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imaginesofeverykind · 4 years

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Snowed In || Joel Miller x F!Reader

(Its ironic because this smut is 6k words so it didn’t do that quickly AT ALL LMAOOOO) This took me too many fucking days to write, its so hard to get into smut mentality like holy fucq

YALL I FINALLY FUCKING FINISHED IT HOLY SHIT

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Request: Can I request some Joel Miller fluff (mayyyybe some smut?) I could totally see getting snowed in with him 😏🥰

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: S M U T and S W E A R I N G annndd implied age gap but its not stated (reader is probs like thirties or older) AND you guys being the biggest pain in the ass for Joel :)

Also @ me stanning how yall interract with each other because the banter is highkey lowkey fun lmaoooo

“Ah, shit!” You cursed loudly, your feet stampeding desperately in thick snow while increasingly aware of the group of hunters — that managed to get the jump on you — were probably still tailing you. Your hands clamped down harshly on the wound you bled profusely from, droplets of crimson blood stained the snow with each step.

“Joel!” You shouted in desperation, approaching the lookout as you internally prepared yourself for getting blasted by the old man for being reckless — or better yet, leading the hunters to the lookout. You didn’t want to linger to long on those thoughts, not while you quite literally had an arrow protruding out of your side.

It wasn’t the first time you’d inconsequently been impaled by something or other, and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. You had at least hoped that the impending snowstorm worsened and covered your blood trail quicker than you were making pace.

Breathlessly, you lean against the lookouts outer walls, scanning the area for potential hunters. Luckily for you the progressively heavier snowfall deterred any prospect of human threats. You rap hard and heavy on the metal reinforced door, holding onto your side as a wince escapes your lips.

“Joel! For fucks sake… Open the damn door!” You gritted, the bite of the cold air finally hitting the wound you so desperately tried to keep covered. It was incredibly clear that the older man was tactful and cautious, having been on plenty of runs, watches and patrols with him opened you up to his reserved nature.

However, it was getting ridiculous considering the urgency in your voice that now of all times, he decided to cautiously approach.

The door was pulled open, after a succession of noises that were no doubt the barricades being moved. Joel poked his head out, looking around before settling on your hunched figure, “what the hell did you do this time?”

You rolled your eyes, pushing past him as you yearned for the warmth and safety of the lookout, “I’m great — thanks for askin’.” You stumble over to what was once most likely a bar, the remnants of liquor bottles and on tap beer seemed to be a good indicator of that.

Readjusting the barricade, Joel finally makes his way over to you. Concern wasn’t a typical expression he showed to anyone other than toward Ellie, seeing it flicker across his face as he approached you nearly knocked you off the stool you sat on. It was brief but you absolutely noticed it.

“You mind fillin’ me in on what happened out there?” His brow was raised as he gestured to your wound. He was taking his time to gather the gauze and alcohol to patch you up, but he was acutely aware that if it was something to panic about he’d be much quicker.

Joel had known you for a while, in the time you two spent together on patrols he knew that if anyone could handle an arrow through the torso it was most definitely you. He admired your grit — although he’d never admit it, you were one of the only people whose company he enjoyed.

“Pissed off some fuckin’ Hunters… Don't think they liked me killin’ one of their buddies,” your words staggered with intermittent shallow breaths. You eyed your companion as he almost deliberately slowly made his way in front of you with the appropriate supplies needed to patch you up.

His hardened personal walls had attracted you like a moth drawn to a flame, from your first meeting to now, you had been determined to understand the mysterious man who just so happened to also be your neighbour. “Old age really must be gettin’ to you old man — leave me to just bleed out why don’t ya?”

“If it was serious I’m sure you’d be dead ‘lready.” He retorted, unphased by your not so subtle jab at him. And there it was. That little playful glint in his eyes that you’d only witnessed a handful of times prior, it proved to you that he wasn’t completely closed off and coarsened by the shitshow life turned out to be for him.

You scoff at him, a smirk grazing your lips as you make good use of the whiskey beside you, “well ain’t I lucky to be accompanied by someone so concerned about my life,” you took a swig of the bottle, hoping that the smooth liquor would ease the pain permeating from your side.

He chuckled at the harshness in your voice, “concerned? That’s a funny way of puttin’ it… C’mon by the fire I need a better look at this.”

Looking back at him stunned, you pulled a face that was somewhere between shock and delight, “did I just get two jokes from Joel Miller? In succession? You get bit or somethin’ while I was gone?” You eased yourself off the stool and slowly staggered toward the fire, obliging Joel’s request.

You propped yourself up against one of the weathered armchairs, time had not been kind to the piece of furniture as seen by the cracked leather and copious amount of stains. Before getting too comfortable, you shrugged off the outer layers of jackets you typically adorned to protect yourself from the harsh winters around Wyoming.

The flannel you had over top of the long sleeved thermal shirt you wore was unluckily pinned to your side by the arrow, it used to be a dark blue with green accents — now it was almost black with the pooling blood soaking into the fibers.

Joel was looking at you in thought, memories resurfacing of Colorado and reliving his own time having been impaled due to Hunters. Although the arrow stuck inside you was practically a small scratch in comparison to the metal rebar he intimately came to know.

“Starin’ won’t get this arrow outta me, Joel.” You huffed, taking things into your own hands as you pull off one of your gloves, “here —.” you stuffed it between your teeth and gripped onto the arrow tightly before pulling it out. Your muffled cries of pain had thankfully been mostly silenced by the glove.

“Jesus christ, what in the hell are you doin’?” Joel kneeled down by your side.

“Fast trackin’ the healing process — not… so great… of an idea…” You mumbled out breathlessly, your shaky hands completely covered in blood. Your bright idea of taking things into your own hands backfiring, as you grew progressively light-headed.

Now Joel was slightly panicked and annoyed that your recklessness and impatience always seemed to get in the way of his own brooding and thoughtfulness. “Do you even think before you do things? I ain’t here to babysit you goddammit.” He grumbled, wiping away at the wound so he could inspect it.

You airily laughed, feeling tired and exhausted, “babysit? I’m the only person who’ll deal with your bullshit on patrols, cowboy.” Your limbs started to feel incredibly light and numb as your words became more slurred.

You weren’t wrong in that aspect, but what you weren’t aware of was the fact that you were most often paired with Joel on patrols because the man had asked for it, not because of the excuse Tommy told you; ‘everyone has a hard time with him except for you’.

His nimble hands made quick work at the suture needle and stitching, you only wincing when the needle pierces through your broken skin. He was careful and calculated while he patched you up, grateful that you had been quiet for just a few moments as he paid your back the same amount of care for the front.

By the time he had finished, you had long drifted off in a sleep. He was regimented in making sure you were breathing consistently and every fifteen minutes or so, he would wake you up to ensure you weren’t going to die on him.

After two hours of nothing out of the ordinary coming from your peaceful state, he let you rest peacefully undisturbed.

———————————————

When you woke up, you weren’t too sure what to expect. Pain was one thing you anticipated… And the pain didn’t disappoint. Perhaps it was because you woke up in a completely different position and place within the lookout than when you fell asleep. No longer by the fire downstairs, but in the makeshift bedroom loft beside a smaller fire.

The headache that thumped through your head was arguably the most painful feeling that was occurring in your body. But that didn’t stop you from slowly rising up, a hand instinctively placed over the wound as it twitched in pain. Sounds of distant guitar chords echoed through the open area, you hadn’t even taken notice that Joel brought his guitar when you two left Jackson earlier in the morning.

Not that you were really paying him much attention earlier in the morning, freely exploring your own mind and memories. Something Joel envied in you was your ability to be so free spirited, despite the apocalyptic fuck fest that was everyday life. He initially chalked you up to being naive and foolish, but the time he’s taken to get to know you had informed him otherwise.

You hesitantly remove the mound of blankets on you and start your attempt to get up. It was a struggle to say the least, your thumping headache and aching wound made it quite the difficult feat to pull off.

All effort aside, you finally carried yourself slowly down the stairs, nursing your wound and instantly missing the warmth that the fire at your bedside provided. By the dimly lit interior it was well and truly deep into the night, which made you wonder how long you’d been asleep for.

Judging by the stillness of the atmosphere, that also meant your earlier encounter with hunters didn’t attract unwanted attention to the lookout.

Joel was seated by the fire in an amicable state, he was seemingly unaware of the fact you’d woken up or even noticed you had seated yourself on the armchair closest to the fire. His eyes shifted toward the movement, surprised to see you had made your way down the stairs without so much as a voice of complaint.

“You sure you weren’t a country singer before this? I’m getting some Billy Ray vibes… Bitta Keith Urban too..” You smile at him, admiring the way the firelight bounced off his features, the scene before you looking like some cozy cottage fantasy.

He put his guitar aside, if he was amused by your joke — you didn’t see it.

You tilted your head to the side, trying to gauge his mood based off the evident shift that occurred between you falling asleep to now. He appeared to be annoyed (not surprising) and closed off more than usual, which meant that he was most definitely not in the mood to be talking.

But you didn’t care, because you had just woken up and felt like enlightening Joel’s darkened front with some excitement at least. “What’s got you in such a delightful mood, country boy?” You shifted your weight off the wound, alleviating the slight pain that kept pinching every so often.

It became apparent that you weren’t going to leave him some peace unless he relented and indulged your attempts to getting him to talk. If he was stuck with anyone else in this situation he’d be visibly more perturbed, it was either dumb luck or fate that the two of you happened to be paired while this already shitty situation got worse.

“Storm came over while you were sleepin’... Get cozy ‘cause we’ll be here for a while.” He gestured lazily to one of the windows, which upon further inspection was completely shadowed from the snow fall, not because it was incredibly late.

You groaned, following up with a sigh, “fuck I’m bored just thinkin’ about bein’ stuck here… Wish I brought a book.” The throwaway statement managed to crack the hard exterior of Joel, earning the slightest chuckle which in turn boosted your ego. Getting that man to express emotions beyond anger or annoyance was something to be met with like a lifelong skill, high risk and low reward.

He reached over to his bag, “might not like it, but if it’ll keep you quiet for a while… here —,” he pulled out an old leather bound book, the spine had been cracked and the pages barely held together due to decades of weathering. You met his outstretched arm halfway to grab a hold of the book, the weight of it unexpected but you caught it nonetheless.

“Lovecraft? I meet a lot of people, but you are by far the strangest man I’ve met.” You mumble out loud while you appreciate the cover and embellishments decorating the edges. You hadn’t intended for him to hear you, but of course he did.

“Figured Ellie might ‘preciate it…” He trailed off, stopping himself from saying a word too many in fear that he gave away too much of an inside peek at his inner thoughts. Upon hearing him you looked up, surprised that he even mentioned his surrogate daughter — considering your observations of the two had been particularly volatile as of late.

You thumb the raised lettering of the title and look at him, his eyes were sad which contrasted his stature. You weren’t one to pry, despite being impressively curious by nature, “kid’s got a gnarly taste in pop culture… I was out on a run and saw one of them comics she likes… y’know she has those hoarded all over Jackson, yeah?”

His eyes flickered over to you, he was trying to get a read on you and sense any plausible reason why you’d bring up Ellie. He knew you weren’t one for ulterior motives but he didn’t like discussing a whole lot about the young girl with many people, no matter how much he enjoyed your company.

“What are you doin’?” He pressed, turning his body to face you front on with his hands clasped together between his knees.

Your eyebrows knit together in thought, unsure what prompted such a serious question and change in demeanour, “Uh… making conversation?” It seemed like an obvious statement, you refrained from being too direct just in case it provoked him further.

“Right…” He merely uttered, standing up from his position on the couch and moving toward the bar. You looked at him with confusion, unsure where the outburst came from and why it even happened in the first place. It wasn’t the first time you’d brought up Ellie in conversation but now it seemed like it was a soft spot for him.

“Okay… I’ll bite — um… what the fuck?” You strained your neck to face him, not wanting to move your entire body to prevent unnecessary pain, “did something happen between you two bec—“

“Y/N… Don’t.” His voice was low, almost like a guttural growl to fend you off from pressing further.

You threw your arms in the air and shook your head, “jesus fuck, Joel you’re a real asshole sometimes… You’re so broody and temperamental I feel like I'm walking on eggshells just to talk to you… Y’know not every person is out to get you.” The words hung in the air for a moment while you started to move yourself off the chair, wanting to have your own space by the upstairs fire.

Watching you struggle to get up from the armchair admittedly did break the tension Joel brought into the room, he sighed loudly to set aside his pride as he slowly shifted toward you, “don’t move… Let me change your dressings over.”

His voice barely made it to your ears, but hearing them made you loudly groan and sit back down, “jesus fuckin’ christ — I cannot deal with you right now,” you mumbled to yourself. Despite Joel being notorious for his outbursts, they rarely featured up front and centre like tonight; particularly around you.

But when they did, it was exhausting to deal with to say the least. Given that almost every time they occurred, you never knew the exact reason why. Things would be much easier for the both of you, if one participant was just that little more vocal.

“Just give me the shit and I’ll do it myself, take your bullshit energy and fuck off over there.” You pointed to the bar where he previously stood, very blunt in telling Joel how much you didn’t want to fight with him knowing you both were snowed in together for who knows how long.

Being as direct and as blunt as you were had been one of the many things Joel came to admire about you, feeling a tangible sense of guilt for blowing up at you like he did. He knelt down beside you, motioning for you to shimmy forward into the light of the fire better.

You huffed in response, not making eye contact with him as you pushed yourself closer to the edge of the chair.

He was careful and delicate once again, inspecting your wound after discarding the used gauze. You found it exceptionally difficult not to look down and watch what he was doing, mainly because you were inquisitive by nature but you couldn’t help but be fond of his closeness.

One of his fingers grazed the carefully done stitches, prompting a wince from you, the action almost snapping you out of your angry facade, “you definitely weren’t a fuckin’ surgeon in your past life, huh.” You call back to the conversation you had earlier, an attempt to help ease the tension between you two.

“And you weren’t no comedian, either…” he bit back, attaching the dressings on the exit wound.

“So you go from grumpy to jokey just like that?” You raise a brow, fully aware you were rattling the cage at this point, but him even cracking a retort of the sarcastic variety was enough of an indicator that he was trying to make reparations.

He taps your thigh and motions for you to turn so he can start on the entry wound, “I ain’t too good at this whole… People... business,” he admitted, stating it like it wasn’t already overtly obvious to any conscious person with a functioning brain.

“Oh what? You’re joking, right? You are such a people person,” you mock, turning your head down to give him a playful smirk.

His eyes met yours, a glint of something you weren’t entirely sure of just yet. Returning his gaze back to changing over the final dressings on your back, “that was uncalled for,” he murmured, pretending not to notice the smile present on your lips.

The simple fact that he admitted to you outloud seemed to be a step in the right direction and for that, you were incredibly grateful.

“How long do you think we’ll be stuck here for?” You ask, feeling Joel's fingers lift from your skin as he finishes patching you up. Missing the sensation it made you feel. You turned back to face him properly, not expecting him to still be seated so close to you, not that you minded at all.

“Hopin’ that we’ll be out by tomorrow… Worst case scenario, we’ll be here for a few days.”

You throw your head back over dramatically, “be stuck inside here with your grumpy old ass — what fuckin’ atrocities did I commit to deserve this?” You jest, smiling even wider seeing the light amusement evident in his eyes, “ah! I’m so close to getting you to laugh, one of these days I’ll get you, cowboy.”

“Definitely weren’t a comedian…” He reiterated, a content smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

The thought of a comeback was completely lost on your part as you simply admired his features up close. From when you first met to now, his hair had grown out longer which you thought looked nice on him, even if it would hang over his face just that little bit.

His hazel eyes were your favourite feature of his, and in the orange glow from the fire they seemed all the more alluring.

It was a happy silence, one filled with just the two of you trying to read each other and guess what the other was going to do. For someone so direct, you were quite talented in not telegraphing intended movements or motions. It made you a hard person to pinpoint which both intrigued and infuriating someone like Joel who was quite adept in reading people.

You were the first one to break away from the stillness, taking the book you were given to pass the time, “as much as I’d love to stare into your dreamy eyes all day, I’ve gotta book to read and a whole lotta time to kill… Thanks for being a shitty nurse… did better than what I could, anyway.”

Joel stood up, giving you ample space to shift. He holds out a hand for you to help yourself up, which you take thankfully. Your throwaway compliment didn’t go unnoticed by him, nor did the way your eyes scanned his features moments ago. He lived through life long enough to know what look you were giving him.

It was a look he’d often see you give him, whether it was subconsciously or not— that, he was unsure of. He was always apprehensive when he saw your eyes darken the way they did, but it was his own inability to allow himself to get close to anyone that caused his uneasiness.

You looked at the man standing before you, his face crinkled in thought as if his mind was elsewhere. You felt a compulsion to ask what he was thinking but weren’t too sure how far that conversation would get before it got messy… Despite his change and attitude, the man was notorious for switching in an instant and you knew better than to prod him too much.

Then again… your favourite pastime was exclusively getting under the man's skin.

“What’re you thinkin’ ‘bout there cowboy? Thinkin’ mighty hard about somethin’.” Being much taller than you were, you ducked to meet his thoughtful gaze. His internal struggle barely showing in his face, only being tossed aside the second his eyes found yours.

“You.”

That had taken you aback, your eyes growing wide as a slight tinge of red dusts your cheeks. Naturally, unable to process compliments or situations like these, you turn to jestful remarks as a way to assess the mood, “should I be concerned? If it’s about who's gonna eat who when starvation starts settin’ in, I would ‘preciate it if you didn’t carve me up.”

“Can you stop talkin’ for just five seconds,” his voice was low and eyes scanning your features.

Intrinsically, you keep talking to fill the void of silence as you aren’t completely sure how else to alleviate the tension, “well… I can consider but —.”

You hadn’t got very far in your smug retort, cut off by the man's abrupt and unexpected decision to shut you up by pressing his lips to yours. It seemingly came out of left field and only took you just a moment to reciprocate, pushing all astonishment aside.

For someone who sported a rough exterior, you were pleasantly surprised at how gentle Joel was, caressing your face with his calloused hands so delicately. You discard the book that was once in your grasp, trading it for his firm chest while you gripped onto his shirt.

Pulling away, you bite down on your lower lip as you look deeply into his eyes. You considered uttering a witty remark, but the look he was giving you was one of warning. And as much as you would love to find out what would happen as a consequence of speaking out, you were content in continuing whatever had already started.

Your hands trail up to the back of his neck, leaning up to press your lips back onto his. This time with a little more desperation, you swipe your tongue on his lower lip, prompting a short but low growl from your companion. One of his hands was pinned to your *good* side, the other remained on the side of your face.

The feeling that pooled in your stomach, matching the hammering of your heart would almost make you concerned if you weren’t in the safe grasp on the man you’d shamelessly pined after.

Despite the hunger and desperation on your part, Joel was still pleased at going at his own pace; which was painstakingly slow. Savouring the moment you two were sharing, as if you were going to disappear in an instant.

“Gotta say — didn’t peg you as the romantic type,” you whispered breathlessly, eyes never straying from his darkened hazel ones, your hands stroking his firm torso, “but we’re gonna have to speed things up.” You brush your lips against his, hovering daringly close while your hands eagerly undo the buttons to his flannel.

He didn’t seem at all bothered by your impatience (it was typical of you after all), but it was bothering him how much of a tease you were being. Far be it for you to not be a pain in his ass even in an intimate manner. Your soft hands kneading his bare chest — which was ripped, you noted to yourself mentally as he shrugged his flannel off.

Your fingers trace the outlines of numerous scars present, regardless of his age and living in a dangerous time for humanity. The healed wounds did little to impact his figure, instead sprinkling slight imperfections across him as if it were to keep him humble.

Joel dips his head to your jawline, trailing small wet kisses down your neck and nipping at some skin to earn the slightest little noises from you. Oh how that made you feel. You squirm in his hold, squeezing your thighs together in an attempt to provide some friction to appease the wetness between your legs.

There was little to no hesitation as he pulls your shirt up over your head, surprised at your bare torso. Sure, you both had seen better days but the scars from knives, bullets and arrows were telling of the journey you’d gone through to get to this point; including your most recent addition.

The warmth his hands provided while they trailed over scars and rise of your breasts left your skin tingling. You notice his eyes wandering over your features, knowing he wasn’t judging your looks merely pondering over what story was behind which scar. You’re confident in that sentiment, considering you felt the same way whilst you thumb the scarring on his collarbone.

“You good?” You whisper, your breath hitching as the pad of his thumb grazes your pert nipple. This man…

“Just takin’ in the view.” His voice was low, prompting a smile from you. The man was a hopeless romantic at heart, that was clear enough — any other time you’d gladly lap it up happily, but right now you needed something a little less idealistic. Desire possessing you further (it seemed like you’d have plenty of time together anyway.)

You press your lips back onto his feverishly, trailing your hands down his torso to his jeans. The bulge in his pants growing more in response to your hand giving him a sensual squeeze, he moans into your mouth which is enough of an indicator for you to start undoing his belt.

His hands cupped your breasts progressively harder, taking in your nipples between his thumb and finger. The sensation pulsing downward enough to make your toes curl and thighs clench. You could’ve fucked him there and then, pleasure pooling inside you.

“Sit down,” You ordered, pushing his chest toward the couch to which he obliged, enjoying the fact you were so eagerly prepared to take charge. As a man of tradition, he’d typically lead but found it incredibly arousing to heed your demands and listen. You’re quick in kicking off your shoes and discarding your jeans, welcoming the chill to the air as it cools down your burning skin.

The sight of him on the couch, shirtless and showcasing the tent pitched in his pants was so remarkably inviting you couldn’t wait a second longer, straddling his hips and bringing your lips back onto his as you begin grinding down on his bulge. The friction alone was enough to bring moans of pleasure from both of you, you tugging at his hair harder the more aroused you became.

He pulls away, running his hands up and down your sides - vigilant in not wanting to knock your wound - before bringing his lips to the valley of your breasts, ensuring to leave short kisses on every indent or raised section of scarred skin before settling down on one of your nipples. The free hand that wasn’t anchored at your hips, was kneading your other breast.

A whimper tumbles from your lips, grinding your hips harder against his. You bring a hand down, frantically trying to undo his pants all the while feeling the euphoria coming from just merely grinding him. Yes it had been a while since you felt this good.

He lifts his hips up, giving you enough space to yank down both his jeans and underwear. The feeling of his cock flush up against the thin material of your panties caused you to gasp and grip onto his shoulders tightly.

Both of you moaning at the absolute bare minimum of stimulation of your most sensitive areas. His cock throbbed the second the tip rubbed up against the dampness of your panties, it being far too long since he partaken in anything sexually charged in quite some time. The same goes for you.

Now it was Joel’s turn to get impatient, bringing one hand up behind your neck while the other dipped down into your panties, his fingers stroking your wet slit. You jolt forward at the feeling of his fingers circle your clit, the sensation pooling desperately as your hips buck, riding his fingers.

His calloused fingers seemed to hit the right spot with every roll of your hips, it made you wonder how his lips would feel and tongue would feel if he seemed to be making you feel this good with his fingers alone.

“Fucking hell, Joel.” You cry out, resting your head on the crook of his neck, leaving small love bites along his collar bone. His scent of eucalyptus mixed with wood was ever so welcoming, the aroma that drove you insane whenever he stood a little too close.

Your high began to climb, grinding your hips more desperately against him while he expertly finger fucks you until hitting the right spot, sending your body rigid as your walls close in and around his fingers, pulsating while you ride your climax out.

“Eager, are we?” His breath tingled your ear, even though you weren’t looking at him you could tell he was fashioning some smug smirk. You laugh breathlessly, sitting upright and sliding off your panties.

One of your hands closes over his length, pumping painstakingly slow, all the while watching his eyes roll to the back of his head. Your soft hand wrapped around him felt leagues better than the familiar roughness of his own. His hips bucked to help quicken the pace you had set, to which you smirked and pinned him flush against the couch.

You kept on pumping his throbbing length, positioning yourself more comfortably on his lap. He leaned his head back, lips parted to let the soft grunts pass through while you continued to torment him slowly. If his fingers felt that great, you were eager to find out how well his cock felt.

