#probably going to be posting about her a lot i fear
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I Want To. | Wellness Check
logline; Such is life, you go from not being needed at The Bear today to being more needed than you ever have been.
[!!!] series history, this is the fourth; First, Second, Third
portion; 4.7k+
possible allergies; a dash of Tony's former paramedic background (and just medical shit in general) in this one, so, a sprinkle of post-trauma stress (and her usual yikes psyche). Mikey comes up a bit, as usual! despite the ops, we ball.
pairing; Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto & Fem Reader (pretty unavoidably gendered episode, mb non-fem folks)
we'll talk after babe, have a good time w/ this one.
Falling asleep was easy— par for Carmen fighting to keep his 6:30 am alarm on. When he finds out you don’t have a plug on his side of the bed and he has to charge his phone on your side, he turns it off. Cute.
Well, there’s also the part where you had to ask if he was okay because it sounded like he wasn’t breathing and it turns out —He was not breathing— He then pointed out that it sounded like you weren’t breathing —You were not breathing— Both of you thought the sound of your lungs would bother the other, so you opted not to use them at all. Turns out, counterproductive; you notice each other’s absences pretty well.
But besides that, it's easy. Carmen isn’t an awful bedfellow. He’s not super shifty, he doesn’t tug the blanket, he doesn’t roll all the fucking way over to your side, or anything like that. He’s honestly concerningly still. Is he annoyed that you’ve gotta toss and turn a little to get comfortable? Probably. He's probably dreaming of you exploding right now, he’s so annoyed. He didn’t make fun of your ages old build-a-bear plush nor it’s Cubs jersey, so that was nice. Pity, probably.
...If Carmen wasn’t here, he knows he’d be stirring and kicking and probably sleep-walking to his oven to light it on fire. But he is here. Where kicking would hurt. Where stirring would wake you. Where a fire would cause more anxiety than relief because all your plants and projects would die. Where you washed his hair and told him that taking care of people doesn’t feel like a lot of work to you. Was it not a lot of work, to take care of his brother? Was it worth it, to you? Probably not. How could it be?
He wills his body to not fucking move because if he does it's going to ruin everything. He's going to ruin everything.
He wakes up at 6:30 on the dot, alarm or no. He’d be concerned if his body functioned any differently. But he can’t get to his phone while you’re sleeping in his way and you’re so comfortable. You’re clutching a bear that’s undeniably on a losing team and you’re at peace with it. He’s trying not to make a metaphor out of this in his mind; alas, it’s already there. The only thing he can do is go back to sleep and dream about killing the teenage boy in his head before he can escape again and call you pretty.
It's around ten when you wake up, you try not to wake him when you turn to grab your phone, but the split second of motion makes him flinch like he’s about to get jumped. “Relax!” You hiss, but like, soft, whispered. “I’m doin’ the fuckin’ Wordle, not smothering you with a pillow.”
“You do the Wordle?”
“Oh, fuck you—”
“The first fuckin’ thing you do in the morning is the Wordle?”
“And I do the Crossword too, bitch, what of it?”
“…I like Connections.”
“I fuckin' hate Connections.”
“Alright, damn!”
The Chicago accent in both of you is stronger in your rasping morning voices. As is the laughter. You roll onto your stomach to get closer to him and let him see your screen. Neither of you have entirely woken up yet and that means it’s the perfect time to do a puzzle. If you don't focus on this puzzle right now, you fear you will get too comfortable in this idea of domesticity.
“C’s in the right place. Nothin’ else though.”
He’s the one that figures out its Cumin. You pretend not to be mad about this. You’re furious. Of course, it’d be a spice on the day Mr Food Guy sleeps over. Bullshit.
When you finally sit up, stretch, and say, “I’m just gonna shower real quick ‘nd—”
He’s at a breakneck speed to reply, “I’ll make breakfast.”
“Oh, you cook all the fuckin’ time, you don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
You blink, then shrug, the man likes to cook, c’est la vie. “Who am I to refuse?”
He looks far too happy about this, as though he’s won a lottery. A lottery of manual labour. He rolls out of bed, grabbing his back pack stuffed with yesterday’s clothes before leaving you to your own devices. In a literal sense, too, since you get a text. Ugh.
‘Gigi called in, can you reach?’
You would prefer not to reach, but this is capitalism.
‘When's the shift?’
‘6:30 to 12:30’
Why couldn’t something else at The Bear be fuckin’ broken today?
‘yeah i can reach’
‘that’s my girl, red tops today, see u’
You have also won the lottery of manual labour today. Look at you and Carm, luckiest people alive. Something like that. Alright, go shower and be normal about the fact that there’s a Michelin Star Chef making you breakfast in your kitchen. And he’s prett—
“You make your own bread.”
“I do.” You sit at your own little breakfast nook, waiting to be served. Towel hung around your neck post shower. You’d offer to help, but based on his urgency to cook for you, it’s gonna be a no. Plus, the gift on the table you’ve got for him is going to piss him off enough, can't poke this bear too much. He's already given you a mile. Too many idioms.
“I like to think in another universe I am a homesteader who makes her own soaps and renders tallow n’ shit. But I settle for growing basil and making sourdough in my shitty little Chicago apartment for now.”
“I like your apartment.” He hums, though amused. He turns and sets your plate—the one black plate— in front of you with a small smile. This smile immediately falls when he pushes the plate towards you and you push a travel bag of toiletries towards him.
“Fuck is this?”
“I don’t want to hear any complaints, Irish Spring.”
“How d’you know I use Irish Spring?”
“It’s all five of your routine, it’s going to be pungent— Now listen.” You pick up the bag; you’d dug through your sink cabinet and found a dollar store pack of plastic travel bottles, unused from cancelled trips of yesteryear. You've decanted your own products for him. It's fine, you buy jumbo sizes anyways...
“Shampoo, conditioner, face wash—They’ve even got labels.”
He takes the bag from you, setting it down on his side of the counter, begrudgingly. Though he hasn’t particularly paid it much mind, tunnelled on something else entirely, “Do you not like Irish Spring?”
"I didn't give you a body wash, you can still use it for that one purpose."
"Yeah, but do you not like Irish Spring?"
"...I think it's fine."
“Fine?”
“I’m more of an Old Spice fan.”
“You don’t deserve breakfast—” He pulls your plate, you pull it back.
“All I said—” “Thinkin’ I smell like shit—” “Did not say that—!” “Just cause you use the fruity stuff—” “I smell good! Deny that I smell good!” “You smell fine.” “Wowww—Whatever, do the thing.”
“Bruschetta with a breakfast twist.” Ah, that makes him give you the plate back. His kink is explaining food. “Sourdough toasted, topped with fresh basil—”
“Courtesy of me.”
“Courtesy of you, yes. Tomatoes, bacon glazed in balsamic, and you didn’t have parm so I used feta. And then, y’know, over medium egg on top.”
“You’re very good, Carmen.”
“Oh, I—Uh—” You haven’t even tried it yet. You’re telling him he’s good for the sake of the effort he’s given alone. He needs an antacid. “Thank you.”
It’s redundant to say his food is good. But what else can you say? It’s a fucking perfect open face sandwich. But he’s eating it with you, and half of it’s your own handiwork, and all of your pantry, so you leave your praises purely reaction based, unsaid.
You're honestly a little distracted, reading too hard into the act of him giving you the black plate and taking one of your shitty plastic ones for himself. Time to talk.
“Itinerary for today?”
“Gotta talk chaos menu with Syd before opening, then, well, running the restaurant all night… And then I’ll—I’ll go home.”
“Yeah? You can come back here, if you want to.” Thank God you took a bite in time to hide your selfish disappointment. It’s good for him to go home, but then he’s not here. Real Catch-22.
He shakes his head, “I think I’m good now. Thanks, though. What’s—What’s uh, your plans for today?”
“I’m gonna drop you off wherever you’re going, n’ then I’m gonna go shopping for Syd’s gift—”
“It’s her fuckin’ birthday or somethin?” It’s a delight how immediately panicked he is by this. You're also thankful because he's so distracted it means you won't have to tell him the rest of your plans for today. You'd like to keep that life separate. For as long as possible, at least.
“Nono, it’s just, I didn’t get her anything for her opening night and I wanna change that. I’ll get you something too.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” The very idea of waiting for his response is freaking you the fuck out, so you’re quick to clear your voice and add. “I’ll give you my number, in case you end up needing to crash.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. Ey, text me your invoice too.”
You take both your cleared plates to the sink, and the lie is swift. You've gotten a lot better at that, in the past year.
“Oh no worries, your sister already covered it.”
It is 6:30 and your life is over. Kidding. Unless? You dropped off Carmen at the train station hours ago and, to use his words, ‘it’s hit’. He’s at The Bear and there’s nothing for you to fix there— So you’re not.
You’ve only been there like three times and yet it started to feel… Like your thing!
Like, like you’d just come in everyday and… Dunno, fix something... But it’s not like they’re gonna have a crisis everyday. Especially not ones that Fak can't handle himself if needed— There's no way he's gonna last at hosting, anyways. You’re now realizing the unrealistic dream— Possibly more unrealistic than homestead you.
Speaking of, Homestead You would probably throw up, if she saw the you you’re looking at in the mirror right now. You look good. Objectively, you know you look good. The mug is stamped. Your pants are black, high-waisted, and give you an ass. The bright red leather corset top is… Chafing, but it looks good! It's a sweetheart neckline so you have to take off your long rope chain necklace from Mikey and shove it in your pocket— Which is fine and doesn't feel bad at all. And listen, listen, being an on-call bottle girl is good money!
And you might get put on bar tonight! You don’t know for sure if you’re gonna have to juggle around lit up bottles for a bunch of fucking geezers!
...
God, fuck, it’s 10:20 and your life is over.
This group of geezers have been fucking annoying and fucking Cherry wouldn’t get off fucking bar even though you literally covered for her last week and these stupid grandpas asked if gratuity is included— No fucking shit! Did you take their card and put a 40% tip? Yeah, maybe. Fuck them! They’re too fucking rich to notice! And they took three hours to leave! Gonna bash this champagne bottle over his bald fucking—
“Ey! That’s a face I remember.”
You hear your name— Not Tony, not Chip, not Cousin. Your name.
You turn to see, oh fucking hell, let God kill you—
“Uncle J!~ Good to see you!~ What a surprise! It’s Jack, here.” Jack of all Trades. It was cute at the time of sign up. Your smile is bright, fake, strained, and beautiful.
“Been too long, really.” Cicero isn’t a bad guy—Correction: Cicero isn’t a bad guy, to you, but as Mikey once put it, he’s a fuckin’ ball buster and in your case, you’re one of the few people beneath him that he asks favours from. Always wants free labour and your expertise. And he always has a habit of asking for favours the second you need one back. But you don’t need one right now! So it’s fine! Everything’s fine!
“Do your Uncle a favour,”—Fully not your Uncle—“Could you pair me and my friends here with a good red?”
You let it go that they’re having fish and asking for a red. Stupid thing to get hung up over right now. You make a commission of it anyways; you just pick the most expensive bottle. He won’t know the difference. The Bear would know the difference. Carmen would notice the difference... Alright, relax.
While pouring glasses, Jimmy whispers to his compatriots and one by one they all peel off. It is almost alarming how quickly this group of men turn and leave without a second thought, taking their glasses with them.
You raise your brows and look at Cicero. “Ah. This is the moment where I sit?”
He nods, gesturing to the booth. “This is the moment where you sit.”
You slip into the booth, sitting across from him. “What do you need?”
“Right to the point with you.”
“I hate suspense.” You shrug.
“You liked Mikey.”
What the fuck?
You bite your inner cheek, hard. “Don’t say that shit.”
“I liked him too,” He says it solemnly, like your mutual grief is a proper apology. He takes a long sip of his stupid red wine. “Did you hear? Cousin Vinnie and Mira are gettin’ hitched, finally.”
“I have no fucking idea who Vinnie and Mira are.” You take the glass when he hands it to you, taking a sip. Small. You gotta drive home, after all.
“Really? It’s a big wedding—Destination too, in New York—”
“I hate to remind you, but I was friends with Mikey, not his family.” Not his biological one, at least. The Beef, sure. But you literally only met his siblings two days ago. “What’s a wedding gotta do with me?”
He bristles, and finally cuts it short. “Around three hundred guests, seven-hour shift, open bar—” “Oh, for fuckssake—” “Listen—”
“It’s an easy gig, I’ll fly you out for it, it’s a month and a half away, you’ll get to attend a big fuckin’ Italian wedding— Which will be a shitshow, certainly, so free entertainment; and Michelin Star level catering, kind of.”
You squint. Kind of? “You got Carmy in on this shit?”
“You know ‘em?”
You nod, pressing your elbows on the table, “We’ve recently become acquainted. What d’you got on him for him to cater a wedding?”
“He’s eight-hundred grand in the hole.” “Fuck!” “He gets thirty off for catering. Smart boy, said yes.”
Christ, you massage the bridge of your brow with one hand and pull out your phone with another to check your calendar, you might as well see if you can even entertain the idea. You don’t need a favour right now, maybe you can bargain and get him to actually pay you for it, this time.
“I dunno, Uncle J…”
Oh.
28 unread texts from Syd.
3 unread texts from an unknown number— Probably Carmen.
9 missed calls from Syd.
Uncle Jimmy, always, always, has a fucking way, of asking for a favour when you need one…
You slam your phone, screen down on the table, straightening your posture in your seat. “I have demands.”
He motions for you to continue, taking his wine glass back. “You always do.”
“You and your friends are gonna tip a hundred percent tonight.”
“That why you give me a 2016 Fisher?”
“I like to think ahead.”
“Smart girl.” He shrugs, palms of his hands out. Which means yes.
“If Uncle Lee comes up to the bar I’m throwing a fork at him and leaping over the counter.”
He chuckles, “Thought you 'didn’t know family'.”
“I remember what I'm told.”
His amusement fades quickly, remembering first hand. He nods. “…You’re allowed to jump him if I’m watching first.”
“And you’re friends with my boss, right?”
“We’re acquainted.”
“I’m gonna punch out now and you’re gonna smooth that out for me.”
He perks up, amused, glancing at your phone, “Somethin’ come up, Chip?”
“Don’t call me Chip.” He wants to poke at you, just a little bit more, but there’s a rattled look in your eyes that he’s so rarely seen that he lets it go.
He waves his hand, shrugging, “Be safe. I'll send you the details. December wedding, remember.”
At the end of the day, Cicero isn’t a bad guy to you, someone who loved his nephew as much as he did.
You’re running to your car while you dial back Syd. You don’t have time to read the texts, all you need to know is that it’s an emergency. She picks up just after the first ring.
“Syd what the—” “Code blue!”
You almost fall on your face and eat asphalt. For a flash, you’re in the back of an ambulance being handed a defibrillator at the age of 22, surrounded by faces just as scared and young as you. Then you’re back in the parking lot, slotting the key into your car door because the fob doesn’t work. It’s never worked.
“S-Someone’s having a fucking heart attack!?”
“What?!”
“That’s what fucking code blue means!”
“Oh my god! Sorry! No, I was just saying the thing that scares doctors the most!”
“Yeah, I’m fuckin’ scared Syd!” You slide into the driver’s seat and slam your car door shut. You take a deep breath, white knuckling the steering wheel. “…I’m-I'm sorry for yelling! Where are you, what’s going on?”
“The—The Bear, the restaurant.” The second you have a location you’re revving off.
“Nat locked herself in the office—” “Like trapped?” This shit again?
“No, no— Like she locked herself in— She did this like two hours ago and I thought she was just taking a breather— But we’ve closed and, and like almost everyone left and she’s still not coming out— And she blocked the door inside— and— And I think she’s trying to hide that she’s basically shrieking in pain every five minutes.”
You take a long time to register anything she’s just said. Her tone is as panicked as you feel on the inside. You’re only now registering the ambient yelling of Richie and Carmen in the background.
“…Did—Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah Syd, I’m just thinking.” You don’t step on the gas on purpose, it just happens. “A pregnant woman is screaming in pain— in intervals— behind a blockaded door?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Have you called an ambulance?”
There’s a much more distinct yell in the background from Richie, “No cops!”
Then from Carmen, “No coverage!”
“Yeah…” Syd shakily continues for them, “The insurance is a problem, and Richie said— Motherfucker—” You hear a muffled scrap over the phone before Richie continues on for Syd.
“Er, yeah, Cousin, Sugar keeps yelling that she’s fine ‘n blocked the door, if we call the cops they’re gonna ram that shit down and take her to the loony bin.”
“That’s not— That’s not what paramedics do.”
“That’s what they all do.”
“Richie, y’know, I was a paramedic, right?”
“…You a fuckin’ fed, Chip?”
“Richie, if I was a fuckin' narc you would be in prison by now. I, I— I'll be there in like, like eight minutes, everyone stop fucking yelling at Sugar!”
You’re there in four. You almost rear end someone and you run every yellow you get but you’re there in four. You don’t park properly in the back, you just drive your car in and turn it off in the middle of the lot. You don’t bother to be let in, you just punch the code in as you remember it. As Natalie told you.
“Oh good you—Oh my, God?” Syd is no better than a man in this moment, going from grateful for your presence to being one intrusive thought away from whistling.
You did not have time to change out of your ...outfit and someone has been hogging your Carhartt. You pass Syd quickly, waving a hand in front of her face. Goddammit, why do your boot heels have to have that incredibly satisfying femme fatale click right now?
“Alright— Relax—”
“Holy shit, Chippy!” Richie was yelling at Sugar through the door along with Carm, but once alerted to your presence is now snapping his fingers. You'd describe him more as impressed than actually attracted to you. “You clean up!”
“Cousin, are you—” He grabs Carmen’s face, turning it to you— Carmen does of course, immediately slap Richie’s hand away which of course, means they just start smacking each other's hands. Like preteen girls. “Ey, get the fuck off—” “I just want you to look at a pretty girl, Cousin—!” “Stop fuckin’ touchin’ me!” “Are you looking!?” “I—”
“Everyone shut the fuck up!”
You silence the room. You’re thankful most of the staff has left by now since it’s well after close. It's just Carmen, Syd, Richie, Tina, and Fak for some goddamn reason...You can't be mean you're handymen, you have to stick together.
“I look different from the usual jumpsuit, yes, we get it, can we move on? Pregnant woman?”
Syd is the first to speak, “…Were you on a date, though?”
You blink and roll your eyes all at once, twisting your head to her, “Syd—”
“It’s good to see you getting out there, baby.” Tina, deeply unhelpful in this moment, puts a hand around your shoulder. Oh to have a mother’s judgment when she’s not even your mother.
“O-kay!” You drag on the ‘kay’, clapping your hands together, “Everyone, just get your thoughts out in the next five seconds and then we’re moving on.”
“Chippy, I cannot believe you’ve held this out on me—” “—I meant it like-like a concerned, did we interrupt your date—” “—The red is unbelievable on you, Cousin!” “I need you to teach me how you do your makeup—” “Can you— can you yell again—?” “Fak!” “Oh, so that’s too much?”
A cacophony, it continues on. Your eyes glaze over, and you’re waiting for Sugar to let out a scream so everyone remembers the fucking point of being here. But then you look at Carmen. Everyone’s pivoted from staring at you to yelling at each other. But Carmen; Carmen is still looking at you. Stupid soft scary eye contact. And his voice is so much quieter than the yelling but it’s the thing that you hear anyways.
“It looks tight.”
There’s a possibility that when you killed the teenage girl inside you that you also killed the feminist. Because there’s a small sub-sect of you that’s upset that he’s not objectifying you right now. That his vision is focused on you. Not the changes. He doesn’t seem to look at you any differently than when you’re wearing a jumpsuit and utility belt, covered in toilet water. This should not be annoying and yet it is.
“It is.”
He nods, eye contact unshifting, unblinking, “You wanna change?”
“Maybe after we find out whether or not your sister is in labour.”
He nods. He takes a second but he nods.
You approach him, rather, the door, knocking gently. Everyone quiets down.
You clear your throat, and once more, the persona is put on, you’re a paramedic, putting on that soft but firm reassuring authoritative tone. “E-M Rescue, I got a call for a wellness check on Natalie Berzatto?”
“Tony—” A groan of pain behind the door, “I am perfectly well! Everyone go home!”
You grimace, you motion with your hand for Fak to hand you a screwdriver— He keeps one in his breast-pocket, even when wearing a suit. Hey, you should start doing that.
“Nat, I’m a paramedic— Or I was—will you please let me in?”
“I don’t— Fuck! —Need a paramedic!”
“Never hurts to do a check-up, Nat.” You speak calmly, like you always did. “Listen, lover, if you don’t open the door, I’m gonna have to take it off its hinges, and we're gonna lose medic patient confidentiality.”
When she doesn’t reply after a good beat, you start to unscrew the top hinge; she can hear it, “Wait, wait, wait— Fuck-Fuck— I’m opening it!”
There’s another series of pained groans as she exerts herself to open the door, and once she does, it’s only by a crack, to look at you and you alone. She’s absolutely been crying. She speaks in a whispered tone. “Just you.”
You nod, handing the screwdriver back to Fak without breaking eye contact with her. “Just me.”
She cracks it open just enough for you to come in. And so, you do. Everyone is, for the first time, too worried about her shutting down to interrupt or yell a complaint.
You close the door behind you, pressing your back to it. You note the toppled over chair by your feet that she must’ve blocked it with. Plus the puddle of amniotic fluid beneath her. Oh fuck.
...
“You wanna talk or do you just want me to check your contractions?”
“I’m—” She shakes her head, covering her face. She half sits on the desk. “I’m fucking— I am not ready for this.”
“Yeah.” You nod. You’re not here to convince anyone they’re ready to be a fucking mother. But you’re here to listen, certainly.
“She’s gonna hate me.”
“Who?”
“Her—!” Her voice is choked, another contraction. You’re silently taking the time in your head. She points to her stomach.
“And— And we just opened, and— And I’m gonna have to go on maternity leave, which is the last fucking thing we need and— and— If I could just fucking keep her in!”
“Natalie.” You put a hand on her shoulder, she finally looks at you. “This is happening.”
