good."

He hesitates before taking it.

"We're good."

After they shake a few times, she wonders if he'll let go. She's not, and he's not, and they're standing all too close while holding hands. With her own trail of failed connections behind her, she is suddenly curious as to whether he's found anyone since she's left. It would make sense. People are drawn to him.

She's still drawn to him.

Before they start swaying into each other, and gravity pulls too hard, Tia Victoria cackles inside the house. Julie feels a sense of dread for holidays she's always felt linger, only slightly, since her mom died.

"I'm so bad at holidays now," she remarks.

"Wanna go somewhere?"

The offer is drastically unexpected, but feels like an absolute dream. Without needing to talk about it, they settled their scores.

Then why does she ache at the sight of his truck?

Who knows where he wants to take her - she just wants him to take her. Take the pain.

Maybe he feels it too.

"Please."

tags: @willexx @brightattheorpheum @lydias--stiles @bluefirewrites @pink-flame @thedeathdeelers @futurearchaeologyprof @babydagger28 @wlwcarries @sylphrenas @echocharm17618

@sirena-de-lunas @ruzek-halstead @phantomsandsunsets @unsaid-emily

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #juke

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runwithwolvcs · 3 years

Text

You Know I'm No Good - eleven

just one more

Warnings: none just fluff

It's you,

because no one else makes sense

Pauls PoV

Paul had dropped Tallulah just before midnight, waiting until she had made it safely into her home before heading off towards Sam’s, which wasn’t too far from the Forresters. He cut through the well-known woods as a shortcut before coming out into the same clearing Sam and he had found Tallulah and her friends just one week prior. Where he had found Tallulah and that Chase kid all wrapped up in one another, now mixed with the boy he had found her with tonight, sent waves of anger through Paul's body. Not necessarily from jealousy, more so to do with his imprints lack of care of who she chooses as company. Paul knows he's not much better than the boys she calls her friends, he was them when he was in high school. Before he had shifted at least.

He had known trying to figure her out wouldn’t be easy, especially with the rumors that had been spread like wildfire amongst the tribe before she had even stepped foot onto the reservation. When Rachel had pointed her out at the bonfire her first night, the night everything had changed for him, he couldn’t help but notice how different she seemed. He knew that she had grown up in the city, but even just the air around her, the way she didn’t care that everyone's eyes were focused on her, was so refreshing in comparison to most of the younger girls on the res. Surely, he should’ve known just from that thought she would be special to him, considering who he had shown up to the bonfire with was no longer a thought in his mind, but only when they had made eye contact was it solidified.

Her.

His other half.

And just like that everything had changed. He had wanted to say hello, introduce himself and if it wasn’t for the immediate connection, he would have, but he could feel her resentment. To what he was unsure of, but it was enough to send a ripple of anger through him, and with Rachel's reaction to Tallulah, it was enough to send him over the edge completely, causing him to leave the bonfire early and his imprint.

His first interaction with her had not gone to plan either. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but the fiery girl he had met that day excited him, he wanted to know more of her, and still does. Even though she had spent the week helping Paul at the bookstore, and more and more of her personality had come out besides just the exterior front she had put up with him, he wanted to know more about her. What her life was like back in Seattle, what her interests are, besides causing what seems to be an infinite amount of trouble for herself. Her favorite book, and movie. Everything.

Walking down the dirt road up to the familiar wooden cottage, Paul could see his truck sitting off to the side meaning Embry had beaten him back, hopefully he had filled them in too, he thought to himself, wanting nothing more than to just go on his patrol shift and then head to bed.

Walking through the door he was met with Sam and Emily sitting at their dining room table, he could hear that Embry was in the kitchen, no doubt looking for something to eat. They had stopped their conversation as soon as Paul had entered, Sam was now looking at him with a stern look, whereas Emilys was more concerned, “She’s fine.” he reassured Emily, and himself.

Emily had quickly spoken to Tallulah after Paul had unintentionally shifted, something that was so rare for him to do nowadays. Emily was the one who was able to pull out any information from Tal, which he was grateful for, but from the look on Sams, he was not so happy,

“You should have gone to Joseph,” Sam started, causing Paul to scoff, “That's what he’s asked of us, Paul. I let you get away with keeping her night in the clearing from him, but this, this was something he should’ve dealt with himself. Tallulah is his daughter, and if you’re always there to bail her out of the problems she creates for herself, then you’re undermining the limits he’s set with her.” Sam spoke with authority, like Paul was back in school having been sent to the principal's office.