You position his tip at your entrance, not wanting to torture the man or yourself any longer, sinking down onto his cock while his length stretches you out. Whimpering in sync with his growls, neither of you moving momentarily as you simply bask in the pleasure.

He thrusts his hips up first, a strangled moan escaping your lips as you meet his pace. Your lips brush gently up his neck, stopping just shy of his ear lobe. The faint mewls rolling out of your mouth sending him further into bliss with each roll of the hips, ignoring the painful irritation emitting from your wound.

His hands were anchored firmly to your thighs, fingers digging hard into your skin which would no doubt leave bruises in the morning. You nip at his ear and neck before returning your lips to his, muffled moans stifling out from the both of you with each sloppy kiss.

The sounds coming from you were near on pronographic, coupled with the quickening pace of you riding him, every insatiable thrust filling you more with a desire you weren’t aware you needed until now.

You dreamed of similar scenarios such as this with Joel, but the meager fantasies had nothing on the real thing. How his lips felt on yours, the way his hands caressed every part of you with care yet also commanded it, the way he made you dripping wet without much effort and most of all; the way he felt deep inside you.

He threw his head back, choked breaths preventing him from rasping out the words needed as his climax began rising. You noticed his staggered breathing and picked up the pace, gripping his hair tightly coaxing a guttural moan out from him.

One of his hands squeezed the back of your neck while the other clasped your breast roughly, his hips became rigid while a series of moans filled your ear just as you feel his cum spilling inside you. He slumped back into a comfortable position panting heavily, eying you in your incredibly typical perky demeanour.

You pulled yourself off him, his semi-flaccid member flopping out of you. Thankful past you had the forethought to pack rags, you rifle through your bag to clean yourself up, “you’ve got a surprising amount of stamina, cowboy,” the compliment earned you a smug smile from him, pride being an aura on Joel you never thought you’d see.

“If I’d have known this is all it took to shut you up, I would’ve done it sooner.” He states, as if thinking retroactively would change your ability to annoy the absolute life out of the man.

Tossing him a rag lazily, you chortle at the idea of thinking Joel - of all people - could be someone to get you to stop your antics forever, “Oh you knew — don’t lie to me mister. You just like to see me suffer in silence.” You were as transparent as one could be, yet your intentions were almost always misread as you did well to keep it muddled. Joel was a perceptive man, often finding you hard to read to the point of irritation for him, but - as you anticipated - he figured you out slowly but surely.

“I just like to see you silent,” he retorted, finally moving from his position to clean himself off, “but you ain’t wrong…” A man of his age knew a thing or two about what your not-so-subtle looks meant (even if it took him longer than usual to realise what you were actually wanting) and knowing you for the time he did also meant the possibility of things going south between you two went higher. He respected you too much to commit to something that might eventually be taken away from him in an instance — or vice versa.

“I’m never wrong, actually…” You confidently state, eying him with the same smug smile he sported only moments ago. The arrogant stature you held broken with a grimace as you clutch your injured side, “maybe a little bit wrong… probably shoulda let you lead there…”

He merely shook his head, allowing a chuckle to audibly sound which always felt you with a sense of satisfaction. The man shrouded in mystery was finally opening up to you more, that alone was a privilege you couldn’t be more proud of.

#request #imagines #imagine #joel miller #tlou #tlou imagines #reader insert #one shot #smut #Joel Miller x Reader #Joel Miller Smut #joel miller imagine #pwp #one shots

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slutsofren · 3 years

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Danger Days Chapter 1: Summertime

Summary: You think you've settled in pretty well to Jackson, your best friend Maria was leading the community with her husband Tommy. Things were going rather fine until a turbine went south. While at the power plant, you came across two visitors. Joel needs his brother to complete a mission but you stepped in, dredging up your past with FEDRA, with the Fireflies. Shit can't hit the fan twice right?

Word Count: 1,399

Read on AO3 here

Warnings: none, just a bit of backstory

Notes: this is a Joel x Reader/OFC multi-chap series, absolutely no use of y/n or other descriptors as long as I can try. Reader is about 30-35 in this timeline.

You put on the worn-in boots, trying to ignore the phantom pains shooting in your left hand. The skin around the nub where your pinky used to be was swollen and throbbing. It frustrated the hell out of you. After all these years, memories and ghosts haunted you whenever the nerves flared up in your palm. Doing your best to ignore it, you laced up the last shoe and grabbed your black sherpa denim jacket, tossing it over your shoulders to keep the late summer chill away.

“Oh shit,” you whispered to yourself as you took a step outside your home, immediately being blasted by the cold.

Tonight was one of the weekly adult get-togethers at Seth’s, something most of the Jackson residents looked forward to. Usually, you’d never bother with attending but your best friend and her husband managed to convince you to come out and relax for once. Admittedly, it was rare for you to have a night off since you often volunteered to walk the perimeter of the safe zone, keeping an eye out for any activity.

Your feet shuffled along until you came to the bar, the music wafting through the air and you made your way inside.

The pub was lively tonight, you could spot a few couples having a blast dancing to the music playing from the jukebox. It seemed like tonight the adults were throwing it back and reminiscing with some old 1980s music. You called over the man himself, Seth, and he grabbed you a beer.

Thank the stars the greenhouse had a steady growth of hops, you couldn’t imagine trying to do any of this sober. You leaned against an unoccupied area of the bar table, idly watching as people danced and sipped at the bottle.

After doing this little routine, the drink was getting a little warm from the heat of your palm but that was alright, you were living in the moment. Your best friend and her husband always told you to let your hair down every once in a while, so to speak. It was near impossible to always be on edge, waiting for the next fight. For half your life this is how it’s been, it’s hard to shake off that feeling even after a couple years of relative safety.

You looked up from your drink, your eyes finding the couple on your mind. You sat watching as Maria and Tommy were in the dead center of the dance floor looking at each other like there was not a damn worry in the world. It was something you envied of the woman, if you could admit it to yourself. Not everybody finds love and some semblance of peace in the goddamn apocalypse. Good for her, good for them .

Gustavo, an elderly Hispanic man, walked up and stood next to you. “Mija, why don’t you go dancing? You’re too pretty to be standing here alone,” he says, his subtle accent eliciting a soft smile from you.

“Because you know I’d sooner bite their heads off if they tried, tio.” Gustavo wasn’t related to you but you loved the blacksmith like family, so much that you called him your uncle.

The elder man gave a hearty laugh, his calloused hand gave your cheek a small pat. “I want to see you dance with somebody before I die,” he says as he turns to leave.

You give him an incredulous look, “Don’t keel over too soon, tio, or I’ll bring you back myself and make you wait even longer!”

His laughter still rings in your ears long after he walks away. Your eyes steal a few more glances at the dancefloor as you turn around and abandon you nearly empty glass of beer on the countertop and resume watching how everybody sang along and moving ungraciously together. Feeling alive, living in the moment. Carpe diem or some shit , you think.

It doesn’t take much for Maria’s perpetual scowl to mark across her face, that woman was always pissed off about something. So, when the power went out in the pub, you could only imagine the blonde woman immediately furrowing her brows, grumbling something explicit wanting to find out what cut her date night short. Being the leader of the community rarely had nights off.

The crowd inside Seth’s was slightly alarmed, power hardly ever went out in Jackson. It usually signalled the worse. You gently shoved your way to where you last saw Tommy and Maria and found her leather clad arm, “Think it’s bandits?”

“I hope not,” came from Tommy to your right, his voice low and weary.

“Alright everybody, go home. We will figure out what’s going on and we will all be back to our normal routines. Got it?” Maria’s voice was short and authoritative, something you sure scared the shit out of some of the younger kids.

Slowly, the patrons all filed out, using whatever the moon illuminated as their only guide to getting outside safely. You could hear a few curses and muttering every time it sounded like somebody walked into a stool or table, it was kind of funny.

Tommy was the first to pipe up, “Let’s head to the fence, make sure everybody is okay.”

The three of you filed out and headed straight for the perimeter, there were no sounds of shouting or gunshots which was good to note. The closer each of you got to the fence, the eerie silence met with you.

“The electric fence is down,” Maria grumbled.

You looked at her, “Think the power plant is out?”

“Probably,” she sighs, “We can leave at first light.”

After you leave them, you head straight for your home as they continued to circle the perimeter and talk with whoever was on guard duty tonight.Your home was a walk away, further out from the other homes. It’s not much outside of a small studio loft but you loved it. It’s cozy and has everything you need within a couple dozen steps.

The room is dark, naturally, but you manage to walk to the little kitchenette off to the left of your room to find your solar lantern. One of the best damn discoveries you managed to find since the pandemic hit. It turned on easily, creating a dim glow around your room. You went to your desk and started to get your backpack ready for the trip to the dam. Stuffing it of some snacks, your spare knives, and some extra bullets, each a hotter commodity than the next.

It had been rainy recently so you decided to pack a couple extra jackets and flannels, making sure you had plenty of socks to go too.

By the time you finish packing your backpack for the excursion, a soft knock arrives at your door. You opened it to find Gustavo standing there, looking bright eyed. “Mija, I heard you were headed out to the dam.”

You nodded, “Wanna come in, tio?”

“Ah, no, Antonia is waiting for me,” at the mention of his wife, the lovely woman, you wonder where she was hiding at Seth’s. The two of them hardly go far without the other. “I just wanted to come by and bring you this.” Gustavo puts a semi-large wrapped gift in your hands and you take it, shifting it this way and that.

You open it, removing the ornate paper and it opens to a brown rectangular box. You slip the lid off and find an incredible hunting knife with a leather holster. “Gustavo,” you say. Your eyes wide in adoration, looking at the handcrafted knife.

His chest puffs out in pride, “Just don’t let Tovar see it, pendejo has been trying to take it.” The two of you chuckle at the expense of his young apprentice. He was a bit of a handful and full-time idiot, you admit.

Putting the knife down at the small table by your front door, you give Gustavo a warm hug and your thanks. He left shortly after that but not without giving the old man a kiss on the cheek and a promise to not hurt yourself with his gift, and another for keeping it away from Tovar.

You shut the door and turned back to your loft, standing in the dim light. Leaning against the door, you take a moment and close your eyes. Tomorrow’s excursion was going to be long.

#pedro pascal #joel miller #joel (the last of us)#joel the last of us #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us 2 #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel tlou #joel tlou x reader insert #asher's writing #danger days fic

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ricinbach · 3 years

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mercy. | chapter 8 - water

droplets can drown you in waves if you are not careful enough.

FALL

If you could count the nights when you had a good rest without worrying about someone killing you, you would only find less than a handful.

Sleep - probably the most basic and underrated necessity of mankind, at least before the world crumbled down with infected who did not need an ounce of rest to survive - they only cared about feasting on your blood and flesh. Over twenty years of running and hiding and killing in this sad shell of a world you were thrown into, you considered yourself extremely lucky to get a couple hours of shut-eye that eased your overworked muscles along with your mind.

And on the rare occasions when you could finally lay against whatever surface to sleep on - it never came easy. The remnants of demons engulfed in bad memories and blood haunted you, both in your slumber and awake. Closing your eyes and letting your mind succumb to the darkness brought horrors almost every single time, imaginary but almost physical visions that distracted you temporarily from the actual nightmare that had become your constant reality.

As you would toss, images of what life used to be like flooded in your being - your parents, family, loved ones. The comfort of your own home, the warm domain that belonged to you. How peaceful you had been, when you received love and support from both patients and friends alike, even amidst the stress that your choice of life bestowed upon you.

Nowadays the one thing you received from others were bullets, and if you were lucky enough, fists fueled by pure hatred and sheer will to survive. As if the wretched universe had been punishing you for all the lives you had taken, all the fingers you broke and the throats you slit all this time.

As you would turn, only things occupying your troubled mind would be the last sparks in irises before you took their lives, the croaking, sickening sounds of the infected as you beat them to death - photographs of memories passing through your mind were all you could see in your dreams. Remnants of memories from the restless days when the Fireflies would work you on triple shifts, bringing in newly infected, innocent human beings to operate on in the means of finding a cure, with you cutting through their freshly-dead brains.

Maybe, you should not be so lucky to doze off ever-so-peacefully, your body tapping out to exertion as the fading rumble of the engine lulled you.

Maybe you deserved all the pain and agony you had been enduring for so damn long, and then some.

"Wake up."

With a breathy gasp, your eyes shot open, hand instinctively reaching out to the empty holster on your thigh, but your tense body eased down the leather of the passenger seat when your orbs met the bright green ones looking straight into your soul. It was a rare occasion for her to ever wake you up - usually during your patrols of watching over the pair of them, the everlasting nightmares would not keep you in your restful slumber for too much, waking you up with loud gasps just like the one that lingered on your lips then. Thus, a small wave of surprise coated your worn-out orbs as you pinched the bridge of your nose, in an attempt to get yourself together with a low sigh. Sitting up more upright, you could swear you had seen the little girl's mouth twitch in a slight grin.

She liked you - you had not given her reason not to as you trailed along for the small portion of her quest, yet. Despite her reluctance and her childish swings of curses towards you in the beginnings of your acquaintance, it was a hopeful thought of yours that she had grown to be more tolerant towards your presence around the duo. After all, she had been old and mature enough to understand that you were there only for the means of her protection - not much else.

"He said this is as far as the car's gonna take us. Come on, let's get a move on," she would simply respond to you, her shoulder moving to adjust the backpack she carried, her voice echoing the inherent young innocence with a certain hardened vibration to it. Her little hands held the door open slightly, impatiently waiting for you to get up from your seat to which you had grown overly comfortable in. With a short-lived huff, you would step out of the stable car, whose juice had presumably ran out, and only then could you take a better look at your surroundings.

The remaining days of warm summer had been long gone as you cruised along the interstate 80 for what seemed like a couple weeks now - only stopping to salvage some leftover gas in the abandoned vehicles and to rest during the night. The car being the most valuable possession to your group besides your precious lives, you took turns keeping watch without even exiting the pick-up, opting to pull over in some corner to spend the night. It had not been an easy task, those long hours of night with the revolver in your hands as it got progressively cooler into the early days of autumn, scared to death some stray infected horde was going to hear the residual cracks of the engine.

It did not help that a giant of a man had been sleeping mere feet further, and a little girl had been snoring in the back, while you would be wide awake tugging on your long sleeves - the cold breeze called for one of your old jackets in your backpack to resurface.

Thus, as you breathed in the fresh air of pine trees mixed in with the lingering crisp smells of previous rainfall, it was more than a welcome change of scenery. Overgrown trees adorned with the greenest of leaves surrounded the sturdy geography, faint sounds of water hitting stone below, along with an old, sturdy steel-construction bridge above that has managed not to fall apart yet.

"Where is he?" you would ask, the slightest hint of concern in your voice, as your gaze wandered around the hilltop to spot your lost driver - to which Ellie extended her hand in the general direction of the bridge, the simple answer giving you some sort of unknown comfort. "Down near the river, though he'll probably leave you here if you don't move your ass soon."

Him leaving you alone with her had been a surprise on its own, and you would not even think twice about it if he left you there to rot if you kept her away from his sight for too long. A man that careful and powerful would never trust a mere stranger with his daughter, that much you knew and understood - and it made you wonder what made him change his mind. A hint of a chuckle on your lips, you would shut the rusty car door with a nod and adjust your backpack on your clothed shoulders. "Alright then. Lead the way."

The leftover humid air after rain came in a nice harmony with the gray skies that covered you, the soggy grass under your feet with each step taken. With a huff, you hop down the slight hill to reach lower ground, where Joel supposedly waited for you two. Operating purely out of instinct at that point of the journey, which told you to take care of Ellie as tasked by the man, you would wait patiently and extend your arms up to help the little girl take the jump. "C'mon," you would say as one hand reached up for her to take, upon seeing the slight apprehension that hooded the green eyes of hers. With a sharp nod thrown your way, she took you up on the generosity, grasping onto your hand as she dropped down near you, thanking you with a little crooked smile.

Walking side by side with your pistol in your hands should you come across any danger, the sounds of flowing water gently licking the stone soothed you. Over in the near distance, your eyes would spot the flannel-clad figure of your other companion over at the end of the current where the river turned into a thin waterfall - the rust-colored concrete remnants of a dam, who had no doubt seen better days. He seemed to have a pensive stare, with one hand positioned on his hip - you reckoned he had been looking for a way past it, scouting for different routes to safely venture through.

Just like how he was always looking for a way out, a way to keep going. A way to survive.

"Y'know," came the gentle voice of your smaller companion, snapping you out of your stare to focus on her yet her gaze was fixed on the man in front of you as you advanced towards him in unison. "You aren't that bad to be around, after all."

One of your eyebrows rose up ever-so-slightly in surprise of the subtle compliment, a faint smile on your lips. You thought you would never see the day when she would display any sort of friendliness towards you, given her demeanor the first time you woke up alongside the pair. Though you did not have a clear enough idea as to why she grew somewhat accustomed to having you around without taunting you every second, you would relish and appreciate the kind vocal gesture. It was not often someone feigned to appreciate your efforts - it introduced a long-forgotten warmth in your body to belong and be welcome somewhere.

It was a comforting thought to let her words sink in, knowing that the duo knew nothing about you - and it was better that way. Your daunting past did not need to play a role in how these people liked you, all they had cared about was if you had been good to them and their cause. That was all that mattered, it seemed, at least to the girl whose innocence had been scarred but not beyond recognition.

"Thanks, Ellie. Means a lot to me."

And with that, Joel would turn over to face you both, hearing the footsteps coming closer to him along with the echoes of conversation. His hardened face seemed to light up a bit upon seeing the girl by your side, walking in her pink-hued raincoat, and it only added to your surprise to see his expression only fade a little bit when his eyes were set on you - his simple gaze making you holster your weapon as it diverted to the revolver.

His usual alarmed stance that he had whenever he saw you too close for comfort towards the girl seemed to have winded down, his head nodding towards the general direction of the structure. "Seems like goin' past this is the only way. C'mon, Ellie," he would address to her, yet you understood it was directed to you as well, judging by the familiar lack of his words.

"Whoa, what's that?" Ellie asked him, as you followed their steps up the rusty stairs, the steel in the deepest brown color under your military boots. With a little grunt, Joel took on the role of explaining the best he could. "That there is a hydroelectric power plant. It - uh, uses the river's movement and turns it into electricity."

In a curious voice, came her follow-up. "How's it do that?"

"Look, I know what it is, I don't know how it does it."

It put a smile on your face to watch the interaction between them, giving you a sense of normality that belonged back to the time when parents would get tired of their kids' overflowing curiosity, which made you chuckle internally. You could only hope Joel did not see the soft look on your face - it did not make any sort of sense to let your guard down for him to see the concealed side of you, even after the relatively long journey you had accompanied them for.

"Alright, alright. How do we get across?"

Working as a team of three had some perks. With your injured thigh being close to recovery, it had been your task to get Ellie across the pool of water to reach the crank wheel that operated the small bridge - although you could not put a finger on why Joel wanted her to be carried on a pallet when she could have easily swam across the ledge. Maybe it had been his fatherly instincts coming in to protect the little girl, maybe he wanted to test you again - it could have been anything at this point.

Without questioning it further, your thin yet muscular arms would hold the pallet still and drag her to safety. With Joel taking care of the other wheel, you all walked by your own towards the higher ground at the end of the bridge - though you would feel Joel's watchful gaze over at you with every step you took, stumbling only a little.

It did put a smile on your face to see Ellie raise her hand up your way, expecting a high-five after the teamwork you all pulled through. The survivor inside of you got silenced by the loving heart of yours - droplets of water leaking from all over your body, you would give her one, causing her to mimic the smile on your lips.

Unbeknownst to you, due to him lingering just a couple steps behind as he leaned against the railing, Joel would watch the interaction with a certain warmth to his amber green eyes.

It would only take a couple minutes of Ellie complaining just how hungry she had been and Joel promising her some well-deserved food after you all holed up somewhere safe to come across the huge, threatening gates further accessorized with barbed wire all over, all tied to tall metal towers that had the old FEDRA signs plastered over them. The sight alone made you curse under your breath silently - the military base had never been a good sign to come across in the middle of a forest, and by the looks of the gates it had been nearly impenetrable, halting your last-known efforts to advance.

"Goddamn it," Joel would voice your thoughts as he approached the vast steel doors, two hands gripping onto the handles with such force it made him grunt and the metal to rattle - as you and Ellie exchanged worried glances, scouting out for another way through... maybe deeper through the endless rows of trees, you would be able to make it out -

That was when you heard the cocking of guns, safeties pulled down in threatening clicks as figures rose up above on the tower, with their reticules trained on you lot.

"Don't even think about reaching for your weapons, tell the girl to drop hers. Now."

The revolver you had swiftly pulled into your grasp was then shakily placed onto the dirt, motioning Ellie to follow your movements as you shot her a little nod, your jaw clenched and your heartbeat quickening in just an instant. You should have known making your way through was not going to be that easy - it all seemed to be too good to be true from the moment you were woken up in the car. Too quiet, too comfortable for your liking - you knew something would always go south whenever things started working just a little too much in your favor, and you thought that the inevitable came in the form of strangers shooting you for attempting to trespass their walls.

Oh, you would have been lucky if that was the case.

"We're just tryin' to make our way through," Joel would explain in a raised voice, his hands over his head as you and Ellie followed suit. Meanwhile, your gaze would roam over the faces staring daggers into you, trying to recognize any potential familiar ones in the process. Squinting your eyes as you looked over to the left side of the tower, your sights would find the blond hair hidden behind the sniper rifle, looking too shockingly familiar, yet he seemed to look at you with the same analyzing stare.

"They're alright."

"What, you know these people?"

"I know him. He's my goddamn brother."

To say you had been dumbfounded would be an understatement, but the better years of surviving had taught you enough not to show that on your features. Your eyes diverted from the tough-looking woman behind yet another loaded sniper rifle to the man who stood behind creaking, now parted gates, weapon swung across his back, his gray blues lighting up at the sight of Joel.

Everything seemed to fall into place, making a knot in your stomach. So, he had been the one thing they were looking for all along, trailing you along with them to serve the cause, driving and killing across the country to reach a long lost brother. It was evident that Ellie had been just as surprised as you, her face a mix of emotions, no doubt marveling at their sudden luck, leaving you to marvel at your lack thereof.

Out of all people in the damned world to search for, it had to be him.

The twisting knot inside of you gave such discomfort and anxiety through your whole body that you could not even watch as the two brothers reunited in what seemed to be a peaceful hug - then those eyes turned to your form, widening as they recognized you now, sending Joel a stare as if he was asking why the hell you had been accompanying them to begin with. Joel, however, noticed the lingering meaning in his brother's look and turned over to you - eyebrows furrowed in that dangerous stance of his, just like he had approached anything that smelled of trouble. Yet, you knew better than to reach your revolver laying on the ground with this many guns, big and small, still pointed at you.

Though you were fairly certain that the bullets could not possibly give you more fright than the stares the two brothers bore into you. It made your blood go cold as the atmosphere shifted from the warmth the cordial union of brothers provided, to something akin to ice.

With a defeated sigh, you had realized there was no other way out.

"How you doin', Tommy?"

#oh damn #here we go #the plot thickens #lmk what you think!#tlou #val writes #mercy #tlou joel #the last of us #the last of us joel #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you

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sandalaris · 4 years

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3 things asks: 6, 8, 10, 14, 22, & 37!!

6. 3 characters that inspire you

Inspire? That’s a tough one. Inspire in what way?

Like to write? Five Hargreeves is a great source of inspiration to write. He’s chalk full of potential and writier goodnes.

That I take inspiration for clothes? I really like Britta Perry’s wardrobe, although with dashes of Annie’s sundresses. That’s basically my wardrobe, sundresses with leather jackets and combat boots.

Inspire me to have confidence and learn new skills? Sophie Deveraux is utter perfection in that area.

Inspiring relationships? Joel and Shelia Hammond from Santa Clarita Diet. OK, that probably isn’t what this was asking for, lol.

8. 3 tv shows that you never get bored of

My top three shows! Leverage, From Dusk till Dawn: the series, and Community. XD

10. 3 things you like eating with coffee

Coffee goes with anything :P I drink coffee on the daily, typically with breakfast and then again a few hours later after lunch and will have some again if its not to close to bedtime.