“Not help—fu—ll.”
“I know it’s not. This is scary and there are no take backs—” “Very unhelp—”
“Nat, your daughter wants to meet you.”
You squeeze her shoulder; she looks like she’s gonna cry all over again for a completely different reason. “She probably won’t hate you. Who’s to say. But I know you’ll love her. And that’s enough, isn’t it?”
She nods, emphatically, but something is still bothering her. You squeeze her shoulder again. You whisper, so even if everyone’s ear is pressed to the door— Which you doubt, she’s screaming after all, they won’t hear.
“Carmen will still know you love him, even when you're not here.”
She immediately goes for a hug, you reciprocate with a shuddered ease. She sniffs, head on your shoulder. She stays there for a while before letting you go, nodding. “Okay.”
You hand her the tissue box next to her on the table, she takes it thankfully, crushing it in her hand. Another contraction. Oh, that couldn't have been more than 2 minutes. Oh fuck.
You kneel down in front of her, and you’re simply no longer in your body as a person but just the paramedic. You could not be more thankful that she’s wearing a dress today. Awkward requests of spreading legs and pulling off underwear aside, Natalie’s daughter does in fact really want to meet her. Oh fuck.
You look up at Natalie, between her knees, you speak cool, professional. “You’re crowning. This is gonna have to happen here. I'll have someone call your husband.”
You’re so calm that it doesn’t give Natalie the feeling or need to freak out, she just breathes. “Okay. Okay.”
You stand upright. “Do you prefer this office or somewhere else?”
“I can’t— Move.”
“Makes sense. Makes total sense. Okay. I’ll go get everything we need, I’ll be right back. I might send some people in, okay, love?”
She just grunts in reply, nodding, now that she’s not in as much emotional pain, she can entirely focus on her brutalizing physical pain.
“Oh, hey, I know—” You grab her purse, pulling out her phone and ear buds, handing them to her with haste, your calm demeanour is faltering just a bit. “Listen to some music, loud, y’know, chill…” You put the pods in her ear for her. She’s again, in too much pain to tell you to fuck off, and just plays her music loud.
You softly open the door, smiling just a bit too much as you leave, and very softly close the door behind you. Looking at the motley crew before you, your persona immediately falls apart. You really only wanted her to play music so you could scream. “Oh, my fucking God.”
“What’s happening, she good?” What a sweet, stupid brother, Sugar has.
You purse your lips together, eyes wide, shaking your head. “She’s going to give birth in like— Maybe six minutes. Max ten.” Everyone goes to speak in an uproar of panic, and then you slap yourself in the face. Hard. That stuns them silent.
“Alright!” You press your hands over your eyes, “Tina!”
She’s been around this block before, “What do you need?”
“Can you go sit in there with her? Tell her all the breathing exercises and shit? Keep her calm? Coming from you it won’t seem so—”
“Condescending as fuck?”
“Yes, exactly, can you?”
“Gotchu, baby.” She claps your shoulder when she walks past and into the office.
You clap hers in tandem, “Thank you, Mama—Okay, Richie!”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna need you to call Nat’s husband—”
“Why do I—”
“Because you’re a fuckin’ dad, Rich, and he will need you!” You’re yelling all pissed, snapping your fingers at him, but he does light up when you say it like that. “I don’t care if he wets his fuckin’ bed, tell him to get here!”
He salutes, walking off, “Aye aye, Cap’n Chip.”
You shake off the sting in your hand, God, you really did slap yourself too hard. You turn to the next targets. “Syd, Fak.”
Syd responds hesitantly for the both of them, since Fak is silently enjoying your colonel persona a little too much. “…Yes, C-Captain?”
“I need towels, a lot of clean towels— cloth ones, like sanitized clean— Warm half in water— And then I need a clean sheet— A table cloth or something, I don’t fucking care, something clean and big that you’re fine destroying. I need sterile sheaths, Syd you get those— Other than that, however they get to me, I don’t give a shit— Just scrub in before you touch anything!”
They almost knock into each other the way they run so fast. You yell after them. “Get the big sheet first, she needs to lay down!”
“Yes, Chef!”
You take a deep breath before moving your gaze onto Carmy. The screaming lead EM in you melts off your shoulders, just for the second.
He asks before you can even say anything, “Yes, Chef?”
“I need you to scrub in and get me gloves and an apron—” “On it, Chef—” “And you’re gonna sit in with me for the birth of your niece.”
He cringes, not to refuse, but just the mounting reality of the situation is dawning on him. His sister is going to give birth to his niece in their shared office of his high-class restaurant within it's first week of open.
But you then tag on, “Carmy, she needs you— Frankly, I’m not the one giving birth but fuckin' I need you. T-There.”
He softens instantly, like tranquilizing— Well, a bear.
“Yes, Chef.”
I know the opening probably feels so far away by now, but i do want to note that Breakfast Bruschetta is my own recipe that I used to make like every fuckin' day pre-employment. It's so goddamn good. I highly recommend it, babes. It's balsamic with brown sugar dissolved, btw, Carmy's just a quick explainer.
I wrote like a solid 75% of the labour sequence before deciding it just needed to have the breathing room of it's own chapter, so until next time for that one bbs. But I'm excited for it! And also dreading it! A lot of hard conversations combined with giving birth = nightmare to write, but well worth it, i think. Speaking of: I don't believe at the end of Season 2 that Sugar is at the end of her term of 36 weeks, but in our case here, she is. I'm very much so not interested in a very scary premature birth for our girl!! She's okay!! Dw!! I just wonked with time a little, hope that's okay.
And hey, look at that reveal! Bartender/Sommelier was code for bottle service-- Which is a very respectable career, btw, don't get it twisted-- I was critiquing it only in the way I would critique literally any other job: Misery Under Capitalism. And now we've got that fuckin' wedding in the future midst! Ah!!
Anyways please send me your thoughts ad nauseam, I reload my activity feed every 3 seconds to see what you guys are thinking. If you reblog, tell me what you think in the tags!! Yell at me in the replies!! Send an anon in!! I don't bite, I swear <3
#carmen berzatto#carmen berzatto imagine#carmen berzatto x reader#carmen berzatto x you#carmen x reader#carmy berzatto#carmy x reader#the bear fanfiction#the bear x reader#carmy the bear#the bear fx
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do you have any ideas for what you want for eiffel and hera post-canon?
yes, i do! the answer to that really depends on whether we're talking short term or long term, and what i want vs. what i think will happen is... well, i think they'll be okay. eventually. they'll get there.
i'm firmly in the camp that eiffel gets his memories back (fairly short-term in my mental timeline; given the most likely ways that he could get his memories back, it doesn't make much sense for him to be without them for more than a few months) and that hera gets a body (more complicated, and somewhat more long term), but my reasoning for why i think those things work narratively would be a long post in itself (and i've made multiple posts about those topics already) so i won't get into the why here. just, i think it happens.
the note the finale ends on definitely implies eiffel, hera, and minkowski intend to stick together on earth, and i think minkowski feels a lot of responsibility for them, given everything. so i think they live with her, for the foreseeable future. eiffel's not good at holding down a job, and hera... i think it's important that she gets a chance to try things without fear of failure and to separate her self worth from productivity. eiffel and hera are meant to be minkowski's slacker roommates. hera should be creating unmarketable art.
and the issue of where they live will come up pretty quickly, i think - hera doesn't have any particular attachment to anywhere, except for a desire to see the ocean, but mobility might be a problem. minkowski is a career military woman who's moved around a lot, but her husband worked in DC, so presumably they lived in... probably maryland or virginia? before she accepted the job, and that's a complicating factor if she's choosing who to prioritize. i think eiffel would be pretty adamant about staying in texas so he's at least in the same state as his daughter, even if he can't see her. and as much as i would like for eiffel to be able to be a part of her life again, because i know how much he wants that... i don't think it's very likely. at least not any time soon. and he won't handle that well.
speaking about post-canon wolf 359, i don't tend to get that into potential legal / media circuit stuff because... frankly, i don't think it's that important to what the show is about. i'm sure it will be a scandal, but lots and lots of space-travel-related scandals are going on in that world, and cutter and pryce were very intentionally not the public faces of goddard futuristics. it'll pass. that said, the aspect of that i am interested in is legal personhood - that's going to be a hurdle for hera to be able to live her life, and i think eiffel will worry - even if it isn't totally rational - about whether he'll be able to stay out of prison once no longer legally dead, not knowing exactly what the terms of cutter's arrangement were. being an ex-convict is going to complicate some facets of his life regardless.
there's just a lot of stuff that being on earth is going to bring up for them. and i think they'll be there for each other, obviously - one of the things i like most about their relationship is how much they're able to be a refuge for each other in some objectively horrible situations - but they're both pretty insecure people who feel like everyone is bound to replace them, and earth is going to give hera some serious separation anxiety while she's bound to one location and the others aren't, and those are things they're going to have to work through.
as for what i want for them... well. i think eiffel will give hera a 'promise ring' with a kind of jokey but good natured promise that one day she'll be able to wear it. and she does! but neither of them are sure if that counts as a proposal in retrospect and they dance around it for a while. they get married eventually, and - against her better judgment - minkowski agrees to be both eiffel's best man and hera's maid of honor. and ends up taking on way too much of the wedding planning, even though she said she wouldn't, because they're both super lax about it and it starts stressing her out. she tries to delegate to lovelace, but lovelace just thinks it's all really funny. eiffel gets married in a novelty tuxedo tee and minkowski apologizes to hera, but hera knows the type of guy she's marrying (and isn't concerned about tradition anyway) so it doesn't bother her.
#i'm so sorry this took me literally a month to reply to#it's a great question thank you for asking me. i've just been really sad.#i might've had a better answer if i was less sad but i hope this is okay regardless.#asks
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summary of my dnd character sheet so far
#probably going to be posting about her a lot i fear#lion.txt#baby's first real dnd campaign!!!!#zahira tag
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btw i am gonna talk about la elección interna but the songs were released while i was on vacation so now i'm slowly going through them (for now i've listened to 65/100). they are now choosing the final 12 songs (the second semifinal ends tomorrow) and i've voted in the last few polls, but i am also planning on making a post about the final 12 songs cause those theoretically represent the kind of artists / songs people are more excited to see represent spain in eurovision this year
#there's a lot of cool stuff !!! i will make a post with my personal favourites / standouts so you don't have to watch/listen to 100 songs#but it might get a bit long i'm warning you beforehand lol#very varied as well so :)#but yeah. the final 12 will probably be announced this week so i'll make a post about them as if those were the songs participating in#benidorm fest#once again on the importance of la elección interna: these two past years the 2 representants of spain were in the top 12 of la elección#interna#in 2022 the winners were tanxugueiras (nothing to add there)#and in 2023 was maría josé llergo (an artist very similar to blanca paloma)#let's see who wins this year! i fear aitana will win cause she's gonna be in the final for sure and has a massive fan following#so that might skew the results unfortunately#like i would love her to go to benidorm fest but thats... highly unlikely lol#i was gonna reserve my faves for my post but whatever. my favourite is fillas de cassandra <3
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Slay the Princess Concept Art
We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)
Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.
In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.
The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:
The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.
If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.
We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.
That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:
You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!
The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.
Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.
We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.
There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.
Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.
Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.
First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)
Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.
The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs.
The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.
A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.
The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.
Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.
If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.
An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.
Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.
Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)
So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.
Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.
She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)
And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.
This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.
Anyways, that's all we've got for you right now. Hope this was fun!
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So one of the cool and interesting ways ‘Steven Universe’ used to try and balance being both a series of 11-minutes episodes that each have their own satisfying emotional resolution and being an overarching story with complicated character arcs that take multiple seasons to resolve is the… I’m going to call it the ‘Not Quite Right Lesson’ episodes. Episodes where a character kinda learns a Very Important Lesson… but a more careful and retrospective look at the situation shows that what they learned is not Quite the Right Thing for them. They internalized something in that adventure which just ended up causing more Emotional Troubles for themselves farther down the line.
‘The Test’ is the most classic example.
As a standalone thing, it’s just a sweet episode about Steven learning to accept that his caretakers are also flawed and confused and figuring this shit up as they’re going along just like he is, and then doing a nice thing for their sake.
But looking back at this episode, it is quite obviously the nadir of Steven appointing himself as the Family Therapist and repressing all of his problems so he could better help the Gems’ with theirs. Like, there have been some early warning signs for this Complex, but this episode is the one that really cemented that idea in his mind and probably the reason it took him like the Entire Rest of the Show Including a Post-Finale Season to really untangle it.
But… also, I’ve been thinking a lot about the episode right after that, ‘Future Vision’. I think it’s also a very important ‘Not Quite Right Lesson Episode’ for the character of Garnet, and to some extent, the Crystal Gems as a whole. In many ways, it is to the CGs' character arcs' what 'the Test' is to Steven's.
So in this episode, Garnet reveals to Steven the fact that she has Future Vision. She hoped that telling Steven a little bit more about herself and being honest with him will lead to a greater understanding and a greater bond between them… but it backfired. It just led Steven to become a total paranoid, terrified wreck stuck in a total existential crisis.
And it seems like the lesson Garnet learned is that… she should’ve never taken that risk at all. That it would’ve been better for everyone if she just kept Steven ignorant of the truth forever.
Extremely reinforced with the ending of the episode, where Garnet chooses to once again hide an uncomfortable truth (that he just came very close to dying again) from Steven, for the sake of his own ‘peace of mind’.
So, like, the Gems were already hiding uncomfortable truths from Steven since day one. “If you could only know what we really are” and all of that. But I think… With the actual truth of Homeworld encroaching on them more and more at this point of the story arc, this would’ve been a great time for the Gems to reconsider their attitude and actually Explain to Steven What the Hell is Going On.
But instead, I think Garnet saw the events of ‘Future Vision’ as a reinforcement of the idea that there’s just some things Steven is Better Off Not Knowing. Actually being frank with him about Homeworld and the Diamonds and the War right there and then, that would have just overwhelmed Steven with fears and worries and would’ve ended up doing nothing but hurting him. And Garnet can’t accept that possibility, not again.
And so, Garnet, alongside Amethyst and Pearl, keep all these truths from Steven as long as possible. Only revealing bits of information when they have to. For Amethyst it’s about her emotionally-evasive attitude (also, she legit doesn’t know all of that stuff herself). For Pearl it’s about how she learned to romanticize Rose’s own fucked-up obsession with secrets. For Garnet, with her usually very direct attitude and preference for the most straightforward solutions, I think it’s very much the events of ‘Future Vision’ that were still playing in her head every time she had the choice to actually Explain something to Steven and decided not to.
But that, indeed, was Not Quite the Right Lesson. While being bluntly and directly told by Garnet all about the Many Ways He Could Die caused Steven to go into an anxiety spiral and an existential crisis for an episode - the way the Gems have been consistently secretive and evasive with Steven ended up causing him so much more emotional grief to him in the long run. As all of these secrets ended up revealed to him in the most surprising, dramatic and traumatizing way possible.
And the secretive attitudes ended up driving a wedge between Steven and the Gems.
Even after they promised to be more honest with him. Because the sight of Steven crying on the roof that day is one that Garnet can easily move away from. Because Garnet’s Not Quite Right Lesson was almost as difficult for her to unlearn as Steven’s own.
But after the big confrontation at the start of the Zoo Arc, Garnet ended up being the most upfront about the Crystal Gems’ history. Almost overeager to share what she knows about the past.
I mean also, again, Amethyst just has less to tell and Pearl is hiding secrets for reasons beyond her control - but I think it’s also important to consider from the perspective of Garnet’s arc.
Because the fallout of the Pink Diamond Reveal is very much centered around Garnet (or, well, Ruby and Sapphire). That was the Truth that was hidden from her 'for her own good'. And at the end of the day, despite all the grief that unveiling that truth has caused
It has also brought them, all of them, a lot closer.
There's a reason why 'the Truth' is Garnet's Final Missing Piece in the movie. It is as central to her character arc in the series as Lesbian AngstTM grief over lost love is to Pearl.
And still, some remnants of the Trauma of 'Future Vision' remained...
After all, even the very last episode of 'Future' was centered around the Gems once again trying to hide things from Steven (at that case, their turmoil about him leaving) for his own sake
Even though it once again just caused Steven a whole lot of grief.
It's maybe notable that at the end of this episode, Garnet, once again, tells Steven what's waiting for him in his Future...
#steven universe#su#steven universe future#su future#suf#su analysis#garnet#garnet steven universe#garnet su#steven#steven universe garnet#su garnet#ruby#sapphire#ruby steven universe#ruby su#sapphire su#sapphire steven universe#steven quartz universe#steven quartz demayo#su steven
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Okay I think I'm ready to write the second part of this post about Milsiril
To make it easier for me I'll just divide this into her relationship with Kabru, Mithrun and Helki (her ex-canary prisoner teammate)
First about Kabru
This is an extra from the daydream hour 5. The caption says "Something like this might as well have happened" so its probably not canon but could be. I honestly think his reaction to Milsiril visiting and being overbearing says a lot about the type of relantionship they have. This is the fakest bitch in the whole of dungeon meshi, he never says what he trully thinks unless there's an advantage to doing so, he's a people pleaser that does and says anything to make people like/trust him. And yet he immediatly converts into "Mooooooom you're embarassing meeeeee" when he sees it's Milsiril.
This translation used "Mom" but as I understand the original he uses the more formal version so I think it would be closer to "Mother" but still he acknowleges her as his Mother, and he acts like her kid in every interaction we see between them.
I really don't understand where the idea that he learned to be fake from being "forced" to be her adoptive son comes from.
(Continuing under a cut)
The other interaction we see between them is the Kabru extra from the Adventurer's Bible
Kabru comes to her with a deep fear he clearly has had even before she adopted him, he trusted her with this fear and she did not disappoint him, she comforted him and then gave him the information he needed to believe what she was saying
I'd also like to point out in no moment she discouraged him from calling his his bio-mom "Mom". He also says she taught her children everything they asked
I doubt this would only be true for him, it also mirrors something she said in the manga
"You can go ahead and learn all you want about something else." I believe it when Kabru says she made every effort to answer her children's questions. I think this is also the way she expresses the love she has for them. Plus I love the thought bubble with Kabru mirroring what he learned from her. I also love this daydream hour, she sacrifices her own comfort to do something for Kabru.
Milsiril isn't a perfect mother tho, besides the fact she is overprotective she comes from a very different culture from her children. I like to call her Kabru's white mom cause I think that would be the real world equivalent. This extra is the one I think the most about showing this context perfectly
Kabru wants to share Utaya sweets but looks at his mom looking gloomy/rejected so he talks about fruitcake instead. This very rude for Milsiril to do since she's kinda trying to overwrite his actual cultural background, but I think its done more as a "I want you to like the things I like" rather than something nefarious, and once again Kabru doesn't hide at all his distaste for it, he does the bare minimum to please his mom since she's being dramatic but he doesn't lie to her, he shows how displeased he is about fruitcake, something he refuses to do when eating the harpy omelette that is way worse, because he must make a good impression for Laios. Kabru is honest with his overbearing white mom once again.
Now a little about Rin, from Kabru's context, this is her extra in the Adventurer's Bible
(look at Helki he's such a gremlin i love him) anyway, Rin has a trauma about elves, they really mistreated her so she hates them, but when they notice she isn't thriving they go to Milsiril for help (Helki specifically I'll talk more about him next). I think this indicates she really has a better understanding of short lived kids, her kids are thriving differently from the ones the other elves try to care for. I'd also like to remember she lives secluded from other elves so while Kabru probably had lots of interactions with elves during his life, most of it was probably spent with Milsiril and her other adoptive kids. She also asks Kabru if he would do this to help Rin, he isn't being forced or anything, I also think it's good that Milsiril knows she cant take in any more kids, this to me shows she's worried about the quality of life her kids have. That is all to say, Rin is the one with elf trauma, not Kabru, because Kabru had Milsiril to shelter him from them.
Helki
This will be short and sweet since there's barely anything about Helki, he's her prisioner companion from her time in the canaries, but he was pardoned after Utaya, it says so in the Canarie's Structure page in the new adventurer's guide but I cant really find it translated again... so here's google's machine translation (I remember it saying "Retired and pardoned as a reward after Utaya", something like that)
so officially he isn't a prisoner anymore, but I think he still works as a canary, even so he and Milsiril seem quite close, he is the one to go talk to her about Rin, He is there when she's training Kabru (both laughing at Kabru and then participating). I saw people theorizing she stays close to him because he is also someone who she can feel superior to, but I don't believe it at all, he's STILL in contact with her even after they have nothing to with each other, I think they really have a friendship, and there's no point where it seems like she feels like she's better than him or that he's less than her, people seem to interpret Milsiril and her relationships in the worst possible ways every time and I don't understand why.
This segways into Mithrun
I've also seen people assuming she only got close to Mithrun because now he needs her and has no power over her, once again with the theory that Milsiril surrounds herself with people she can feel superior to. But once again, Milsiril had a change of perspective about Mithrun after seeing his Dungeon
Rather than she feeling superior to him I think rather she realized he was just like her. (And I think she's friends with Helki for a similar reason, it's probably easier to see him as an equal than other nobles)
I've also seen this part used as proof of that. "He said that you've got suspicious ulterior motives and that I shouldn't listen to you" as if that's true, but this is past Mithrun, the one that didn't trust anyone and thought ill of all his teammates, ofc he doesn't believe someone would help him without an ulterior motive. This doesn't prove much about her real motivations.
Also before she showed up, Mithrun was being cared for by servants hired by his brother, he isn't someone helpless she has power over, he is still a member of an important Noble family that has a caring brother providing for him, he can do without Milsiril, he had done without her for 20 years before Utaya happened and she quit the Canaries.
This is all to say I think Milsiril is just a white(elf) adoptive mom doing her best, I don't see much of anything nefarious about her or her motivations, she is flawed as all the dunmeshi characters are, she isn't a perfect mom, she isn't an evil mom, she's just a person.