He wanted to roll his eyes, instead he just said, “His daughter? His daughter that he knows nothing about. His daughter that he completely abandoned when she was a child. His daughter, that he doesn’t want to be truly happy because if he did he wouldn’t have come to me and asked for me to ignore the imprint. I’m not sorry that I didn’t go to him, because that was the last thing she needed tonight.” With each sentence he got angrier and angrier, causing Sam to stand up from his spot at the table.

Even the thought of the day Joseph had called a meeting with himself and Sam could cause him to shift on the spot. Being told from the day he first shifted that finding your imprint was a gift, and then being told to stay away from her once he had found her left him in a state of permanent anger. The worst part was that he actually listened and did what he was told despite seeing the repercussions it was having on her.

“Whatever you may think of him, Paul, does not mean you get to overrule what he says. None of this would have happened tonight if she had listened to her father.” Sam reasoned, and before Paul could defend his actions yet again, Emily stepped in,

“I think what Sam is trying to say is that Tallulah needs that family structure. Joseph wants to give her that, and because you imprinted on her so suddenly, he just wants to make sure she still gets it before you tell her everything. That's why he wanted you to fight back from the pull, and obviously that didn’t work out quite like anyone expected. But you protecting her from any consequence that she needs to face is only going to re-solidify for her that she doesn’t need that family structure in her life. Which could cause problems for both of you, once she finds out she’s linked to you for the rest of her life.” Emily explained gently.

Paul ran his hands over his face in exhaustion. He knew she was right, that Sam was too. But he didn’t want to hurt her, their friendship was fragile already and telling her dad about her whereabouts would only fracture it even more. “I’m going to tell her everything. Whether Joseph wants me to or not, she deserves to know. Hell, she deserves to know why he abandoned her and her mom, too.”

Tallulah’s POV:

The next morning Tallulah woke up in a state of sorrow, wanting nothing more than to just be left alone by everyone. Deciding that the only way she was going to truly find seclusion was to go for a hike by herself. It wasn’t the safest option she had come up with but it definitely was the most fool-proof.

She stood at the entrance of a path leading into the woods, pulling her jacket tighter around body as the wind picked up. The only thing she had bothered to bring with her was a small backpack carrying a water bottle. She had left her phone on the kitchen counter next to a note that had said she had gone on a hike, so that her dad and Kira knew she didn’t have it. She didn’t want to see or be contacted by anyone, and she meant it wholeheartedly. Walking into the forest following the worn, dirt path through the what seemed to be never ending trees, the smell of the earthy air mixed with the leftover rain smell from earlier in the morning was intoxicating. She loved it. It was something she craved in Seattle, which was a never ending smell of car fumes and other awful aromas. It was something she grew to love, but she never felt at peace there. She felt as if there was a piece of her missing in Seattle, and being back in La Push had seemingly filled that feeling, though she would never admit it outloud to anyone, ever.

Tallulah felt free in the woods as she continued down the overused path, following all the twists and turns, up all the little hills. The crisp air burned her lungs as she struggled to keep her breathing laboured. She was never one for exercise and it was really starting to show but she continued anyway. The wind seemingly picked up the higher she got from the ground, the leaves of the trees around her bristling with it. This was the most at peace she had felt since arriving in LaPush. No one was around to tell her what to do or how to act, just herself and her thoughts. It was nice for a change.

She arrived at a little clearing just in front of a cliff and decided to take a small break, leaning up against one of the many trees around her. She could hear the waves of the ocean from her spot, but was too nervous to get closer to the edge of the cliff.

A branch breaking nearby caused Tallulah to swivel quickly in the direction she thought it came from, the feeling of being watched by something giving her an uneasy feeling, she forced herself to continue in the direction she had been headed. She was too far into her hike to turn back now, she thought to herself. Walking up another steep area, she held onto a tree to keep her steady as she climbed the rough terrain. The bark of the old tree felt rough on her palm. As she got herself past the steep area, Tallulah surveyed what the next bit of path looked like as she continued slowly, the feeling of being watched had grown severely. The rustle of the trees and bushes around signalling that there must be an animal nearby, probably just a bunny, she thought to herself.

Taking her backpack off her back, she knelt down to unzip it, the ground keeping it up right. Grabbing the water bottle she had packed before zipping it back up. Taking a sip as she stood up, a howl ripped through the air from the area she had just been in, too close for comfort causing Tallulah to grab her bag off the ground and begin to speed walk further up the path, looking behind her to make sure the wolf wasn’t behind her. When she turned back around, Paul was walking towards her. An unreadable expression on his face. He was shirtless, in his usual cargo shorts and running shoes despite the fact that the wind felt more like knives.

“What is wrong with you? Do you know how many people are looking for you right now?” he asked, the concern was evident in his tone.

“I left a note.” she stated bluntly. It's not like she just ran away.

“And your phone!” he exclaimed.