Any breakfast food would constitute the best food with coffee. I’m not a person who like cake or sweets with my coffee though, and typically things like crackers or toast I prefer with tea.

14. 3 professions that you would like to try

I have a weird love of being a secretary. Always have, and while I think it wouldn’t be for me long term, I’d give it a try.

I’d love to be a theater actor. I loved doing plays in school and as a teen, been acting since I was about seven, and only stopped when my university made it clear that only theater majors were allowed to participate in their plays. If there was a way to make it a hobby now I would.

I can’t think of another profession I would like to try (that I’m not already in).

22. 3 movies/books/tv shows that made you cry

All of them, lol. I’m an easy crier when it comes to movies/tv shows/books.

A Little Princess and Schindler’s List always seem to make me sob my eyes out each time I see them, which actually makes me avoid them even though I like both movies.

37. 3 languages you would love to learn

I am studying Spanish at the moment, and would love to learn ASL. For a third... I’m torn between Korean and German.

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katehuntington · 5 years

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How You & I Will Be - part five (finale)

Fandom: Supernatural Main characters: Reader, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester (mentioned), Bobby Singer (mentioned) Pairing: Dean x Reader Serie summary: When a hellhound case in the mountains goes sideways, Dean and Y/N find themselves trapped in a small cabin, miles from civilization. A serious injury forces the two hunters to come to terms with their true feelings for each other. Rescue is on its way, but will it be in time? Part 5 warnings: angst, severe anxiety, nightmares, hallucinations, swearing, alcohol, description of blood and injury, possible character death. Some fluff. Music: ‘Lullabye’ by Billy Joel Word Count: 2154 words Author’s note: This is it, folks. The end of my mini series, and what a pleasure it was. Thank you @idreamofhazel and @littlegreenplasticsoldier for helping we work on this, you both are wonderful betas. Fair warning when you proceed: I managed to move them both to tears. @littlegreenplasticsoldier even made clear that I will have to hire someone to do my obit at my funeral, because I will have no friends left after this.

Find the ‘How You & I Will Be’ masterlist here!

It turns out Y/N has a little more time on her side than they initially thought. Not that she will be able to remember much, since she laid in Dean’s arms unconscious most of the time, but somehow the huntress has made it till sunrise. Despite her brave attempt, her condition deteriorates with every minute that passes. During the hallucinations, Dean pulled her into his lap, holding the girl he loves with everything he’s got, like he would comfort an infant. The acid trip-like dreams had her in confusion and all he could do to sooth her, cradling her gently, whispering sweet words and promises.

The nightmares seem to have passed now, setting in a new stage that is just as ominous. She has been unresponsive for quite a while, as if she has drifted off into a coma. It feels as if she’s slipping through his fingers like desert sand and there’s nothing he can do about it. Sometimes it takes over twenty seconds for her to breathe in again, which is only a weak gasp for air. Between those inhales Dean keeps her close to his chest, begging silently for her to take another breath, to stay a little longer.

Red ashes have turned into grey charcoal overnight, causing the temperature in the cabin to drop. Now Dean’s leather jacket is the only item that can provide her some warmth; even if there were wood left, he wouldn’t let her go to restart the fire. The storm has passed quickly and it wouldn’t surprise Dean if it was the work of that witch that owed Bobby. The rescue-team was supposed to start their climb at the break of dawn; they are probably well on their way, now that the first rays of sun peek over the ridge, watercoloring the sky with pink and purple. The mountaintop of Glacier Peak is outlined with gold that glows ever brighter as the sun comes up. It’s a beautiful sight, one that Dean enjoys intently, aware that these will be the final moments he’ll have with his girl.

When the sunshine spreads a warmth in the cabin, illuminating the fibers of dust that float in the air surrounding them, Y/N opens her eyes slightly without Dean noticing it. The scenery outside captivates her. The view looks more like a painting from Leonid Afremov than it would seem like reality, and for a second she wonders if she’s hallucinating again. But when she observes Dean, who admires the spectacular scenery as well, she guesses it’s nature’s way of saying goodbye.

“Well…” she rustles, words coming out raspy. “If that isn’t the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen….”

Stunned, Dean looks down at her. He honestly didn’t expect her to ever open her eyes again, but here she is. A moment of clarity. God, it’s nice to hear the sound of her voice again, despite it not being more than a weak whisper. “Hey, you,” he returns, smiling down. She smiles back, glad to be able to gaze up into those depthless green eyes once more. He lovingly strokes some wayward hair from her forehead, and places a tender kiss on her skin. Embracing the moment, she closes her eyes and sighs as her grin reaches wider. When he pulls back and witnesses the satisfied expression on her face, he suddenly notices the difference; she’s made peace with her fate. It scares him deeply, he isn’t anywhere close to prepared for her coming death. “You wouldn’t be able to squeeze out a few more hours by any chance?” he pleads. “The rescue workers are on their way.” For a moment she opens her eyes again, clearly worn out by the fight for life. She swallows with difficulty and lets the air escape from her lips, finding it harder to inhale every time she does so. “I’m so tired, Dean….” Her voice fails, but he heard her. The hunter nods slowly, accepting the true message behind her words. The fight is over. She’s lowered her weapons. With difficulty, he gulps, trying to ignore the sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. After all, he has to be strong for her.

But she’s no fool; she can see right through it. Y/N knows how hurt he is, how he’s trying so hard to prevent himself from caving. She might be okay with the fact that her hour has struck, he can’t say the same. The thought of letting her go causes the tears to pool in his eyes. “Hey… It’s alright,” she tries to comfort him. He scoffs, amazed by her urge to care for him, even now. He manages a quivering breath. “I should be telling you that.” “I’m not the one who’s about to be left behind, am I?” she reminds him.

It’s a solid point. Who knows where she might drift off to. Heaven, the light, whatever one would want to believe. Dean will remain right here, on this spot of land without her. “What do you think is gonna happen next?” he wonders out loud. “Lights out and that’s it?” “Hell, no,” she chuckles, having found a little more spirit to strengthen her words. “It’s gonna be either Vegas or Hawaii. I haven’t decided yet.” Dean scoffs through the tears, imagining it for a moment. He hopes she’s right, it makes the idea of dying a little less terrifying. “Maybe my heaven will be driving down the road towards the sunset in the Impala, backseat to myself…” she continues on a serious note. “Maybe it’s this, this moment right here with you. This view.”

Dean follows her thousand-yard stare through the window that portrays the colorful picture outside. As the sun rises further, it casts an golden light over the snowy mountains, and Y/N takes a moment to count her blessings. Sure, she wishes she would’ve had more time, but it isn’t the worse way to go. The man she gave her heart to is holding her close and they got the chance to spend their final moments together. The man who told her: I love you. The man she told: I love you, too. It’s not that bad, actually. “Promise me something?” He turns to face her again, waiting for a follow up. Trying to speak, her voice hitches in her throat as breathing becomes more difficult. Her fragile state indicates it won’t take long now. “Promise you’ll let your friends and family help you. Promise you’ll talk to Sam. Don’t bottle it up this time, okay?” The pressure on Dean’s chest becomes so heavy that his airway constricts. He is able to keep a hold of her questioning gaze, though. “I promise,” he assures, choking up. “And no deals,” she continues. “I know you’ve been thinking it.” “Y/N -” But she won’t have it and interrupts his attempt to object instantly. “No, Dean. I don’t want you to get torn up by those hounds. If you make a deal, you’ll go to hell,” she pauses to catch her breath. “And where I’m going… It’s not a bad place.” Dean sighs after a moment’s consideration, trying to blink away his tears as he admits to her conditions with a nod. “Alright.”

She smiles slightly, glad to have his word and relieved that she got the message across. It remains quiet for a couple of minutes as her respiration slows down even further, taking down her pulse as well. Scared, Dean holds his love, watching her subside, further and further away from him. “Dean?” His name is barely audible, it’s more of a breath than her voice. “Yeah?” She forces her eyes open, taking in the hunter above her. For the first time since last night, tears stain her beautiful eyes. Dean knows exactly what she’s trying to capture, because he’s trying to accomplish the same. He takes her in, every feature, every perfect flaw. A few lost birthmarks that decorate her face and neck. That scar on her chin that she always tries to cover up with a scarf or the collar of her jacket. The slight frizz in the lock of hair that she cusses about whenever it’s rainy or windy. And damn, those eyes, those gorgeous eyes. “I-I think it’s time….” she stammers weak.

She’s might be okay with dying, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t scared of what lays ahead. Of course she’s terrified, who wouldn’t be scared of the unknown? Vampires, ghosts, demons; she faced them all. But with every single monster she came across, she knew a way to defeat them. Never, ever, did she show up for a fight unprepared. At the verge of battle she was armed with a weapon of choice, if it was silver, salt, dead man’s blood or the Colt. She knew her opponent, she did her research, she read the lore. But she can fantasize about casinos or white sandy beaches all she wants, the truth is that nothing can prepare anyone for what awaits on the other side. “It’s alright, Y/N. I’ve got you,” Dean comforts, pulling her even closer, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I’m right here. I won’t leave your side, I promise.” She cries against his chest silently, wheezing every time she tries to inhale. Dean’s heart is beating out of his chest as hers will stop any moment now. “Y-you know what my mom’s favorite song was… to sing to me?” she whispers, referring to their talk days ago, about music and songs sang by their mothers. “It was Lullabye... Billy Joel… She always sang Lullabye.” “It’s a good song,” Dean gets out with difficulty. “It is,” you smile into his shirt, before she softly whispers the first lines.

Goodnight, my angel Time to close your eyes And save these questions for another day

Dean joins in with her, cradling his dying girl to the rhythm of the song. The melody somehow makes it easier to pronounce the words.

I think I know what you've been asking me I think you know what I've been trying to say I promised I would never leave you, and you should always know Wherever you may go, no matter where you are I never will be far away

She lets Dean take over the vocals completely, listening to his emotional yet clear voice. It hushes her into a deep sleep from which she will never wake again. Slowly Y/N sinks further into the depths of unconsciousness. But she can still hear him, she can still hear Dean. Scientists have proved that the sense of hearing is the last one to perish when a person dies. Seems like they are right.

Goodnight, my angel Now it's time to sleep And still so many things I want to say Remember all the songs you sang for me When we went…

He stops mid-sentence, waiting for some kind of response from Y/N. A flinch, her chest rising, anything. But nothing happens. There’s no cloud of humid air coming from her lips, even the drum in her chest has stopped playing. When he lifts his chin off her head and loosens his grip on the woman in his arms slightly, he is able to behold the blank expression on her pretty face, eyes slightly opened, but her soul is gone.

“Y/N…?”

Shocked he stares at her as a lump obstructs his throat. A hole in his stomach grows larger when the harsh reality replaces his denial. Dean can’t prevent the tears from building up in his eyes and so he looks up, hoping that they won’t fall down, but they fall anyway. Unable to cope with the avalanche of sorrow that hits him like a freight train, his bottom lip starts to quiver and slowly he begins to move back and forth, mourning, as he presses her lifeless body against his.

He lost her. For a few moments she was his and now he’s lost her. He whispers her name in her hair, tells her he loves her once more and then again. God, he would give anything to see her react to those words, by throwing him that amazing smile. Softly he continues to sing the song. The earth turns and the sun shines its light on the both of them. His voice is shaking so badly that he has trouble getting anything out at all. Being able to hold and cradle her helps, and so he sets off again where her death caused him to pauze.

Remember all the songs you sang for me When we went sailing on an emerald bay And like a boat out on the ocean I'm rocking you to sleep The water's dark and deep, inside this ancient heart You'll always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone But lullabies go on and on They never die That's how you and I will be

The end, people. Thank you so much for reading my story. I appreciate every single one of you. If you would like to talk about this or if you need a grief-counselor, let me know. Feedback is very much appreciated.

Follow Forever: @angelsandwinchesters @atc74 @bandobsession98 @books-wands-swords-impalas @canadianspnhunter @chumi-la-chula @cookie-dough-lova @dillpicklesunflowerseed @hannahindie @heartsaved @hennessy0274-blog @hyperella @idreamofhazel @just-another-busy-fangirl @kathaswings @like-a-bag-of-potatoes @mrswhozeewhatsis @myheartbeatsjustforyou @rainqueen @sammyssupersmile @sheepdogs33456 @sofiadiaz04 @spiritofoblivion @spnimag @sunskittlex @supernatural-girl97 @super-not-naturall @susan-is-in-the-house @theyaremyveryownthoughts @trashforwinchesters @ultimatecin73 @unlikelygalaxygiver @uzum4k1-uch1h4 @vvishous @vxxn128 @winchesterxtwo

How You & I Will Be tag: @deanwnchstr @parkeret @professionalspnfangirl @tmiships4life

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drvgcnwcrricr · 4 years

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( brianne tju, dragon, she/her & cisfemale ) is that ( we didn’t start the fire ) by ( billy joel ) playing ? ( MAYA SHEN ) must be nearby ! heard folks say the ( twenty one ) year old ( arcade employee ) was at the thanksgiving fair, ( riding the ferris wheel ) when chaos ensued. during the glitch, ( she transformed and burnt down her childhood home ).

born and raised within the mysterious letum falls, oklahoma, maya shen felt right at home. her family, a line of male dragons who considered the supernatural gene a great honor, was more on the traditional side. no shoes inside the house, worship in the morning, home right after school, in bed before seven. they believed their family to be held to higher standards, warriors hidden in human flesh.

it was only two generations ago that the shen family realized the existence of other supernaturals. maya’s great-grandfather stumbled across a coven of witches sometime in the 1930′s, proving and disproving any assumptions the family had made about their special gift. it brought shame upon them for some time, but her grandfather offered peace and friendship to the coven, allowing them to live in harmony without the fear of attack from another kind. soon enough, a litter of species was introduced and the shen’s maintained a friendship with most. ( rival family ? wanted connection )

the dragon gene was predominantly passed down the line through men, 9 generations of male, dragon warriors, praised beyond words. the women were often seen as trophy wives, but love and respect remained sacred within the line. they thrived off true connection, the one where friendship lies close within but adoration curved the lines.

the shen family only recognized maya’s gift just before her fourth birthday, as she took a hard fall from the kitchen table, breaking the fragile bones in her legs. no need to worry, the dragon that emerged healed every break. their only heir, a female heir at that, none of them expected maya to receive the gene--- the first female dragon of the shen line in the last one hundred years. a 9th generation warrior, and a miracle in the eyes of her family. she was spoiled with gifts and food all throughout her younger years, many of the older generations bestowing gifts of their own upon the girl. she never was one for the spotlight, shying away from most of the glorified attention, and this became evident in years to come.

as a child, maya proved to be outgoing. specifically, she was known to “get lost” every couple months or so, wandering off within the woods and not being seen for days. she set up her own camp within the woods and had found sanctuary among the trees. the police had “rescued” her 8 times before the age of ten.

it wasn’t that she didn’t love her home, or her town, but the confines of her own four walls were incredibly irritating. the humming of the kitchen stove, her father’s constant snoring, even if he was awake. headaches ran rampant within her brain, and by eleven, she self diagnosed herself with adhd, a term her mother didn’t quite care for.

the following years are somewhat a blur. once maya’s self diagnosis came to light, she found solace within her own powers. the mesmerizing wave of the flame was one she couldn’t resist, and by 16, she’d caused three fires within the town. only two were accidents.

in all honesty, maya defied most of her family’s morals by the age of 18, often sneaking out, eating whatever junk food she could find, listening to unholy music, anything and everything that pleased her and annoyed her mother. not long after, she moved out and started living with a friend, finding herself working at the local arcade.

she’s a bit of a wild child, but she still holds her morals. while they’re not on such a tight leash, she still keeps the radar low. she holds on to her heritage, in small forms, relishing in a small prayer before every transformation, and attend all training sessions with her uncle every thursday night.

she’s bright spirit, hardly ever with a frown on her face, but she can be very serious, very intimidating --- if she needs to be. other than that she’s 115 pounds of pure fun and adrenaline.

aesthetics : bad stick n’ poke tattoos, leather jackets coated with the smell of cigarettes, a freshly packed blunt glowing yellow at the tip, late nights deafened by the rumble of engines, chipped skateboards worn down by the years, fire that fills the room and chars bone, a roar that carries across the sky, wings flapping in the wind.

wanted connections :

roommate : this would be someone 20-25, in maya’s age range that she convinced to move in with her after her graduation. she was aching to leave her parent’s house, but could never truly leave her home town. honestly this could be anyone, as maya was hella desperate, but if the connection interests you hit me up !

childhood “bestie” : this would be someone her parent’s forced her to hang out with at a young age. they were probably seen as a good influence ( though, whether they actually were a good influence or not is up to you, but her parents were under the impression ), maya wasn’t a huge fan of the idea, but for most of elementary and middle they were stuck together. i’m leaving this vague but i’d love to plot this out more !

co-workers : maya works at the arcade and spends most of her afternoons and nights there. this would be another worker, someone maya enjoys talking to or playing against to help her survive the shift (other than bez), maybe they hang out a lot after they get off ? probably hitting rooftops to see who can throw a rock to the next building over or something stupid like that

supernaturals : maya’s family has been pretty oblivious to other species, only coming into contact with other species (witches) just two generations before her, so they’re a bit lacking with information. these are supernaturals maya has come across and studied, either up close or from afar. she is currently aware of dragons (her family and a mystery dragon she saw at the fair), ghosts, vampires, and gorgons.

that’s,,,, all i got for now but i’m always down to brainstorm ! if any of these connections interest you, hmu !

#othqintro #drug tw

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erasethedarkness · 5 years

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Silver Threaded Lining -Day 6 | Blind Date / Setup- (Best Jeanist x f!Reader)

Summary: Working at a news station had its perks- and one of them included being friends with a popular newswoman. When asked to take her place in a blind date, you were skeptical but wanted to help her out, accepting the request in the end. Neither of you had any idea what was in store for you once you arrived at the venerated Chateux de Joel Robuchon.

Note: Ship and reader requested by Every.man.at.midnight on Ao3!!! Also, this reader insert is… definitely a more larger than life one. Like, it’s probably not really relatable, but hopefully it’s still one that can suspend your beliefs. The reasoning for this is that I wanted to take into consideration the type of person Best Jeanist is, and this is what I came up with and what felt most intuitive to me. Also, I’m tempted to write a sequel or turn this into a series? Just because it’s … so… fantastical and extra? Let me know what you guys think. Hopefully I didn't butcher his character since this is my first time writing for him.

Theme Song: Tell Me Baby - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Reader: Female (requested)

Words: 2908

Tell me baby, what's your story…

Working as a makeup artist was one of your greatest pleasures. You got to mess around with different palettes, special effects, and meet people from all walks of life. Professionally, you were employed by one of the top news stations, which gave you the opportunity to work on celebrities and heroes. And for fun, you ran a special effects channel with a fairly sizeable following and sponsorships from various makeup brands. Life was pretty solid and good, though you were too busy to focus on every aspect of it. With your work and social life booming, it was only natural that your personal and romantic life were neglected.

“Say, (Y/N), are you free tomorrow night?” one of the news anchors asked as you worked on her makeup. Her eyes were closed and brows raised, so you couldn’t make out much of an expression as you applied some shadows, but you two were fairly close and you could be honest with her. In the workplace, she was basically your best friend.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“Well… could I ask you for a huuuge favor? Please? I’ll seriously owe you one.”

You paused from her makeup, cuing the newswoman to open her eyes and look at you. She was faced with a somewhat worried and skeptical expression as you inquired more.

“What trouble did you get into?”

“It’s not trouble!” she quickly defended herself before sighing and closing her eyes so you could resume your work. “It’s just… One of my friends set me up on a date, but I’ve been talking to this guy from SVME a lot lately and I think we’re hitting it off really well, so... I don’t really wanna go on this date. But, you’re single and pretty and talented and, like… I think that whoever my friend’s got waiting for this date is gonna be a great person and maybe even a good fit for you. It’s someone she’s trying to set me up with, so… it’s not like I mean any disrespect, y’know? I’m just asking for a favor, one girl to another. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Please?”

You listened to her argument, meticulously applying false lashes and then blending it into the eyeliner so it looked flawless. Taking a step back, you looked at her face to make sure it was symmetrical and up to standard.

“You have no idea who the guy is?” you sighed, giving away that you were seriously considering it. You wanted to help her out, and it’d been about a year since your last date because you were just sick of bothering when you had other things to do, like manage a successful channel on top of working.

“Not at all. She just promised I wouldn’t be disappointed. So… hopefully you won’t be either?”

With a sigh, you told her to open her mouth so you could apply lipstick. “...Alright,” you agreed. “What are the details?” She went into everything she knew- time, location, and expectations- and promised to reimburse you for any money you’d potentially have to spend. You nodded, simply noting everything.

The following night came, and you gave yourself a final look over before leaving. Your makeup was perfect and set, you weren’t worried about your lipstick fading or distorting with dinner, the dress you picked was elegant, flattering, and trendy, and the heels you wore were both fashionable and comfortable. You were aces. The friend you were doing this favor for sent you a car that would take you to your destination, and without time for a moment’s hesitance, you were chauffeured to the rendezvous.

From the moment you arrived, you were treated no less than royalty. As soon as the car pulled up, a valet opened the door for you. “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle. Bienvenue au Chateux de Joel Robuchon,” (“Good evening, Miss. Welcome to Chateux de Joel Robuchon,”) he greeted you with a bow, gesturing towards the western inspired establishment with an immaculate white glove. You smiled politely at him with a small nod of your head, stepping out gracefully. The valet closed the door behind you, the car leaving a second after, and you were left with a small walk across the elegant courtyard to the four-story building. When you arrived, the doors were opened for you once again, and you were greeted with a fusion of elegant French and Japanese hospitality and grace.

It really was like being in a castle. A host came to meet you and took your jacket, while a hostess guided you to the second level where the restaurant and lounge operated. She asked what name the reservation was under, and you gave her your friend’s. With a smile, the hostess suggested you help yourself to a drink at the Rouge Bar while you waited, as you were the first to arrive. Finding that agreeable, you were escorted to an elegant, more than fully equipped and stocked lounge. It was dark with warm, golden lighting that made the red walls something sensual and alluring, rather than loud or intimidating. Black leather furniture beckoned you to take a seat wherever you pleased, and you were promptly met by a waiter offering a drink menu. You ordered a light wine to sip at while you waited for your mystery date, and gazed around the bar. At least it was going to be easy for him to figure out who he was meeting- you were the only lady waiting alone.

As you reclined and sipped, you noticed some of the patrons’ behaviors change. Eyes were skirting to and from the entrance and voices hushed themselves. You managed to hear a woman whisper to another, “Oh my goodness, is that… That’s Best Jeanist!” The temptation to turn around and see the hero for yourself was great, but your dignity and pride were greater, so you didn’t flinch or move to follow everyone else’s gaze. Bringing the wine glass to your lips, you tasted it once again before noticing the curious eyes beginning to fall on you.

“Miss (Y/N)?”

You knew that voice- you knew it from countless interviews, and having met the hero once when he appeared on your news channel. Of all the makeup artists, you were the lucky one who got to powder and touch up his already faultness face. With fluid timing, you blinked while gracefully turning your head to the speaker, eyes opening with an almost hypnotic look. A single green eye received yours, its match hidden beneath fastidiously combed and treated blond hair. His expression was covered by a square silk scarf that was both tasteful and contemporary, complimenting his navy three piece suit. It was no wonder this man was at the forefront of men’s fashion.

“Best Jeanist.” You acknowledged him by his hero name, a calm and sweet smile on your lips. Although you couldn’t see it, you hoped he was smiling from the way the corners of his eyes seemed to just barely move. The hero bowed to you, his hand extended to help you stand, creating a scene that was almost impossible to believe- both to you and those spectating. Delicately, you lifted your hand from the wine glass and placed your fingertips into his palm. With nimble finesse, his fingers curled behind yours, thumb gently crossing over your knuckles as you rose to your feet, and then respectfully let go as you thanked him.

Your thoughts raced as you two were escorted to your table. How could your friend pass this up? On top of that, how did she not know that she was going on a date with Best Jeanist? And who was her friend that was able to convince the No. 3 Pro Hero to even go on a blind date? You had so many questions that were going to be answered the next time you saw her.