Elves in general also see short lived species as "children" so I imagine this makes her "You'll always be my baby" attitude way worse, she really treats pre-teen/teen Kabru like he's a toddler sometimes. But she also respected him enough to go all out in training him. I think they're a family with everything that entails.
PS: I didn't get much into Interracial adoption since this is something that happens irl too and I don't know much about all the issues that entails, but in the end, in this case, it seems like a net positive for the kids she adopts considering all we see about how she raised Kabru.
#dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi spoilers#Milsiril#Mithrun#Kabru#The Canaries#part 2 of 2#longpost#long post#Kabru of Utaya#Helki#dunmeshi thoughts
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(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent
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Tw: vivisection mention (not in detail), bad Fenton parents
Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually
(Pt. 2 here) (Pt. 3 here)
(Masterlist/subscription post)
—
It was a dark, cold, miserable night, and Scarecrow, Jonathan Crane, wanted nothing more than to be home, covered in blankets with the heater set to max as he worked on his most recent strain of fear toxin.
Instead he was at the docks, standing in as backup for the Penguin as he made a deal with some sleaze-bag smugglers. Something about some sort of body armor for his hired help. Crane hadn’t really paid much attention to the Penguin’s words, only caring enough to show up because of the reward.
But honestly, he couldn’t care less about the money at this point.
He was cold, and miserable, and his leg hurt something fierce (he’d had chronic pains ever since being mauled by Killer Croc some time ago), and he was so, so close to a breakthrough with his new toxin, and he really couldn’t stand the Penguin anyways. The only thing keeping him there was his reputation as a rogue.
Just as Crane was deciding that the whole ordeal wasn’t worth it, he heard the sound of a chase a few blocks down. With a deep, heavy sigh, he moved from the wall he had been leaning against, looming in the alleyway as he waited for the potential threat to reveal itself.
A few moments later, a boy came careening into the alleyway, sliding to a stop when he noticed the Scarecrow, his eyes growing impossibly wide. Beneath the mask, Jonathan grinned.
The boy swore, loudly, glancing between Scarecrow and the exit of the alleyway. As the echoing sound of footsteps grew closer, he chose to face the way he came, turning his back to Scarecrow.
What an idiotic way to get killed. Either the boy was a complete and utter fool, or there was something out there worse (to him, at least) than the Scarecrow.
Jonathan Crane tilted his head slowly, considering. He could just cut his losses and leave, Penguin be damned, or he could stay and see what had the boy so spooked.
Eventually, unfortunately enough, his curiosity won out. He shifted, bringing a hand to his side where he kept several canisters of fear toxin.
Crane had to bite back a groan when the boy’s pursuers entered the alleyway.
It was those damned idiots in white suits.
They had been tailing him for weeks now. They were easy enough to fight, but they were annoyingly persistent, and always seemed to have a way to find him. (Not to mention, the Riddler had strong opinions on their outfits, and if he had to hear the white-suit-in-Gotham rant one more time he was going to throttle him.)
Led by the men in white was a woman in a teal hazmat suit. Jonathan had seen her around, too, though less frequently than the others. He had honestly assumed that she was just a new C-tier rogue and avoided her like the plague.
Her eyes went wide as saucers when she saw Jonathan standing a few feet from the boy. No one moved a muscle.
“Danny,” the woman spoke softly. The boy, Danny, flinched, glancing between her and Scarecrow, “come on, we can talk about this. Your father and I only want to help you.”
He was running from his mother?
Scarecrow paused after that revelation, choosing to fully take in the boy’s appearance.
He was lean, almost gaunt, and wearing clothes several sizes too big for him, probably stolen. His entire body shook, from fear and cold both, and he clutched his stomach with one hand. At first, Scarecrow assumed that it was due to being out of breath, but as he looked closer he could see blood staining the dark fabric of the boy’s shirt.
He was injured, underweight, and running from his parents.
Something that felt a lot like rage swelled in Jonathan’s heart.
“Danny, you don’t get it! We’re so close now. We can fix you, and then we can go home, and everything can go back to normal,” she said, smiling in a way that was clearly supposed to be reassuring. She took a few steps forward, the men behind her clearly readying their weapons.
The boy backed away from his mother, inadvertently coming closer to Scarecrow.
He glanced up at Crane again, his blue eyes shining in fear, but not of him.
Sickening. Sickening.
In one fluid motion, Jonathan grabbed the boy by the wrist, pulling him behind him, and threw a large canister of fear gas into the group who had been chasing him.
The liquid in the container turned to gas as soon as it broke open, billowing out and filling half of the alleyway with a thick yellow smog.
The boy gasped, pulling his shirt over his face in a pathetic attempt to filter out the toxin. It would have to do, though, Scarecrow thought, rushing forward to force the boy’s aggressors to breathe in the gas.
The fight that the men put up was pitiful. The few individuals who didn’t breathe in the toxin immediately were clearly unused to fighting hand-to-hand, and dropped like flies in Scarecrow’s wake.
Just as the men began to spasm and shout in their terror, as if on cue, the familiar wail of police sirens reached the Scarecrow’s ears.
He heaved a heavy, irritated sigh, fingers twitching for a cigarette. He was trying to quit as of late, but he felt that after today, he might deserve one.
Though now was not the time to be thinking of cigarettes.
Jonathan approached the boy, mindful of any signs he might run off.
The boy didn’t seem to notice his approach in the slightest, just staring at the woman in the jumpsuit as she writhed on the ground.
Right. That would most likely be traumatic for a child to see, wouldn’t it?
Scarecrow moved in front of the boy, blocking his line of sight. The boy looked up at him now, his face completely blank.
“The police are on their way,” Scarecrow spoke, his voice low. The boy didn’t acknowledge him in any way.
“You don’t want to be here when they arrive, do you?”
After several moments pause, the boy shook his head slowly. He looked numb.
Dissociation, most likely.
“You’ll come with me, then.”
It was a statement, not a question, but he waited for the boy’s response regardless. As soon as he nodded in agreement, Jonathan lifted him up, carrying him out of the cold, miserable alleyway.
Scarecrow paused briefly to warn the Penguin of the incoming officers through the comm he had been given, and then he was off, weaving through the streets and alleyways towards his getaway car.
…
The drive back to his safe house was quiet. The boy didn’t look over at him once, instead opting to stare out ahead of him.
…
Luckily, they were able to make it back without detection. Jonathan ushered the boy into his small apartment, sitting him down on the dingy couch that had come with the lease.
“Wait here, alright?” Jonathan said, the boy nodding once in response.
With that, he retreated into the small kitchen, looking for some sort of warm beverage.
It was nearly three in the morning now, so coffee was out of the question. He was completely out of the hot chocolate he had bought for whenever Eddie or Harley came over for a visit, so that was out too.
He supposed the only option was his chamomile tea. Did teenagers like tea? He supposed it didn’t really matter, the kid was on the run from his parents in the house of a Gotham rogue. Surely he had bigger things to worry about.
Jonathan made the drinks quickly, leaving the kitchen with two mugs in hand. He gave one to the boy, who looked up at him in surprise, before settling into his own seat.
It was an incredibly comfortable old leather armchair that he had gotten some years ago and stubbornly held onto ever since. He usually had one of the rogues he was at least somewhat friendly with pick it up when he entered Arkham.
Whenever Eddie and Harley were over, they would call it his old man chair, and he would tell them to leave.
The two of them sat quietly for a while, drinking their tea slowly. It was clear that the boy was leaving whatever headspace he had slipped into, becoming more alert (and uncomfortable) by the second.
“So,” Crane began, pausing before speaking more quietly when he saw the boy flinch, “you knew them.”
It was not a question.
The boy nodded, curling in on himself. He held the mug close to his chest, no doubt soothed by the warmth.
“They’ve been following me around for some time now,” Crane continued, “and you’re going to tell me why.”
The boy looked up at him, a pained expression written all over his face.
“You won’t believe me,” he murmured, curling up even further.
His clothes were soaked. Jonathan should have put down a towel before letting him sit down.
“Sure I will,” he said, ignoring the blood and water seeping into his furniture.
The landlord would not be happy.
“It’s gonna sound crazy.”
“I’ve been to Arkham.”
The boy paused, before mumbling something quietly.
“Again? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said,” the boy huffed, quickly changing his tone when he remembered who he was talking to, “they…think you’re a ghost.”
“A ghost,” Crane repeated flatly.
“I told you it was gonna sound crazy!” The boy protested, before wrapping his arms around himself.
“Well,” Jonathan hummed, “it’s not the strangest thing I’ve heard in Gotham. Explain it to me.”
The boy paused, glancing up at his face, no doubt looking for some sign of mockery. He found none.
Then, he opened his mouth, and explained everything he could.
Ghosts, the portal to another world, the GiW, his parents. It was all incredibly far-fetched, but also far too consistent to be made up on the spot, and Crane could tell that the boy genuinely believed what he was saying.
“…but, if you don’t believe me, fine. I know it probably sounds stupid and fake,” he mumbled, looking away.
“I’ll believe you for now,” Crane said. The boy whipped his head up, staring at him in shock.
“If I do trust that what you’re saying is true, though, then why do I show up on their equipment as a ghost? I’m not dead, and never have been.”
“Um,” the boy hummed, looking somewhat nervous. Understandable, really.
“Well, have you by any chance been involved in any lab accidents recently..?”
Jonathan Crane froze, his face dropping. The boy noticed his change in demeanor, flinching slightly.
“Penguin,” he hissed out, his voice slightly inhuman. “Cobblepot, that motherfucker.”
“Wait—calm down! The angrier you get, the easier you’ll show up on the radar!”
Crane glared down at the boy, seething with rage. He once again flinched, looking away from him. With an extraordinary amount of effort, Jonathan slumped back down in his chair, breathing deeply in an effort to calm himself.
When he cracked his eyes back open, the boy was openly staring at him, curiosity written all over his face.
As soon as he noticed Crane looking back at him, he glanced away, straightening in his seat.
“Well, you’ve given me a lot to think about. In the morning, we’re going to discuss this in a lot more detail,” he said, standing up with slow movements. The boy stood as well, hands clasped together.
“For now, though, you’re going to let me take a look at that wound of yours, and then you’re going to take a shower and go to bed.”
The rest of the night went rather quickly.
The boy was rather hesitant to show him his wound, instead assuring him that it had been properly sewn up and that he was fine. Crane was having none of it, though, and gave him a once-over just in case.
It was, very clearly, the kind of cut used during an autopsy. Danny didn’t offer any information, so Crane had to assume that he was either back from the dead, or he had been vivisected. Either was possible in Gotham.
At the very least, Danny hadn’t lied about the stitches, and the wound was already beginning to heal.
With that, Danny showered quickly (he leapt out with a shriek the moment the hot water ran out), and went to bed in borrowed clothes without much complaint.
Thus, Jonathan was left with cold water for his shower, and slept on the still-damp couch so that the boy could have a bed to sleep in. Somehow, he found that he didn’t mind as much as he thought he would.
#dcxdp#dc x dp#dp x dc#dpxdc#dc x dp crossover#dc x dp fic#liminal scarecrow#AWWAWAW IM DONE#FINALLY#this was super fun to write btw#edited while I was sick in bed so if the paving’s still bad there’s not much I can do about it HDKFNSJDJF#*pacing
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Writing a Story from Start to Finish - Guide
I see you guys in the tags and reblogs talking a lot about how you have a desire to write, but have no clue what to write about, or where to even start figuring that out. While starting any project can be incredibly daunting, I wanted to put together a little guide to hopefully make it a bit more accessible. Be warned, this will probably be a long post.
Step 1: Form an idea
All writing begins with this: an idea. Ideas can start as small as an object, or as big as a world or cast of characters. What’s important is that your idea genuinely interests you, and makes you want to explore it more.
There are a million ways to gain inspiration for ideas, but my favourite method is a sort of brainstorm/mind map of all the little and big things you find interesting. Any tropes, characters, places, concepts, objects, animals, other stories, etc. you love—write them down. Then, start connecting the pieces. Each connection is one concept or idea you could explore further.
If this doesn’t work for you, try using some writing prompts or check out 15 ways to spark new ideas.
If you are a planner, proceed to Step 2. If you are a pantser, skip to step 7.
Step 2: Create your Protagonist
Now that you have a sort of concept or inspiration to work off of, you need your main character. There are about as many ways to create characters as there are characters themselves, and each method is going to work better or worse for every writer.
At the barest minimum, all your protagonist needs is a Goal to work towards, a Reason for wanting it, and a Flaw that keeps them from having it right away.
These three things can form a baseline character. Consider what the thing they want, why they want it, and what’s keeping from it says about them as a person.
Rapunzel (from Disney’s Tangled) wants to see the ‘floating lights’ on her birthday. She wants to because she believes she will learn more about herself through seeing them. Her fear over disappointing and disobeying her ‘mother’ keeps her from it.
My favourite character creation technique is actually Here—it takes you through creating character in order to create story.
If that one doesn’t work for you, try this one. It is more focused on defining traits and figuring out the personality of the character first.
Step 3: Your Plot is your Protagonist’s Arc
As stated in the character creation technique I shared in Step 2, character is plot. By that I mean, the character’s journey is the plot of the story. We’re here to see the protagonist transform because of the circumstances incited in the beginning.
So to form a plot, we need to know who the character is at the beginning, and what they need to learn by the end.
Your character’s arc is A but B so C:
A – your character and their flaw
B – The conflict they go through
C – how they change
“Obsessed with success, Jenny Beech works tirelessly to earn the approval of her strict parents and graduate top of her class, but when the new girl in town pulls her into a whole new world of excitement and fun, she must stand up for herself against her impossible standards and learn how to be a teen again.”
This one sentence has everything we need to know about this story and character: “Obsessed with success (character trait/flaw), Jenny Beech works tirelessly to earn the approval of her strict parents and graduate top of her class (goal), but when the new girl in town pulls her into a new world of excitement and fun (conflict), she must stand up for herself against her impossible standards and learn how to be a teen again (change).”
If you have these three things, congratulations! You already have a story. If you’d like, you may begin writing it now (skip to step 8). Or…
Step 4: Theme
I did a whole post on theme you should check out here. Essentially, the big takeaway is that your theme is a lesson to impart to the readers—which means it is not a question, it is an answer.
For the example given above, our theme would likely be something like, “Teens need to balance their additional responsibilities as they mature into young adults with the joy of being young and having fun.” Or, “Friends and a close social network is more important than having the best grades.” Or, “It’s important to take frequent time away from work in order to maintain one’s humanity.” Etc. Etc.
Theme is conveyed through what your characters need to do to succeed (or what they do that causes their failure). If Jenny lets loose and suffers consequences for it in the end, we’re saying that she should have stuck to her studies rather than letting herself have fun. If she lets loose and is rewarded with a greater relationship with herself and her parents, we’re saying that was the correct thing to do.
Step 5: Outlining
Now that we have a plot and a theme, we can outline our story. An outline is like a roadmap of what you’re writing. It can be as specific or broad as you want. My outlines tend to follow this structure, and I improvise the little stuff in between, but if you need to get all your ideas within your outline, that’s good too!
Just make sure your notes make sense to you so when you need to know where to go next, you have a handy tool just for that.
Step 6: Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is probably where you’ll spend the most time because there’s just so much. However, I also find it one of the most fun parts. The minimal thing you need to know is your world’s normal, and how that normal is disrupted in the inciting incident.
Jenny’s normal is school work and trying to impress her parents. The disruption is the new girl in town.
Rapunzel’s normal is the tower and her hobbies. The disruption is Flynn breaking in.
I did a more in-depth post on worldbuilding here, but the basics is just ask questions, explore consequences, and do plenty of research.
Which brings us to…
Step 7: Research
This can also be done after your first draft, but can’t be skipped entirely. It’s important when trying to convey experiences that may not be wholly your own, or unique perspectives, that you understand the context behind those things in the real world.
Once again, ask questions, talk to people, and remain open to what you find.
Step 8: We can start writing now
Now that you have all your planning ducks in a row (or have a good inspiration to jump from) it’s time to start writing! Either go from the outline you built, or just try out scenes. I have some tips for actually writing the dang thing that I’ll put here:
Let me know how your writing goes, good luck!
#writing#creative writing#writers#screenwriting#writing community#writing inspiration#books#film#filmmaking#writing advice#writing masterlist#writing a story from start to finish#novel writing#planning
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ASTRO OBSERVATIONS 34 👽
Im obsessed with Fama(408) Persona Charts they will tell you sooo much! For example the microbiologist Alexander Fleming whos known for his discovery of penicillin, which started the antibiotic revolution. He got asteroid Aesculapia(1027) (Aesculapius was the god of medicine) conjunct Ascendant in his Fama Persona Chart.
There is nothing like the eyecontact between you and the person you have Pluto conjunct Ascendant in the composite chart with. 🥵
Dejanira(157) is a very sad asteroid but when its conjunct a planet like Mars it can make a person refuse to be a victim. It can make someone fight back hard even at the slightest sign of being victimized.
People with Venus Conjunct Chiron usually blow up and become extremely famous because people have a sensitive (Chiron) reaction to their beauty(Venus). For example: Sydney Sweeney, Ice Spice, Ana De Armas, Marilyn Monroe.
Check asteroid Spirit(37452) & Psyche(16) for a deeper understanding of yourself. 🔮
One thing Ive noticed with my Lilith 3rd house friend is that shes good with coming up with something to say FAST. If she sees that someone have a hard time answering something or that someone is embarressing someone she will quickly jump in and fix the situation to help that person.
Venus sextile Ascendant is an underrated aspect. These people seem to be able to turn their charm on and off. Ive also noticed it to be a natural beauty indicator. They have the Venus qualities without the vanity.
As someone with Moon in the 11th house I dont get how people can exist without social media. And Ive noticed this with other 11th house Moons too.
Sun conjunct Lilith & Leo Lilith can indicate a weird relationship with attention. They NEED it but for the wrong reasons. Might do weird or shocking things for shockfactor. Might be jealous of people who get too much attention. But some people with this placement (especially if they have 10th house placements) can get wayyyy too much attention to the point its scary, for example Kim Kardashian & Britney Spears.
Batsheba(592) conjunct Sun/Ascendant might experience being pursued a lot and aggressively.
I dont think Ive ever gotten so much attention from men as the year I had Venus in the 10th house in the solar return chart and transit Lilith conjunct my natal Ascendant. It was crazy.
Im not shocked by P Diddy having Karma(3811) conjunct Mars in his chart. If you have this aspect Karma might take her time but WHEN she comes, she means business.
Nadherna(5089) = beautiful, gorgeous, splendid, magnificent in czech.💋✨
Lilith in the 8th house might see powerstruggles in everything bc of a subconscious fear or being powerless. Might have been put in a scary situation in their childhood where they had no control.
Venus 6th house makes me think of ”everything showers” and those accounts who post their matching showerscrubs and body lotions.🧼
I also love how people with 6th house placements especially Venus 6th house can make something fun and exciting of a mundane task. Makes life so much more enjoyable.
Tiktoker and model Kenz Lawren have Lilith in the 10th house which is probably why she challenges the model industry so much (which I love). Shes also a Scorpio Rising with Venus in the 8th house so she loves to show the raw truth instead of hiding all flaws. 👑
Neptune/Moon 1st housers yall need to learn to protect your energy. Dont go to certain places if you feel uncomfortable there. Dont let people tell you ”just go there” because your energy is so much more sensitive. Its not being ”weak” its protecting your peace. Im not saying yall should lay in bed all day but if nightclubs makes you uncomfortable bc of all the noise and strangers then dont let people call you boring for not going there.
If you have Chiron in the 9th house people might constantly be on your back about your cultural background. For example Jessica Alba who have this placement and she said shes been told shes too latina for certain roles and too white for the latina roles etc. Hollywood was constantly nitpicking everything she did during her prime to make it look like she disliked other mexicans no matter what she did. She also have Mars in the 9th house which I think makes it worse.
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Dp x Dc AU: Tim doesn’t rest, not even in Death.
It’s a heart attack that gets him, well, that and the insane amount of fear toxin flooding his system. He was dead for a full three minutes before he watches (how was he watching?) his eldest brother get his heart going again and get his unconscious body to the cave. Alfred gets him onto bat-life support and Leslie looks gravely at his family after she’s done her best to heal him. They decide to keep trying, they don’t want to believe he’s gone.
Tim watches in fury. He’s more useful than this, he’s not just going to die and let the family mourn him! Tim sets to work trying to understand what’s happened to him and he realizes he must be a ghost. Therefore, if he wants to understand ghosts he needs to go where ghosts are, and thankfully he just read a JLD doc saying to avoid Amity Park at all costs.
It’s takes him a second to get used to flying at full speed, but he finds himself surrounded by strange people in a strange town and… he notices himself becoming more visible. He’s able to interact with more and more objects, he even picked up a pencil! Poltergeist is a step forward in his plan, Tim accepts this change of pace.
Then Tim meets Danny, a normal human kid who looks like he could be brought into the manor and given a cape, who looks straight at him.
“Wait, who are you? You didn’t die in Amity did you?”
“No, I died in Gotham. I came here to understand how I’m a ghost and how I can get back to my dying body. I just need a few answers.” Tim explains, and notices that his voice isn’t his own, like it’s a different language entirely that comes out.
“Well, uh, I dunno about going back to your body but it’s not safe for you to be here. The GIW are looking for lost souls like you that people won’t notice go missing. So get back to your family and find peace. Im sorry but that’s really the best advice I have.” Danny answers.
Tim begs him for answers on the GIW. Begs him for any answers at all. Danny shrugs him off each time, tell him that he’s just a ghost and he needs to move on before he gets hurt or becomes a problem.
Tim decides if he’s a problem, he’ll probably get more answers.
Soon enough, he’s stepping into the end of a battle where Phantom is getting Skulker into a thermos, and demands answers, and if not answers help.
They brawl, and Tim’s training as Red Robin gets him farther than a lot of ghosts. And then, when he knows he’s beat and he’s about to share thermos space with the robot jackass (who he can interrogate and then build his own robot) Tim realizes something.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you? You’re Danny, black hair and blue eyes.” Tim says and suddenly Phantom is as still as the dead despite the accusation.