“I wanted to be alone.” she tried to justify but Paul was having none of it.

“You can’t just come out here alone, Tal. It’s dangerous.” he stressed, “You could’ve gotten hurt and nobody would have known.” That's a fair point, she thought to herself.

“I’m not alone.” she said as she walked past him, continuing on the path, “You’re here.”

They continued forward, Paul following a few steps behind, before she stopped at another lookout. Tallulah was exhausted but too stubborn to admit, especially to Paul. There were a few picnic benches in the clearing of the lookout that she had walked over to, sitting on top with her feet on the bench, taking a sip of her water before handing it to Paul.

“How’d you find me?” she asked curiously as he took a swig of her bottle and placed it on top of the table before sitting next to her.

“Only so many trails near your house. Guess I got lucky choosing the one I did” he spoke softly. Tallulah nodded her head, looking him over. He looked so tired and she felt a bit guilty considering the events of the night before. Noticing the circular tattoo on his shoulder, two wolves howling, she couldn’t help but trace it lightly with her finger, amazed at the intricacy of. It really puts all of her little sticks and pokes to shame.

“When did you get this?” she asked quietly, shifting her eyes from the tattoo to his face.

He cleared his throat before saying, “When I was sixteen. It’s kind of a long story.” he trailed off.

She nodded her head and smiled before saying, “It’s nice.”

“You’ve got some pretty interesting ones too,” he teased, “I particularly like the little ghost you’ve got.”

Tallulah laughed, “I thought I did a pretty good job.” she said, shoving the sleeve of her jacket up her arm to look at the little ghost on her forearm that she had done when she was 15 on Halloween.

“You apply to any colleges yet” Paul asked curiously to which Tallulah nodded her head.

“Yeah, I did back in Seattle but I’m not going to get into any of them so..” she trailed off, shoving her sleeve back down her arm, hiding her hands inside her sleeve. He was looking at her, and she couldn't tell if he was confused or concerned by her statement. “I was in the arts stream at my old school. All my applications needed an extensive portfolio that I’m never going to get to finish so they're basically already rejections.” She explained, although she didn’t know if she was upset about the fact that she didn’t have all of the qualifications for the schools she had chosen. She didn’t even know if she had wanted to go to college.

“Do you regret not going to college?” she asked him, turning her body so she was facing him.

“No,” Paul shook his head, “I didn’t really have plans to go. Couldn’t you finish your portfolio here?”

“No, I don’t have any of the equipment and it's all too expensive. Besides, I don’t want to waste my time and money just to be told no.”

He nodded his head in understanding, “You’ve still got lots of time to figure out what you want to do next.” he placed his warm hand on her knee and gave it a comforting squeeze causing her cheeks to flush more than what the cold had already caused. Whether the cold was making her mind delirious and the warmth radiating off Paul's body was too inviting, she couldn’t stop herself from leaning over and pressing her cold lips to his warm ones. It was soft and gentle but also sent shockwaves through her body.

Realizing what she had just done, Tallulah pulled away quickly, eyes wide and wild, “I shouldn’t have.. Oh my..I’m sorry, you have -” she rambled before being cut off by Paul pressing his lips back to hers. His large hand came to rest on her cheek, her eyes fluttered closed. She kissed him back with the same need that he had. It felt like one timeless and passionate moment that she would never be able to relive again and she reveled in it.

Tallulah brought her hand up to the back of his neck, tangling her fingers into his overgrown hair. It was all so sensual and smooth, nothing like any of the boys she had ever kissed before. Nothing like Xander. She felt guilty for thinking about him while her lips were connected to Pauls but it brought her back down to reality, she pulled away from him keeping her eyes cast to the ground. She separated herself from him and stood up from the picnic table, “We shouldn’t have done that.” she said quickly.

“Tal,” Paul reached for her but she shook her head, “You have a girlfriend! And I-” she stopped herself taking a deep breath, looking up at him not knowing what to say.

Paul chuckled, “I don’t have a girlfriend. But hey” he raised his hands up in defense, “It was a momentary lapse of judgement on your part but I’m not going to apologize. I wanted to kiss you, so I did.” he stated.

“Fine , you don’t have a girlfriend and I kissed you first but it’s never going to happen again.” she tried to state firmly, knowing damn well she wanted nothing more to walk up and kiss him again.

“Fine.” he agreed, standing up and in front of her. She sighed exasperatedly, standing on her tippy toes, both hands clasping his cheeks, “Just one more.”

Taglist: @cperry0516 , @bhasbhabiessss, @fuzzyfingersandcavier @haventdecidedyet

#paul lahote #paul lahote fanfic #paul lahote x oc #paul lahote imagine #twilight wolf pack #you know im no good

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