A new elegance welcomed you as you two entered Joel Robuchon Restaurant. Dreamy gold lighting and draperies warmed the walls while black dominated everything else. Tables were blanketed in a silky black cloth, their legs just as dark and matching the chairs that framed them. Polished and shining black vases and centerpieces decorated the tables while the flowers, accents, and plates were a stark and contrasting white. It was beautiful and even surreal- especially for a first date, set up or not.

Agreeing on the 6-course specialty menu and a bottle of wine to share, the date began smoothly. You both expressed your preferences and were pleasantly surprised to share some similar tastes, needing to compromise on very little. Starting off this way allowed an immediate familiarity to develop between you two, the conversation becoming more natural and effortless as a result. He made you smile and you made him laugh, all before the bread basket arrived. Even though you were sitting across from the revered Fiber Hero, you didn’t feel any pressure or unease. It honestly felt like you two were on the same page, the same level, in the same ballpark, and just… equal. Already, there was a foundation of mutual respect laid down, and he even asked you to call him by his name as you two worked through the six plates, taking your time and getting to know each other.

“So how is your recovery coming along?” you asked him in a soft voice with genuine concern and interest. Everyone knew the damage he took from All For One and that he would be resting for an unknown but extended period of time.

“Quite well,” he answered professionally. Although he’d been looking at you all night, his gaze became a bit sharper at your question. It wasn’t that he was soured by it, but you could tell it was something he was fairly guarded about. He was able to walk and move, yet there must have been more limitations than before.

“Is that the newsroom answer?”

The hero chuckled at your perceptiveness, making you hope again that he was smiling afterwards. Your imagination was vividly curious of what it would look like, but that was something even you weren’t bold enough to ask yet.

Offering your own smile to him, you carried on gracefully, unaffected by the closed off topic. “I’m glad that you’ve recovered as much as you already have, and look forward to seeing you back in action,” you supported. “I think only the greatest heroes could survive and recover from such grave injuries. It really shows you have so much you want to live for.” Your sincerity softened that steeled look he gave you, and eased away the faint tension that came with it.

“Thank you, (Y/N).” His voice was casual again. Even with the composed and dignified way that he spoke, you were able to pick up the differences between his relaxed and formal speeches. “Experiences like this are rather humbling, for better or worse. They remind us all that heroes, too, are human.”

“Had you forgotten that you were, Hakamata?” There was something coquettish in your voice, bolstered by the confidence you had in catching the nuances he expected to slip through.

“It’s easy to forget,” he responded, meeting your coyness with his own. “I am greatly honored to be a widely received hero and icon- as accessible as the availability and handiness of denim itself. Such responsibilities require a near superhuman balance in life.” The way he spoke of his popularity was anything but arrogant, showing that he took this all very seriously. It wasn’t simply a job or profession- being a hero was an identity that everything else conformed to. “In its own way, the time necessary to heal is a kindness.”

His words were enchanting with the way he spoke. Each syllable was magnetic, tempting you closer to the person across from you not as a hero, but as a man. Your conversation was scarcely interrupted by the restaurant’s staff, plates coming and going as if phantoms were providing them. In this moment, there was only him in your field of view. “How so?”

“It’s the only reason a moment like this is possible right now,” he explained with a foreign glint in his eye. You couldn’t help but wonder if that was what it would look like if eyes could smile. “While we’ve met once before, it was brief and strictly business. Wouldn’t you agree this time is a benevolent result of my injuries?”

Your lips pulled back as you chuckled softly, your cheeks lifting with a smile as you blushed and averted your eyes. For the first time tonight, he charmed you, and he did it without relying on fame or prestige. Seeing a break in the conversation, the attentive wait staff approached your table, retrieving the empty plates and bowls, pouring the last of the bottle of wine for you two, and then presenting you with a dessert trolley that could rival entire bakeries and chocolatiers. An espresso list accompanied the sweets, and you two ended up with the same order, save for a minor detail in your truffles. One was accented by raspberries, and the other by thin orange slices.

“Only in part. This was also the work of our friends, wasn’t it?” you teased him with a mirthful smirk.

“That’s true,” he agreed, explicitly acknowledging for the first time that this was a blind date. “However, no amount of planning could make two unwilling people meet in circumstances like this. Close encounters are perhaps the strongest reminders that, as humans, we seek a love and intimacy beyond praise and fame. And if I may be candid, (Y/N), I’m honored to have been recommended to you. It may seem silly, but… I do place trust and faith in a close friend’s suggestion.”

Once again you blushed, closing your eyes this time as you took a sip of your cappuccino. He was more of a gentleman than you expected- and you certainly had high expectations for such an exemplary hero.

“I take it you’re skeptical of those you meet on your own?” The question was rhetorical. “I suppose you’d have to be; there must be a plentitude of people with ulterior motives seeking your attention and affection.” You placed your cup in its saucer, your hands coming together in your lap afterwards as you sat ladylike with a sweet smile on your face despite the seriousness of your words. “For what it’s worth, I had no idea who I’d meet tonight. When you offered your hand, it felt like a dream- this whole date has.”

At last, you could tell with certainty that Best Jeanist was actually smiling beneath that silk scarf. His handsome expression was as joyous as it was composed, and you were proven very wrong in believing he couldn’t become more of a heartthrob.

“If we continued meeting, would I be able to convince you reality was better than a dream?”

You were stunned by the smoothness of his words. As a rule of thumb, you were exceptionally skeptical of charismatic men, but you made an allowance for the one across from you tonight. While others came off as womanizers and playboys, Hakamata seemed knightly and trustworthy. After all, the whole of Tokyo trusted him with their lives- including you.

“I would love to find out.”

As you two finished dining, the bill was directly handed to the hero. You offered to pay, or at least cover part of it, but his kind eyes and voice told you there was no need, and the expenses were already taken care of. He took the bill, and you could make out that it seemed like some sort of letter before he folded it and slipped it into his breast pocket. Standing, he opened his hand to you once again and guided you to take hold of his arm as he escorted you downstairs. You two walked with a closeness that evolved over the course of your extravagant dinner, and he waited patiently for you as you received your jacket before escorting you outside.

Before getting close enough to signal the valet to open the door, Best Jeanist stopped with you. His arm shifted so that your hand fell into his as you turned to face him. “May I see you again, (Y/N)?”

Your eyes gazed into his and noticed that his hair was pulled back just enough to allow you to see them both. You couldn’t help but grin a bit widely, your teeth just barely showing as you nodded. “Yes,” you answered in what only came out as a whisper. That unmistakable joy gleamed in his eyes at your response, and you two exchanged personal contact information. When it was all saved, he finished walking you to the familiar car that awaited. Just as you were about to sink into your seat, your date brought your hand towards his lips, his other coming up to the scarf and lowering it just enough so he could give it a proper kiss, covering his face afterwards as he brought his eyes to yours.

“Thank you for this wonderful night. I look forward to the next.”

You blushed as you thanked him in return, the door closing soon after and the driver taking you back home. This was a night you’d never forget, and the idea of future ones with him quickened your heart.

… You’re so lovely, are you lonely?

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rosegoldachievement · 5 years

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Where Good Girls Go To Die (Chapter 4)

pairing: fahc x reader

word count: 2,615

series: Where Good Girls Go To Die

summary: You’re not quite sure what compelled you to move to the infamous city of Los Santos, a ruthless playground for drug dealers, washed-up celebrities, and criminals alike. It was very different from your small hometown in the middle of nowhere, where nothing ever happened and you couldn’t even leave your house without running into someone you knew, but perhaps that was part of the attraction. But, after running into your ex-best friend, Jeremy Dooley, you began to think Los Santos wasn’t so bad as it seemed. Well, until the bank you worked at got robbed and you managed to get kidnapped all in the same week, leading you to become stuck in a penthouse with six very deadly males.

chapter 1 / chapter 2 / chapter 3 / chapter four

It had been a few days since the robbery, and you had just entered your apartment building. The bank still hadn’t reopened because of the repairs and some security updates were still needed. You actually had begun to feel antsy from staying home. At first, you had debated on actually going out to a nightclub or something, but your introverted side settled on grocery shopping.

When you made it to your door, a confused expression took over your features. Your apartment door was slightly ajar and it appeared as if the lights were on inside. Your brain kicked into overdrive, trying to figure out what exactly had happened in your absence.

Maybe Mrs. Gunkhouse, your landlord, had stopped by to drop off the rest of the paperwork needed to move. But, she surely would have shut the door and turned off the light. Right? Or you just forgot to lock up before you had left. That was another probable reason.

Without having any other explanation of what could have happened, you decided to cautiously approach the cracked door and enter your apartment. Your eyes grew wide as you surveyed the scene.

Cardboard boxes were overturned, the items that they once contained sprawled out onto the floor. Anything that could be broken was shattered to pieces, including the vase you had bought the day prior. Your heart plummeted down into your stomach when you finally realized that you had been robbed. You ran your hands through your hair in frustration. Why now? Why you? As if things hadn’t gone to shit already since you had arrived in this town.

A countless amount of questions fluttered through your brain until you finally had one stabilized thought. I still have the card Miles gave me with his phone number. He had said to call if you had any more information about the bank situation, but you’re pretty sure he would help you with this robbery as well. All of the previous thoughts you had vanished and your only goal was to get that card.

You exited the living room and into the small hallway that housed the bathroom, your bedroom, and a closet. Thankfully, all of the boxes that once called this place home were now unpacked and thrown out, so you didn’t run the risk of dying on the way to your room.

However, when you did step foot into your room, you were too afraid to venture any further. Near your closet, was a man standing with his back turned to you and going through your belongings. It had just occurred to you that you weren’t robbed. No, there was someone currently still robbing you. You were frozen in fear for a second, but eventually, you had built up enough energy to begin stepping out of the room. Slowly and quietly, you backed up towards the door. Well, until you felt something hard collide against your back.

“Found her.” A gruff voice spoke from behind you. You tried to turn around to look at them, but a pair of strong hands clasped down onto your shoulders to keep you in place. The man who was going through your things previously turned around with a smile that made you uneasy.

“Hello, y/n.”

A sudden realization hit you, the feeling similar to a ton of bricks being thrown into your stomach. Your legs wobbled and if it wasn’t for the man holding your shoulders, you would probably be on the ground right about now. They didn’t come here to rob you. They came here for you.

You opened your mouth to say something, but the words never came. Before you could, a rag was slipped over both your opened mouth and your nose. You stood like this for awhile, your struggle rendering useless as the man pushed the rag further into your face. Over time, your vision began to grow cloudy and your brain tripped over its own thoughts. After a few minutes, you had fallen unconscious.

When you woke up, you half expected to be greeted with the (favorite color) walls of your bedroom. But, instead, you were greeted white brick walls and a terrifyingly open space. It looked like to be some sort of warehouse, or maybe even a hanger. There was a dull ache that surrounded your wrist and thanks to the experience you had back at the bank, you quickly realized a cable tie had been secured around them. You searched your brain for answers, but the memories only flooded back into your mind once you heard a familiar voice.

“Oh, you’re up.”

You looked to your left to see the man who had kidnapped you, along with several others. They all held the same scowl and rather lean builds but varied in height. Matter of fact, two of the men who stood closer to the very right end of the group looked to be twins.

It took you a minute, but you found your voice. It came out shaky, but at least noise actually left your lips.

“Where am I? What do you want from me?”

He licked his lips before a grin came onto his face.

“You’ll find that out in a little bit, sweetheart.” He then turned towards the others. “Get in your places, we’re starting the next phase of the plan.”

The group began to disperse in different directions, but the man who had called you sweetheart and another man still stood in front of you. You could only assume the other man was the one who had grabbed you in the bedroom.

“Ready?” The second guy looked towards the first man, who only nodded. This prompted him to turn to you. “You keep your mouth shut.” You noticed him push back his shirt slightly and grab hold of something. Your body immediately wretched when your (eye color) eyes landed upon the handgun. “Or things are going to go south real fast.” You wordlessly nodded, fear manifesting in your stomach.

The first man dug a phone out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons, initiating a call. It wasn’t until he had adjusted his grip on the cell and put it on speaker that you noticed that it was your phone. The line rings twice before someone picks up.

“Hello?”

You blink in shock. Was...was that Jeremy?

“Hello, Jeremy. You don’t know me, but I know you.”

“Where’s y/n?” You had never heard Jeremy’s voice this cold before.

“She’s right next to me, but I’m afraid she’s a little bit too...tied up…. to speak with you at the moment. But I’m sure she’d be more than willing to talk once my group and I get what we want. Well, if she lives that long, that is. Give Geoff the phone.”

The fear that you had started to feel moments ago increased and your mind began to race.

“If you hurt her, I swear…”

“Time is ticking, Dooley.”

You heard Jeremy take a deep breath, but that was the last clear sound that came from his end of the phone call. Some noises came through the microphone after, but it was in the form of indistinguishable movements and muffled voices. Eventually someone was handed the phone and took over the conversation .

“You wanted to speak to me?” The man who you assumed was ‘Geoff’ spoke. There was something familiar about the voice, but you couldn’t exactly place where you had heard it before.

“Six months ago, you stole away our territory and gave it to some young bucks with nothing to their name.”

A scoff came from the other end of the line.

“That’s what this is about? Look, kid. We didn’t steal anything. I’ve known Joel Heyman for years. He gave the territory over to the Fakes because of his retirement.”

“It wasn’t his to give!” The man snapped before regaining his composure. “You boss types are all the same, aren’t cha? You all just see Sandy Shores as a territory to control. To us, it’s so much more. Some of us have friends and family there. It’s home. But you guys didn’t think about that when you laid off all these guys, huh? Didn’t think about most of them had criminal records and can’t put food on the table anymore for the people they love?”

“Look, man, I’m sorry. That sucks. But I can’t give you the spa-”

“We don’t care about that anymore, Ramsay.”

“Then why the fuck did you set thi-”

“We want money. Forty thousand, to be exact. And don’t say you don’t have it, because we know you do. Bring it to the old paper warehouse on fifth by midnight or the girl gets a bullet in her skull.” With that, the man ended the call and tosses your phone onto a nearby folding table.

Two hours later, the front door of the warehouse opened to reveal Jeremy and an older looking man wearing a suit and covered in tattoos. You guessed that this was Geoff, the man who was on the phone with your kidnapper. Behind them were a man with red hair wearing a brown leather jacket and a man with a beard in a Hawaiian shirt, both holding briefcases. You felt as if there was something familiar about the man with the red hair, but the sound of your captor’s hands slamming against the folding table made you jump.

“Wow, you all actually showed up!”

As they approached, you locked eyes with Jeremy. This was probably the most pissed you had even seen him, but his brown eyes softened when they glanced at you.

“We have your money, let the girl go.” Geoff spoke, locking his tattooed hands behind his back.

“Not so fast, Ramsey.” Your captor smiled. He held out his hand and did a ‘gimme’ motion. “Let me see the cash so I know you’re not jipping us.” Geoff nodded over to the redhead and the bearded man, who both took a step forward and placed the briefcases on the floor. They kicked over the money and slid it across the floor in order to ensure they wouldn’t case any alarm. Your captor looked towards his companion, who went over and picked up the suitcases. After opening it and looking over the cash, he nodded.

“Everything’s here.”

“We held up our end of the deal.” Geoff commented as he put his hands into his pockets. “Are you going to keep your promise?”

Your captor took a few steps to the side so he was positioned directly behind you and placed a cold hand onto your shoulder. You twitched at the sudden contact, but kept your mouth shut.

“Well, I would love to, but I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans.” You felt something cold and metal press against the side of your head, instantly causing your heart to drop. “It’s only fair that since you guys took away something so special to us, we do the same.” Tears threatened to spill as your observed the faces of the four men in front of you. Jeremy seemed tense, but one look from Geoff seemed to calm his nerves. You questioned this, but the chaos that erupted seconds later overtook your thoughts.

“I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to this but fine.” Geoff sighed. “Go ahead, Ryan.”

Before anyone could react, a bullet zoomed through one of windows and hit your captor in the head. You tried not to wretch as something wet splashed onto your face. The sound of gunshots overtook the area as Geoff, the redhead, and the bearded man were now all armed and fought against the remaining people. Within the chaos, Jeremy dashed over towards you and untied your restraints.

“Jeremy, what the fuck is happening?” You asked in a panic tone. He casted you a sympathetic look before shaking his head.

“I’ll explain later. Right now we gotta find cover, okay?” You blinked in confusion , straining to hear him over the gunshots, but nodded as he grabbed your hand. “Jack, cover me!”

Jack, the bearded man, peered over from the crate he was using as cover and called out.

“Got it!”

“On the count of three, we’re going to run over to that crate, okay?” Jeremy gestured to the crate that was in between the ones Jack and the redhead were using.

“O-okay.”

“One! Two! Three!” On cue, you and Jeremy both ran over to the box and hid behind it. “Stay down until it’s all clear.” He commanded as he retrieved the gun that was previously hidden on his body. You watched with a mixture of terror and awe as peeped over the side of the box and begun to fire. This was around the time when you noticed two things. One a man with a black skull mask and another man who you couldn’t exactly see because of his position behind a forklift had entered the fray on your side. Two, you felt like your heart could explode at any moment.

A few minutes went by before Geoff called out to the group.

“How many more are left?”

“Three, maybe four!” Jack answered before the redhead also chimed in.

“Two guys just escaped out the back door!”

“Michael and Gavin, go take care of it.”

“Got it Geoff!” A thick, British accent responded. “Let’s go boi!”

“Just shut up and come on.” The redhead, Michael, ran out of the back door with the other man following him. You squinted in remembrance, there was definitely something familiar about this. Jeremy noticed your reaction, because once the gunshots ceased, questioned your expression.

“You okay? It’s safe to stand up now, by the way.”

“W-what? Y-yeah. As much as I can be in this situation, yeah.” You stated while standing up. Your eyes locked onto one of the dead bodies that laid a few feet away. Your stomach churned at the sight. You quickly averted your gaze to the Michael and the other man re-entering the building with distraught expressions.

“We lost them at an busy intersection.” Michael announced.

“Do you think they left to get back up?” Jeremy asked, causing the group in front of you to exchange looks.

“We can’t keep standing around here, just in case they did.”

“What are we going to do with her?” The Brit jerked a thumb over in your direction.

“Doesn’t she have a house or something we can drop her off at?” Michael commented. You quickly decided to jump in, feigning confidence. You didn’t exactly want to confront the group of men you had just saw kill several people, but it had to be done.

“My apartment is where they found me. I came home from shopping and they were snooping around my room, waiting for me.”

“Then she’s definitely not going back and we’re certainly not leaving her alone since there’s two guys out there at know she can be used as an asset against u-”

“Cool your jets, Lil’ J.” Geoff sighed as he looked around the room. “I agree, it’s not safe for her right now. You care about her, thus we care about her. Let’s take her back to the penthouse.”

“And how are we going to do that? The penthouse location is supposed to be a secret to everyone who isn’t FAHC.” Jack looked towards Geoff for an idea, but before he could answer, the masked man spoke up.

“I have an idea.”

You suddenly felt something thump the back of your head. As you lost consciousness, you felt yourself fall into someone’s arms, presumingly Jeremy’s, and the group letting out a series of groans.

“God damn it, Ryan!”

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madamrogersstorytelling · 5 years

Text

Of New Beginnings — 1: Lullaby Boy

Ryan Brenner/Reader

It’s my birthday today and I figured that why not to post one cute Ryan fic on this day. Birthday has a significant role in the plot of this story, so I thought it’d be funny to post this on my own birthday. The song he has written is written by me and I hope it’s not total shit. It’s where this fic gets its name - the one in brackets has a meaning in the fic too, it’s not the song’s name. The other songs you can see parts of are not mine, their names and original singers are mentioned in the fic. Using just for fun and story purposes. I hope you all like this, even though it got a bit long.

Huge thanks to @padfootagain for suggesting Don McLean’s song and reading the song I wrote!

This eventually became a series.

Words: 6418

You were sure that if you’d get up now, it would draw all the attention right to you. Everyone was focused on the young man singing at the end of the pub, and during this moment you were happy Carrie had eventually given in. You knew your friend was one of those girls who liked to go to bars and find a nice guy or two for you girls to chat with, but you were different. You never fancied those guys; they were always too clingy, came too close and their breathing was a mix of cigarettes and cheap smell of alcohol. That you can get with only a few coins from the shops. By the end of the night, the guys still stepping on your heels when you tried to get rid of them (and you blamed Carrie for that), you promised yourself that never again.

This night was the first time you had had been able to change Carrie’s way of spending her Friday night. You could see it in her eyes; she was still longing for neon lights and bright drinks with umbrellas and those guys who you were able to elude only when you found them some other place to get more drinks or stepped into a cab.

That was who Carrie was and the reason why you loved her so much. She was always on your side (except during these times she knew very well what she needed after a shitty and hard week at work – and she seemed to have those often), took care of you and knew perfectly well what you needed when you got sad or sick or just felt off. She knew how to increase the happiness level when you were already bursting. She was good at that. She never told your secrets and did everything she could to protect you, kick you towards something. You two had known each other since school, and she was practically your mentor.

Even though, sometimes it felt like you were her mother.

Now she was whining every once in a while, telling you how this pub was nothing compared to the bar a few blocks away. She was dying to get there. You weren’t just going to give in; only over your dead body.

That was partly because you had seen him. The young man singing at the end of the pub, playing his guitar and sitting on a black stool. He was covering Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler when you paid closer attention to him; he had been singing since you had come inside with Carrie, but it wasn’t unusual to this pub to have someone playing. Yes, you had been in this very pub before. Sometimes after work when you were in desperate need of food and a warm drink. That was something you had wanted to give Carrie, to show her that stress and irritation didn’t have to be killed with alcohol.

“Y/N, are you serious?” It was the third time in a quarter of an hour Carrie whined something similar. It always had the same meaning; the words she used were just different.

Can we go now?

I’m bored to death… When did you become this old, boring fart?

Y/N, we’re breaking up. You get the couch, I take everything else. You won’t see our children ever again.

When you told her that neither of you had children, just to shut her up, she told that the TV and the fridge could be seen as children. Carrie got silly when she wanted to get reactions out of you, but after that she really shut up. She probably saw how you paid no attention to her.

“Yes, I’m very serious,” your voice was closer to a whisper than anything else.

He was so focused on what he was doing that he seemed to have forgotten where he was. You found yourself thinking that a pub like this was not the place for a musician like him. This was the place for those who had woken up a bit too late to realize they wanted to be Johnny Cash, Elton John, Bonnie Tyler or some other musician from the old days. You had seen everything from a very poor Elvis Presley imitation to some decent versions of Billy Joel’s Piano Man, but they were nothing compared to this, compared to him.

He had dark hair that had been touched by wind or it was naturally wavy on the back of his neck. Carrie would say he had Lullaby Boy’s physique, whatever that meant, you still hadn’t been able to figure that out. She had words for everything. You weren’t able to spot what he had on his fingers but you saw he most likely had tattoos. He had a black sweater on, sleeves pulled up on his elbows and a sand-brown, worn-out cap on his locks. The beard he had was a bit more than just stubble of a few days, and you could see from where you were sitting with Carrie that his eyes were just as dark as his hair.

He played the last note of The Gambler and people clapped their hands. It was like an unwritten rule, everybody joined in; the pub wasn’t crowded that night, there were only a few people here and there, but all those hands clapped together gave an illusion of a big audience. He got modest and showed a smile, looking like he was pushing out a chuckling breath.

You heard one of the regulars in a lodge closer to him drawing his attention to him and his friends with a loud “hey, boy”.

“Play Piano Man, would ya?”

You chuckled. Roger never got enough of the versions of his long-time favorite song. He always told it was about him; he had been Piano Man when he was younger. Now he was one of those men who wore leather jackets during their free time and tweed coats when they were needed. His friends, those three other men he was always with, agreed on Roger’s wish and asked the young man with the guitar did he know that song.

“Yeah, I know the song,” he said. It was quiet in the pub, so you were able to hear his voice. It was deep, it was husky, there was something extremely beautiful in it and you felt you could almost touch it.

“How about House of the Rising Sun?”

“I know that too,” he nodded.

Roger looked at his friend and made a long and low snorting sound. The man with the guitar touched his nose and smiled a short but gentle smile.