“How the fuck- dude. Okay, you know what? Fine. Lets go talk, you’re clearly not giving up and I need you to never say that shit out loud ever again.”
Because blackmail works in life for Tim, blackmail also apparently works in death.
He’s given all of the info they have on the GIW, he’s introduced to ghost technology and how it works with ectoplasm. He’s told about the portal (although they refuse to sneak him into the house to see it- he can handle a few lasers, ugh) and he’s told about the general sequence of events in Danny’s life/death.
And then Tim is suddenly back in his body in Gotham.
The family found a way to bring him back and he’s 100% alive, no longer ghostly, but he retained all his memories.
“We have a war against the government to start” are not the first words his family expected to hear from Tim post death.
#dcxdp#dpxdc#dc x dp#dp x dc#dc crossover#dp crossover#danny phantom#Tim drake#ehehehe#long post#Tim’s obsession is answers if that isn’t obvious#danny does not anticipate Tim’s ghost disappearing to mean that Batman comes to his town#and the JL suddenly lobbying the government to overturn the acts as they violate a shit ton of other laws#Tim eventually makes it back to amity as a human and Danny is like *WHAT*#they get coffee and Tim explains to danny that he’s scrubbed all the GIW files and is about to take down his parents#he wants Danny’s blessing to go after the portal and danny is blushing so fucking hard but agrees that his parent have been out of line#for like way too long#Tim and danny become friends because they’re just two restless souls who have shit to do and not even death can stop them
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✪⁂✫彡𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓✵✥☆ミ★ ???
𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞-𝐀𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞
Yandere Student Council Pres x Nonchalant reader
I’m not sure if I should retitle this to Yandere! Childhood friend x reader or not. There’s not a lot of the fact he’s the SCP shown in the story. I felt like I went a little off track. I got so consumed in writing😭. I already have a post like that on my page so I didn’t want to make it confusing. I don’t know if I should’ve said unemotional reader either. Idk let me know what you think. Have fun reading!
He was at the top of the food chain. Good grades, teachers liked him, students feared him, rich, good looking, and most importantly; the student council president. With that being said, why wouldn’t he leave you alone?
Takenya was a stuck up priss in your opinion. Always lecturing you about things you could do in order of improvement. You weren’t popular but you weren’t one of those weird Naruto kids that sat in the back of the class and ate crayons either. You just existed. Someone so average at everything somehow attracted the most “perfect” guy in school. Your grades were fine; a straight A-B student with the occasional C here and there. Your attendance on the other hand… well maybe he’s not so wrong about that, but who actually wants to be at school anyways?
“I don’t understand why you don’t try harder? You could easily surpass most of our class,”
“You need to come to school. This behavior would never pass in the real world. What would your employer think of you just not showing up?”
“Chocolate for lunch…really? If you want to stay healthy you’ll need to-“
Why does he care so much anyways? Sure, you used to be friends in like what, fifth grade? You used to get bullied in school for being different. You just didn’t like the things that kids your age were supposed to like. But… it never bothered you. You weren’t emotionless per se, it’s just, why care what others have to think?
Mellisa Grey. The girliest of all girls. She used to have it out for you when you were younger. Calling you names and bumping your shoulder whenever you walked by. You put up with it until the end of the year; fifth grade graduation. That evening she and her crew thought it’d be funny to pour milk on the shy little nerdy boy in your class. Some spilled on your dress, that you didn’t mind, but the tears of the boy next to you made you. Something inside of you just snapped. You shot up from your seat grabbing a first full of her hair and slammed her head onto the wooden table. Not stopping until you saw the wire of her pink, sparkly braces fly out her mouth. Well, that was what you wanted to do; the teachers came too early for you to inflict any further damage. The most you got was a broken nose and a lawsuit. She transferred schools after that, and you got the whoopin of a lifetime. You didn’t care. You didn’t feel bad at all. If anything you felt elated seeing her in pain and the rage on her parents faces as the cussed child you out. You didn’t cry or yell when your parents picked you up. You weren’t phased by the belt or the palm of your mothers hand striking you. You didn’t feel anything. So why were you so upset on someone else's behalf anyways?
You knew this kid. I mean, how couldn’t you when he would follow you around 24/7.
“H-Hi… my names Takenya” you just blankly stared. His sheepish gaze barely meets yours from behind his big fat glasses.
“…Do I know you?”
“Well…no. But I know you!”
“Good for you I guess.” You continued to go back and forth on the swing, not acknowledging the boy's existence at all. The swing he sat on remained stationary, never once dropping his gaze from you.
“Uhm… I just wanted to thank you for yesterday,” Hm? What was he talking about? He saw the confusion in your face when you turned around to ask and beat you to the point.
“You probably don’t know me. We’re not in the same class,” Right. So why is he talking to you? Again, before you could ask he cut you off.
“The other day when recess started you helped me pick up all of my stuff after Carter pushed me down; remember? I-I just wanted to say thank you for sticking up for me” Ohhh, you do remember him now. He was that shy little rich kid that transferred here at the end of fourth grade. He didn’t have many friends, let alone any at all. Everyone had grown up with each other and formed friend groups at this poin. He was a little late to the party so he didn’t fit in. He wasn’t worried about the next episode of Ninjago and didn’t find humor in looking up the words penis and vagina in the dictionary at the school library when the teacher wasn’t looking. His hair long, tied back into a neat ponytail and not buzzed into a Mohawk like half the boys in your grade. He had glasses that almost covered the entirety of his upper face. He always ate his pb&js on whole wheat instead of white and preferred celery sticks over fruit snacks. So, just like you, he got bullied just because he was different.
“Oh yea. I remember you now. You’re welcome by the way,” he grinned. The first time you saw him smile ever since he came to your school.
That marked the day of a long friendship.
That was until you went to middle school. You think puberty had something to do with it. He grew into his face more and sized down those jellyfishing glasses. His scrawny figure gained slightly more bulk and dressed in a more modern fashion. His hair remained the same; a bit shorter than before but still longer than most guys. You’ve always liked his hair. He would let you braid it sometimes when he was too distracted playing on his DS. He didn’t get acne like many of the other kids your grade either, skin smooth and clear. All the girls found him to die for. Your nonchalant behavior rubbed off on him and he became more confident in himself. Not letting his elementary school self be reflected into now. He became a bit too obsessed with his studies for a middle schooler; pushing all his ways on you. He would always follow you around blabbing about not attending gym class. He even started hanging around the same snotty rich kids he would complain to you about. You became annoyed. So you cut him off. Just like that. Stopped talking to him, answering his texts, not sitting with him at lunch or in class. Even after all the rejection at his advances, he came running back to you. Not willing to let you go so easily.
The school bell rings signaling the end of 4th pd and beginning of lunch. You were planning to go off campus today and not come back. Keys in hand you make your way to the student parking lot. However, someone’s blocking the exit. He’s gotten taller, about 6’2-6’3; sleeper build accommodating his height. Glasses thinner and sit perfectly on the bridge of his nose. Hair as long as ever, tyed back with that same white ribbon you gave him years ago; revealing an undercut. He fixes the collar of his button up and readjusts his tie and vest.
“And exactly…just where do you think your going?”
“To lunch,”
“The cafeteria is that way,” he points with a slender finger, decorated by a diamond ring. It shimers under the lights above reflecting against his matching earrings.
“Off campus,” he raises his eyebrow, folding his arms.
“Knowing you, you won’t come back. You do realize your request for a half day schedule is still pending right? You also recognize that I’m the one who assists the principal in granting them as well?” You don’t answer him, already knowing we're going with this.
“As I said before, your attendance needs improving before I-… we can grant it,” what a pain in the ass this guy is. You try to walk past him but he stops you, putting a hand on your shoulder.
“I don’t eat school lunch. I’ll be back after,” he gives you an unamused look. Hand gripping your shoulder a little tighter as you try to take another step.
“You know I can’t let you do that. Not unless you don’t want a new schedule,” he pauses.
“Not unless I come with you,” you look up.
“You’re paying?” His eyes widened slightly, shocked at your willingness. But he can’t be too surprised, he knows you don’t care about anything unless you get what you want.
“Of course I am. You need to spend your money on other priorities; like a new math textbook,” you ignore the subtle jab and walk to his car. No need to ask where as he parks next to you everyday to make sure he knows you’ve actually show up. Definitely not because your the first thing he wants to see in the morning.
“I don’t understand why you come to McDonald’s of all places,” he lets out a sigh, handing his card to the drive through worker. He drives up to the next window waiting for the food.
“It’s not healthy. You seriously should consider my offer in taking you to that new place down the street,”. He looks over when he doesn’t get a response; noticing the music blasting from your headphones as you look at the door. He sighs again before taking the food from the workers hand and grabbing your headphones. You turn your head to look at him but your gaze shifts to the bag in his hand. You reach over and grab a fry out of the bag and he s his eyes. Pulling into the parking lot, he silently watches you eat. This brings him so much nostalgia. He misses eating lunch with you everyday. Ranting while you just sit there and chew. He misses having someone listening to him about something that’s not related to school. After you stopped *attempted* talking to him in the beginning of 7th grade, his heart felt like it got ripped out of his chest.
He’s never felt anything his whole life. His father would tell him that one day he’ll find someone who makes him feel everything, makes life worth it. He’d seen the love shared between his parents everyday. He always wanted that. In the fourth grade all of that came true. He saw you getting off the bus making your way to school. He saw the way you helped up Michael Lemitzki, a dorky little boy, after Conner pushed him down. Shaggy hair, braces lining his teeth, comic books all on the floor. How pathetic. You weren’t scared of Conner at all. He was bigger than you and more popular than you, but you didn’t care. You kept a straight face as he threatened you and held your composure. No emotion showing whatsoever.
He thought you were beautiful. It was love at first sight. He was too busy staring at you to hear his father calling out to him. He followed his son's gaze to you. He looked back down at the small boy and gave a knowing smile. Takenya just stared at the other boy hugging you with tears down his face. Why is he touching you like that? Push him away already! That day he purposely made himself a target to the bullying of Melissa and Conner. Hoping that one day, you’ll save him the same way you did Jacob. He got bigger glasses, grew his hair out, and started dressing like the typical “nerd”. He would leave candies in your cubby, prized limited edition Pokémon cards in your backpack, brand new color pencils and markers showed up around you. He started to lose hope though. Why haven’t you noticed him yet!? Sure he’s never actually talked to you.. but still! Could you not see his effort?! Did you not care? He sat alone at recess that fateful day. He was randomly pushed down, papers and crayons flying out his small hands. He wasn’t in the mood for Connors teasing today. To caught up on the fact that the love of his life may never see him they way he’s dreamed of. Oh the dramatic mind of a fifth grader. He clutched the safety scissors that flew out of his pencil pouch watching the dick of an elementary schooler turn around. He was about to get up but stopped as he saw someone bend down beside him. It was you! You helped gather all his things and placed them into his arms. His heart pounded in his chest and the blush on his face spread like wildfire. Before he could say anything you walked away. Taking your place on the swing set. He hurriedly put all his things away before trying to build up the courage to come talk to you. He took to long, however, as the teacher soon yelled for everyone to make their way into the line back to their respective class.
As he reminisces on the past, an alarm rings. Telling him that it’s time to make his way back to school. You’ve already finished all your food and somehow managed to take your headphones back.
“What?” You say snapping him out of his trance. He didn’t even realize he was staring.
“Nothing,”
You make your way back to the school and go your separate ways. He walks you to class ensuring that you get there. Out the corner of his eye he sees someone wave to you. Lemitzki. His hairs more well kept, ditched the glasses for contacts showing of his green eyes. He’s taller and has more muscles now. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the jagged line that makes it’s way across his right cheek, interfering with his dimple as he smiles. It’s been awhile, the scar healed well. The once clutzy boy looks at the door and freezes, hand dropping and going pale. There’s a silent stare off between the two before the late bell rings. Takenya makes his way to class, a slight smile on his face at a sudden memory.
Watching him walk away, a fist tightens. Little does he know someone was planning on getting their revenge.
Hi loves! I hope you guys enjoyed. Take is an OC of mine I’ve had for a while just never had a name for him until now. Like his concept was in my head foreverrrr. He might be a reoccurring character. I really like him. But I did put one shot so I’m not sure. Lemme know what y’all want. Check out this post below for a little more context. Hope you enjoyed.
-Love, Sos❤️
#yandere x reader#yandere x you#yandere x y/n#yandere childhood friend#yandere student council president
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Bruce carefully approached the child playing by himself in the park. The child giggled as they played with chalk, the sidewalk illuminated by a single street lamp.
"What are you drawing?" he said softly, not wanting to alarm them.
The child turned, revealing themself to be a little boy, no older than 5. He had raven black hair and icy blue eyes. Bruce could practically already hear Oracle snickering on the other end of the comms. She had probably already taken a snapshot of the boy through his visor and posted to the batkids group chat which contrary to popular belief, he did know about. Bruce sighed internally. He'd never hear the end of it when he got home. Especially if he had the kid in tow. Let's hope that didn't happen.
"Hello Batman!" a cheery voice broke him out of his thoughts. "I'm drawing a gargaggle!"
Bruce refocused on the boy who showed no signs of fear. He didn't even look surprised which was strange to say the least. "A gargaggle? Do you mean gargoyle?"
The boy furrowed his brows for a bit before piping up again. "I do! It's such a funny word. I can never get it right."
"I know the feeling," Bruce said, crouching down next to the boy. "Sometimes I struggle with words too."
The boy's eyes went wide as if he couldn't believe the Batman struggled with words. "Say-" Bruce started, "-it's pretty late out are your parents nearby?"
The boy shook his head. "No, I don't have parents," he said as he went back to doodling.
Ok Bruce don't freak out just yet. "Oh, then do you have a guardian of sorts? Like an older sibling, or another family member? Like an aunt or grandparent?"
The boy shook his head again. "Nope. Oh! But I do have a friend. She's very nice and gives me lots of gifts and special things."
Alright, he could work with that. Maybe this 'friend' was the kid's guardian and he just didn't realize it yet. That could happen if he was put in their care recently. Bruce cleared his throat to get the boy to look up at him again. "Do you know where your friend is right now?" he asked.
The boy smiled wide. " 'course I do! She's right over there!" As he spoke, he pointed to a clutter of trees, just to his left. "She really loves you and your family," he said. "She's shy though, so she hid when she saw you coming."
"I see," Bruce replied as he got up. "Well maybe I can convince her to come out." He walked over to where the boy had pointed and pulled apart the bushes, hoping to find a woman who he could talk to about the dangers of wandering around at night. Instead he found nothing.
Bruce heard a giggle from behind him. "That's not where she is silly," he said.
"But that's what you-"
"She's not in the bushes, she's in the shadows. She's really good at hide and seek you know. Once we were playing and she hid in the shadows. Then she snuck up behind me from another shadow. It was really unfair! I never win hide and seek or tag against her," the boy said, starting to pout.
She's in the shadows? A meta? And one with a similar power set to Signal no less. Hmmmm.
Bruce began making his way back to the boy. "Then where is she right now?" he asked.
The boy shrugged, as he returned to his drawing once again. "I don't know. Sometimes she leaves and doesn't return for days. Since you're around, I don't think she's coming back for a while."
Great, just great. He had managed to scare off a little boy's only guardian in the middle of the night. Good going Bruce. he chided himself. He crouched down next to the boy again. "Do you know how to get home? Maybe we can wait for your friend there."
The boy turned to Bruce again. "Sure do!" he said, puffing out his chest. " 'cause I'm a big boy and big boys know how to get home on their own." he recited.
That was another point for the growing concerning information checklist. "Okay let's go wait for her then."
The boy's face dropped as he looked longingly at his gargoyle drawing. For a moment, Bruce thought he would have to bribe the kid with a lollipop but instead he held up his arms to be carried. "Okay," he said solemnly.
Bruce exhaled in relief as he picked up the boy. After pulling out his grappling gun he turned to the boy. "Where to...." Shit. Had he really forgotten to ask for the kid's name?
The boy in question didn't seem all too bothered by that fact. "Danny," he answered seamlessly. "And it's that way." Bruce aimed his grappling gun and off they went.
----
It took Danny all of two directions before he was out like a light. Bruce sighed, switching directions. Yep, he would truly never hear the end of it.
Next
#dp x dc#dc x dp#winter's tales#this could be a de-aged danny thing#but i imagine it to be more of an early accident thing#gotham sees a tiny baby wondering around her streets alone and decides none of that#she doesn't have to worry now though#since her precious bats will take care of him from now on#meanwhile oracle is cackling as she patches bruce's comms through to everyone else
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the meaning of it all
joel miller x reader
summary: Joel Miller, of all people, teaches you to ask for help.
word count: 13.6k
warnings: jackson au, post part i, joel and ellie worked it out! joel is soft! language, violence, fluff, learning to accept help and love.
a/n: this fic is a soft joel (think part ii joel but make it two years into jackson because he and ellie resolved everything <3) and a reader who is much more me than i've written before. i hope you like it! thank you again to @strangerfreaks who held my hand through this, i owe you my life.
___
Luck. God damned old-fashioned thank-fuck-for-that luck has kept you alive since the world ended. Deep festering rage and a near-constant state of fear have helped. But every bullet you've found, every undamaged can of food, every shot that landed in the right place so you were the last one standing -- that's all luck. Or a curse, depending on the day. Depending on how you're feeling about it all.
And Jackson? That's the biggest stroke of luck you've had in twenty years. A single woman on her own with plenty of working years left and no obvious red flags was probably a no-brainer for the community to take in but you feel like you've finally made it. After two decades of violence and horror and pain, you fucking made it somewhere safe.
You spend as much time as you can making sure everyone knows how grateful you are. You don't have any special skills, not really. You can shoot well enough, cook well enough, clean well enough. Young enough when all the shit went down that you don't have a trade or any work experience, you just go wherever they need someone in town.
Keeping busy means you're bone-tired most nights. Exhausted sleep means fewer nightmares, less time to wander the halls of your very nice but much too-big-for-you-home and miss everything you've lost. But picking up shifts wherever you can also means you don't meet many people beyond hellos and exchanging names. Farming is easy and you get to work with a lot of the kids in town, daycare much the same. You're lousy with power tools but you're able to carry materials wherever they're needed. Cooking is easy when it's stew for hundreds of people and doing dishes is even fun when someone turns on the radio. You're making it work.
Patrol is...patrol. You're able, so you're on the roster. It's not that you hate it, not exactly. Going outside the walls makes you feel like you're someone else. You slip back into the mask of fear and anger, the one that kept you alive for so long. And the worst part is it's comfortable.
You've done the training runs, the group patrols for three months. Infected still freak you out a little but you're smart enough to be more scared of people. All of the senior patrol members have cleared you for paired patrols and today is your first one.
Tommy meets you at the stables to check-in.
You don't really have any friends, though everyone is perfectly nice to you, but Tommy and Maria are probably as close as it gets. You figure they take a shine to newcomers like you, ones who come in alone, maybe to keep an eye on them as much as anything else. But they've both got a smile and kind word for you whenever you see them, always asking if you need anything. You always tell them no, you're fine, thank you.
"You ready?" Tommy says. "I've had them pull Apollo for you." You pat yourself one more time to make sure you have everything. Pistol on your thigh, knife at your hip, pack secure on your back. Hat and gloves tucked into your jacket pocket to account for the wind on the trails.
"I think so," you tell him. You blow a raspberry at your horse and he blows back, nudging your shoulder with his nose.
"After this, pretty sure you'll have done every job there is to do in this town. Pullin' crops, plantin' crops, cookin' crops. Kids, the library, cleanin', buildin' that ramp at Lenore's last month. You've been here, what, six months? And you've done it all."
It should make you feel good that he's noticed. It does, but only a little. You still feel like you could work every day for the rest of your life and not repay what he and this town have given you. To make up for the things you've done on the road.
"I'm the best floater in Jackson," you joke instead. Smiling makes people like you. You haven't had much cause to smile in recent years so you're still getting used to the urge. Tommy scoffs. "I don't do important council stuff like you and Maria, though."
He ignores that. "Y'know, pretty sure they call that a jack-of-all-trades. A real Ren-ai-ssance woman." You try to come up with a retort, eyes wandering to the patrol assignment board. Your name is under ELK CREEK and under it is --
"Quit harassin' her." Tommy rolls his eyes and flips off whoever comes up behind you. You turn around and see a man you know of but have never actually met.
"Joel," Tommy says. "I believe this is called havin' a conversation. You ever tried it?"
"Funny," Joel replies. He nods at you. "You my partner today?"
"Seems so." You introduce yourself, Apollo's warm breath at your back.
"Joel Miller," he says back.
You're a little intimidated, truth be told. You know him by reputation mostly. Tommy's big brother who came to town a few years ago with a little girl. They're both pretty much everywhere. Joel fixing houses and talking to kids in the street, going on patrols and always bringing back extra for whoever needs it. Ellie galloping around town with other teenagers and bringing home the biggest game. You've handed her books a few times at the library, too, seen her bright eyes and infectious energy underneath teenage angst that transcends even an apocalypse. And you've seen them together, heads down in the dining hall or pressed closed walking down the street -- heard rumors about why they came here, how they came here, too -- and one thing is clear to you: the Millers are beloved. By this town and by each other.
It's a miracle all its own in this fucked up world.
"You two ain't met yet?" Tommy says, pointing at the space between you. You snap out of your thoughts. "You've been here long enough to have met everyone by now."
"Guess not," you say with a wry smile. The younger Miller is too polite to call you out for not having a single friend in that time period, either.
"Well, here we are," Joel says. "Gonna keep us here forever, Tommy? Or can we do our job?"
Tommy claps him on the shoulder and winks at you. "Tone down the asshole for her first paired patrol, yeah?"
Joel snorts. He grabs a horse that was already tacked for him and leads it out of the stable. You follow with Apollo. The patrol coordinator hands out rifles and reminds everyone of the rules.
You hop on your horse. "You ready?" Joel asks, startling you a bit. "We'll gallop to the mouth of the river and then start patrollin'."