“Come on, boy, play Piano Man,” Roger’s hand swung in the air as he leaned back against his seat.

“Always Piano Man… That man has no sense of classics,” you turned your head to see two elderly women a few tables away from the one you and Carrie were sitting at. Before you could turn back towards the man with the physique of Lullaby Boy (you made a mental note of asking Carrie what that meant exactly), he was already playing the first notes of the song. His eyes fell closed, the words filled the pub, and you were able to see all the emotions he had by the way his face reacted to the words and notes.

“Now I get it,” you were able to hear Carrie’s voice as she spoke knowingly. “He is why you wanted to come here…”

“No, I’ve never seen him before,” you answered but couldn’t turn your gaze away from him. You were in the middle of the veil his singing had created over the people in the pub. You felt his warmth; you felt the lyrics… and the tears burning behind your eyes.

“Sing us a song you're the piano man

Sing us a song tonight

Well we're all in the mood for a melody

And you got us feeling alright”

When he opened his eyes and his gaze rose up from the floor, then from Roger and his hand that tapped the melody on the corner of his table, his eyes found you. You met them without looking for a way to escape, like you always did with the guys at the bars, you looked at him when he sang and played.

It was only a few seconds long gaze but not the last. Every once in a while his dark eyes found their way back to you, and after a while you were able to smile to him. Smiling back to you, he reached the end of the song, and with the way Roger was clapping his hands, you knew he had heard the best version of his favorite song.

“He’s good,” Carrie said next to you, not even a hint of a whine present in her voice. “Really good, actually…”

“Yeah… He’s really good,” you looked at him, not paying attention to Roger’s friend who turned around in the lodge to see the young man better. Looking at the four men, the one on the stool smiled kindly, nodded his head and let his fingers touch the strings, so the guitar made a warm sound.

He stole glances towards you every once in a while and wasn’t exactly hiding it. No one seemed to notice what he did, still. You were happy about that; Carrie noticing it was enough.

“He’s looking at you, Y/N. You should go and to talk to him. Catch this Lullaby Boy.”

When his eyes were back on Roger and his friends, you turned to look at Carrie next to you. She sat there with chin against her palm and this knowing, pushing look in her eyes. Her smile was even worse; she knew these things. She knew what kind of men drew your attention, was very aware of the fact that none of the guys at the bars had done that. Partly, she felt bad for it. Her complaints had been just testing your true will. She had seen how you were looking at Lullaby Boy.

She knew you were doing all this because you wanted her to do something else than drink her head off and she appreciated your determination and kindness. But the truth was, this wasn’t her place – but it really was yours. She didn’t know how many times you had been here, but by the way you sat and seemed to be perfectly comfortable, she could tell this wasn’t your first time. Not even the second or third, something much different.

Carrie was happy for you. You had finally found a place you felt comfortable in. Now all you needed was a clear path in life, a new beginning. She was so close to you that she was able to read from the way you held your hand that something bothered you, and recently that had been going on a lot. Your last year and a half hadn’t been the easiest. She had walked with you, caught you when you had almost fallen but knew that what you really needed was a new road to walk.

You needed a new beginning.

And now, as she looked at you listening to Lullaby Boy, she knew you were a step closer to that.

Somehow she knew. She was known to have a good sense of that kind of things; she had more often than not been right. She relaxed a bit and let her long, blonde hair’s ends touch the table.

“That man’s bothering him; go to save the poor boy.”

“That’d be rude… They’re having a conversation…”

“Stop being a saint, Y/N! He looks like he wants the floor to swallow him now and not on next Wednesday. It’s nowhere near rude if you – “

Carrie’s sentence drifted off under the sound of your phone’s angry pinging.

Your face dropped as you looked at the screen, anxiety taking over your body. Carrie could see your despair in the way your body shifted.

“No… No, no, no…”

“What is it?” Carrie frowned at your face.

You quickly started to gather your stuff. There wasn’t much to gather, so you were able to say in the middle of it: “I have to go.”

When you got up, you looked at the man for the last time. He had just started to sing Don McLean’s Vincent and he looked confused when he met your sorry gaze. The next thing he saw was you running out of the pub with your blonde friend after you, hair swinging in the rhythm of her steps.

“Now I understand what you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

How you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now”

********************

After that disastrous Friday night, after getting the message from your mother telling your grandfather had had to go to a hospital, you had looked for Lullaby Boy. You went back to the pub when you could, but it was Monday evening and he wasn’t there.

You went there the next evening as well.

On Friday you thought the floor had probably swallowed him and blamed Roger for it. He was sitting in the same lodge with the same four friends as always, and you even asked them. But they didn’t know a thing. Only that he had left after playing two more songs after Vincent and hadn’t come back.

So, neither did you.

Your birthday was coming, and it made you sad. You readied yourself to spend it alone, to have a double date with chocolate and wine. What could have been sadder than sitting on the couch on your own birthday, alone, eating chocolate and drinking cheap wine? It was bad, what’s more. Horrible. Nauseating.

What was even worse? The fact that you were going to watch some crappy TV. And when does a person watch crappy TV, eat chocolate and drink wine on her own, on her birthday while being sad?

When everything goes downhill with the speed of a cheetah.

All that when you thought nothing could be worse.

Carrie kicked the end of the couch you were sitting on, refusing to ever again get up and meet the world. The old tears that had dried on your cheeks for so many reasons, missed moments, stupid decisions and frustrated anger, were now showing how desperate you were. Carrie dropped herself on the couch next to you and pulled you in her arms, almost on her lap and swayed you a little.

You cried. You cried everything out, and Carrie was there holding you. When you stopped, she stayed still and didn’t let you move; her hand was in your hair as the other one was wrapped tightly around your back.

“I broke up,” she told you as if it was nothing. You looked up at her with red and swollen eyes, letting out a sorry whining sound, mumbling your apologies, but Carrie only shook her head. “We weren’t right for each other. I think I knew it. But it’s not the point. The point is that you have to cancel that double date. We’re going out on your birthday, you and me, us, together.”

Groaning you hid your face against Carrie’s ultramarine blouse. “Carrie, you know perfectly well I don’t want to spend my birthday at a bar!”

You could hear her chuckles turning into half-giggles. “No, silly, I wouldn’t do that to you!”

“What then?”

She huffed. “I’m not telling you that. It wouldn’t be surprise after that.”

You peeked up at her eyes, your face still pressed tightly against her blouse. “What does Lullaby Boy’s physique mean?”

Carrie had this very satisfied look in her eyes, and it made you almost worried. There was something coming for your birthday, but at the moment you wanted nothing more than to have your poor double date and let the couch eat you.

You wanted to forget him. You were probably never going to see him again, and what had those glances meant anyway? That’s what people do, they look at each other.

But the way he had looked at you… And you knew you had returned the looks.

They hadn’t been ‘oh, a new person’ looks. They had been ‘a new person I want to get to know’ looks, and you sighed.

‘A new person I want’ looks.

Turned into ‘a new person I won’t get’ looks when you had left.

You could’ve talked to him. There had been gaps for that. But you had thought you were being nice, that you could talk to him when he finished singing and now… Now you had lost every chance of seeing him ever again.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been the right for you, like Carrie’s boyfriend wasn’t right for her. Kenny was always a nice guy, but not all the couples can be a perfect match. Maybe this was better…

It still hurt.

The way he had looked at you… His voice, his fingers on the strings… His face…

Everything in him.

“Well, someone who’s not a Vin Diesel type of guy but not a string bean either,” Carrie’s words snatched you out of your miserable thoughts.

You let out a broken laugh. Vin Diesel was Carrie’s number one celebrity crush. “That’s not very specific. I think I’ll need a bit more to get your point.”

Carrie pouted at you. “Hmm, well… This one you’re thinking about,” she caught you, and you hid your face against her blouse again, “the Lullaby Boy, certainly is someone to lean against. You’re a daydreamer, and I know how you like your boys. Daydream Boy just doesn’t sound catchy!”

Your cheek was against her blouse as you moved your head a little, so your words wouldn’t get muffled against the material. “That name’s for the guys you think I could like? Oh, look, that one is such a Lullaby Boy!” Your imitation of Carrie was snotty and teary, but it made your friend laugh anyways.

“Basically,” he hummed, “but now it’ll be the name for him only. Would be a sin to call anyone else Lullaby Boy after someone like him.”

“Like it’d make any difference now… I will never find him again…”

“You’re such a pessimist, Y/N,” Carrie let out an exaggerated groan. “Try to be positive for once, okay? You’ll end up being a wrinkled old lady before being forty if you continue like this! I’m going to give you one hell of a kick on your birthday to get you closer to being this happy and living Y/N I know! I hate to see you sad… What could we do to make you happy?”

“Not only me, Carrie. You just broke up… How are you not sad?”

“Would be mean to show it; I feel pain and I miss Kenny, but I have better things to do than wallowing in my loss. You’re more important,” she hugged you tighter, and you let out a sound of a young child, this high-pitched squealing sound.

You could feel the new tears in your eyes. Maybe Carrie was right…

“Promise me you’ll come with me? Cancel the double date with Guylian and Pinot noir?”

You sniffed. “Okay… I’ll come with you. But just because you ask me so nicely, not because I want to stand up those nice guys.”

“Of course,” Carrie ruffled your hair. “You’ll love it, I promise. And perhaps me even more afterwards, too.”

You hummed softly in agreement. You weren’t sure could you love Carrie any more than you already did, but you were certainly going to.

“Now, could Bruce Willis keep us company tonight?” Carrie took the remote and started to scroll Netflix, other arm wrapped around your back.

She picked Die Hard, never letting go of you; she set the remote on the arm rest and the hand came back against your hair.

You were already a bit happier. Nothing could make you happier than watching your friend getting excited while seeing her celebrity crushes on screen.

********************

Your birthday had started with you wanting to stay in bed for the rest of the day. Carrie had let you be, but by noon she was practically dragging you out of your comfort zone, away from your new best friend.

Even though, you were still dreaming about Lullaby Boy. You wanted to know his name…

In those dreams he was sitting on the same stool, he had the same black sweater and the sleeves up on his elbows, playing the same guitar, singing Piano Man. Sometimes he looked at you, sometimes didn’t. You always woke up when he got up to get to you.

Carrie had gotten over Kenny quicker than you had thought she would. They were together for three years, and you could see Carrie really liked the guy. But she somehow seemed to have forgotten him already; she was too excited about your birthday. It was suspicious.

She was either going to assassinate you for fun or get you to face your worst fears.

She loved it when you screamed during horror movies. Didn’t matter were you doing it out of fear or just because you wanted the characters to know they weren’t supposed to do things they did. Those were the reasons why she was probably going to take you to a real life horror movie tonight.

But then she got you into a cab with her and told the place to the driver. You frowned as you turned to look at her.

“Carrie…?”

She smiled as she turned to look at you. “Y/N?”

“We’re going to the pub?”

The look on your face made her place her hand over yours. “We’re going to the pub.”

“Why? You never liked it there.”

She chuckled, holding your hand with hers. “Y/N dear, it’s your birthday. Try not to think about everyone else for once, okay?”

You stared at her for a while longer until your gaze found its way out of the window. You could recognize the streets as the cab got closer to the pub.

You hadn’t been there after that Friday. And now that Carrie was taking you there, you didn’t know how to feel.

Maybe the real life horror movie would’ve been better… Maybe this was the real life horror movie.

Soon it was the time for you to get out of the cab. Carrie paid, she insisted. You stood by the sidewalk and stared at the door of the pub, the warmth you could feel even when still outside. You remembered every single picture of an American musician, football player, every single one. All those license plates on the walls, one from each state. The brown, wooden tables and chairs, lodges and the warm atmosphere. Roger and his friends, those elderly women, the owner John who gave you drinks for free. Not because he tried to hit on you, simply because it was his way to do things. You weren’t the only one getting free drinks; he never gave free alcohol, only coffee or hot chocolate or tea. He didn’t want a reputation.

You understood John.

Carrie took you by your left arm and started to walk you inside before you could escape. She opened the door for you, making sure her gaze was on your face all the time. She was intimidating enough when she stared at you that you couldn’t even consider escaping.

You were still able to ask questions, though.

“Why did we come here, Carrie?” You sounded sadder than you had meant to.

“I’ll let you find that out by yourself,” she said in lightweight voice, giving you one last look after letting you go by the table she picked for the two of you. It was closer to the end than the one you had chosen the last time, much closer to Roger and his friends loudly claiming their usual lodge.

Carrie practically sat you down on the chair. Almost immediately after it John came to your table with two cups of hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. He smiled in the middle of his mustache and beard and tapped your shoulder when he set the cup down in front of you.

“Happy birthday, kid,” John was almost 60 years old, grey-haired man with a lot similar beard to the one Hagrid had in Harry Potter movies. You had liked him since the first second, and his sincere and genuine smile and tap on your shoulder made you smile.

“Thank you, John,” you looked up at his eyes that were blue in one light and green in some other.

“You don’t have to pay for that, Carrie. I’m giving them for free. It’s Y/N’s birthday after all,” John hurried to stop your friend as her hand disappeared inside her black purse. When he spoke about your birthday, John smiled to you again.

You smiled back to him and then turned towards Carrie, frowning.

How did John know her name?

“No, I wasn’t going to. I’ve heard stories of you, John. Free coffees and cocoas and stuff,” Carrie’s other hand was making very odd movements in the air as the other was still in the purse. She took her phone out when she finally found it with a long and relieved sigh.

John chortled warmly. “Yes, well… Have a nice night. You’ll get whatever you want, Y/N. For your birthday,” he gave you a fatherly nod and pat on the back and left you to get back to the bar. You had enough time to thank him and then he was gone, his tall and big form sailing back. His low voice echoed on the walls as he whistled to get Roger’s attention and then asked would they like some more whiskey.

Carrie nibbled on a marshmallow as she looked at the screen of her phone. You could see her smiling through the candy. Her lips moved to form a silent word, something you read as perfect but wasn’t entirely sure. Then she dropped her phone back in her purse and turned to look at you.

“Hey, birthday girl! These marshmallows are so good, oh my god…”

She looked like she was trying to hide something. You frowned as you looked at her, pulling your mug closer as if she could suddenly steal your marshmallows.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course,” she took the cup by her lips. “Why?”

“You’re acting weird. Should I be worried?”

“No, you should not,” she held the cup with both of her hands, and you stared at her. For so long you woke up only when you heard Roger cheering and saw Carrie’s smile. You turned your head…

“What – “

You never got to the end.

He was there.

Lullaby Boy was there. He sat on the black stool with his guitar. This time he didn’t have the cap on and his shirt dark and deep shade of purple instead of black. You could see the ends of white shirt’s sleeves and start of its neck under it. He looked down on the floor as he sat down and played with his guitar for a moment. Then he saw Roger and his friends and gave them a smile.

When he started to play the first song, you recognized it immediately. John Denver’s Country Roads filled the pub; his voice filled the pub…

And he looked at you. His lips twitched a little as if he was trying to hold back a smile. You were still able to see it and gave him one of your own smiles.

“I hear her voice, in the morning hour she calls me

The radio reminds me of my home far away

And driving down the road I get a feeling

That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain mama

Take me home, country roads”

You could feel Carrie’s eyes on you; saw her smile hanging on the corner of your eye. But you had eyes for Lullaby Boy, for only him.

He was here. How was he here? You had thought you’d never see him again.

He fell silent when the song ended. In the middle of applauds he looked at you, leaning his hand against the guitar. His smile was so warm and gentle you thought it lasted for a small eternity.

Then Roger was breaking it again.

“Nice to see you back, boy,” he said and got Lullaby Boy’s attention. “House of the Rising Sun, would ya? You said you know the song.”

“Sorry, Roger,” he said and turned to look at you again. “Not now…”

You couldn’t see Roger’s face but the way his head moved told he was confused. His friend who was sitting opposite to him followed Lullaby Boy’s gaze and found you. You hardly noticed soon all of them were looking at you.

Then Lullaby Boy started to speak.

“I was told that it’s someone’s birthday today. And I was also told that this girl… She’s looking for herself, could use some encouragement. As someone who’s still looking for himself and… sort of where am I gonna go next and how am I gonna get there…” He was silent for a moment. It was filled with a smile and looking right into your eyes, and that way got you feel the tears behind them. There was something between you and him, something deep and eternal, like you had known each other for many lifetimes. “I wrote her a song. I hope I can give her a reason to keep looking; there’s always something. For all of us. We just have to believe… in new beginnings.”

His gaze never left you when he started to play. But it got glued to you when he opened his mouth to sing.

“Give me a half of your tears

We have a long way to go

But I promise to carry them all

Over every bridge and

Through every detour we may take

In the calling wind of the seven seas

In the waves of freedom

They're waiting for you to follow

Just when you think

The road is long

And you have no reason

To go on

When you think

You've lost the way

I will hold your hand

You don't have to fear

Just remember

This life is made

Of new beginnings

That's how I light my fires

I close the doors between

Me and my doubts

When the tide rolls in

I force it to walk past me

'Cause it can only take, not give

And I'm not showing myself to it

All that is in you now

All you need to survive somehow

Make it through the winds and storms

See the red light of the newborn dawn

Find the courage to dip your fingers in

The ink for writing the story of you

It's all where it needs to be

Right there

In your soul

Hush now

Tonight and on the days on end

Don't be afraid, my dear

She told me a story of an aching soul

But what I see is yet to grow

The love for life

The world is out there for you to find

Run, my girl, take that freedom

This world is made for us

Of new beginnings

The stars in our eyes

The gold of our hearts

And the road is long

But you're not alone

Hand on heart

I swear

I'll be there

When you find your path

Yourself in the middle

Of new beginnings”

You could feel yourself tearing up. The cup of hot chocolate was getting cold in front of you, but you didn’t care.

“H-how?” It was the only thing you got out. Your voice was small and full of tears that didn’t get out as you looked at Lullaby Boy.

“It was me. I came to look for him. John’s in this with me. I got Lullaby Boy’s number and called him to be here on this very day. His name is Ryan,” Carrie started to speak. She was halfway through her own drink but left it there. “Happy birthday, Y/N.”

You turned to Lullaby Boy, who had stopped singing and was just sitting there on the stool with this same shy and modest look in his eyes. Everyone was clapping their hands again, even harder and for a longer time now.

Then you realized what John’s part was in all this.

His low voice filled the air again as he called out for Roger: “Play us your banjo a bit, would you?”

And suddenly, Roger was in it too. “I’d love to, John. Let me just…” He got up with his banjo he apparently had with him and walked towards Lullaby Boy. He had stood up and they met halfway, Roger grabbed his shoulder.

He was a bit shorter than Lullaby Boy but was still able to say close to his face: “That was a good one, boy. Go, get the girl.”

At the same time, Carrie turned to look at you. “This is the moment you get your ass up and take your chance. Wipe your tears and make yourself happy.”

“What if he doesn’t…?”

Carrie didn’t let you stop. She shook her head. “He does. Go. Get your new beginning.”

You got up when Roger left Lullaby Boy alone and took his place on the stool. He still had his guitar when he made his way towards you and touched the back of his neck with his free hand. Roger playing his banjo was escorting the both of you as you made it towards each other.

He was handsome. He was even beautiful. His eyes were so brown they were almost black and his features were so gentle and soft. When he stood there in front of you, you felt it deeper; like you had known him for long.

“Ryan…” Saying his name felt good. It felt right. “Thank you for the song. I… It was beautiful. I really needed it.”

“You’re welcome,” he took a quick glance at Carrie who was smiling. “And… I know. Your friend told me why you had to leave, how you were… I was… I’m glad I stayed in town. I’m glad that I can be here tonight.”

You weren’t mad at Carrie about telling Ryan. She had done it to tell it had had nothing to do with him. And it hadn’t; you would’ve stayed but your family had needed you. Your grandfather had gone home from the hospital by now and everything was fine.

“Happy birthday, Y/N,” Ryan’s voice got softer and deeper when he said that, so that only you could hear it. The way he said your name gave you butterflies; he was so close you could’ve touched him if you wanted. But you didn’t do it.

“Thank you…” You could feel how your cheeks flushed. “Want to… want to sit with us?”

“Oh no, no, no,” Carrie was suddenly next to you, nodded her hellos to Ryan and then turned to you. “I’m leaving. My work here is done.”

“Carrie, you can’t…”

“I can. Y/N, I won’t disappear from your life. I’ll just give you some space. I’ll be home when you come.”

You couldn’t say anything; just wrap your arms around your friend. She hugged you tightly against her as you buried your face against her shoulder. “I thought we’d spend my birthday together…”

“We will have many birthdays to spend together, Y/N. You need this, trust me. Besides, I met someone,” she pulled back to look into your eyes and she gave you so bright smile it practically blinded you.

Ryan was smiling at her but didn’t interrupt the conversation.

“You met someone… Carrie,” you were able to spot a black-haired young man by the table you had sat at. Your cup of hot chocolate was still there and seemed untouched. “I can’t thank you enough. When I come home, we’ll – “

“When you come home, we’ll both be happy. Stay. Bye now,” she glanced at Ryan and nodded to him before kissed your cheek and left with the young man.

Ryan sat with you, and John gave him a coffee. You got a new hot chocolate, but finished the cold one anyways. For the rest of the evening you chatted, got to know each other; Ryan played bits of songs you said to him, sang the parts he knew. He wanted you to sing to him.

By the end of the night, you had a feeling of knowing for far longer time than one night.

And he felt the same way about you. When he looked at you… He saw someone he wanted to keep. He had made that promise; he only needed you to want the same. It was getting late and he’d have to say it if he wanted to make sure.

“Y/N,” he said after helping you with your coat, “can I… ask you something?”

“Of course,” you turned to face him, cheeks a bit crimson from laughter and the fact that he had touched you, even though so casually.

“Would you… Is it any way possible that you’d like to,” he looked right into your eyes, “see me again?”

It caught you off guard. Even though, you had thought about the same thing. Ryan was nice, he was funny and smart and gorgeous and creative and thoughtful… just somewhat perfect.

But you thought you had pink glasses on. Would he want to see you again? Now you knew he would, and your cheeks turned crimson. But so did his.

“Yes,” you said, seeing him biting his lower lip, “I’d love to see you again, Ryan. Many times.”

He was closer to you, smiling. He was holding his guitar with his right hand, but the left cupped your jawline. “I’m very happy about that…” He almost whispered. His brown eyes looked right into your eyes and his thumb stroked your skin. It found the corner of your lips and stopped there.

Felt like time had stopped. You didn’t hear Roger’s banjo, not his loud voice singing a little out of tune, not the door opening and closing – it was like you were in your very own world, just the two of you.

His lips were soft against yours, body warm as it was brushing yours, eyes looking down at you and – you had nowhere else to be. This was your place. With your Lullaby Boy of new beginnings.

****

Tag List: @padfootagain @billyrvsso @jennareedus @mamaraptor @suchatinyinfinity @delicatelilyflower @whostheblondegirl @something-tofightfor

#ryan brenner #ryan brenner x reader

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peopleandrhythm · 6 years

Text

S2E9: Break Me on This Lonely Road

A large pickup truck, black as night, rumbles through the Louisiana bayou, its enormous tires crunching easily over the brambles. Affixed to the hitch is a rather large camper, big enough to house several people. Together they weave through the trees, sending fauna scattering, before rolling to a stop in the middle of a clearing. The engine cuts, but all is not quiet as a caravan of other vehicles, trucks and cars and Jeeps, appears from behind, cutting the same path as the truck.

When the circle of vehicles finally quiets, Sebastian Sharpe steps out of the black truck, his boots snapping twigs as he lands on the ground. Soon, others follow suit, climbing out of their cars and trucks. There are dozens of them, people of various shapes, sizes, colors, and genders, all dressed in a manner that suggests that perhaps they might have to survive an apocalypse at some point in the near future. And then, of course, there are the weapons.

Everyone in the clearing has at least two weapons on their person; there are knives tucked in boots, peashooters strapped to ankles, crossbows slung across backs, pistols wedged into belts. There are enough weapons in this clearing to supply a well-organized militia—which is exactly what this is.

Sebastian opens his arms and gestures widely to the people looking at him. “This’ll do,” he calls. “We’ll set up camp here.” He smiles up at the trees, hazy in the soft sunlight of dawn, and smirks. “Yeah. Yeah, this seems like a fine spot to begin the end of the vampire species.”

The sun has barely crested over the horizon when Marcel approaches his apartment building. He’s not looking up as he walks to the front doors, tapping at his phone in his hand. He’s writing a response (Damn, at least let me take you to dinner first.) to Rebekah’s last text (Bite me.), but before he can hit send, there’s a low thwap. He looks down, and the barest, bloody tip of an arrow is protruding from his chest. He rolls his eyes, and the curse is half-formed on his lips when the phone tumbles to the ground, his body, desiccated, following soon after.

Jordan walks over to him, eyes narrowed. He gestures for his few comrades to step forward. “Come on. Get ‘im in the truck. We’ll want to get him back to camp before he wakes up and kills us.”

The compound is quiet, and Freya pads through the courtyard as silently as possible. She’s nearly at the entryway when a voice from above calls down, “Where are you headed?”

Her head snaps up, and Klaus is on the first floor balcony, staring down at her. “I didn’t realize you were suddenly in charge of my whereabouts, Niklaus.”

In one deft move, Klaus launches himself over the balcony rail and lands in front of his elder sister. “You’re leaving to go see her.”

Freya can feel the anger rippling off of Klaus. “That’s hardly your business.”

“Our brother nearly died because of your attachment to this girl!”

“Nik!” They both turn to see Rebekah storming down the stairs. “Leave our sister alone.”

“How can you defend her, Rebekah?” Klaus argues, gesturing wildly. “She betrayed this family—”

“An offense you yourself have committed countless times over the centuries.” She comes to a stop by Freya’s side. “Where exactly did you find this moral superiority you so desperately cling to now? Freya made a choice, a liberty you have so rarely granted me during our years together. Disagree with her all you want, she is still our fiercest defender and our sister.” Rebekah loops her arm through Freya’s. “She deserves happiness, wherever she might find it.”

Klaus looks properly scolded, and Rebekah takes his silence as an opportunity to guide Freya toward the front gates. Rebekah kisses her cheek. “I am glad you have found someone to make you happy, sister.”

Freya smiles. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Rebekah.”

Rebekah rolls her eyes. “I have been the great betrayer of Klaus Mikaelson more times than I care to remember. I’d be happy to share the title with someone else for once.”

“I can still hear you,” Klaus calls.

“Oh, sod off,” Rebekah snaps. Then she gives Freya a little nudge. “Go. Be with the girl you love.”

“I don’t know if I—”

“Yes, you do.”

Freya nods, and then disappears onto the busy New Orleans street.

Marcel wakes slowly, and then very suddenly. His jaw is aching horribly, and he reaches up to claw at the mask on his face. Whatever it is, it’s tugging painfully at his fangs, and feels like it’s squeezing the life out of him.

Despite the pain, he pushes himself up onto one elbow, and tries to take stock of his situation. He’s in a small space—a camper, he gathers, similar to those that the Crescents live out of in the bayou. The space is littered with papers, old leather-bound tomes, and piles and piles of weapons. Marcel recognizes an arsenal dedicated to hunting vampires; he hasn’t seen this many stakes in years.

He shifts, and there’s a clanking sound; his feet are chained to the wheel well of the camper, with only a few inches of slack. He yanks on the chain, but even his considerable strength, weakened though he is, can’t break it.

His focus returns to the mask. He can feel his fangs, not willingly bared, being wrenched from his gums, as though they’re barely hanging on by a thread. He hasn’t known this exquisite a pain in quite some time, and he has no idea what’s going on. His hands grab at the mask, but they trip over two long, clear hoses. Amber liquid drips through, and Marcel’s startled to see his own venom. Angry, he makes to rip off the mask, but it doesn’t budge an inch; it’s been spelled onto his face.

Livid, Marcel lets out a low growl. Someone is stealing his venom, and when he finds out who, he’s going to tear their head from their body.

When Freya walks into Amaya’s apartment, there are stacks of paper everywhere. Amaya herself is lost on the couch, flipping through a large binder spread on her lap. Freya drops her jacket onto a chair and settles next to Amaya. “This is all for his funeral?”

Amaya nods. “They do things so differently in New Orleans. I mean, there are plenty of Catholic churches, so I’m not worried about that, but the funeral procession is so…much.” She sighs. “Back home it’s so much quieter.”

Freya runs a hand up and down her back. “You don’t have to have the whole New Orleans…experience. You knew your brother best. No one would know better than you how to honor his life.”

Setting the binder of caskets aside, Amaya reaches onto the coffee table and retrieves a stack of photographs. “I had all these printed today. I didn’t know…I didn’t know which ones I wanted to use. Should it be just him, or the two of us? I have a few of our entire family, but when our house burned down we lost most of those.”

Freya peeks over her shoulder at the photos as Amaya flips through them. They’re mostly of Joel and Amaya within the past few years. She sees the light in Amaya’s eyes, the happiness as her brother tosses her into a pool. She can also see the way Joel looks at her, a fierce kind of love that only eldest siblings could hope to understand. A hot wave of guilt washes over her, and she points at a photo to distract herself. “When was this one taken? He doesn’t have that scar here.”

Amaya freezes, then turns very slowly to stare questioningly at Freya. “How did you know about his scar?”

Freya’s eyes go wide. “You told me about it.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t tell you really anything about Joel. I was going to wait and see how…how serious we were before I brought you two together. Did you know him?” Her voice is accusatory. “Did you know my brother?”

Scrambling for answers she doesn’t have, Freya says, “I think I ran into him once. When leaving here. It’s not important, not when you have so many things on your plate—”

“Why are you lying to me?” Amaya stands up, sending papers scattering.

“Amaya, listen…” Freya stands too. “Your brother…he wasn’t exactly who you thought he was.”

“Who I thought he was? What the hell is that supposed to mean? He was my brother.”

“And your brother tried to kill mine!” Amaya’s face blooms in shock at Freya’s outburst. Freya says quickly, “Your brother was…he was a vampire hunter, and he tried to kill my brother. I know you loved him and I am so, so sorry for the fact that you’ve lost him, but he was a killer, and he had to be stopped.”

Amaya’s blinking rapidly, eyes searching as she tries to process everything she’s hearing. Eventually, in the softest voice, she asks, “Did you kill him?”

“I—no. It wasn’t me.”

“But who know who it was.”

A long pause. “Yes.”

Amaya nods. “Okay. Okay.” She reaches down and grabs Freya’s jacket off of the couch. She shoves it into Freya’s chest. “Get out.”

“Amaya—”

“No. Get out. Get the hell out. I don’t know about—about vampires and vampire hunters—you sound insane. I want you out of my apartment and out of my life.”

Freya’s face betrays her heartbreak. “Amaya, please…”

“He was my brother.” Amaya’s voice cracks, and her eyes are brimming with tears. “My brother. The only person I had left. He was my brother.”

And in a thousand years, Freya has never felt so small.

Marcel’s still tugging on the mask strapped to his face when the door to the camper creaks open. He stops and glares. Sebastian walks up to him and smiles down. “How’re we doing?”

Though it hurts to talk, Marcel winces and says, muffled, “I can’t wait to kill you.”

With a laugh, Sebastian replies, “Not likely. We know we can’t kill you—yet, because we’ve definitely got people working on that—but we don’t want you dead. In fact, you’re so valuable to the cause, you’ll probably be the last vampire in the world to die.”

Marcel’s eyes narrow. “And why is that?”

“Because your venom is more valuable to us than gold.”

“And what exactly are you going to do with my venom?”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?” He crouches down so he’s staring Marcel right in the face. “We’re going to wipe out the Original vampires, and their sire lines with them.”

When Freya walks back through the compound, she’s quiet. She keeps her eyes affixed to the ground, hoping to just disappear into her bedroom for a while. She’s crossing the courtyard when she hears a quiet voice from above. “Aunt Freya?”

Freya looks up, and Hope on the balcony above, watching her tentatively. “Hope?”

Hope starts, “Can I…” Then she sees her aunt’s face. “Are you okay?”

Freya’s eyes dart away. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Hope jerks her head toward her bedroom. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

Sebastian tugs on one of the tubes winding out of Marcel’s mask. It’s nearly completely empty. “Looks like we’ve dried you out.” He calls over his shoulder, “Lorena!”

The camper door swings open, and a young woman with large eyes and dark hair enters. Sebastian smiles at her. “Please remove our friend’s mask. We need to give him time to let his venom stores replenish.”

“Sure thing.” Lorena glides over to Marcel and kneels in front of him. She places her hands on either side of his mask and bows her head. There’s a low heat that simmers across Marcel’s skin, and then the mask slides easily off of his face.

He narrows his eyes. “A witch helping vampire hunters? A little cliché, don’t you think?”

Lorena smiles. “I would think that if anyone understood the enmity between witches and vampires, it would be the once-great king of New Orleans.” She pats his shoulder condescendingly, but when she does, she seizes up, stare going blank.

“Lorena?” Sebastian crouches down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

The girl is silent, and Marcel watches her warily until her eyes pop open, and her hand drops away from his shoulder. “There’s a girl.”

Sebastian looks confused. “A girl? What girl?”

“A wolf. Lovely curls.” She looks at Sebastian. “She is the key to curing a vampire of his venom.”

Marcel goes very still as Lorena mentions River. He’s known, of course, that as long as she’s alive, there will always be an antidote to his venom, but lately he hasn’t been overly interested in using it to kill anyone. Sebastian eyes him. “Who is she?” Marcel says nothing. “Whatever. There are only so many wolves in this swamp town. We’ll find her.” He pushes himself to his feet, leaving a silently seething Marcel on the ground.

Hope sits cross-legged on her bed, her aunt in a chair opposite her. She plays with fingers in her lap. “I’ve been thinking a lot. About what you did. About what I’ve done. About the things we do for the people we love.” She looks up at Freya. “You do love her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Freya breathes. “Yes, I do.”

Hope nods. “I figured. You don’t keep that kind of secret for a fling.” She lets out a little laugh. “I’m not too good at this, this…running a city thing. I made a pretty big mess of things.”

“You’re trying your best,” Freya argues, “and I think there’s little more anyone could ask of you.”

A half-hearted shrug. “Maybe. But that’s not the point. The point is…it’s been…a year and change since I first met River, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her from this world. It’s a big thing, to love someone like that. It makes you…redefine what your family is, what it means to you.”

“Here parents died,” Freya says, “when she was twelve. They were killed by vampires. Joel…her brother…he knew. It’s why he became a hunter in the first place. When I found out what he had been doing in town, I knew he was going to have to die. I knew the only option we were going to have was to kill him, and I just…” She sighs. “I just wanted to spare her that grief for as long as I could.”

Hope stews on that for a moment. “You know…if River hadn’t volunteered her venom, if she had said no when I asked her to help my mom and I cure Uncle Elijah and Uncle Kol…I don’t think I could have let my mom force her.” She shakes her head a little. “I would have let all of you stay in the Chambre de Chasse if it meant keeping her safe. So I guess we’re not that different after all.” She smiles. “I guess we’re both pretty terrible Mikaelsons.”

Freya gives a little smile in return, and then tries to surreptitiously flick a tear away. Hope makes a concerned face. “What’s wrong?”

Freya shakes her head. “Amaya knows. About her brother, and why he died. I didn’t mean to tell her, it just…came out.”

“Oh.” Hope chews on her lip. “I bet it didn’t go so well.”

“No. No…she hates me now.”

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Freya.” Hope crawls off of the bed and hugs her aunt. “I’m sorry for everything.”

Freya squeezes her niece in return. “I’m sorry, too, Hope. For all of it.”

River and Hope are sitting together in the courtyard, taking turns tossing popcorn into each other’s mouths. A kernel bounces off of River’s nose, and Hope lets out a barking laugh, tossing her head back and nearly falling out of her chair. River makes a face, and chucks a whole handful of popcorn at her girlfriend.

“Hope?”

The two look away from their popcorn war to see Josh standing the shadow near the entry. Hope grins and waves him over. “Hey Josh! What’s up?”

Josh walks closer, face uncertain. “Have you seen Marcel lately?”

Hope looks to River, who merely shrugs. “No…sorry. I haven’t talked to him in a while. Why?”

“He wasn’t answering his phone all day, so I just headed over to his place to see what he was up to, and…” Josh reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone, the screen cracked like a lightning strike. “I…think he’s in trouble.”

“Thank you for meeting with me.” Amaya sits at a corner table in Mama Rae’s, a steaming mug of tea in her hands. She studies the liquid inside intently. “I realize…I realize now that the police lied to me about the circumstances of my brother’s death. It wasn’t a hit-and-run. He was murdered. He was killed because he was…” Her eyes dart around circumspectly, before she lowers her voice. “He was a vampire hunter, wasn’t he?”

Sebastian smiles sadly and nods. “Your brother was a good friend and an excellent fighter. We’re all gonna miss him.”

“All? How many of you are there?”

Sebastian leans back in his seat, spinning his coffee cup on the table. “Your brother was a member of one of the largest and most covert networks of vampire hunters in the world. We’ve been travelling the continent for decades, rooting out vampire infestations from the Yukon all the way down to Panama. There are hundreds of us, scattered all over the place, with the single goal of making the world safer for humans to live in.”

Amaya’s eyes go wide as she takes Sebastian’s words in. “Yesterday I was just a grad student trying to live in a world without my brother. Now I live in a world with vampires. It’s all…it’s a lot. It’s a lot more than I bargained for.”

“Listen, Amaya, you’re smart. You’re young. You’ve got a long life full of potential in front of you. The way I see it, you have two options. You can keep living your life, going to grad school, being the person you always thought you would be, just without Joel in your life.” She winces. “Or you can join us.”

Amaya’s eyebrows fly upward. “Join you?”

“A group of us have rolled into town to fight the scourge of vampires in New Orleans. We could use your help.” Sebastian leans in, talking low and earnestly. “You could avenge your brother’s death, make the undead of this city pay for what they’ve taken from you. Help us eliminate the vampires from New Orleans, and then you can move on without fear of losing someone else you love.”

Amaya thinks briefly of Freya, but then shakes her head to clear it. “I’ve lost everyone I love. There’s no one left. What do you need me to do?”

#the originals #originals #tvd #tvd fic #originals fic #people and rhythm #pr 2x09

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marypsue · 7 years

Text

Kings Among Runaways

So there's this Stanchez Summer Sizzle thing going on, and I've been meaning to write something for this ship for forever, so it was a good excuse to actually make the thing. This is partly inspired by the Decemberists' "On The Bus Mall" (I know, so punk) and partly by Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys and ended up being sort of absolutely nothing like either of them.

Sort of falls under the prompt for alternate universes. Contains a little bit of non-graphic NSFW - they get their hands down each other's pants but that's about as far as it goes - and Rick-typical casual homophobia and use of slurs. Any errors, inaccuracies, or just plain unbelievabilities about the lives and habits of a couple of shithead teenage boys are entirely due to my being the kind of person who listens to the Decemberists.

I'm also on AO3 as MaryPSue, if you'd rather read there!

...

The poster is crisp and bright, sticking out against the ones plastered over the wall behind it, greyed and faded and weather-worn practically into tissue paper. It leaps out at Stan's eye, grabs him by the shoulders and spins him around without warning. The picture under the bold-face all-caps MISSING is dark, the image grainy, like something clipped from a newspaper. The face that emerges out of it is pale and defiant, eyes staring sullenly out from under a single furrowed eyebrow, one lip curling upwards in something that bears only the faintest, grimmest resemblance to a smile.

It's not the face, Stan catches himself thinking, of someone who wants to be found.

He can't decide if he's disappointed or relieved not to see his own face next to it.

"Eugh, they used that old yearbook photo?" Rick laughs, lurching to a stop when he notices Stan isn't beside him. "Shit, was I - was I ever that ugly?"

"Still are," Stan says, but his heart's not in it.

Rick elbows him in the ribs and then slings an arm around his shoulders, easy, like it doesn't mean anything. "Good thing we're heading out tonight, then," he says, steering Stan away from the wall of posters and flyers, from his own face. "Don't wanna make this - this - this town look at my ugly mug for too long."

"Shouldn't we take it down or something?" Stan asks, glancing back over his shoulder. He's not sure why. He doesn't look back, much, these days.

Rick doesn't bother with a backwards glance. "Nahhhh," he says, after a beat. There's a hint of snarl in his voice, a sarcastic curl that's a little tighter than usual, when he says, "It's - it's not me they’re looking for. C'mon."

The poster's gaze follows them down the street, accusing.

...

Glass Shard Beach High School was beyond the ability of the most skilled shit-talker to come up with an appropriate insult. The place was a hole, a dump, a wreck, a flaming shitpile. A quitting English teacher, school legend held, had once described it as 'like Lord of the Flies but less inspiring of hope for the future of humanity'.

Ford loved it. Stan didn't have any idea why.

The only redeeming features of Glass Shard Beach High, as far as Stan was concerned, were the (badly outdated, but still-functional) weight room and Carla 'Hotpants' McCorkle, who'd once let Stan talk her into going to a movie with him and making out in the alley afterwards. He didn't remember which movie. He'd been too busy trying to cop a feel through Carla's crop top and accidentally dunking his entire hand into her ice-cold Coke instead.

Since the weight room'd been closed down (because of 'black mold'; Stan would believe Glass Shard Beach High would close down an otherwise-functional room because of black mold when they finally cordoned off the east wing math room) and Carla'd hooked up with some mopey long-haired loser who wore ratty flannel and looked like he'd just wandered in off a construction site, there wasn't really anything keeping Stan hanging around. Oh, sure, Ford complained about Stan 'playing hooky', but he wasn't gonna be the one to rat Stan out to their pa, and it wasn't like Stan's grades were good enough for it to actually matter if he missed a couple classes here and there. Wasn't like he was going anywhere fast anyway.

That was how he'd met Rick.

...

The Stanleymobile's been running a little rough lately, taking too long to start. Stan has to wrench the key three times in the ignition before her whine turns into a throaty rumble, the floor buzzing and rattling under his feet.

"You could -" he starts, and Rick reaches over, turns the radio up until it drowns Stan out, kicks his feet up on the dash and cranks his seat all the way back.

"Wake me up when we get to California," his voice echoes up from somewhere near the backseat.

Stan reaches over, yanks the knob until he can hear his own voice over the blare of guitar. "You asshole, you coulda just said you don't wanna science my baby's engine instead of makin' me deaf."

"Last time I touched your - your 'baby's' engine you decked me."

"Because I didn't ask you to try to turn it into a bong!"

Stan's not sure how Rick manages to shrug while lying down with both arms folded behind his head. "You just said, 'Go nuts'."

"Yeah, well, my mistake," Stan grumbles. "From now on I'll tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. Bet you'll just love that."

"Depends," Rick's voice floats up from the backseat. "Are - are - are we naked in this hypothetical future?"

Stan ignores him.

"Next stop, California," he says, and kicks the Stanleymobile into gear.

...

If Stan wasn't flunking English, maybe he'd be tempted to get poetic about Rick. He could probably go on and on, about how the guy seemed to be made out of elbows and broken bottles, thin as a knifeblade and just as sharp-edged. He could probably make up some flowery bullshit about Rick's spindly fingers and how - elegant, there was no other word for it, they looked holding a stolen cigarette, like some silent film starlet decked out in velvet and diamonds, glowing silver through the celluloid. He could spew some purple prose about the way Rick was always either in constant, frantic motion or absolutely still, like he was the fixed point the entire universe turned around. He might even be able to string together words to talk about the wrench in his gut when Rick gave him that rare, knife-edge smile, the one that meant trouble, the one that meant, good or bad, that Stan was about to get a particularly heart-thumping reminder that he was still alive.

Maybe. If Stan wasn't flunking English.

They never did much more than dick around, smoking when they could bum or steal cigarettes, breaking into the old cannery plant or the pool to hang out, getting stoned, lighting the occasional fire, running away from people who didn't want them hanging around wherever they were hanging around. It was still the best time Stan had ever had. Rick expected nothing from him, but it didn't feel - crushing, like it did coming from his dad and Ford.

It felt kinda like freedom.

...

Ford was waiting outside of the classroom when Stan came running down the hall, his arms crossed over his chest, fingers drumming impatiently against his arm and a scowl on his face.

"Where have you been?" he snapped, as Stan slowed to a halt, trying to get his breathing under control. "The exam's been over for twenty minutes. I was just about to start walking home."

"Class," Stan gasped, sucking in a breath. He'd really just run in from the smoke pit behind the machine shop, and he knew Ford knew that, knew Ford could smell the smoke and engine grease on him. He wasn't lying to Ford. He was lying for Ford. That way when their dad caught Stan, Ford could say that he didn't know, that Stan told him he'd been in class, and he wouldn't have to lie. Ford always had been a lousy liar.

Besides, it wasn't like anybody cared where Stan was anyway.

Ford's eyes slid closed, and he exhaled a long-suffering sigh. "Let's go," he said, stepping away from the wall and brushing past Stan as he started down the hallway. "I've already wasted enough time, the science fair is coming up fast and I should've started studying a quarter of an hour ago."

"Sorry," Stan muttered. "Woulda been here sooner, but -"

"Save it," Ford said, and Stan snapped his mouth shut, glaring at the back of Ford's head. He really would've been back sooner, but for some reason Rick hadn't been at any of their usual haunts, not in the scrubby patch of trees at the park or the alley behind the gas station on Main or even the pool, though Stan hadn't actually expected to find him there, now it was summer and the pool actually had water - and people - in it. Stan hadn't realised how much time had passed until he'd stopped by the machine shop to see if he could at least score any swag for the Stanleymobile so the afternoon wasn't a complete waste, and the bell for the end of class had gone off.

"Sheesh, Sixer, get a life," Stan muttered, to the back of Ford's head, scuffing the heel of his sneaker along the hallway linoleum. The rubber made an awful squeal and left a long, black mark, just like Stan had secretly, viciously hoped it would. "You waste every waking moment studying, one day you're gonna wake up and there'll be nothing left of you but books."

Ford sniffed, dismissively. “Maybe then you’d bother to actually get acquainted with one.”

Stan opened his mouth to snipe back, but then shook his head and bit it back. “Whatever. Let’s just go home.”

...

They don’t make it to California that night, of course. Stan pulls in at a shitty motel off the freeway just on the edge of Columbus, Ohio, just about smack-dab under a huge cloverleaf exchange. The roar of traffic bleeds through the sickly salmon-coloured cinderblock walls as though they’re paper.

Rick starts stripping almost the instant that Stan slams the flimsy door behind them, shucking his leather jacket and tugging off his tank top almost aggressively, like he’s daring Stan to make something of it. Usually, Stan would take him up on the dare, but he’s burnt out exhausted and can’t bring himself to do anything but flop, flat on his back, on top of the weird plasticky cover on one of the beds. There's a big, long crack in the ceiling, stretching out from the window that looks out over the parking lot and the scrub of dead, yellowed grass that fills the ditch between the motel and the highway. The paint around the crack has bubbled and warped, stained yellow and brown. Stan wonders if that's where the faint musty smell under all the stale cigarette smoke is coming from.

The crack runs right overtop of the bed where Stan's lying. He considers it for a moment, decides they're probably gonna want to sleep in the other bed.

“You know they don’t uhhhhwash those, right?” Rick points out, eyeing the cover Stan’s lying on without any particular venom. “You're lying in basically a petri dish.”

Stan manages a grunt in response. He never would’ve guessed that sitting for eight solid hours could make his back hurt so much.

Rick vanishes into the bathroom, emerges about ten minutes later after a chorus scored for rattling pipes and off-key voice. “We’re ordering a, a pizza.”

Stan grunts again. It worked so well last time.

Rick doesn't go for the phone right away, though. Instead, he drops his bony ass down on the bed beside Stan, his little weight still making the mattress dip, and starts unzipping Stan's fly.

"Whoa, wh-" Stan starts, and Rick reaches over to grab the phone out of its cradle.

"Trust me, this is gonna be hiluuuuuurparious," he says, dialing with one hand while he eases Stan's dick out of his pants with the other. He passes the phone over to Stan, who has a sudden, vivid, technicolour vision of exactly where this is going.