Something in you relaxes a bit at his clear confidence in you to handle yourself. You know you're with him for a reason -- he's one of the best. That, or maybe he just doesn't give a shit. Somehow you think it's the former.
You follow him up the hill outside the gates and through the tree line. The noise of the Outside is different than that of Jackson. Birdsong, snapping branches and dry brush under your horse, the wind rippling down the hill. You take a deep breath through your nose and feel a part of you come alive. It's funny how a world so beautiful can be so deadly.
Joel gallops a little ahead of you, strong and steady. You watch him, think about what you know. He's older than you, that much is obvious. Greying hair curling around his ears, lines on his face from more than just a stressful life. But he's strong, good at what he does. Those rumors come back to the front of your mind. How he and Ellie showed up, half-starved and bloody. How he and Tommy are the most famed patrol duo for Infected kills and otherwise. It makes you feel safe. It makes you want to learn from him. It makes you want to know more.
And he's got kind eyes. Somehow, he's got kind eyes.
"Alright," Joel calls back to you. "Route starts here." He slows his horse and you pull up beside him. He shifts in his saddle and turns his face to you. "Now, I know this is your first pair," he says. "I won't order you around or nothin' but my main piece of advice is that everyone has a different patrol style. Know how to adapt."
You dig your gloves out of your pockets and wiggle them on. Joel watches before his eyes snap back to yours. "Noted." You honestly didn't think he'd talk this much. "And let me guess. Yours is patrol in silence?" You punctuate the nervous quip with a smile.
Joel snorts. "Nah," he says. "Unless you're Max. Can't stand that fucker."
It startles a laugh out of you and any ice you'd imagined breaks for good. Max is one of the middle-aged men who probably would have been a lawyer or a politician based on the way he likes the sound of his own voice.
"Now," Joel says. "You done this route before?" His knuckles are a little red but he doesn't put on any gloves.
"Twice, I think. First log book in that old station, right?" Joel nods. "Second in the town?" He nods again.
"Color me impressed." His mouth tugs up at the corner into something you might call a smile. You try not to look too pleased with yourself. "Some of the dipshits on the roster don't even remember that much."
It feels like you've passed a test. His praise makes you feel nice. Noticed. Not something you often seek but you know yourself well enough to admit that you'd like a little more of it. Even if it's from a man you just met.
"Not that hard," you say softly. Joel looks at you for a moment longer before clicking his teeth. His horse starts to walk. You signal to Apollo to follow.
The patrol goes off without a hitch. Joel signs the log book in the station and you sign it in the tower. He lets you snipe two runners that he spots and doesn't scold you when you take three tries on the second one.
"Settlin' in okay?" he asks once you've rounded the town one last time and started back towards Jackson. "Six months, Tommy said?"
Despite his earlier words, you haven't chatted much this patrol. While you'd like to know more about him, want to get him to smile at you again, you're really just enjoying being out here with someone else, knowing that you're safe. That you've got somewhere to go back to.
"It's nice," you sigh. "I never imagined I'd find a place like this."
You really should pick up the pace to get back to town but he doesn't seem to be in any hurry.
"I know the feelin'," he murmurs. "Ellie'n me slept on the floor for a good two weeks at the start. Been two years and some nights I don't take my boots off."
"What a fucking life, huh?" That earns you a wry smile. "Having a house is...strange. All of the hinges squeak and I --"
"The hinges squeak?" You look over at him and Joel's brows are furrowed.
"Oh, I mean, it's no big deal --" You stumble over apologies. You don't want him to think you're complaining about a home his brother gave you when he sure as shit didn't have to.
Joel taps his thumb on the pommel of his saddle. "Can get that fixed, y'know."
You didn't know, actually. "Really?"
Now he looks at you like you're a little stupid. "Ain't you the one hauling shit to people's houses when they need a hand?"
He has a point and you hate it. It never occurred to you to ask for someone to come fix your hinges. They're just hinges, for fuck's sake. Other people have holes in their floorboards or leaks or need new rooms for family members. You're just...you.
Joel sighs. It feels like you've disappointed him and it swirls in your gut. "I'll take a look at it this week."
Your neck cracks audibly with how quickly you look up at him. "What? No, Joel, you don't have to --"
He says your name in a tone that you know means no arguing. "I know I don't have to. I offered."
"You don't even know me!" The words fly from your mouth before you can stop them.
He brings his horse to a full stop so quick you almost run into him.
"Look," he says. His gaze holds yours. Wow, he really can be intimidating when he wants to be. You can only imagine the things he's done, the things he's capable of. Anyone who has made it this long has blood on their hands. You've washed it from your own skin plenty of times. And yet, you feel completely safe. And you know that you'll probably do whatever he tells you. "I know how it can be."
Your gut swirls. "You don't know what I've been through," you say softly. It's not a jibe, it's just the truth. No one knows because you've told no one because it doesn't matter. You're here now.
"I've been alive for a while longer than you," he continues. "I've seen the world, just as you have. I've been out here. I was out here for a long, long time." He runs a hand through his beard, fiddles with his broken watch in what looks like reflex. "I know how hard it is to ask. To get back to something that makes any damn sense. But you can if you try."
The words linger in the chill around you. He's right, obviously. He's so fucking right that you want to be mad. You haven't asked for anything because you don't want to fracture the good thing you've got. Don't want to be too much, to be a burden they can't support, to make people think you don't deserve to be in Jackson. All things that don't make any fucking sense, not really, but you can't stop them. It's just how you're wired.
"So I'm comin' over this week to fix those hinges. Alright?"
"Alright." Something in Joel softens when you agree.
"Good," he says. "Good."
You finish the patrol in comfortable silence. All told it's been nice. To talk to someone, to feel like they give a shit about you even for just a few hours. You have no doubt Joel will be over to fix your hinges but you figure it'll fizzle out after that -- it always does. You don't know how to ask someone to stick around, anyway. But even this little bit of him will have been worth it.
Something both loosens and tightens in your chest when you get back to Jackson and through the gates. Goodbye beautiful, horrible outside world, hello safety, community, home. It's a trade-off. You and Joel hop off your horses and return your rifles. You're about to hand Apollo off to be brushed and returned to the stables when you feel a hand on your shoulder.
Joel says your name and you turn around.
"Good job today," he says softly. "Not too excitin' of a patrol, but you're good out there."
You blink owlishly. "I-- thanks," you manage. "Maybe we'll get to go out again as a pair." You're showing your hand but you can't help it. You want more of whatever this was.
Joel's mouth pulls up at one corner. "Maybe."
___
Two days later you drag yourself out of the house for community breakfast. Most mornings you're out the door and at your work detail for the day before you can pop over but you don't have anything assigned today. It's a rare respite and it has you antsy. You don't remember how to be idle, aren't any good at it. Sitting in your empty house means your mind might wander to the thoughts you try very hard to keep at bay. The loneliness, the regret, the fear. The loss. It's always there and you've gotten better at dealing with it after so many years but some days you really just wish you could talk about it to someone, could just bitch and moan about how fucking awful this life can be.
But everyone is carrying their own shit and you don't need to add to it. You don't want anyone to have to carry yours, too.
Breakfast is quiet this morning. You settle at a table with your toast and your eggs and your potatoes and smile back at anyone who smiles at you but no one sits with you. If they did you don't know what you'd say.
But then the air changes. Your neck feels a little hot and you slowly look around until you see what's caused it -- Joel and Ellie are here. He's already looking at you when you meet his eyes and he smiles a little, a half-moon curve of his mouth, and nods. You wave.
Ellie waves back, which you don't expect. She says something to Joel and he frowns, rolls his eyes. She punches him in the arm and he flips her off and grabs two plates, starts to fill them. You smile down at your own food.
"Man, are the potatoes that fucking good today?"
You look up and find Ellie in front of you. You're pretty sure she's 16 or thereabouts, still growing into herself based on the way she shifts on her feet. Her right forearm has the outline of something floral. She notices you looking at it and crosses her arms, looking unimpressed. Ah, teenagers.
"Pretty okay," you tell her. "I don't know if we've met yet --"
"We kinda have," she interrupts. "I know your name and you know mine, so. And you're at the library sometimes when I check shit out."
This still does not explain why she's over here talking to you. You can see Joel in the breakfast line still, glancing over his shoulder every so often to see if she's still in the room. You try not to catch his gaze because you're a little afraid of what Ellie might read in it.
"Can I do something for you, Ellie?" you ask, not unkindly. She scrunches up her nose and then sighs.
"Joel told me not to bother you but I wanted to ask if you could look out for a book for me. At the library." Her words get faster as she reaches the end of her sentence. She takes a look at you, sees that you're not telling her to fuck off, or something, and keeps talking. Some book about the history of comics or something.
"Oh," you say. You feel a rush of affection for her and the fact that she can hold the record for headshots on a group patrol and still want to read about something she loves in her free time. "Yeah, I'll look for you. I don't have a library shift until tomorrow but I'll look and put it aside if I find it for you."
Ellie tugs on her fingers. "Don't you need to write it down or something?"
You smile at her. "No, I'll remember." You recite the title and author she just told you back to her and it seems to satisfy her. It's like a switch is flipped -- her earnest expression morphs into something you can only call mischief.
"So Joel's coming over to fix your doors, or whatever," she says. "How'd you crack him?"
"I--what?"
"You patrol with him once and he's coming over to your house," she says. "It took him like, weeks to laugh at one of my jokes. And I'm fucking funny!"
You have no idea what to say to that. Patrol with Joel was your first time talking to him and while he's a bit intimidating, sure, he never came off as anything other than...good. But you'd bet he wasn't always that way in this world. Maybe this girl in front of you had something to do with it.
And honestly, you're sure he just feels a little bad for you. He's nice enough to worry, to make sure everyone in town can do their part and you'll take what you can get even if it's temporary attention.
Part of you knows Ellie is just giving you a hard time because she's a teenager and you're kind of connected to the guy who looks after her so you're fair game, too. But she's talking to you like she wants to which is throwing you for a loop. And you're realizing it's been a long time since you actually wanted someone to like you. Well, Joel aside.
"You want to tell me one?" you ask. She looks surprised and then delighted.
"Oh, fuck yeah. Okay, let me think." You take another bite of your breakfast. "Okay, okay, I got it. What did the mermaid wear to her math class?"
You give it a few seconds before you shrug. Ellie grins. "An algae-bra."
Your laugh makes her grin bigger. "See? Fucking hilarious." She holds out her hand for a high five and you oblige. "Anyway, Joel's gonna come over tomorrow, I think. Seriously, dude, I don't know how you did it. He never used to be this nice!" She looks over her shoulder at the man in question. He's sitting down at another table. "He's getting soft."
Her voice is fond and you're pretty sure she doesn't notice. "You should go eat your breakfast, Ellie," you tell her.
She sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. "Yeah, I'm fucking hungry. Let me know if you find that book!"
"I will," you call after her. You can't help but watch as she barrels back to her table with Joel and immediately makes an attempt at his bacon. He fends her off with his fork before surrendering a piece with a scowl.
He looks up and catches your eye again. You stand with your tray and nod at him, turning around before you can see his expression. Stupid, so stupid to be caught looking like that. But you can't help it -- looking at the love still alive in this shitty world and wondering what it feels like.
___
You run into Joel on your walk home from the next day's shift at the library. You spent probably far too much of it looking for the book Ellie wanted but it was worth it because you've got it tucked under your arm. It feels like a small miracle but you're not one to question it.
Maybe it's the good mood you're in, but when you see Joel from behind you call out his name. He doesn't stop walking but turns his head like he heard something. When he spots you he does stop, waiting for you to catch up.
"Hi," you say, suddenly a little less brave.
"Howdy," he replies, amused. "I'm headed your way."
"You --" He lifts a toolbox you now realize he's carrying. "Oh, right. Hinges."
"I can come by another day if it's not a good time."
Joel could knock on your door in the middle of the night and it would be a good time. "No, ah. Now's good." He motions for you to lead the way even though he clearly knew where he was going. He must have asked Tommy.
It seems like everyone waves as you two head for your street. They call out Joel's name and he knows pretty much everyone. You feel a little self-conscious being seen with him like this -- you, pretty much a nobody in town through your own doing and Joel, beloved by all.
It doesn't stop until you're almost at your door. "You're popular," you say, trying to make it sound teasing. Instead, it sounds awed.
Joel runs his free hand through his beard. "Don't remind me," he grumbles. "Can't go for a walk without a damn conversation."
You pull out your keys and unlock the front door. There are plenty of people in Jackson who don't lock their doors but you can't shake the need. "Sounds difficult."
He chuckles and you feel it zing up your spine. It's nice to make him laugh. "Yeah, yeah. S'pose it's nice." The front door opens with a creak and you look at him sheepishly. His eyebrows touch his hairline. "They all like that?"
You nod. Joel whistles. "Christ," he says. "Alright." He follows you into the house. You try not to think about what he sees. You've tried to make it your own, just a little. Posters you traded for, books you've collected. You cleaned the whole thing top to bottom when you moved in but somehow it still looks a little un-lived in. You're working on it.
"Don't let me bother you," Joel says, getting on one knee with a grunt and prying open his box. "Probably need 'bout an hour to get 'em all. I'll holler when I'm done."
That's your cue to busy yourself with something, anything, but you don't want to. You want to talk to him, to watch him do whatever he's going to do, to soak up this time with Joel before he walks out the door and you go back to being acquaintances.
"What are you going to use?" you ask. He looks up, a little surprised, before pulling out a spray bottle and a rag. He shakes it at you.
"It's some sorta homemade shit one of the younger guys cooked up," Joel says. Somehow he manages to sound self-deprecating, like he thinks he should've thought of it first. "I think it's...soap? And cleanin' stuff? Fuck, I don't know." He huffs a laugh. "I know it works, though. Back in the day we'd use shit you could buy on the shelf." He stands with a grunt. "You old enough to know that?"
That gets you to laugh. "Yeah, Joel," you say. "I'm old enough to remember the hardware store."
His gaze feels a little different than before, like he's allowing himself to look. "Hmm," is all he says. "I'll just --"
You don't know how to justify shadowing him as he oils your hinges -- there's a joke there's somewhere -- so you don't. You grab a book from the shelf and settle on your couch and try your best to read but your mind wanders.
It's pretty clear that you have a crush on Joel. You've spent one patrol with the guy but somehow he's gotten under your skin. It's inconvenient but also...nice? A crush at the end of the world. The fact that you can still feel something so sweet, so juvenile after all you've seen and all you've done is almost laughable. And it's not like it's going to go anywhere -- you're sure Joel thinks you're too young for him, too green, and he's probably tripping over admirers in town. But you can let it be something to keep your days interesting until it fades.
It was hard enough to love yourself before the world ended for reasons anyone could understand. Societal pressures, stupid comparisons, things that don't matter at all now. Who has time to think about being loved when you're constantly faced with death? Feeling desired, feeling loved, feeling looked after isn't exactly top of mind. You're not even sure you remember how. You put one foot in front of the other and that's enough.
But wouldn't it be nice to be on the receiving end of affection from a man like Joel?
"All finished." You startle and realize you haven't turned a single page of your book. If Joel notices he doesn't say. He wipes his hands on a rag and eyes you. "Pretty sure I got all the doors."
You hop up from the couch and try to find your words. "I -- that's -- you're --"
"Thank you will do just fine," he says with a smirk. He tucks the rag in his back pocket and crosses his arms, leaning against the wall.
"Let me cook for you," you blurt out instead. "In exchange." You can make a few things fairly decently and making him something is another excuse to talk to him like this, to be on the receiving end of those eyes. "I can make chili. Does Ellie like chili?"
"Don't have to do that," he says kindly. "Helpin' you ain't a business deal. S'what people do here." He stands straight and heads for your front door, picking up his toolbox on the way.
"Joel," you say, snagging his sleeve with your fingers. You pull them back quickly and grab the book you brought home, holding it out for him. "Ellie asked me to look for this. Could you give it to her?"
He looks at the book the same way he looks at his kid. It's tenderness so raw you look away. "I will," he says softly. He tucks the book under his arm like precious cargo. "Thank you for findin' it for her." He clears his throat and looks at you, smirk back in place. "Wasn't so bad, was it?" he asks. You don't follow. "Havin' someone help you," he adds.
Your face feels hot. "I'll still cook for you," you say, opening the door. He shakes his head.
"You let me know if you need anythin' else, alright?" A quick smile and he's down the steps and back into the street, strolling back to his own home.
"I will." You say it to yourself and almost mean it.
___
You patrol a few more times over the next month but never get paired up with Joel. If you were a little braver you'd ask Tommy or the kid he's training to take over the schedule to put you two together but you don't. Instead, you wave at Ellie when you see her, nod at Joel from the other side of rooms where he's always talking to someone else. You let yourself enjoy the way your heart picks up at the sight of him and the thrill you feel after he smiles at you. It's a nice change to the boring, lonely routine you had before.
The doors in your house open and close silently.
Being outside is fine. You don't like it any more or any less, it just is what it is. Life at the end of the world continues on.
Until you have a bad patrol.
It's no one's fault and no one gets bit. You and your partner, Astrid, are tailing a buck that's wandering along your route. If you can shoot it you can load it on one of your horses and ride back together on the other. Winter is on its way and any extra meat helps.
You follow protocol. You're lining the deer up through the scope while she keeps watch. Just as you prepare to pull the trigger you feel it -- the pull of your gut telling you something isn't right. That feeling has kept you alive all these years so you lower the rifle and turn to Astrid just in time to see a stalker lunge out of the brush.
Its broken and jagged nails catch your shoulders and you go down hard enough to bruise. You can't hear anything over its snarls and the blood pounding in your ears but you do your fucking best. You wedge your forearm under its chin and try like hell to keep its mouth away from you. Your other hand somehow makes it to your belt and unsheathes your hunting knife and in one swift movement, you shove it into the soft jaw of the infected. Hot blood spurts over your face and you keep your mouth closed, shoving the corpse off you.
A gunshot has you whirling around and scooping up the rifle. You've got it ready to fire but you only find Astrid standing over a stalker corpse of her own, forehead bleeding and revolver smoking.
"You clean?" you ask her, eyes on her forehead. She nods.
"Shoved me into some thorns. You?"
"Yeah. Can we go home now?"
Your hands don't shake until you get back to Jackson. They tremble when you wash the blood from your face, your hair. You wish for just a second that you had someone to hold them, someone to tell you it's alright. Someone to talk to about how shitty your day was and how scared you were and how sometimes this life is so fucking exhausting and just when you think you're safe you're reminded that no one is safe anymore.
Maybe this is the kind of thing Joel was talking about. Asking for help.
The thought fades quickly. You can deal with this. You're just out of practice. You just got comfortable.
You go to bed as early as you can bear, closing your eyes and hoping for dreamless sleep.
You could only be so lucky.
You're no stranger to nightmares. Hell, who isn't? Usually, it's the same old shit -- people you've lost, fucked up things you've done, horrors you've seen. You know how to deal with it.
But this is the first time in a while you've got new nightmare fuel. The hot, rancid breath of the stalker and the agonizing sound of its moans. Your own choked gasps as you try with all of your strength to keep its rotting teeth away from you. Unlike reality, your dreams don't allow you to grab a hold of your knife and instead, you feel it take a chunk out of your neck, hot blood splattering your face and you have to just lie there as it bites and bites and bites --
You jolt upright with a small gasp. Necessity has taught you to wake silently.
"Fuck," you say to the empty room. No way you're going back to sleep after that. You swing your legs over the side of your bed and put your head in your hands. "Breathe. Breathe."
The sky is black through your windows. You have no idea what time it is but you stand before the lingering panic can take hold and make things worse. Fresh air will get the iron smell out of your nose. You dress in the dark in more layers than necessary but you want to stop shaking.
Jackson at night is quiet but there are always a few people around, always someone else who can't sleep. The sky is clear and the moon is bright and it smells like woodsmoke and the unique earthy feel of the valley. This is your home. So long as you have this you can get through it.
Your feet take you through the streets of houses, most of the windows dark. Just another lap around town and then you'll go home, try to sleep again.
Then you hear something. The gentle strum of an acoustic guitar weaving with the night air like a dream. A song from before, a song you recognize but don't know the name of, don't know the words. You wrap your arms around yourself and follow the sound down Rancher Street. If you find whoever is playing it you'll wave and walk slowly home.
Your breath catches in your throat when you see whose house it is. Joel is on the porch, rocking slowly and head leaning back, eyes closed as he strums. How did you not know he played guitar? It only makes sense that the hands that are capable of such violence can also make something beautiful. He can ruffle Ellie's hair and pull the trigger and fix your doors and do this.
Something in your chest tightens.
Joel's eyes open and land on you immediately. You realize how it looks -- you standing in front of his house in the middle of the night, watching him. But he stops his playing and calls out your name.
"Hey, you alright?" he says. You hover between taking a step forward and a step back.
"Couldn't sleep."
He shakes his head. "Can't hear ya," he says. "C'mere."
Step forward it is. Up the stairs and onto the porch that creaks a little under your boots. There's only one chair and a small table with a lantern on it. Wind chimes dangle over the railing and you drag your hand through them on instinct like a child with a toy.
"Sorry," you say softly.
"Only got one chair," Joel says. He's got one boot resting on his knee, guitar slung across his lap. He looks tired. "I'll go get another --"
You wave him off. "No, please," you say. "I'll stand. I'm too antsy to sit, anyway." If you sit down in a chair next to Joel Miller you might never get up.
He frowns but settles back into his seat. "You alright?" he asks again.
His gaze is a little too much. You feel silly all of a sudden, not sure how you got here. A fucking nightmare? God, you're ridiculous. You cross your arms and lean back on the railing and look anywhere but him.
"Couldn't sleep." Joel hums.
"Heard that one before."
He strums some more and you relax again despite yourself. "Sounds nice. Do you play a lot?"
"Sometimes," he says. "Old habit."
"It's a nice one. Better than walking the streets in the dark." Your tone is harsher than you mean it to be and Joel frowns.
"It's safe to," he says, as though your wellbeing is his personal concern. "Bit cold, though."
"Why are you out here then?" You're frustrated with yourself and taking it out on him just a little bit. The smell of blood fills your nostrils again and you press your fingertips into your crossed arms, hard, and close your eyes. Your breath stutters in your chest.
"Nightmares," Joel says wryly. There's some shifting, the scrape of wood on wood and you open your eyes. His are fixated on your fingers and you stop squeezing. The guitar is now leaning up against the house and he's got his elbows on his knees like he's about to ask you a serious question. The lantern light makes his hair look darker, less silver, but it also makes the lines on his face look deeper. You wonder what kind of shit he's seen. What things he has nightmares about.
"Had this conversation with Ellie a million times," he huffs, rubs his hand through his beard in what you now consider a familiar gesture. "You don't need to talk if you don't want to. But can't hurt."
Is he asking you to talk about your nightmare? Does he actually want to know? Do you know how to talk about it?
"I take it you're a fountain of emotional sharing, huh?" Again, the misplaced frustration. You don't know how to turn it off.
His eyes flash but he just leans back in his chair and shrugs. "Depends on the day."
The low-level hum of your infatuation with him flares and your traitorous brain bats it down right away. You want to see all sides that he can offer you, want to make him frustrated and angry just to see if that'll make him sick of you.
You run your hand through the wind chimes again, watching your fingers move through the air. You remember what the knife felt like in your hand, the way the blood was hot as it dripped down your wrist and onto your face.
"Tough patrol," you say. "Messiest since I got here." Joel says nothing and you don't look at him. "I...it was fine. We got jumped by some stalkers and it was fine but...close. And I -- I didn't realize how badly I wanted to come back here until then. How badly I wanted to go home at the end of it. Does that make sense?"
You finally look up and Joel's knuckles are white on the arms of his chair. When he sees you looking he crosses his arms. "Sure," he says, clears his throat.
The urge to try to explain more is overwhelming. "I mean, we've all done fucked up shit. I've been up to my elbows in infected guts and still come out on top and slept like a rock the night after. And all of a sudden I can't fucking handle a stalker getting in my face. It's like I've never had to get my hands dirty before and what if it means I'm going to fuck up next time --"
"Hey," Joel says firmly. You feel a hand on your forearm and realize you've been pacing, arms flailing as you rambled. He gives it a squeeze and then releases you. "Feel like I gotta say fuck now to catch up with you."
A wet chuckle works its way out of you. Where did that come from? Are you about to cry? On the porch of the man you have a stupid, stupid crush on? This is embarrassing. And his touch. People touch you all the time, all things considered. A tap on patrol indicating silence, a hand on your arm to get your attention, to brace you as you lift something. Children in town who don't know the horrors outside the walls give affection freely. Hell, Joel touched your shoulder after your patrol. You're not touch starved but you feel like no one has touched you with tenderness and meant it in years.
"Sorry."
Joel tuts. "C'mon," he says. "I asked."
"I don't think I feel any better."
He stands and grunts as he does so. He's so much closer than before, so close you can smell what you can only describe as Joel: wood shavings and gunpowder, laundry soap and leather. It's a little dizzying. He leans on the railing next to you.
"Bet when you go back to bed you won't dream," he says. "Usually what happens."
"Here you are again," you sigh. "Helping me out. I promise I get on just fine on my own."
"I know," he says. His eyes are warm and so, so deep. "Don't have to, though."
Joel, for all his kindness and popularity in town, is a man just like any other. A person who has seen and done shit that no one should have to see and do. You know he's got his fair share of secrets, of things he won't talk about. You all do. You know he can be unflinching and maybe even cruel, dangerous and deadly. Whatever is happening here -- this openness, this desire of his to help you out -- is hard won. You think about what Ellie said and let yourself have a dangerous thought: maybe he's this way with you because he wants to be.
You sway into him just a little before catching yourself and standing up straight. "I should go try that dreamless sleep," you say softly. "And you should, too." It does not escape your notice that you haven't talked about Joel's nightmares, whatever they are. You don't think he'd be that open. A piece of you imagines a world where you ask and he answers.
"I might," he says. Neither of you move.
That small piece of you would stay here all night. That small piece of you tries for the next best thing.
"Will you let me cook for you now?" you ask. It sounds a little desperate to your own ears. "Please?"
"Persistent, ain't you?" He taps his closed fist on the railing once, twice. "Well, if it's that important to you. Chili, you said?"
"I can have it done by sundown tomorrow. I'm on greenhouses but we always finish early. You can come by and get it. I'll do enough for you and Ellie for a few days." You're rambling but finally he's going to let you do something for him. Hinges, nightmares, it's too much. Maybe you can somehow cook out this affection for him, get rid of it with your own hands if you try hard enough.
"Alright," Joel says. He puts his hand on your shoulder lightly and squeezes once. You feel it all the way down to your toes. "Now get outta this damn cold."
He doesn't offer to walk you home. You'd say no if he did. You need the time to sort out the mess in your mind. You give him the most earnest smile you can manage and he watches from his porch until you turn out of sight.
__
Joel is on your mind all day. More so than usual, which is saying a lot. The crush has turned into something...more. Something that makes you hope and that something is dangerous. It's just setting yourself up to be hurt through no fault of Joel's when it goes nowhere. Because why would he be thinking about you?
"You're smiley today," Dina says. She's a sweet girl and you're paired together on greenhouse shift today. She's always got a story to tell about plants she and her sister saw in New Mexico or some weird mushroom she found on group patrol. You love how positive she is and you try to absorb some.
"Am I?" you say lightly.
She tugs on one more cucumber, putting it in your shared basket before wiping her face. She gets dirt on her nose. It makes her look young. "Got big plans?"
Your face feels hot. "Just cooking for a...friend." It's the first time you've said that out loud. It's probably true, right? Acquaintance, at least. Joel is important to you and it's taken an alarmingly short amount of time for it to solidify. That's just how the world works these days -- you never know how much time you have so everything moves faster. You care harder despite years of proof that nothing good comes of it. You can't help it. You were made to leak love like an open wound.
"A friend," Dina teases. Teenagers. You remember that she's friends with Ellie and it's very possible she knows exactly what you're talking about but she's too kind to say anything more.
"Yep," you say, popping the p. "Do I have to start teasing you about Jesse or are you going to cut me some slack?"
"Well, hey," she laughs. "I think it's nice to be excited about something. You're so serious all the time."
"Am not," you mutter.
Something you appreciate about Dina is that despite her age she knows when to leave it. "Whatever you say," she says primly.
Once work is over and you're back home the cooking goes quick. You focus just enough considering you want this to actually be good and for Joel and Ellie to like it. It's thank you chili, it's you are important to me chili, it's I want to see you every day for the rest of my life chili.
Well. It's thank you at the very least.
And food, especially in this world, means something extra. There's enough to go around in Jackson, more than enough, but anyone taking the time to fix something with their own hands means more. You know how different a meal can taste when someone makes it with care.
And to say you care is a bit of an understatement.
The chili is simmering and you're about to start on the dishes when there's a knock on the door.
"Shit," you say. You wipe your hands on a towel and pad down the hall in socked feet. When you open it you find Joel bathed in the golden light of the sunset. His hands are tucked in his pockets, the collar of his coat turned up to protect his neck from the chill that's settled in for the season. His face softens at the sight of you but his shoulders are still tight. Is he...nervous? No, you're projecting.
Here he is on your doorstep again. If you're not careful you'll get used to him being there.
"Sorry for bein' a bit early," he says at the same time you say, "I was just thinking about you ."
The tension melts out of him and he smirks like a man with a secret. "That so?"
Your eyes are wide as you find your words. Hopefully ones that aren't embarrassing. "Come in," you say. "I'm letting the heat out."
He follows you to the kitchen. "Smells good," he says.
"It's not quite done yet but that's a good sign, I guess." You stir the pot before rolling up your sleeves and taking your spot in front of the sink. "Sorry it's a bit of a mess, I was about to start on this --"
"Now I know you ain't about to do all that yourself," Joel drawls. It's a syrupy tone you haven't heard from him, not really. Is he...flirting with you?
"I...what?"
"Scoot," Joel says. He steps beside you in front of the sink and gently bumps your hip with his. "Seriously."
"Joel--"
"Does it look like I'm kiddin'?"
He keeps his eyes on yours as he shrugs off his jacket, tosses it on this island, and rolls his shirtsleeves up to his elbow. You look away from him so you can watch.
"This is getting ridiculous," you tell him even as you hop up to sit on the counter closest to the sink so you can see his face. He turns on the tap and starts on the various things in the sink even though some of them are clearly not from cooking tonight. "You'll be sick of this chili before I can pay you back."
"I told you it ain't like that," he scolds. "So quit it."
There's no real bite to his tone but you do as he says all the same. You kick your feet out a few times and do your best not to stare but fail miserably. The fall sunlight seems to have followed him into your house, pinkish-golden beams falling across his face. You can see a triangle of chest at the top of his shirt, a few dark curls teasing the hair on him. The scar on the bridge of his nose is much harsher up close, much deeper than the countless other ones that dot his forehead, his temples. He doesn't look as tired today. Maybe he got some sleep after all.
So did you. You didn't dream.
"How was your day?" you ask. Joel's eyes flick up to yours for just a breath before he looks back down at his task. His mouth pulls up at the corner.
"Fine," he says. "Had to fix the water heater at Ellie's place."
A piece of hair falls in his face and you shove your palms under your thighs so you don't brush it back.
You tap his denim-clad thigh with your socked foot, almost like a compromise with yourself when it comes to touching him. "And that took all day?" Damn, are you the one flirting now?
Joel seems amused in a grumpy way. "Well, no," he says. The faucet is on so he speaks a little louder. "Did some house chores. Worked on a guitar. Took a nap."
The image of Joel sprawled out on a couch is clear as day. You bet he looks relaxed in his sleep, the lines on his face not as pronounced, his breathing steady and even.
"Busy day," you say softly. He's about to say more, lips parted to ask about your day, maybe, but you're not about to admit that you spent all day thinking about him so you keep talking before he can. "Does Ellie like living in the garage?"
"Think so," he says. "She spends a night in the house every so often but I think she likes havin' her own space. S'important to me to give her that."
This is uncharted territory. You desperately don't want to step in shit, to somehow make him bring his walls back up. Everyone is protective of the things they love in this world and for good reason and you're pretty sure there is nothing and no one Joel loves more than Ellie.
"She's a good kid," you offer. "Everyone in town loves her."
Joel smiles down at his hands, that soft, raw smile you've seen a few times when talking about her. It makes your chest ache. "She is," he admits. "Pain in my ass, too."
You want so badly to ask him the details. How did they meet? How did they get here? How did they become so devoted to one another? And what happened in the last twenty years to get him to right now, washing dishes in your kitchen?
But you haven't earned that stuff yet. Maybe you never will.
"Does she like Jackson?" You remember what he said about them settling in, sleeping in the living room with their shoes on. You imagine he kept watch for weeks, maybe months, before deciding it was safe.
He nods. "S'good for her to have friends. And havin' school is good for her. She's real smart." He clears his throat. "And you? D'you like it?"
"Well, I like it much better now that my hinges don't squeak."
Joel laughs. "I'll bet you do." He's almost done, everything from your chili-making washed and set aside to dry. He's doing your dishes from breakfast but shows no signs of stopping."Do you cook like this a lot?
Your brows furrow. "I-- no, actually," you admit. "It's just me, so. Not worth putting in the effort that often."
He turns off the tap and grabs a towel and starts to dry. You should offer to help but you feel frozen to the counter. If you get any closer to him you might snap. His jaw is tight.
"When Ellie and I --" he stops, takes a moment to focus on the bowl in his hands. Joel, you've noticed, doesn't tend to say things he doesn't mean, at least not to you. It's like he knows that every word counts in a life as unpredictable as this. "We had a bit of a rough patch last year and we didn't talk for a while. I was damn near eatin' canned veggies on days Tommy didn't drag me to the community meals." He sighs and sets the bowl on the counter ever so gently. Violence and tenderness go hand in hand with him. "Just didn't have it in myself to try cookin' if she wasn't there to eat it."
It's the most vulnerable thing he's said. He keeps doing this -- offering you pieces of himself that you want to hold close, that make you think maybe he wants you to know him.
"Joel--"
"I guess what I'm sayin' is it's easier to take care of yourself when you're also takin' care of people who matter to you. That make sense?"
"Yeah," you breathe. "It does."
The whole scene is so...domestic that your chest aches. Joel in your kitchen doing your dishes. He's helping you yet again but this feels different. It feels like he wants to be here, talking to you. It feels real.
He finishes his task and dries his hands on a faded towel. You hop down from the counter to check the chili. "Should be done," you say. "Do you want to try it? Make sure it's worth it?"
"Oh, it's worth it," he mutters. You work to keep your face neutral. What does that mean? "Sure."
You pull a spoon from the drawer and while it would make more sense to just hand it to him you don't. Instead, you dip it into the steaming liquid and hold it out for him, your other hand cupped underneath to catch any spill. Joel stares at your offering for a few seconds and you wonder if he can hear your heart beating.
Then Joel reaches out slowly like he's afraid you'll bolt if he goes too fast, and lightly wraps his hand around your wrist. It's the first time he's touched you skin to skin and you know immediately that it's a mistake.
You'll never stop wanting him now.
His palm is warm, callused fingertips pressing gently into your skin and he tugs, bringing the spoon -- and you -- closer to his mouth. Everything moves in slow motion for a few moments and it's like you are the only two people in the world. Your kitchen fades and it's just Joel. His lips part and he slides the spoon into his mouth at the same time as his thumb strokes the inside skin of your wrist.
It's very possible that you gasp a little.
He closes his eyes and you're torn between watching his face and his throat as he swallows. You could look at him forever, you think, and never get enough. The set of his brow, the hard line of his jaw. Lines around his eyes and mouth from years of terror and violence but also from laughter and smiles. You want to learn every inch of him if he'll let you.
"Christ," Joel says. His eyes fly open and find yours. "That's good. That's real good."
"You're just saying that," you say weakly. He hasn't let go of your wrist and his thumb strokes once again. You wonder if you realize he's doing it.
Something in his face changes, something so small that you only notice because you're watching. It feels like he has decided something and you wish you knew him well enough to say what. You dare to hope it has to do with you.
"Oh, sweetheart, I'm a good liar but I ain't just sayin' that."
Sweetheart. It echoes in your ears, burrows its way into your chest and takes root.
You're so fucked.
But there's something in Joel's gaze, in the brush of his thumb across your skin, in the fact he's just done all of your dishes and talked to you like he wants to be here that gives your traitorous heart some ground to stand on.
You send him home with as many glass containers of chili as he'll take. He argues that you won't have enough for yourself and manages to convince you to keep a few. You don't tell him that what you really want is to sit next to him at a table and eat it, knees bumping under the wood and his smile making your empty house feel warm.
"Tell Ellie I say hi," you say once he's out your door and on the porch. "And let me know if she likes it."
"Will do," Joel says. You hug your arms around yourself against the chill. He frowns slightly.
You wonder if he'd touch you if his hands weren't full.
"And thank you for--"
He shakes his head. "Not acceptin' thanks," he chides. "Not from you."
You don't know what to say to that. Joel seems to realize he's rendered you speechless, not for the first time, and nods his head before heading home.
"See you around, Joel," you call after him. It sounds half like a question and half like a wish.
He turns. "Countin' on it."
___
You do see him around but not as much as you'd like. Things pick up around town before the seasons can change and send Wyoming into winter. You find yourself in the kitchen most days helping seal jars for the community food stores, hands chapped from the hot water and heart light when you think about Joel. He nods at you from across the dining hall, opens the door of the library when you're going in and he's coming out, and tells Ellie to tell you how good the chili was when you share a shift at the stables.
"Fucking amazing," she says.
You sleep fairly well, going to bed each night with a little bit of lightness in your heart that you allow because why not? There's no way out short of Joel telling you to fuck off and you don't think that'll happen. If only you could get over yourself a little more and actually do something about it.
As much as you want to keep telling yourself that this -- glances across rooms, smiles from a distance, memories of his hand on your skin -- is enough, you're not sure that it is. The force of your want is destabilizing considering the most that's happened is maybe a little bit of flirting. But maybe this is you taking his direction to ask for...no help, not exactly, but to ask for something. To ask for him.
Today you're going on patrol. You decide as you mount your horse that you're going to ask Joel if he wants to get a drink when you get back. You want to talk to him again, let him under your skin a little more. Maybe tell him some things about yourself. Sometimes he's milling around the gate or on wall duty but you don't see him as you and your partner -- a fairly new kid in his twenties -- take your rifles and head out. You're on an easy route today, just clearing out the town over the hill and the highway exits near Jackson. Shouldn't take you more than a few hours.
It goes to shit fairly quickly.
The kid -- Conner? Charlie? You can't remember -- is rambling about the infected he's killed for some reason when you realize something isn't quite right. You can't hear any birds. Apollo snorts and it sounds panicked. You motion for the kid to stop talking but he either ignores you or doesn't see.
He sure shuts up when the clicker bursts out of a house to your left. Apollo startles and rears at the moment you reach for your gun and you can't grab hold in time.
You go flying, bouncing off a rusted-out car and landing hard on the broken pavement of the street with a popping sound. There is a pain in your shoulder so intense your vision whites out. The kid is shouting, the clicker is making that awful sound, but then you hear two gunshots and nothing else.
"Holy fuck," he says, rushing over to you. "Fuck, are you okay?"
Well, for a talker, this kid a good shot.
"Get the -- horse --" You roll onto your back with a groan and he grabs Apollo and settles him.
"What happened?"
You stare up at the sky, blue turning purple. It'll be sunset soon and you very well might be fucked if this is what you think it is.
"I think my shoulder popped out," you say through gritted teeth. Your head doesn't hurt like you smacked it and your side is only a little sore. Maybe some bruised ribs. Your hands are scraped, blood beading on the heels of your palms. "Help me up."
"Holy shit." He helps you sit up and then stand, your left arm hanging limp at your side. You hiss through your teeth as it gets jostled and lean heavily on the car. "You don't look so good," he says. "Can you ride? We should only be a half hour out of town."
"I...don't think so." You're pretty sure you'll pass out from the pain and this kid doesn't look like he can handle that. You don't want to fuck up the joint any more than you have to. "You're going to have to go back and bring someone to set it for me, okay?"
"But the rules say --"
"I know what the fucking rules say," you snap. Don't let your partner out of your sight. Your shoulder is throbbing and you might cry but not until this kid is on his way back to town. "That's why you're going to go as fast as you can, alright?"
"We should at least clear a building first so you can --"
"No time," you say, looking at the sky. "If we want to be back before nightfall you need to go now. I'll handle myself."
You really should know his name. He sets his jaw in a move that reminds you of Joel which causes a pang in your chest so intense you want to rub it away. "I'll clear that garage, okay?" He points behind you and before you can stop him he runs towards it with his gun out.
Lucky for both of you it's clear. You take Apollo inside and slump against the wall, pistol in your hand. The kid closes the garage door behind him and you hear the clop of his horse as he gallops away.
"Fuck," you say into the empty room. It's dusty and full of cobwebs and not much else. Empty metal shelves, a rusted-out lawn mower, some tarps so ratted they're useless. Apollo snorts. "Not your fault, buddy."
Death has been nipping at your heels for twenty years now. You've always expected it. And you're fairly certain you won't die out here. Maybe end up spending a night on this floor, having to walk yourself back to Jackson tomorrow morning. But you can't help the fear that rises in your throat. You know how an injury like this means so much more in this world. You won't be able to work for weeks. You won't be able to patrol, to pull your weight.
You're going to need a lot of help.
You close your eyes against the stinging tears and thud your head against the wall.
The pain dulls the embarrassment you feel when you catch yourself thinking of Joel. You wish he was here. If you'd been on patrol together this wouldn't have happened. You wonder what he's going to think of this.
What you'd really like is for him to hold you and tell you it'll be alright.
A few tears slip down your nose. Apollo noses at your knee.
There are no windows so you don't know how much time has passed. You start to question if this was the right call. Maybe you could have made it back on horseback, or at the very least slung across the back of Apollo like a sack of flour, arm be damned.
Your traitorous brain is about to remind you of all the things that go bump in the night out here when you hear something.
Someone is calling your name. Yelling it.
"Here!" you scream. Apollo whinnies. "I'm here!" You have no idea if they can hear you. You press your good shoulder into the wall behind you and try to push yourself to your feet but just as you do the garage door is hauled open and there stands --
Joel.
A sob bursts from your throat and you will yourself to pull it together. Behind him the sky is much more orange than it was when you first sat down.
Joel's eyes look you up and down once before cataloging the space and locking on some milk crates. He stacks two of them.
"Sit," he says. His voice is tight.
"Joel --"
"Sit."
You do as he says. He kneels at your feet and rummages around in his bag. His horse stands munching on some overgrown grass on the driveway. Did he come alone?
"How are you here --"
Joel cuts you off with a glare. His eyes are blazing, jaw grinding as he holds out a length of bandage.
"Hold this." He stands and his knees crack. "Kid said it's your shoulder. Anything else?"
The throb is still deep, still intense, but his arrival almost made you forget all about it. You shake your head.
"Didn't hit your head? Crack ribs? Nothin' like that?"
"No, I don't think so --"
"Need you to sit up straight," he says. There's no warmth in his tone but it's a little softer now that he's taken stock of the situation. "I ain't gonna lie to you, this is going to hurt like hell." He digs in his pocket for something and pulls out a square of leather. "Need you to bite down on this."
He squats so that you're just about face to face and holds out the leather. It feels like being in your kitchen, you holding out the spoon and fighting your desire to touch him. Except this time he won't look you in the eye. You open your mouth and he gently places it between your teeth, thumb catching the corner of your lips and trailing along the edge of your chin before he pulls away and stands up.
"I'm going to reset it on three, alright? Bite down hard on that." He finally meets your gaze and you nod and close your eyes. He puts one hand on your shoulder and the other on your wrist and you wince even though you feel incredibly safe in his hands. "Alright. One...two --"
Joel jerks your arm up and around before he hits three and you barely hear it pop back into place because, as he said, it hurts like hell. You bite down hard on the leather which also serves to muffle your scream.