“No way,” Stan says, reaching over to slam the phone back into its cradle, but a tinny voice speaks into his ear just as Rick wraps a warm, slick (Stan’s mind does a brief detour into wondering just when the hell he’d had a chance to lube up, and how long he’d been planning this) hand around Stan’s traitorously interested cock, and starts stroking it into hardness with a vicious grin.

“Hello, Tony’s Pizza Planet, what can I get you?”

“Hhhhhhhi,” Stan manages. “Can - uh, can I get - ah! - aw, shit, Rick -" He has to stop, biting down on his lip and desperately trying to swallow down the moan that bubbles up his throat when Rick twists his wrist just so. "Ummm, two, ah, two pepperoni pies?”

The kid on the other end of the line just sighs.

...

The other thing about Rick was that he was easy to talk to. Sure, he’d act like he didn’t give a shit about most of Stan’s problems, but most of the time he’d actually sit there and let Stan talk, instead of just telling him to shut up and stop bothering him or trying to give him sanctimonious ‘advice’ to straighten up and fly right. When Stan admitted he didn’t have any plans beyond high school and wasn’t even sure he’d make it that far, Rick didn’t get on his case about pulling up his grades and applying to community colleges or trade schools that he’d never be able to afford anyway, didn’t tell Stan to start looking for barnacle-scraping jobs down the docks because he was gonna be doing it for a long time, might as well get some experience under his belt. Rick just took a long drag on the joint and passed it back to Stan with a curt “All of human history’ll be obliterated when this planet spirals into the sun in a couuuuhhhhhhuple hundred million years anyway, who gives a shit.”

“Right?” Stan said, taking a puff himself and settling back on the beat-up sofa they’d rescued from somebody’s curb and dragged back to the old cannery plant. Well, Stan had dragged, until Rick had thrown together some kind of gravity modifier thing that made the couch light enough for him to lift with one hand. “Wish everybody else’d get the memo.”

Rick nodded once, slow and languid.

“Like Ford,” Stan went on, taking another drag off the joint before handing it back. He couldn’t understand why anybody would’ve ever wanted to throw this couch away, it had to be the most comfortable piece of furniture ever made. “We got all these plans to fix up a boat and go treasure hunting together after high school, but now he’s so hung up on this stupid science fair, this stupid scholarship, this stupid...fucking...school -”

“West Coast Tech,” Rick interrupted, not looking at Stan. He had this look on his face, like he’d just bitten into something unexpectedly sour.

“West Coast fuckin’ Tech,” Stan repeated. He considered the rough edges of the piece of plywood propped on two milk crates that was serving as a coffee table for a moment, before deciding, “Fuck ‘em.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Rick agreed, monotone. He stared, blank, at a spot in the air in front of Stan for a long moment before giving himself a sharp shake, kicking his feet up onto the plywood and leaning back on the sofa. “Your - your brother’s a real asshole.”

“Hey, fuck you,” Stan said, without any real heat. “He’s my brother, I’m the only one who gets to call him an asshole.”

Rick shrugged. “He is, though.”

Stan tilted his head back and forth until his neck cracked. “Yeah, whatever. You gonna smoke that, or just stare at it?”

Rick looked down at the joint he’d seemingly forgotten he was holding, and then met Stan’s gaze challengingly as he took what had to be the longest drag in history, the tip flaring cherry-red with embers.

“If - if your bitch-ass twin ditches, I’ll go treasure hunting with you,” he said, carelessly, into a cloud of exhaled smoke. “Gotta beat sitting in - in a shitty classroom for another four years.”

Stan had to swallow, hard, before he could make words. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rick passed over the joint. “We still got any wafer cookies in here?”

...

"Where were you?"

Stan dropped his duffel bag on the floor of the room he shared with his twin, studiously avoiding Ford's eyes. "Boxing practice. You know that."

"What I know is that you haven't been to a single practice since September." Ford shut the textbook he'd been poring over with a snap, staring at Stan from the upper bunk. "Your coach didn't even know you're still enrolled."

Stan shrugged. "Is it so bad I want a little time to myself without Dad gettin' on my case about how lazy and useless I am?"

Ford's expression wavered, but only for an instant. "Except that I know you're not taking 'time to yourself'. You've been hanging around with Sanchez, haven't you?"

Stan didn't answer right away, ripping open the duffel bag and pulling out his gym clothes, furiously avoiding looking up at the sanctimonious expression he knew Ford would be wearing.

"So what?" he finally said, pulling out his boxing gloves and tossing them aside.

"So what? So I know you've been skipping classes too! And at this rate, you'll be held back -"

Stan shrugged, and Ford sputtered.

“Stanley, how can you be so cavalier about this? This is your future we’re talking about -”

“Yeah? What future?”

The long breath Ford sucked in could have been exasperated or exhausted. Stan couldn’t tell, without looking at him, which it was.

“You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about. This - this character is obviously a bad influence on you. Stanley, you don’t really believe - I mean, I know school’s been difficult for you, but if you just buckled down and applied yourself -”

Stan clenched a hand around the laces of his trainers, tossing them out of his duffel bag with what might’ve been too much force. “What are you, my mom?”

“No, you idiot! I’m your brother, and I’m worried about you.” Stan couldn’t tell if the sudden sincerity in Ford’s voice was better or worse than the judgmental anger. Worse, he decided.

“Yeah? Well, sounds to me more like you’re worried about me getting held back and you having to watch your own back for once.” He dumped the rest of the contents of his bag out on the floor, giving it a shake for good measure. “At least I have friends.” One friend, his traitor brain reminded him, and Stan gave the bag one last, vicious shake. “Do you know where my deodorant went?”

Ford didn’t answer. The silence from over by the bunk beds went beyond simple ‘not talking’ into the chilly slopes of ‘not talking To You’. Stan realised, too late, that he’d taken it too far.

“Okay, I’m gonna go look in the bathroom,” he said, straightening up and heading for the door. He’d been expecting Ford to bluster about the mess he’d left on the floor, but there was still no sound from Ford’s side of the room.

Stan glanced back over his shoulder before he left the room, but Ford had buried his head back in his textbook.

...

The pizza guy, when he shows up, has the dead-eyed disappointed stare of someone who's seen the full range of human weirdness and is no longer surprised by any of it. He takes the handful of crumpled bills Stan hands him without a single shift in his expression, handing over the pizzas and walking away without a word.

"Did - did you see his face?" Rick gasps, barely stifling laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, you're real fuckin' funny," Stan mutters. He can feel how red his face must be, cheeks burning.

"Hey, don't blame me for how - how loud you get when you're just getting a handjob."

“Yeah, well, when it’s your hand,” Stan manages, despite the way his ears are burning. Rick snorts, snagging the top pizza off the stack of boxes Stan’s holding.

“Gaaaaaay.”

“Says the guy who had his hand down my pants half an hour ago.”

“Okay, just for that you don’t get any -” Rick cracks open the pizza box he’s holding, takes a sniff. “Pineapple? What - what - what kind of troglodyte puts pineapple on a pizza?”

“Maybe you shoulda been the one to make that order, huh?” Stan says, and he can’t resist a smug grin.

He instantly regrets it at the smile that creeps across Rick’s face.

“Maybe next time I will,” Rick says, and drops the ham and pineapple pizza back on top of the boxes in Stan’s hands. “Now give 'em here. One - one of these better be edible.”

...

The first time they'd kissed, they'd been hiding under the boardwalk from the owner of the pizza parlour they’d just swiped a pie from, laughing so hard Stan’s sides had started to hurt, sand and surf working their way through the butt of his jeans, leaving him itching and soggy. They’d been cramped and aching, curled up against one of the pilings, trying not to laugh too loud and give themselves away, dripping with grease and melted cheese as they’d stuffed their faces with their ill-gotten goods. It was the hottest day of the year so far, the impending summer hanging around like a promise, making the ex-marine life washed up under the pier stink and Stan sweat in his letterman’s jacket.

He’d been happier than he could remember having been in years.

They’d both held their breath for a moment as the pizza parlour owner had stomped past overhead yelling impossible threats, tension hunching Stan’s shoulders and making his last bite of three-cheese stick in his throat. He’d been all too aware of Rick’s wiry body pressed close against him, wound like a spring, his knee digging into the fleshy part of Stan’s leg. They'd sat like that a long moment after the threats to tie their ears together and then drop them both on opposite sides of a girder had faded into the distance, just sitting and listening to the bustle overhead and the gulls screeching over the midway and out above the water, Stan holding his breath and trying not to think about the heat radiating from Rick's leg where it was pressed against his own.

Then Rick had burst out laughing, yelling something defiant and triumphant and sprinkled with swears after the retreating pizza parlour owner, and Stan had looked over at the look on his face and the boney fist he was shaking at the long streaks of sunlight that slipped down between the boards of the boardwalk and the little string of melted cheese hanging off of his bottom lip and before he could stop himself Stan had leaned over and kissed him. Full on the lips.

Kissing Rick tasted like licking the proverbial ashtray, with a nice garnish of tomato sauce. He didn't move, going still and rigid beside Stan, and Stan realised too late what he'd just done.

"Shit," he muttered, pulling back and rubbing the back of one hand across his mouth, trying not to meet Rick's eyes. "Shit, I -"

"What - what the hell was that, Pines?"

Stan made some noncommittal noise, trying to turn it into a laugh, painfully aware that it wasn't working. His entire head felt like an oversized pimple, hot and red and just begging to be popped. But he could laugh this off, right? Rick pulled crazy stunts all the time to get a rise out of Stan, it wasn't - wasn't like this was any different -

"This is how you kiss a dude," Rick sneered, and Stan didn't have time to process what was happening before Rick grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and mashed their faces together and oh. Oh. Okay.

They didn't come out from under the boardwalk until the sun was almost all the way down. No matter how hard, later, he brushed his teeth, Stan couldn't get the taste of cigarette ash out of his mouth.

...

“The science fair is today?”

Ford’s voice was clipped with impatience, cold and irritable. “Yes, Stanley. You’d know this if you ever bothered to be around for more than five minutes.”

For once, Stan didn’t rise to the obvious bait. “It’s really today?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“I know, I know!” Stan protested, raising both hands to stop Ford before he could launch into another tirade. “I just...kinda thought there was more time.”

Ford fixed him with a strange look, like he’d just been told something he’d always assumed was an apple was actually an orange. “I didn’t know you’d entered.”

“No, that’s not -” Stan shook his head. “Forget it. So, what, you need a ride?”

Ford looked like he wanted to push it, but instead, he just readjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Yes, please.”

Stan was just easing the Stanleymobile’s long nose into a parking spot by the gym doors when Ford spoke again. “Stan,” he said, like he was trying to get Stan’s attention, though he didn’t turn away from the window he’d been staring out of the whole drive. “You - you do remember that the scouts from West Coast Tech are going to be here today?”

Stan tucked the Stanleymobile in against the curb and killed the engine, staring out the windshield for a moment.

“Yeah,” he said, finally. “Yeah, I remember.”

The engine ticked softly as it cooled. Somewhere to Stan’s right, Ford let out a breath that was almost a sigh.

“We’d better go in,” he said, the door handle creaking as he pushed it open.

Stan huffed, yanking the keys out of the ignition.

...

It’s a few misspent hours later that Stan finally forces himself to roll off the bed with the crack over it.

“We’re gonna be sleeping in the car tomorrow night at this rate,” he grumbles, pawing through his wallet. The wad of bills they’d left Atlantic City with seems a lot thinner now.

From over on the bed, Rick shrugs one shoulder, glancing over at Stan for a moment before turning his attention back to the ceiling. “Maybe there’ll be fewer bedbugs.”

“Wait, what?” Stan whips back the tacky fake-Mexican-print cover and the bedspread on the bed nearest the door, stares hard at the slightly yellowed sheets, looking for black dots bouncing. “If you get bedbugs in my baby -”

He’s cut off by the sound of Rick’s laughter, awful and grating, and huffs out a breath of relief. “You asshole.”

“You - you love me,” Rick says, with a leering wink in Stan’s direction, and Stan huffs, rolling his eyes before turning abruptly back to their wad of cash.

“We’re gonna have to fill up before we hit the road again, and I think we got about enough for two more tanks of gas.” He riffles the bills with his thumb, tapping it against the palm of his opposite hand before tucking it back inside the back pocket of his jeans, draped over the chair by the desk. “That’s not gonna get us all the way to the Sunshine State.”

“We’ll think of something,” Rick says. Stan can feel his eyes on his back. “By which I mean I’ll think of something, being the - the genius in this relationship.”

“Yeah, well, don’t count me out just yet,” Stan retorts, spinning around with his best huckster’s smile. “Still got a couple tricks up these sleeves.”

“What sleeves,” Rick says. It isn’t a question, more of a challenge.

“Oh, shut up,” Stan mutters, before crossing the room to make Rick do exactly that. With his mouth.

...

Rick didn’t go up to the front of the gym to accept the giant, ugly purple ribbon and the trophy that the beaming science fair judge held up. In fact, when Stan looked around the gym, he didn’t see Rick’s telltale shock of blue hair anywhere at all. Probably why he hadn’t realised the guy was even entered. It wasn’t like he’d bothered to actually look at any of the other projects, anyway, beyond a derisive glance. Ford’s was the best of the lot, hands down. And Stan was only here for Ford anyway.

He kept looking, though. Anything was better than seeing the look on Ford’s face.

“Of course it would be Sanchez,” Ford muttered, on the way out to the car, the first words he’d spoken since the winner of the science fair had been announced. Stan risked a glance over at him, to see his fists clenched, jaw jutting in the way Stan knew meant Ford was grinding his back teeth together, and knew that the light over Ford’s desk was going to be on all night again. “No one else in this school could have put together a project that would have outstripped mine, no one else in this school could have stolen that scholarship out from under me - I thought you said your little friend wasn’t entering!” he snapped, and Stan realised it was the first part of Ford’s tirade that he’d actually been meant to hear.

“I thought he wasn’t!” Stan shot back. There was something simmering low in his stomach, sick and hot and aching, and he threw the Stanleymobile’s door open with more force than he meant to.

Ford just plopped himself down in the passenger seat like he wanted to personally punish the leather upholstery with his butt, crossing his arms with a huff and staring out the window. Stan rolled his eyes, but sat down in the driver’s seat himself, slamming the door behind him.

“You don’t know he got the scholarship too,” he tried, as he started to ease the Stanleymobile out of his parking spot, and Ford whirled, his eyes blazing behind his glasses.

“Oh, don’t be such an idiot, Stanley,” he snapped, and Stan stomped on the brakes to keep from ploughing the Stanleymobile’s nose straight into the rear bumper of the car ahead of him. “Why would West Coast Tech ever settle for second best? Not to mention that Sanchez’ project is right in line with their major research fields, they’re the number one institution in the world right now working on multi-dimensional paradigm theory...” He let out a hollow laugh, slumping back against his seat. “I’ll be lucky if they even bother to send me a rejection letter.”

Stan took a deep breath, checking over his shoulder before carefully inching the Stanleymobile out into the road. “Well, at least it’s not like you don’t got a backup plan, right? You and me, sun, sand, and surf, treasure and babes and really wild adventures...” He managed a grin from somewhere deep down just as Ford let out a deep, heartfelt groan.

“Stanley, I really don’t want to talk about this right now,” he muttered, pressing both hands against his forehead and dragging them up and through his hair. “I have to start working on finding a backup school, writing scholarship essays, finding a summer job, applying for loans...I don’t have time for childish daydreams right now.” He dropped his left hand into his lap, leaning the elbow of his right against the window.

Stan didn’t think he was meant to hear Ford’s mumble of, “What is Dad going to think?”

Stan rolled through the four-way stop, trying hard to swallow around the lump that had grown in his throat.

...

“What the fuck.”

Rick looked up, and a brief flash of annoyance crossed his face before he flicked his cigarette butt to the asphalt, grinding it out with his toe. “Wh -”

Stan didn’t give him a chance to get the word out, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him against the rough brick of the wall. “You didn’t tell me you were entering the science fair!” Rick started to say something, his skinny noodle arms pushing at Stan’s chest, but Stan gave him another slam against the wall. “You didn’t tell me you were some kind of super genius!”

Rick gave his head a little shake before answering, like he was trying to knock a few cogs back into position. "What, you - you didn't actually think I was a dumbass like you?"

Stan barely resisted the urge to plant a fist right in the middle of Rick’s smug asshole face. "No! But I didn’t think you cared. I bet you just threw something together for the science fair the morning of for shits and giggles, right? Just for a laugh? Oh, let’s ruin that nerdy asshole Pines’ life, bet it’ll be hilarious?"

“Would you shut up? I didn’t enter the - the - the fucking science fair,” Rick sneered.

“Oh, yeah, my mistake, that’s how you won it, by not entering,” Stan snapped back.

“Won -” Rick’s face went dark, and a flash of something sharp and cold shot through Stan, a sudden stab of fear despite the fact he easily weighed the same as two of Rick and had been taking boxing lessons since he was old enough to stand upright. “Fucking - Brewster - thinks he’s doing me some kind of fucking favour putting my name in for all this school shit -”

“Oh, yeah, the AP Physics teacher whose class you don’t even take put your project into the fair, not you. That sounds real convincing.” Stan gave Rick another shove, but it was halfhearted, halfassed. Rick’s expression didn’t even shift. “Maybe next time you oughta leave the lying to me.”

“Stan, I’m in - I’m in AP Physics,” Rick sighed. “I just - just went for the tests, it’s not like I don’t know it all already.” He shook his head, glaring at a patch of back-alley scrub bush just to Stan’s left. “Of course fucking Brewster’s fucking impressed.”

Stan bit down on his bottom lip. “Whatever. Maybe I’d buy that if your project wasn’t a goddamn portal to other dimensions. I don’t know what ‘multi-dimensional paradigm theory’ is, but -”

“- but West Coast Tech is the big name in it,” Rick finished for him, rolling his eyes. “Even though they’re - they’re at least two decades behind the times - ” He gave his head a shake. “How the fuck did Brewster even get his hands on my portal gun plans anyway? That - that thing’s nowhere near the prototype stage - unless my dad -”

“Save it,” Stan interrupted. “I dunno how stupid you think I am, but I’m not this thick. I’m out. Find some other dumbass to be your sidekick."

He gave Rick one more shove, before letting him go and walking away.

“Fine,” Rick called after him, like he was trying to sound casual but failing, his voice rising the longer Stan failed to turn around. “Like - like I need some stupid fag hanging around getting his - his - his stupid feelings in my way anyway. Maybe I’ll take that West Coast Tech scholarship and you can stay here and - and suck Stanford Pines’ dick instead! Does - does it matter whose it is, so long as you’ve got one in your - in your - in your stupid fat mouth?”

Stan didn’t look back, just flipped Rick off and kept walking.

...

Stan doesn’t snore. He doesn’t care what Rick says. The guy’s only actually spent the night with him, what, twice before their little road trip? He doesn’t get to talk.

Rick, though. Rick definitely snores. Rick snores like it’s a competition and he’s determined he’s gonna win.

The glowing red display on the clock on the nightstand is blinking 07:38. It’s been blinking that, Stan realises, the whole time they’ve been here. He has no idea what time it is, and he’s not getting up now to find his watch. Rick might snore like he’s trying to wake the dead, but he’s also impossible to actually get to sleep and wakes up at the sound of a pin dropping. If Stan tries to work his arm out from under Rick’s five whole pounds of body weight, Rick’s gonna be up for the rest of the night and probably be the crankiest asshole this side of Texas all day tomorrow. Stan can’t deal with that shit while he’s driving.

So he lies, in the slightly-too-warm cocoon of the covers, distinctly aware of the sweat pooled under his arms and in the small of his back, of the press of Rick’s ribs against the fleshy underside of his left arm, of the sound of his breathing in the motel quiet, of the occasional flash of light and speeding shadow puppetry on the wall in front of him when the headlights of some passing car on the freeway filter through the skimpy curtains. Stan tries to take deep, slow, even breaths. He wishes he could turn the TV on without waking Rick. If he doesn’t sleep tonight, he’s gonna be useless to drive tomorrow.

It’s weird, though, trying to sleep without the soft sounds of breathing from the bunk overhead.

Stan squeezes his eyes shut, presses his face into the back of Rick’s neck, and tries, again, to take slow, deep, even breaths.

...

The worst part was the quiet.

Life above Pines Pawns was never quiet, of course, with Stan and Ford��s ma always on the phone with the rubes, but even she seemed to be toning it down. Stan and Ford’s pa, never all that talkative at the best of times, was acting like none of the rest of the family were even there. And Ford -

Ford looked up from the books strewn across his desk exactly once, when Stan opened the door to their room, scowled, and then turned abruptly back to the page he’d been staring at. Stan noticed that the pile of hardcover, brick-thick textbooks around him looked like it’d doubled.

He didn’t ask if Ford’s eyes had got so red from staring so hard at the textbook or from crying.

“Dad seems...quiet,” he said, instead, lamely, dropping onto his bed. “What, did I just miss all the fireworks?”

Ford didn’t respond, didn’t even turn around.

Stan glanced off to his right, puffing out a breath. He didn’t really know what he’d expected. “Look, Rick’s an asshole.”

“Do you think I don’t know that, Stanley?” The words came out tight and controlled, like Ford was making them as quiet as he could to keep from yelling.

Stan shuffled back further onto the bed, kicking off his sneakers before he kicked both feet up onto the bedspread. “If there’s anything I can do to help -”

“You’ve done more than enough already.” The words came out like bullets, each one hurled at the wall Ford was facing. Stan didn’t even have time to open his mouth to snap back before Ford was heaving out a sigh. “Honestly, Stanley, I need to work twice as hard to prove myself if I’m going to impress any other schools into taking me, now that I already have a rejection from West Coast Tech under my belt. And for that, I need to be able to concentrate.”

He finally turned to face Stan, and Stan felt something sink into the pit of his stomach like a bowling ball even before Ford opened his mouth and said, “The best thing you can do for me right now is leave me alone.”

...

Carla wasn’t around when Stan stopped by the skate park. Her long-haired boyfriend glared him down, so he kept walking, hands in his pockets, whistling a little like he didn’t give a shit anyway.

Rick wasn’t up at the cannery plant. Which was good. It wasn’t like Stan even wanted to see his bitch ass.

None of the guys were hanging around the machine shop, and it was too early for the boardwalk to be any fun, all little kids high on too much grease and sugar running around screaming and their parents desperately running after them. Stan bought a bag of fries from one of the food stands and went and sat on one of the benches anyway. He ended up feeding most of his fries to a seagull that kept hanging around. By the time the bag was finished off, the seagull was practically sitting in his lap.

“Maybe I could be a seagull trainer,” Stan said, to its beady eye. “Think anybody’s ever put together a seagull circus before?”

The seagull didn’t answer. It pecked curiously at the empty paper bag in Stan’s hand, translucent with grease, and then, finding no more fries, grabbed the bag and took off with a flap of its wings that nearly hit Stan in the face.

...

It was nearly a week before Stan heard from Rick again.

The first pebble hit the window of Stan and Ford’s room with a dull, faintly melodious thwonk, startling Stan out of a dream he’d been having about some kind of British dog-man and a duck that was somehow the dog-man’s brother? And a detective? Some kinda nonsense, anyway.

He thought for a moment that the noise had just been part of the dream, until another pebble rattled against the window and Stan was instantly wide awake.

It took two more pebbles before he stuck his head out the window to see Rick standing down on the street, one hand shoved in his pocket like he was daring anybody who might pass by to think he was anything but totally relaxed and casual, the other winding up to throw another pebble. Stan opened up the window just in time for Rick to let it fly. The pebble bounced off Stan’s forehead and fell back towards the street, making Stan’s head twinge.

“What the hell?” he whisper-yelled down at Rick, before spinning to check if Ford had heard him. Thankfully, Ford was passed out across his textbooks at his desk, where he’d been sitting studying when Stan had gone to bed. His desk lamp was still on.

“I told West Coast Tech to go fuck themselves,” Rick called softly up from the street, and Stan’s attention was wrenched back down to the street. “Bunch of - of - of boring old cocksuckers. Like they can teach me anything.”

“What?” Stan asked.