Someone is talking to you."I know, baby, I know. Good job, you did a good job."
You open your eyes and wipe away a few tears with one hand and pull the leather from your teeth. Joel looks pained but his face snaps back to neutral when he sees you watching. His eyes narrow.
"Where did that come from?" He gently grabs your wrist and looks at your palm and you both find it bloody. "Got it on your face."
"Scraped my hands when I fell," you say hoarsely. He clicks his tongue.
"Give me that bandage." You don't even get a chance to hand it to him because he plucks it from your lap. "Gonna make this into a sling for this arm. Try not to move it much. Then we'll clean those hands and head home. Get you to the clinic for some meds." He gently positions your arm, which hurts a lot less than before but is still throbbing, and ties a sling so it's bent close to your chest. You can feel his breath on your neck as he does the knot.
And then he's back crouching in front of you.
Joel Miller on his knees for you so many times in one day makes you a little dizzy. Or maybe that's the adrenaline.
"Are you angry with me?" you ask softly as he wipes clean your palms and cheek with firm touches. The muscle in his jaw twitches again and his hands freeze for a split second.
"No," he says. "I ain't mad at you. I just can't believe the fuckin' kid left you here."
"I told him to."
"Can't believe that either. You know better."
"It's fine, Joel," you say. "It doesn't matter. I would have just walked back in the morning if no one came --"
He pulls his hands away and tosses the rag to the floor. "Damnit, it does matter," he curses. "'Course it fuckin' matters. Cut that shit out."
Now you're confused. It sure seems like he's angry with you. "Joel, I don't understand --"
His hands cradle your face and the protest dies in your throat. "You matter to me," he says thickly. His eyes are wide but his stare is steady. "Ain't it fuckin' obvious?" Anger and desperation are dripping from his words. "It matters."
For one long second you think he's going to kiss you. Now that might kill you.
You wrap one hand around his wrist and lean into his palm. A thousand thoughts swirl in your head but you focus on one. Joel is here which means you're safe. Joel is here which means he's going to take care of you. Joel is here. Joel is here. Joel is here.
"Oh," you breathe. You turn your face in his palm and press your lips to the center of it. His breath hitches and it feels like something big between you shifts, slots into place. "Okay," you say against his skin.
He pulls his hands away and stands. He works his jaw a few times before shouldering his pack and holding out his hand. "Let's go home," he says.
You stand with his help. "I think you'll need to help me get on my horse."
"Not a fuckin' chance," he growls but you can still see tenderness in his eyes. "Can't hold on well enough with one arm. We're ridin' together."
This Joel is one you haven't seen. But this is what you wanted, right? You want to see every part of him. Something molten and heavy sits in your stomach at how tense he is, how his hands remain gentle despite his harsh words. How he just told you that you matter to him. Maybe this is all a dream.
He helps you on his horse and then gets on behind you, tying Apollo's reigns to his so you won't lose him. He wraps one arm right around your stomach, mindful of your arm.
"Ain't gonna be comfortable," he says in your ear. "But it'll be over quick."
You lean back into him. Hell, it's all on the table now. If your arm is going to hurt you might as well enjoy your time pressed against him.
"Oh, I don't know," you say. "This isn't so bad." He snorts and snaps the reigns.
He talks low and steady in your ears as you gallop, his palm firm on your abdomen to keep you as still as possible though it's a hopeless venture. Your shoulder aches, sends sharp tendrils of pain through your entire arm with every stride.
He tells you that he was on the wall when your partner came back alone. That he knew something was wrong with you as soon as the kid came into view. He'd seen the patrol assignments and knew you were paired together. Kid didn't know what flag to use to signal his approach because you're not supposed to leave behind your partner.
Joel tells you how he hopped down from the wall and asked the kid where exactly he left you. Demanded to know how hurt you were, if you'd been bit. He was on a horse before anyone else could get their shit together, told them to get Tommy and have the clinic ready for you. Started hollering your name as soon as he got to the street, rifle ready for any infected to show up.
"Damn miracle when you yelled back," he says just as Jackson comes into view. You're sweating and dizzy from the pain, practically all of your weight slumped back into his chest. "Almost there, sweetheart. Doin' real good."
The rest of it is a blur. Joel takes you to the clinic where he becomes increasingly agitated that he set your shoulder wrong until one of the staff says he did it just fine. They give you a real sling and one painkiller to take if you hurt really bad, despite some harsh words from Joel in an attempt to get you more.
"Don't move it above your head for two weeks. Keep the sling on for that time, too. Ice it today, start moving it back and forth a few times in a few days. You got someone to help you for a bit?"
Before you can open her mouth Joel answer for you.
"Yes." The nurse hides her amusement well. She lets you go. Joel keeps his hand on your back as he walks you to your house.
You stop him when you get to your front door. "Joel --"
"If you're about to argue with me, so help me God, I'll --"
"I was going to ask if you need to go check on Ellie." You pull out your keys and after a second hold them out for him. Maybe letting Joel help you is helping him, too. You can handle that. You think.
"Told Tommy to when I left. I'll go home once we get you settled."
We.
"Okay," you say softly. He unlocks the door and motions for you to go in. You sit gingerly on the couch and Joel brings you a glass of water.
And then he paces. He looks at the books on your shelf without seeing them and rubs his thumb against his first two fingers over and over. And all of a sudden he won't look at you.
"Joel, sit down or something," you grumble. "You're making me nervous."
He stops. "Fine." His tone has a bit of bite to it that makes you close your eyes. There's an armchair in the room but he sits next to you instead. He presses his knee to yours, almost in apology.
The adrenaline has faded by now and all you feel is the ache of your shoulder and ribs and rawness of your palms and heart. The shoulder hurts like hell but in a way all of this hurts deeper, harder than that. In the way you know love, or the beginning of it, can hurt.
You sniffle.
Truth is you're overwhelmed. By what happened, by Joel coming to get you and saying all that shit. By him touching you, by him being here, by your own heart beating so quickly at his nearness. Even though you dared hope he felt something close to your affection for him it's a shock to realize he cares about you because you're you, not just because he's a good man. You've always wanted love that came from a place of purpose, which feels selfish on the best of days. You should just accept whatever kindness comes your way in this cruel world.
But, fuck, you've always wanted to feel chosen. Like you matter.
And you do. Right here, you do. From his own lips he's said you do.
You don't even realize you're crying until Joel curses softly and one wide, warm palm is on your face again.
"What's wrong? You hurtin'?" His thumb swipes at your tears. "Talk to me."
"I'm fine." You press your face into his shoulder and he holds you, hand soft on the back of your head. "I'm just -- I'm just really glad you're here, Joel."
"Course I'm here," he says into your hair. "C'mere."
There's nowhere for you to go considering you're already pressed against him. But his arms come around you fully, mindful of your shoulder, and your fingers fist in his shirt.
You should be embarrassed. On the scale of fucked up shit that's happened to you, today is remarkably low. But you let yourself have this. You breathe him in and let him hold you.
"I was going to ask you to get a drink tonight," you mumble. His chest vibrates with laughter.
"That so?" he says. His hand rubs up and down your spine. "Reckon I'd say yes."
You pull back just enough to see his face. This close you can see how his eyes have a bit of gold in them. "Really?" Even with proof of his affection right in front of you it's a little hard to believe.
"Am I readin' this wrong?" he asks. "It's okay if I am--"
"No," you say quickly. "No, you're not."
"Thought so." His lips pull up at the corner just a bit. "But, still. You've had a real rough day, and --"
"Joel," you breathe. You free your good arm from your embrace and put your hand on his jaw. He's touched you plenty today and you want to give it a try yourself. His face is warm, his beard gently rubbing against your skin. His eyes flutter close for a breath before he opens them wide and leans into your hand just a little.
"Alright," he says softly. Then he says your name, just once, ever so tenderly. It sounds like a prayer.
Joel Miller kisses you in the middle of your living room. Despite the affection you've been nursing for him over the last little while you never allowed yourself to imagine what it would be like to kiss him.
It's like this: the first press of his lips is soft like he thinks you'll pull away. When you don't he takes your lower lip between his and presses a little harder. Your hand slides into his hair and he palms your hip with one of his and cups your face with the other. His tongue traces the seam of your lips and you open for him, let him lick into your mouth. You sigh into it and tug on his hair just a little. Joel makes a sound deep in his throat and then pulls away.
You're both breathing heavier than before, both smiling. Joel presses his lips to your forehead, your temple. He holds you against him and you breathe against the skin of his neck.
"Will you let me take care of you?" he says into your hair.
"For my sake or yours?"
You think he'll laugh but he just breathes. "Both," he says. "Hell, you know what's goin' on here. I showed my hand. Been showin' it." He pulls away so you can see the honesty in his face. "I told you in as many damn words as I know how."
He did. He did and you make yourself believe it. Love in this life is worth holding on with both hands. Whatever this is, whatever this is going to become, you want it. You want to let this man continue to teach you to ask for help. You want to learn from him, maybe teach him a few things of your own.
You want to love him. You think you could sooner rather than later.
You trace the line of his brow, run your fingertip over the scar on the bridge of his nose.
"Can you kiss me again?" you ask.
"What a fuckin' question," he says. "C'mere."
thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, general masterlist here!
#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller fluff#joel miller fanfiction#the last of us fanfiction
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i'd never walk cornelia street again !!!
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ in which she's hurt and he's heartbroken and they realise that maybe, sometimes it just doesn't work out.
or
for when you'll never fall in love again. ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚
social media au // charles leclerc x fem!reader
sequel - you're the best in my life and i lost you ⋆·˚ ༘ *
warnings - language
author's note - hello!!!! im back!!!!! just a quick note, reader is like taylor swift + gracie abrams in this!!!! i hope u like it <3 thank u sm for reading!!!!
≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱
liked by pierregasly, f1updates, exwagsclub and 75,628 others
celebri_tea two months after calling it quits with charles leclerc, y/n y/l/n performed her 13th concert in florence and fans are shocked at her performance of cornelia street — a love song that she allegedly wrote for leclerc. clips of her performing the song in a very "angry" and "furious" way have surfaced all over the internet and fans have taken it to themselves to rename it as cornelia street (angry version) or cornelia street (go f*** yourself version).
leclerc and y/l/n called off their engagement barely two months ago and sources close to the pair have come forward with claims that they did not end in good terms.
for more details about the former couple and their relationship, click on the link in our bio.
tagged yourusername charles_leclerc
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≡;- ꒰ twitter ꒱
≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱
liked by carmenmmundt, lilymhe, francisca.cgomes and 2,628,813 others
yourusername florence!!! u will always hold a special place in my heart <3
28,527 comments
username STOP OH MY GOD
username that cornelia street performance. im afraid i will never recover.
username THE WAY SHE CHANGED THE LYRICS
-> username I'D NEVER WALK CORNELIA STREET AGAIN
-> username no bc HOW did we go from "i hope i never lose u hope it never ends 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️" "i hope i never lose u hope it never ends 😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡"
username that performance was sooo powerful i cried
username no bc florence is THEIR city and in overthinking this but like it seems almost poetic that this is where she decided to never walk cornelia street again
lilymhe baby u were phenomenal!!! alex totally cried like full on sobbed
-> yourusername omg did he
-> alex_albon i did NOT
username the grid showing him there made me sob ngl 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
username no bc if i were charles i would be living in fear rn
-> username nah in ready to throw hands with him fr
username she's so ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
username florence means charles and by that caption she means that charles will always hold a special place in her heart ❤️
-> username i aspire to be this level of delulu
-> username nah this is a level of delulu that only a ferrari fan can have fr
carlossainz55 wasn't there with you but u know you were so good up there hermosa 💌🫶🏼 maybe you could fly out to mallorca and give me a private concert instead?
-> yourusername thank u sm carlos that means a lot 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼 looking forward to seeing u in mallorca!!!!!!!
-> username not carlos (not so) subtly shooting his shot
-> username ferrari team bout to be soooo in flames soon
-> username the way i know charles is probably seething rn
username not the drivers sliding up 😭😭😭😭 first it was lando by showing up at her concert and now carlos
-> username charles is driving with a vendetta the next race 💀💀💀
username she's so cottagecore like it just makes sense
username MOTHER
username cornelia street (fuck you version) 🔛🔝
username she ate and left no crumbs 🫶🏼
username petty bitch (affectionate)
landonorris the most amazing show ever!!! so glad you liked the necklace 💌
-> yourusername lando!!!! i love it sm thank u <3
-> username y/n collecting the drivers like pokemons 😭😭😭
username someone close charles' eyes before he reads the comments on this post 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
username NO WAY LANDO GOT HER THAT NECKLACE WITH HER BREAKUP ALBUM ON IT IM GONNA CRY
username the next few races are gonna be so entertaining i just feel it in my bones 🔥🔥🔥
lewishamilton what a beautiful performance 💕 loved every second of it
-> yourusername thank u SOOOO much lewis <3 im so happy u enjoyed yourself
-> username LEWIS OH MY GOD
-> username this is sooo life altering
username i miss charles ://
username im a child of divorce 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
≡;- ꒰ °instagram ꒱
liked by lewishamilton, carlossainz55, landonorris and 989,626 others
charles_leclerc this city screams your name
13,528 comments
username BOY WHO U TRYNA FOOL WITH THAT CAPTION
username the cornelia street sign everyone pause
username not him thinking he can just sneak in that sign as if we don't psychoanalyse his every post 😭😭😭😭😭
username u can't just post captions like that and not elaborate further like what.
username what is going ON
username nah what is he cooking
username WHAT IS GOING ON
landonorris nice dump 👎
-> landonorris 👍*
-> charles_leclerc of course
-> username no way
-> username the girlsss are fightinggg
username i actually CANNOT wait for race week
username i KNOW charles got beef with like half the grid rn
username the caption the cornelia street sign him being in florence
-> username it's all kinda adding up im not sure
username no bc what i wanna know is WHERE was this energy when homegirl was singing in ur city and ur FAMILY went but u didn't
username let him cook
-> username last time we let him cool he shat in the oven
carlossainz55 😍
-> charles_leclerc i cannot wait to see you on track
-> username threatening undertones detected
-> username charles is gonna throw hands with his teammate 😭😭😭😭😭
username pls reconcile with mom she's singing angry versions of songs 🙏🙏🙏
username im afraid we will get his villain era sooner than we thought bc of his friends sliding up in his ex's dms 💀💀💀
username miss my parents 💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
username no bc i genuinely used to think that they were one of those couples who would make it like they were SO in love
-> username fr like i was always like "i want what they have" and the possibility of them breaking up NEVER crossed my mind
-> username the day they broke up i cried like it was my relationship 💔💔💔💔💔
alex_albon this city hates you
-> charles_leclerc did the city tell you that?
-> alex_albon no lily did
-> charles_leclerc can i talk to lily?
-> alex_albon i'm like so sure she's gonna end up bitchslapping you but take your risk
-> charles_leclerc i'm good, thank you!
-> username lily my queen
username not charles fighting for his LIFE in the comments
username im soooo here for this
#f1 x reader#f1 x female reader#f1 imagines#social media au#fake instagram imagines#charles leclerc x reader#charles leclerc x y/n#charles leclerc x you#charles leclerc#charles leclerc x female reader#charles leclerc one shot#charles leclerc imagines#charles leclerc imagine#charles leclerc fanfic#charles leclerc x ex!reader#charles leclerc angst
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𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃
(dad!eddie x mom/pregnant!reader)
*NOT Mature, SFW — incorrectly flagged
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟏 ─ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟐 ─ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟑 • more of the pennyverse here.
Summary: . . . After almost losing you in a scare related to your preterm labor, Eddie is reluctant to meet his newborn son, whose life still remains on the line, until some convincing from you.
warnings: angst, a whole lot of angst, near death experience, difficult pregnancy, early labor, preterm birth, talk of loss of infants, birth defects, happy ending.
a/n: congrats on making it to part two! we still have quite a bit of angst to get through but we're almost through the storm! this part (even though i wrote Wayne's World as a whole) was my favorite to write, and i'm sure you'll be able to guess why. word count is 6k. good luck and happy reading! and for the people mad about the long post, sorry, had the 'keep reading' tab on but it kept fucking with the format and eating chunks of it. you're gonna have to scroll. let me know what you think? ◡̈
Hours passed by, Penny had fallen asleep in his lap again and so had most of his friends with the exceptions of Jonathan who looked like he could really use the sleep, Eden and Wayne. Steve would snap awake every once and a while, careful not to jostle his sleeping girlfriend. Nancy was asleep on Jonathan’s shoulder while Argyle used Eden’s lap for a pillow. Barb and Robin were hanging off chairs in the most uncomfortable looking positions, Robin’s snores almost painful sounding. The ‘kids’ (teenagers) had been picked up by their parents, only agreeing to go home if they could come back to wait with him first thing in the morning.
Eddie didn’t rest for a single second, mind torturing him with horrible, horrible thoughts. One played in his mind on loop; he was holding Penny as he walked out of the hospital. They were on their own.
It held him captive, he hadn’t even noticed your doctor approaching him until she gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Mr. Munson?”
Wayne and Eddie traded quick glances and he handed Penny over, trying not to disturb her too much in his rush but she just curled up to Wayne.
Eddie stood up, already feeling lightheaded. That voice in his head that had been torturing him whispered something cruel to him, enough to make him want to cease existing: maybe you, somewhere in this hospital, already gone and he didn’t know it. Was she about to confirm his worst fears?
“I apologize for the fright we gave you. Your wife started hemorrhaging and she lost a lot of blood.”
Yeah. Eddie’s world was ending. It was over.
“But we were able to stop the bleeding and get her a transfusion. She’s stable and she’s going to be just fine.”
The relief was almost crippling, the heaviest weight he’d ever felt on him was lifted. Eddie wanted to cry, he squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to compose himself before he broke down in front of another doctor.
“We have her in a room, probably hold her for a couple of nights, depending on her recovery. Would you like to go see her?”
“Yeah, yes, please.” He nodded rapidly, wiping furiously at his eyes.
Dr. Eisenberg nodded and began walking down the hall, “If you’ll follow me.”
Eddie turned, ready to ask Wayne to look after Penny when Wayne cut him off, “Go. I'll let ‘em all know she’s okay and send ‘em home. They probably won’t be able to see her tonight or in the mornin’, but I’ll stick around. Let me know when I can come on up.”
Eddie wanted to hug him, but he really needed to see you.
“Thank you, Wayne. For everything.” Then he was scrambling after Dr. Eisenberg, who had stopped to wait for him.
The walk to your hospital room had Eddie ready to tear his hair out, he’d wanted to just ask your doctor for your room number so he could sprint the rest of the way because her pace was much too slow. He was desperate to get to you, to make sure you were really still alive.
“Here we are,” she stated, pushing your room door open. “Hello, again, Mrs. Munson. I brought someone who’s been waiting for you.”
Eddie’s breath hitched as Dr. Eisenberg stepped to the side and he finally saw you, eyelids heavy from whatever sedation you were still trying to pull yourself from, and a smile on your face that only widened when you locked eyes.
“Hi, baby,” you slurred, sleepy little smile not going anywhere. And neither were you.
The rush of emotions he was experiencing was too much, he burst into tears where he stood as Dr. Eisenberg closed the door behind her on her way out.
“Eddie…” you mumbled out, reaching the hand lacking an IV out to him.
Of course you were trying to comfort him, you were the one confined to a hospital bed, having just barely survived a traumatic birth and you were still trying to comfort him because you were perfect.
He slowly approached your bed, hot tears—he was surprised his body could even still produce more tears given how much he’d cried in the last few hours alone—streaming down his cheek. Eddie really did collapse when he reached you, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck.
You wrapped your arms around him, holding him to your chest as best as you could, though you had no idea why he was crying, brain too hazy.
Eddie didn’t sob, just silently shook as he wet your neck, inhaled your scent, felt your warm skin and pulse beating beneath his lips. He hadn’t lost you, you were still here.
Ideally, he’d be holding you and squeezing you hard enough to ensure you’d never leave his arms again, but even in his emotional hysteria, he was mindful of your condition.
Eddie pulled away, large hands framing your face as he pressed desperate kisses all over your face, making sure every inch was caressed with his love before he focused on your lips, mouth meshing messily against yours.
You could taste the salt of his tears, feel a couple of stray ones catching where your lips met. While he may have been feeling a mixture of emotions, all you could feel right then was content and still a bit sleepy from the anesthesia.
When Eddie felt he’d conveyed his love for you sufficiently, he pulled away, a wet and hoarse chuckle escaping him when he realized you could barely keep your eyes open.
“You sleepy, baby?”
“Mhmm.”
“Get some rest, sweetheart,” Eddie’s thumb stroked over your bottom lip before resting over the center of it, “just, please wake up.”
“Okay,” you mumbled, eyes already shut. Still, you managed to press a kiss to his thumb before you slipped into a blissful slumber.
While you slept, Eddie had one of the nurses phone up the waiting room and sent Wayne. The poor man looked exhausted, but the relief on his face was evident when he saw you sleeping peacefully.
He looked like he wanted to cry, too. Instead, he just cleared his throat, blinked to keep the tears away and spoke low so as to not disturb you or the sleeping toddler in his arms.
“Everythin’ alright?”
“With her?” Eddie’s red rimmed gaze drifted back to you, focused on the rise and fall of your chest. Still breathing, “Yeah.”
Wayne nodded once and they both stood there in silence for a few minutes as the world began to turn again. Something still wasn’t right, felt wrong. He could tell by the tension his boy still had, arms crossed as he crouched in the seat next to your bed.
“And the baby?”
Eddie flinched as if Wayne had shot a gun off in the air rather than mention his son.
“I don’t know.”
Wayne watched him with a careful eye, Eddie looked almost like he was vibrating from the force at which his leg was shaking, even your hospital bed appeared to be affected by it, though not nearly enough to disturb you.
As much as he wanted to comfort him, for once, Wayne didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to say and he had an inkling that anything that came out of his mouth wouldn’t be heard by Eddie. He was lost in the dark crevices of his own mind.