“I - I - I told ‘em to take their stupid scholarship and shove it right up their collective ass!” Rick said, and Stan shushed him, looking back over his shoulder in Ford’s direction. “Fuck ‘em. Who - who actually wants to spend all of their formative years in - in - in some kind of human cattle pen? School is for - for dweebs like your asshole brother.”

“Rick,” Stan started, but Rick interrupted with another pebble to Stan’s face. “Ow! What the fuck?”

“Get your ass down here, we’re leaving,” Rick called up. “If - if you’re not down here with all your shit in ten minutes, I’ll find some other lovesick idiot with a car.”

“What?”

Ford made some soft noise from behind Stan, and Stan froze, holding his own breath until he heard Ford start breathing the slow and steady breaths of a sleeper again.

“You - you huuuurpeard me,” Rick shouted. “Fuck ‘em! Fuck your shitty schools, fuck your shitty family, fuck ‘potential’, fuck what everybody else wants! Treasure hunting, Pines! Some of your ideas don’t - don’t totally suck balls. You’re not getting me out on the ocean on - on - on a fucking boat that your dumb ass repaired, though.”

Stan couldn’t speak, for a long moment.

“Rick,” he started, around the lump sitting hot and inconvenient somewhere around his lungs.

“Yeah, yeah. Move it or lose it,” Rick called back up, then turned and vanished around the side of the pawn shop.

It didn’t take Stan any time to throw a bag together. It wasn’t like he owned all that much worth taking, anyway. He threw in a few pairs of jeans, t-shirts, a jacket, his wallet and the contents of the little jar he’d been saving change in for dates, another pair of sneakers, his boxing gloves. He debated a moment, then slipped the family photo on the nightstand out of its frame, folding it carefully and sliding it into his wallet.

He paused, a moment, watching Ford’s back rise and fall, the rhythm steady, peaceful.

Then Stan grabbed the blanket off the top bunk and draped it carefully around Ford’s shoulders, before hoisting his duffel bag over one shoulder and slipping carefully out of their shared room.

He made sure to shut the door silently behind him.

...

Stan must’ve gotten to sleep somehow, because the next thing he knows, he’s waking up to sunlight streaming yellow through the open window and Rick throwing their shit back into their bags.

Twenty minutes later, they’re back on the road, speeding up and over the cloverleaf. Stan’s pretty sure they’re never going to be allowed to stay at that motel again, considering they left the room full of pizza garbage and skipped out on the bill. He can’t bring himself to care much. He really, really hopes he’s stayed overnight in Ohio for the last time.

“We’re gonna have to stop somewhere for gas,” he says, peering at the green sign hanging over the roadway, trying to pick out the sign for their exit. “Maybe we can make it over the border first, though.”

“And we’re - we’re stopping at the next Shoney’s we see,” Rick says. “I’m not going anywhere today without waffles. Hey, dipshit, our - our exit’s on the right.”

“I knew that,” Stan says, swerving into the right lane.

“Put on your fucking glasses,” Rick grumbles. Stan flips him off.

The sun pours hot through the Stanleymobile’s windows, air conditioning rattling as it gamely spits odd blasts of freezing air out the vents in the dash, until Stan can barely feel his fingers on the steering wheel even though there’s sweat dripping down his neck. Some shitty rock song is playing softly on the radio, and Rick cranks the volume up, kicking one foot up on the dash and playing air guitar as he sings nasally along to the guitar solo. The sky ahead is a perfect, crystal blue, stretching from horizon to horizon.

There’s only thirty-two hours of driving between them and California.

#this is mary's fic tag #gravity falls #rick and morty #stanchez #stanchez summer sizzle #what the hell are accurate and consistent time period settings and where can I get one #damn tumblr anyway for introducing the search feature taking away tracked tags and then making it so links in posts won't show up>#<in the search

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serendipitousoracle · 7 years

Note

Mixtape n wardrobe for like... ALL the ocs?

[♡ OC ask meme ♡]

i will give you six (6) ocs.

Egeire Mahariel:

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like

1. “Love Love Love” - Of Monsters And Men (basically The song for Egeire/Zevran tbh. love and reluctance and duty and fear and pining, which eventually breaks down as despite it all they keep getting in deeper and deeper until Egeire finally goes fuck this and for once decides not to sacrifice everything he wants to hold onto)

2. “Rather Be” - Clean Bandit (happy fluffy love song for Eg’s sweet, loyal attachment to various love interests. he is devoted and adoring and when he is with the one he loves he would never want to be anywhere else)

3. “Wolves Without Teeth” - Of Monsters And Men (wqieujb?? devotion and consumption and non-physical wounds idk how to explain)

4. idk. something emo? and then instead insert “Not Gonna Die” - Skillet bc it’s really the message Egeire should be taking home

5. and then as throwback to something he’d like maybe smth Gorillaz or Disturbed just for “smth that would probably be on Egeire’s music playlists somewhere“

wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?

In DA-centric universes Egeire ends up becoming fairly all-or-nothing re: clothing. at the end of the Blight, into Warden-Commanderdom, and to some extent post-Wardenhood, he is either in full armor and weaponry (with some extra flash and ideally some small piece of elfiness in the Awakening period), or when he is completely alone and not paranoid and with people he trusts in a space he feels safe in, he is wearing like comfortable loose-fitting pants and that’s about it.

In more modern AUs Egeire wears more like… practical clothes, probably? flannel and open button-ups over tank tops with sturdy pants and tough boots, whatever clothes have been Gifted to him over the years, annnnnd at-home muscly shirtlessness with loose sweatpants

Also he looks so great in lace

Under Cut: Egeria Surana, Flytter the Junior Historian, Cyrron Mirevas, Soveliss Liadon, Grey Surana

Egeria Surana

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like

1. “Arms” - Christina Perri (still p much the First and Most Egeria/Alistair song. being Wardens is one rough thing and then the elven mage and the bastard prince is harder still. it works out in the end, but….)

2. “Retrograde” - James Blake (ouch that isolation and your friends are gone, and your friends won’t come, so show me where you fit. i’ll wait, so show me why you’re strong– i’ll wait, we’re alone now)

3. “You May Be Right” - Billy Joel (whoops it’s The DenRia Song)

4. “Beth’s Theme” (Broadchurch OST) - Ólafur Arnalds(Ria’s canon is just so like…. sad. unintentionally sad. quietly, wordlessly sad.)

5. “Stolen Dance” - Milky Chance / “Budapest” - Georga Ezra / “Break Stuff” - Limp Bizkit (just kind of misc songs for Ria Chilling Around The House)

wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?

DA: a mix of aesthetic robes and practical ones, some with long flowing pieces and embroidered flowers that gradually transition to black dust, wearing her mage blood and magic specialties quite literally on her sleeve, some that are more armor than robe (bc spellsword/arcane warrior) but with elements of robes nonetheless. Dresses more lightly in private for ease of movement, with fur shawls and fine shoes and all. may be talked into some sort of short top + long skirt look by her fawning husband. in private.

Modern: light blouses and either loose-ish pants or long skirts, fond of flower motifs, plenty of like cardigans and soft jackets and things that generally perfect that sweet and trustworthy and caring outward demeanor she wields like empathy made tangible and precise. also has regular graphic tees and jeans for gardening.

Flytter

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like

1. “Little Talks” - Of Monsters And Men (grief is what drives Flytter from home to wrap themself up entirely in their work… for better or worse, despite the best wishes of those who cared about them)

2. “Non-Stop”, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, … - Hamilton the Musical (um excuse me if somebody made a musical about Egeire Mahariel/WAWsquad/The Fifth Blight Hero you fucking know Flytter would be all over that)

3. “Radioactive” - Imagine Dragons (radioactivity… lingering Blight corruption… same difference, right?)

4. “Heavy In Your Arms” - Florence + the Machine (not entirely happy with this pick but struggling to find something for just– that kind of background gnawing of the slow, slow, painful death seeping into their being, the constant pain and the losing fight to the ebb of the corruption and their inability to keep it effectively treated or soothed or just. nesdfds.)

5. “Beyond the Veil” - Lindsey Stirling (trippy instrumentals for recording things and remembering dreams? sure why not. clear Veil joke? woo!)

wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?

.DA: robes, again. robes with a focus on complete head-to-toe coverage and not irritating rough patches of skin or what not too much. Something comfortable enough to sleep in. Not really much variety once they lock themself away in Kinloch Hold rebuilt.

Modern: light shirts tied up and semi-professional vests and the ability to quickly create a skirt in any situation when they need to really move in a hurry

Cyrron Mirevas

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like

1. “Enemies” - Shinedown (i didn’t even have to think about this one everyone hates Cyrron except like…. you jay. only you. everyone else goes ‘ew’ or ‘why are his eyes sockets not full of sharp/sharp-ish utensils’ when i bring him up. only you cheer when he shows up or hand him over to tentacle monsters but)

2. “Simple Man” - Lynyrd Skynyrd (and the complete flipside– a simple kind of man, not rushing, revering the gods, settling down with a bondmate and having children… it was the life Cyrron intended to live, not exactly a soft or warm or gentle man by any means, but a simple man. Then he lost everything, and survived Vir Banal’ras, and we have present day Cyrron.)

3. “The Dalish Elves Encampment” - Dragon Age: Origins OST, or something (this is basically a placeholder to state: what do you think super traditional Dalish elf music sounds like? for Ferelden Dalish if you want to get specific maybe. Basically, whatever Traditional Dalish Music is, that is all Cyrron himself cares to listen to. That’s it. He hoards it. maybe even plays an instrument. the world will never know.)

4. i swear to god i’m not putting “Closer” on this list SO HOW ABOUT THAT BODIES SONG HUH IT’S SUPER MURDERY N STUFF

5. “Indestructible” - Disturbed (fitting, since it was on Egeire’s list, and he definitely got that from somewhere. really, Cyrron is indestructible to a point that even upsets himself until all the venom he sank into others finally comes back to flood his veins)

wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?

DA: Armor. Sturdy Dalish armor, long updated and cycled through with parts, blades on hand at all times, each meticulously well-kept and menacingly. The only time he’s not in armor is if he’s for some reason in disguise to get closer to someone to kill them.

Modern: ranges from business semi-casual to business ultra-formal and nowhere below that range, at least not for wearing out in the daylight. Cyrron mostly has his crisp dress shirts and pressed black slacks and all that easy “I am wealthy and important and you don’t need to know what I do for a living” class, even despite the clear vallaslin, but he also has a variety of tougher garb and more lowkey clothing for when his real line of work comes calling in the night for a slit throat or a poisoned drink.

Soveliss Liadon

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC or songs they themselves would like

1. “Addicted to Love” - Florence + the Machine (possibly the earliest defining song for my vague thoughts of ‘Soveliss and his feylock patron’. Soveliss insists he knows what he’s doing! He just has to keep his wits around him! … gods, though, he is so lonely.)

2. “Carousel” - Melanie Martinez (have I mentioned Sov is really super doomed? And it’s all fun and games/‘Til somebody falls in love/But you’ve already bought a ticket/And there’s no turning back now)

3. “Believer” - Imagine Dragons, & “Whispers in the Dark” - Skillet (the main brain-chewing songs for fiendlock!au Soveliss)

4. “Dust Bowl Dance” and “Broken Crown” - Mumford & Sons (hypothetical #mood for potential Angry parts of potential Soveliss character/story arc “You haven’t met me, I am the only son.”)

5. “A Martyr for My Love for You” - The White Stripes (i’m just saying if anybody else dies before we finish this adventure Sov is gonna start getting real antsy about forming attachments to normal, mortal people)

Bonus 6. Welp. (a ghost monk floats through Soveliss’ room as Sov puts up a bard band poster up in his room in the monastery like “soooooovelllllissssss whaaaat isssss thissss” and teenage Sov is just Instantly Teenage Annoyed “MUSIC, JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, IS CHANGING, DAD” (all the monks in the monastery are Dad sov has like 2 dozen dads it’s a time))

BONUS 2 EDIT EDITION: i forgot “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” - Florence + the Machine was also a Sov inspiration song whoops

wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?

D&D: Soveliss at the moment generally has his greyscale Acolyte of Kelemvor robes/garb, some dark leather armor, maybe some shiny beads or baubles, and his gorgeous blond hair (it is probably literally enchanted t b h), buuuut he has no real exposure to like….. choice of clothing let alone fashion. idk we’ll see if aub ever gets us somewhere cool where I can get him a truly art-worthy outfit or if he dies first i guess.

Modern: ????????????

Grey Surana

mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like

1. “Stray Italian Greyhound” - Vienna Teng (whoops first song is a Grey/Tamaris song. but: Grey is every bit the tongue-tied hopeless romantic that Egeire is, except he somehow works himself up about it even harder bc in a way Grey can be summed up as Eg But Extra (i love this song tho))

2. “I of the Storm” - Of Monsters And Men (wh o o ps it’s another Grey/Tam song. but it is also a good sort of song for Grey’s general insecurities, still carried over if reflected differently from Egeire’s. not measuring up. not being loved. feeling trapped. are you really gonna love me when i’m gone? are you really gonna need me when i’m gone? i fear you won’t; i fear you don’t)

3. “In My Sleep” - Mystery Skulls (can’t find a good video but you can’t do this like i do/i fucking wrote this in my sleep is just. 1. it mostly inspired an au. 2. take Egeire’s mild peacock tendencies and turn them up to fucking 11 and you might start to approach Grey levels of pride and showboating. tempted to put “Magic” on this list but just. it’s so great. just go look it up.)

4. “Through Glass” - Stone Sour (something quieter. bringing back that feeling of isolation from Ria, but a bit more self-imposed– putting up walls of glass to keep a distance from everything and ending up sitting alone inside his own head, which really could account for a lot of his doubts. a negative feedback loop of sorts. but he is so used to it.)

5. “Work Song” - Hozier / “Iris” - Goo Goo Dolls / “Rather Be” - Clean Bandit (just some more love songs for the hopeless romantic bc I’m p sure I’ve spent like 8 hours on this ask and I’m dead now)

wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?

DA: so fashionable. whether he’s the Circle Ambassador or the Warden-Commander, Grey is dedicated to keeping up with trends and edging out ahead of them where he can. It’s a careful balance to keep, neither being so compliant as to be invisible or stepping so far out of line that he’s branded “outsider“ again, but he loves it. Grey is all about politics, wealth, luxury, prestige– whatever the Circle and the Chantry wanted to deny him, he will take, one way or another.

Modern: so fashionable. if it’s In he is at least looking into getting his hands on it, if he doesn’t already have it. as the Circle is traded out for more like…. slicksharp white collar big business laddering-climbing type ambition, so too are robes traded for suits, and so some manner of dress shirt + jacket/blazer/etc + slacks/dress pants/etc becomes his norm. Whether he’s climbing or charming or sleeping his way to the top, he enjoys surrounding himself with luxury and learning how to take advantage of it.Is still a sweetheart who looks nice in lace though.

#Egeire Mahariel #Egeria Surana #Grey Surana #Junior Historian Flytter #Soveliss Liadon #Cyrron Mirevas #oracleanswers #meridok #now with 50% more songs than I was even technically supposed to provide

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secretlystephaniebrown · 7 years

Text

Sibling Time

After months of leaving this in my “To Do” pile, I have finally gotten around to my long-promised crossover with amazing @renaroo‘s Hero Time! Dubiously takes place sometime in the far future of that series, contains some vague spoilers for Double Time, but nothing serious. Also contains the magnificent @goodluckdetective‘s Charlie and Lauren, because why would I leave them out of the fun.

Characters: Junior, Wash, Shannon, Joel, Charlie, Lauren, Martha

Ships: Mostly gen, mentions of Tuckington

Warnings: None

Link to start of series

Also on Ao3

Shannon Caboose was a Caboose through and through, and she had the super strength to prove it. And a sonic cry that could shatter glass, but who’s counting.

She shifted in her seat, feeling weird in her homemade costume compared to, well.

Compared to Junior’s.

Having a cousin—even an adopted one—who was an actual superhero really did a good job at making the rest of them look pretty silly.

Lauren sat on the hay bale, arms crossed. Charlie hovered beside her—actually hovered, because Charlie was also a show-off, no matter what she claimed.

Joel lay on the floor, playing with the knives Uncle Wash had given him for his birthday.

Junior looked at them all. “We could get in trouble for this,” he warned.

“Mom never lets us go out,” Joel complained. “She keeps saying ‘when you’re older’. You were four when you started!”

“Just one night,” Lauren wheedled. “We just want to see what it’s like.”

Junior was a lot older than them, a lot more experienced than them, and then, well, there was the whole alien thing. But he’d been family for years, ever since Ma had dumped her old teammate on the couch and said she was doubling back to get his boyfriend and kid.

“It’s not like we’re unprotected,” Charlie pointed out, perfectly reasonable. “We’ve all been training for this.”

Junior made a noise that sounded a lot like Uncle Wash.

“How do we even get there?” He asked.

“Aunt Martha’s visiting,” Joel said, sitting upright and grinning. Shannon supposed they should just be glad that he wasn’t hanging from the rafters again. Just because he had super reflexes didn’t mean he had to show off all the time, in Shannon’s opinion. She tugged at her leather jacket’s zipper. “We can borrow her truck, there’s room for all of us.”

Junior nodded slowly. “Well, let’s go then,” he said.

They all piled out of the hayloft slowly, hoping the noise wouldn’t disturb Shannon and Joel’s moms. Sleepover weekends at the farm were great, but Ma was a light sleeper, and no one wanted to get caught.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Aunt Martha demanded. She was sitting on the hood of her truck, spinning the keys in her hand.

They all froze in their tracks, and Shannon realized that maybe the fear that had been creeping over them of being caught by Ma wasn’t entirely natural.

Martha snapped her fingers, and the dread dissipated. “I could feel your nervousness from the guesthouse,” she told them. “Honestly. You’re just lucky your Aunt Jackie wasn’t here.”

“We…”

“You’re going off to the city to fight crime, I know.” Martha stared at them all, taking in their makeshift costumes. “Lauren,” she said sternly. “Are you wearing brass knuckles?”

“Yes.” Lauren was unrepentant.

“Well. Good to know your dads raised you right.”

She tossed Junior the keys.

They all stared at her, eyes wide and mouths gaping.

“What?” Lauren demanded.

“Stay out of Blood Gulch,” she demanded. “Stay in the safer areas, I don’t care if they’re less fun. If any of you get hurt,” she grinned, and the fear was back.

“That’s cheating,” Joel told her.

“I’m giving you a ride, kids. Stop complaining.” She walked away.

They all looked at each other, and piled into the car. Junior, as the only one who could actually drive, even if he didn’t have a license, got the driver’s seat. Shannon, being the second oldest, managed to grab shotgun. The others sat in the back, and argued viciously about the music, the seating arrangements, and about the fine layer of dog hair that covered the upholstery of the truck.

It wasn’t too long of a drive into the city, but Shannon shifted, keeping an eye on the sky. Even with Aunt Martha on their side, she kept expecting to see Mom swooping down from the sky, ready to drag them all home.

“We probably should have stayed out of Blood Gulch anyways,” Charlie said. The back of the truck was too short for Charlie—Shannon would have to give her the front on the way back. “Uncle Wash and Aunt Tex patrol there. We might be caught.”

“Aunt Tex wouldn’t care,” Shannon said. She played with her zipper again.

“Uncle Wash would,” Joel said. He’d fashioned a crude harness to carry his knives, trying to emulate Uncle Wash’s costume as best he could. It wasn’t that effective, but it wasn’t like Shannon’s cheap leather jacket had much resemblance to Tex’s.

They all wince at the thought of Uncle Wash catching them.

“Yeah,” Shannon said. “Let’s avoid Blood Gulch.”

“Please,” Junior muttered.

They parked the truck and passed around the masks that Lauren had made. They were good—nothing like the visors that real superheroes had, but Shannon figured they had to start somewhere.

“So what do we do now?” Charlie asked Junior.

Junior looked at them, and grinned.

“Now we find a roof, and then we start running around until we find trouble,” he told them.

None of them noticed the hooded figure sitting in the bed of the truck.

As the night went on and the teenagers continued to find crime to fight, two figures perched, side by side on a rooftop, watching over them.

“They’re not supposed to be here,” Wash said. His eyes didn’t leave Junior.

Martha shrugged easily, not at all surprised to see him. There weren’t many alien superheroes—word would have gotten to Wash within the first hour. “They’d have made it out here without my help. At least this way I can keep an eye on them.” She tugged down the hood of the tattered cape she was wearing.

“They don’t know you’re here,” Wash guessed.

“Junior might,” she shrugged again, turning her attention back to the kids, who had just finished scarring off a wayward mugger. “We know my Jedi-Mind trick doesn’t work on your eyes, and Junior’s never been effected by my Halloween tricks. Maybe his eyes can see me too.”

Wash scowled. “You might be able to get me if you ever practiced.”

“I don’t want to practice,” Martha said. “I chose not to years ago.”

“You could be helping people,” he argued. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this fight. It certainly wouldn’t be the last. “You and your sisters.”

Martha’s mouth twitched. “Mitch doesn’t have any powers,” she reminded him.

He scowled. “One day I’ll prove it,” he threatened. “I know what I saw, and I know that was her.”

“You’d just hit your head,” she said. “Maybe you were seeing things.”

Wash forced himself to refocus. “You and Jackie then. You could be helping people.”

“I create fear, Washington. Not exactly heroic material. And I’ve seen the kind of costumes supervillains wear.” She shuddered. “I’d trip in those heels. And corsets are the devil.”

Wash kept his mouth shut at that. She always said that, and the worst part was, he couldn’t argue. Martha’s powers were pretty classic villain. The cape she was wearing didn’t really do much to help his case against it.

But he could never understand it. The three of them had powers. How could they just… live their lives and not do anything with them? Donut, Wash could at least understand. They had skipped him. But he didn’t get why the sisters hid. Why Mitch complained about how powers caused trouble, even with two kids and a wife with powers. Why Jackie refused to even test the extents of her empathic abilities. They didn’t make sense.

Martha sighed, and glanced up at the sky. “Getting late, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Wash said.

“Well, guess we better get them home so you can actually sleep tonight,” Martha got to her feet.

“How do you propose to do that?” Wash asked. “Want me to go down there?” He could scare them home easily. Ground them. Not that they weren’t going to be grounded anyways, but…

Martha laughed at him. “I’ve been scaring kids home since I was sixteen. That and haunted houses. It’s what I do best.”

She climbed down the fire escape, towards the kids. None of them so much as glanced at her as she approached, despite the noises she made.

“It’s getting late,” Martha said, her voice unusually high with worry. “Mom might check on us. She might worry. She might call Wash.”

Wash felt his shoulders stiffen as he watched the kids all start to mutter amongst themselves. He was relatively immune to Martha’s powers—they were pretty sure it was a cat thing—but she’d put power into it, and it made his skin crawl, even though he didn’t have a mother back home worrying about him. It didn’t take long for the kids to creep towards Martha’s truck, and start heading back to the farm.

“How will you get home?” Wash asked, when she rejoined him on the roof. She was smirking, satisfied with herself, but she also looked exhausted. She wasn’t used to using her powers so much.

“I’ll catch a ride with Mitch when she comes in for the farmer’s market,” Martha said, shrugging. “Then she’ll ground them, but the kids will still think I’m on their side, and come to me again next time they want to sneak out.”

“Your family is ridiculous,” he told her.

Martha smiled faintly. Sweat beaded her forehead, and she looked to be dead on her feet. Wash knew better than to point out that more training might mean this didn’t happen. Martha was a grown woman. She knew that. “I know. And yet you keep letting Junior visit.”

“I blame Tucker for that.”

“I’m pretty sure he blames Donut.”

“I’m willing to go with that.’

Martha smiled at him, pulling off the cape and stuffing it in the backpack she wore. Beneath it she wore jeans and a sweater, a far more normal look.

“Coffee?” She asked. “I know a 24 hour place where the owner won’t report you to your husband.”

Wash sighed, glancing at the tracker he’d placed on her truck. Sure enough, it was well on its way to the farm. Junior was so grounded.

“Sure,” he said. “Let me stop to get changed.”

“I think I’d be a great supervillain, don’t you?” Martha asked conversationally.

“Please don’t joke about that.”

#Steph Writes #Donut Siblings #Junior #Hero Time #Red vs Blue #Agent Washington

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