The most he could do was offer to give him some alone time, he was sure his boy wasn’t keen on others sticking around right now, even him.
“I’ll take Penny home, me and Maude’ll watch her.”
Eddie shook his head, a look of panic flashing over his face, “No, that’s alright. She can stay with me.”
Wayne was reluctant, mouth set in a frown. Penny was a good girl, usually, but he didn’t know if Eddie could really handle her along with processing everything going on around him.
“Really, we wouldn’t mind─”
“I need her.”
That shut Wayne right up, he and Eddie shuffled to exchange Penny from his arms to her dad’s without waking her. She stirred momentarily then shoved her face into Eddie’s neck, her little body falling slack once more.
Wayne gave his shoulder a good squeeze, ran his hand gently over Penny’s back before he leaned down—and in a rare show of affection—pressed a brief kiss to your forehead.
As he was walking out of the room, Eddie felt the panic crawling down his throat again. He croaked out a broken, “Wayne─”
Wayne paused in the doorway, turning to acknowledge Eddie but his nephew didn’t continue, just looked scared. For a moment, Wayne was caught off guard, sucking in a breath as his boy looked young for the first time in a couple of years.
Now, he knew you and Eddie were young. He’d been aware of it when you got together, aware of it when you told him you were pregnant with Penny but sometime after that, he stopped seeing your age, stopped seeing Eddie’s as the two of you grew up for her. Now, right then, he remembered with startling clarity that Eddie wasn’t even twenty-five. He looked so young because he was.
Eddie didn’t have to say anything else because Wayne knew exactly what he wanted him to say.
Wayne nodded slowly, mouth pressing into a firm line of determination, “Everything’s gonna be alright, kid.”
Eddie choked up, held Penny a little tighter and Wayne went on his way.
He found himself settling back into the seat he’d dragged near your bed, cradling Penny as she remained blissfully unaware and drooling on his scrub top.
Wayne wasn’t wrong, she’d probably be a little too much for him but she was his kid, it wasn't like he could just hand her off to people when life came at him like this and he really did need her right now. Again.
You were here and whole, but somewhere else in this hospital, a member of his little family was still slipping through his fingers. He couldn’t let the other one out of his sight, couldn’t lose her, too.
Once more, Eddie remained restless as the hours passed. He sat in mostly silence. He’d turned on the tv near your bed, the volume high enough to drown out the sounds of the hospital outside of the room but much too low to wake you. Rain trilled against the windows, much more gentle than it had been earlier. The storm had also passed, and if there was even an ounce of humor in him, he would have been amused with how this storm seemed to fester like a black cloud looming over him.
It’d been a normal day up until he’d gone to Lucas’ birthday party, but he’d been skeptical about leaving you, worried something would happen. The metaphorical little black cloud formed over him, as a result, and so did the actual black clouds, quickly calling for wind and rain at high speeds.
And when Eddie had found out you were okay, you were alive, his black cloud disappeared, though it left behind damage and a cold atmosphere. The real storm had also run its course, leaving behind weather that reflected exactly how Eddie felt.
Penny squirmed in his grasp, and he realized he’d tensed up so he quickly relaxed, shifting her into a more comfortable position in his hold.
“Why don’t you give her to me?”
Eddie’s head snapped over to you, surprised to find you awake, somewhat lucid and watching him with a small smile on your face.
“Because you just had your insides removed and put back in,” He smirked, another wave of relief washing over him. You’d woken up, you really were okay. You weren’t going to leave him.
You rolled your eyes, making a vague hand gesture to brush the subject off, clearly the surgeons hadn’t removed your sass.
“She’s tiny and there’s more than enough room on here for both of us.” You hissed as you slowly shimmied your way to the side of the bed and Eddie frowned.
“Okay, how about you don’t move so we can limit the amount of heart attacks you give me today, yeah?” You knew Eddie must have been worried so you didn’t take the lack of humor behind his words and the tension on his face personally.
A quick glance at the clock confirmed your suspicions, “It’s three in the morning, Eddie. New day, but I’ll keep my antics to a minimum.”
Insistently, you patted the spot next to you, perfectly Penny sized and high enough to guarantee she wouldn’t accidentally move against your incision.
With a sigh, Eddie complied, gathering his daughter up. Tensing up disturbed her but full on moving her didn’t, most likely used to being carried into your home after she’d fallen asleep in her car seat or on the couch.
She didn’t stir when he laid her down, either. You both had to rearrange her limbs into a more comfortable position, one that didn’t make it look like she was possessed. Once Eddie tucked her in, he let out another sigh and cast you an apologetic look, big brown eyes wide, glassy and full of sorrow.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.” It was the last thing you deserved after what you’d gone through.
The sincerity in his voice almost hurt you, it was heavy, as though it carried more weight than just a simple apology for his tone.
You held out your hand and Eddie immediately slipped his over it, locking his fingers with yours, squeezing as his breath hitched.
Your hand was so warm and soft. At one point in the last twenty-four hours, he’d thought he’d never get to feel it again, never get to hold your hand or see your pretty face. Never get to say…
“I love you,” he blurted out, the panic he’d felt earlier when he couldn’t remember the last time he’d said those three words to you climbed right out of his belly, trying to claw its way out of his chest. Eddie took in a shuddering breath, head shaking as a hot tear escaped its confinement, trailing down his cheek. He moved to the other side of the hospital bed, so he wouldn’t crush Penny, and took your face in his hands, pressing a passionate kiss to your lips, hoping he was able to convey just how much he loved you.
He needed you to know.
“Eddie,” you mumbled as he pulled away, only to hide himself in the crook of your neck again. You could feel his tears against your skin and it alarmed you. “I love you, too, baby. What’s wrong?”
“I thought I was going to lose you,” he confessed and you felt your heart seize up, “I thought I was gonna lose you twice in the same damn day. I was so fucking scared, sweetheart.”
When he’d been driving to the hospital, there had been a moment when he wondered if you’d still be breathing when he got there. It made him want to throw up so he quickly squashed it and forced it to the back of his head. It hadn’t been ideal when he’d entered the operation room, he didn’t like seeing you get cut open but it was comforting to see he’d overreacted. You were getting a c-section, you weren’t on your deathbed.
Until you had been.
And for the second time that day, he thought you were going to die, thought he’d somehow cruelly manifested this for you and himself.
“I’m alright, Eddie.” You freed your hand, grabbing his to cradle your cheek with.
“See? I’m okay. You didn’t lose me, you’re not going to.” Eddie pulls away from his hiding spot to stare down at you, the wounded puppy look still firmly in place so you add a little humor, hoping to get a smile out of him, “There’s no way I’m checking out this early, I can’t risk you moving on when you look this good.”
Eddie’s hand was so big his fingers were tucked into your hair, his palm alone took up most of your cheek. His fingertips lightly massaged the area of your scalp available to him as the hurt on his face morphed into an earnest look, somehow more vulnerable.
“There’s no moving on from you, you’re taking my soul, my heart, all of it with you when you go. You’re the love of my life, my everything. And that—fuck, it terrifies me because I’d still have Penny to take care of and I wouldn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t know how to pull myself out of it, if it’d even be possible and quite frankly, I don’t ever want to fucking find out.”
Eddie was more than happy to have those types of questions remain unanswered for the rest of his life.
“You’d be able to do it, I know you would. You would be able to take care of Penny and the baby.” You knew he would, your husband would pull himself out of his depression to make sure your children were okay because of how much he loved them, despite his grief.
Eddie flinched, something you were quick to clock. You didn’t need to ask, he could see the question reflecting in those beautiful eyes of yours.
He had to break the news. You were already in a frail condition and he had to tell you the baby you’d almost died to have, your son, might still die.
“Honey, the baby—he—fuck, he’s uh…there’s something wrong with his heart.”
The way your face plummeted shattered something inside of him.
“What?”
“He’s got a hole in his heart, the doctor said it was pretty common amongst heart defects but since he was born so early, it’d be difficult to medicate him or perform an operation. All they can do is keep him under observation, he still might not make it because of how young he is.”
You squeezed your eyes shut, head dropping back to meet your pillow as you tried, and failed, not to cry. Why was this happening? You blamed yourself, why hadn’t you been able to keep him in your belly? Why had your own body betrayed you? Why had you failed your baby?
“This is all my fault,” you declared, eyes and cheeks growing wet with your tears.
“No, no, sweetheart.” Eddie was not about to let you take the blame for something out of your control or even allow you to believe any of this was your fault. “You can’t possibly believe this is on you. These things happen, it obviously isn’t ideal, but it’s just circumstance. It’s not your fault and it’s not the baby’s fault. You did everything you could and more. Okay?”
He leaned in, finger stroking gently across your cheekbone as he caught a tear. You sniffled, nodding once as he pulled you back together.
“What does he look like?” You asked, snuggling back into the pillow as Eddie coddled you.
He hesitated for a moment before he answered, “I—I don’t know.”
That elicited a small frown from you, “You haven’t seen him yet?”
Eddie swallowed hard, gaze moving away from you, “No.”
You waited, watching a series of emotions pass over his features. Eddie often tried to keep his internal struggles to himself, a habit you noticed once you became friends with him (ironically, through some trauma bonding) and even into your relationship. You hadn’t expected him to confide everything in you right away, though you had let him know should he ever need someone to talk to, you’d be there.
Now, it wasn’t a matter of if he would, it was when. It didn’t take him long.
“I don’t know—I guess,” he pursed his lips, eyes squeezing shut as he felt the all too familiar burn of fresh tears. How many times had he cried in the last twenty-four hours? He felt ridiculous to be so emotional, then again, he’d never thought he’d find himself in this tragic situation, so he was due for a couple of breakdowns, “I know if I go down there and I—I look at him, I’m gonna fall in love with him and then what? He dies. I can’t do that, not if I’m gonna lose him forever. I can’t.”
Eddie was leaking tears, not yet sobbing but well on his way as he made his confession. He couldn’t stomach seeing his baby boy if he was going to be taken away from him, if the two of you would have to put a tiny little coffin—a size that should never have to exist—six feet into the ground. He’d been put through the fucking ringer but Eddie couldn’t do that. It would break him.
Eddie’s confession had you crying as well, you shared his pain. You didn’t want to lose your baby, either. You couldn’t remember what he looked like through the haze of your fatigue when you’d given birth to him, but if you tried to think hard enough, you could remember how it felt to have him in your arms in the passenger seat of Wayne’s truck. The first time you’d held him and you hoped it wouldn’t be the last.
Even if it was, you were grateful you’d had the chance to and you knew Eddie would never forgive himself if he didn’t get to see him, didn’t get to meet him.
“I know you’re terrified, Eds. It scares me, too.” You grabbed his hand just as it slipped away from your face, encouraging him to look at you. “I don’t want to lose him, either. I want to take him home. I want to cuddle with him, nurse him, take tons of pictures of him with Penny and with you, but most of all, I want to make sure he knows I love him.”
It killed you to imagine your baby in an incubator, small, helpless and with no one but the nurses, who could make the time to check on him in between all their other patients, offering him comfort. Human contact. And if he did end up passing, he could do so alone in there, not knowing how loved he was.
“I know you love him, Eddie, and you don’t want to lose him. But you can’t lose him if you don’t have him, baby. I hate that this is even a possibility for us, but I’d rather have held him and lost him than to never have picked him up at all. I’ll be okay with whatever you decide, but do you really want him to die without having gotten to meet his dad?”
Eddie let out a choked sob as he shook his head. He didn’t want his baby to die at all but you were right, if he did lose his kid, he’d spend the rest of his life agonizing over the same thing Eddie had been upset with himself for when he thought he’d lose you. He’d been unable to recall the last time he told you he loved you. Only, he’d know he never told his son.
“I’ll be right back,” he swore and you nodded just as he leaned down to give you a kiss. He wiped away his tears, inhaled a particularly violent sniffle and you watched as he left your room to finally meet his baby.
Eddie felt almost disorientated as he navigated his way to the NICU. He’d been there once, briefly, to check on Penny when she’d been there for a few hours, but that was a couple of years ago and he’d needed the assistance of several nurses and staff to direct him, but he finally made it.
The entrance room, where the viewing window was located, was nearly empty. There was a woman further down, gazing through the large window.
Eddie approached it with caution and his heart racing a mile a minute. It wasn’t too difficult to find his baby. His son was in an incubator, close to the window and labeled ‘MUNSON’. For the first time, Eddie got to take his son in. He had been right, he fell in love with him at first sight.
He was smaller than some of the other babies, bigger than others as well and surprisingly well developed. Kind of calmed Eddie’s nerves, just a little. He had a couple of monitor pads attached to his tummy with an additional one wrapped around his tiny foot. Other than the nasal cannula, baby Munson didn’t have a whole lot of tubes attached to him like Eddie had imagined and he could see a smattering of hair on his head, somewhat light in shade but he had a feeling it would darken soon to resemble his own.
It was hard to tell if Wayne and Penny were right in their description of him, Eddie couldn’t tell if he was still pale since the baby was cloaked in blue light, but he assumed his son had gained some color by then. Eddie also couldn’t make out his eyes, those were covered by some sort of eye cloth, most likely for protection. He looked a little odd, obviously resembled a baby and while his features were almost indistinguishable, appearing a little generic, as his face still needed to develop a little more, Eddie could see hints of familiar features.
He looked like newborn Penny, well, so far. Her features had obviously changed since then, and still were, but he was promising to look almost exactly like she had when she was born. And Eddie thought Penny looked a lot like you, so it got a smile out of him, regardless of the fact his son was bound to resemble his family.
Eddie watched the rapid rise and fall of his chest with concern. Was he supposed to be breathing that fast? Was he okay?
“Which one is yours?”
Eddie turned to peer over at the woman who’d asked him the question, “Munson.”
Eddie watched as her gaze moved over all the incubators until they found the correct one.
“Oh, he’s a cute one. And his breathing looks incredible.”
“Really? It’s not too fast?” He asked, the worry in his voice obvious.
“Considering it’s his first time pumping those lungs, I don’t think so, no. Looks like he’s breathing real good to me. Mine needs a little help.” She pointed through the glass to an incubator that housed a baby with a tube in its mouth as well as individual ones in each nostril unlike his son’s nasal cannula. Eddie felt horrible.
“I’m sorry,” he tried to apologize but she waved him off, a smile still on her face.
“Don’t be, that’s all mine is here for. As soon as she figures out how to keep doing it on her own, she’ll be back with me and my wife.”
Right on, Eddie thought. Before he could continue their conversation, a nurse knocked on the window.
She gestured down to the baby, “Is he yours?”
Wow, this glass must have been thin, he could hear her pretty good.
For some reason, Eddie still assumed she couldn’t hear him and only nodded. She disappeared for a minute and emerged into the room through a large pair of doors.
“Would you like to hold him?”
Eddie glanced at the other occupant and she gave him a nod of encouragement.
“Yeah,” he rasped out, turning to look at his son through the window once more, “Yeah, I would.”
Eddie was nervous the entire time as she prepped him with instructions. While they were concerned about the hole in his son’s heart, he was well developed, had strong vitals, good reactions, even for thirty weeks. He was so good that had it not been for his heart, he probably would have been sent home at the same time as you, given your longer than average stay due to your c-section and preeclampsia.
And when she placed him in his arms, the love he had for his son almost overwhelmed him. He couldn’t believe he almost denied himself this.
“Can I touch him?” He asked, after he’d stopped marveling at the small face—eyes still hidden—in his arms.
“Mhm, we’d encourage it. Babies, even born preterm, are still very much so human. He craves the contact, it might even encourage him.”
Eddie didn’t hesitate, fingers gently stroking over the soft fluff of hair on his son’s head. This close, he could see it all pushed towards the middle of his head, like a mohawk. His baby was already metal straight out of your womb, it made him chuckle.
The nurse stepped away to tend to another baby, giving him a little privacy. Eddie maneuvered his son so he was resting on his chest, little head pressed against the spot just over his heart.
“Hi,” he whispered down to the baby in his arms, “I’m your dad.”
Much to Eddie’s awe, the baby nuzzled his head against his chest, making him still. He didn’t know why, but he’d believed his son wouldn’t be able to move for some reason. It was nice to know he was wrong.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, too,” he laughed, the sound soft, “I’ve been looking forward to it, you must have, too. You sure know how to make an entrance, huh? Couldn’t wait in your mom any longer?”
Eddie ducked down to kiss his little head, lips remaining there as he moved to sit in one of the few chairs of the NICU.
“It’s okay, though. I’ve got you, daddy’s got you.” Even if the outcome wasn’t okay, right at that moment with his son in his arms, everything felt like it would be. And if his son needed encouragement, Eddie would give it to him.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to come find you, your mom had to talk some sense into me. She loves you a lot, you know? Probably jealous I’m down here and she isn’t, but only because she physically can’t just yet.”
Eddie’s hand went to support the back of his head as he moved the baby down to hold in his hands, staring down at his little face.
“I’ll bring her down to see you again as soon as I can, though. So you gotta keep fighting, okay? I know things are hard for you right now, not as easy as the other babies in the hospital, but I know you can do it. I love you so much, your mom and I just want to take you home, so you gotta beat this, okay?”
Eddie rocked his baby, gentle swaying motions as he pressed kiss after kiss to his head.
“I see you’ve made it down for a visit,”
Eddie glanced up at the face of Dr. Houseman, she didn’t look as intimidating as she had when she’d first approached him in the waiting room.
“Sorry to disturb you, but I’m very glad I caught you. I heard your wife is doing well.”
“She is,” he confirmed, with a relieved grin.
“Good, I’m glad. Have you been given an update on your little guy?”
Eddie recounted what the nurse had told him and Dr. Houseman looked pleased.
“Well, I have more news for you. He’s proving to be much stronger than we’d initially anticipated, and while his vitals were already good on intake, they’ve improved tremendously in the last few hours and so have his responses. I think he’s figuring out what he’s capable of doing; how to breathe, how to move, how to eat—we introduced him to a rubber nipple to check his latch response and it’s good, not quite there yet, we’ll have to get creative with his feedings but I think he’ll be able to latch onto his mom soon.”
She must have caught the way Eddie perked up at her use of the word soon. That meant his baby had a fighting chance.
“These first few hours after a birth such as his and with his condition are crucial. While he’s still significantly weaker than an average full term newborn, your baby seems to be a fighter. Should he survive this next night, I believe he’ll make it. He’d just need some time in here while the hole closes up, but it just might not be too much for him.”
She left him with that news and a parting smile.
Eddie held his son for a few more minutes before a nurse returned to put him back in his incubator. He hadn’t wanted to leave him, but he’d promised him he’d be back.
When Eddie got back to the room, his heart was a little lighter and he was able to smile when he saw you giving Penny, who was now wide awake, kisses. He pressed his back up against the door and watched for a few moments as you leaned in and gave her a loud kiss. She’d go into a fit of giggles before demanding another with an again!
“Daddy!” Penny beamed the moment she saw him and Eddie grinned as he made his way over, lifting her into his arms when she held hers up to him.
“Hi, pretty one. You sleep good?”
“Uh-huh,” it was clear she was distracted and didn’t care about his questions, no, she had some of her own. “You see my baby?”
Eddie raised an eyebrow, trading an amused look with you.
“Oh, he’s your baby now?”
“Ya, he’s—he’s my baby.” She nodded with a grin as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he leaned down to press his forehead to hers.
“Well, then yes. I saw your baby,” he chuckled, pressing a kiss to her nose.
“Wha’helooklike?” Penny blurted out, eyes wide as she waited for his reply.
“He looked a lot like you.”
“Nooooooo,” Penny laughed, shaking her head against her dad’s, “He is my potatoes, not anoda Penny.”
“It’s true!” Eddie laughed with her as he put her back down by your side and leaned in to give you yet another—he’d never stop giving them to you—kiss.
“He looks like her?” You asked, after you’d returned his kiss.
“Mhm,” Eddie fell back into the seat he’d occupied hours earlier. “Looks like she did when she was a newborn. He’s not pale—like a potato,” he directed that part to Penny who just laughed into her little hands, “anymore, at least. I don’t know whose eyes he has, they were covered.”
Eddie was right about you being jealous, you were practically green with it.
“I wish I could see him,” you stated sadly, frown on your lips. You knew, realistically, if he started to decline, they’d most likely let you out of bed to see him or bring him up to you, but still. You’d rather it not come to that.
“Ran into his doctor while I was there, she said he’s got a better chance.”
Your eyes lit up, “Really?”
“I was just about ready to kiss her.” He nodded and you made a face, nose doing that adorable scrunch he loved so much.
“Okay, well, don’t do that.”
Eddie snickered, “It was a figure of speech, baby.”
“I know, I’m just saying it on her behalf,”
“On her behalf?” Eddie pouted, eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
“Yeah, I want to kiss her, too, but—uhm, Eds, you might need some sleep ‘cause—you’re hot, you really are, but you also look insane right now.”
Eddie got up to make his way to the bathroom so he could see himself in the mirror, nearly jumping once he’d turned on the lights.
His eyes were beyond bloodshot, his eye bags were dark and very apparent, his skin had an interesting almost gray like tinge to it and his hair was a wreck. Eddie looked like he belonged in a psych ward.
“Jesus,” he shouted loud enough to be heard by you.
“It’s okay, Eds. You’re still beautiful to me!”
Eddie did end up sleeping. Turns out the chair he’d been sitting on was also a pull out bed. You insisted that he get some rest, and while he did, you changed Penny’s diaper and got some hospital room service for the two of you, you’d even picked something out on the menu for Eddie to eat once he woke up.
#pennyverse#dad!eddie munson#dad!eddie munson x reader#dad!eddie munson x mom!reader#eddie munson x pregnant!reader#eddie munson angst#eddie munson x reader angst#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson#dilf!eddie munson#stranger things#stranger things fanction#stranger things 4#stranger things volume 1#stranger things volume 2#stranger things vol 2#stranger things vol 1#eddie munson x fem!reader#eddie munson x black!reader#eddie munson x you#joe quinn x reader#joseph quinn x reader#eddie munson imagine#eddie munson fanfic#girl dad!eddie munson
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todaysbird
todays bird
alllonsy
let's go!