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sshbpodcast · 7 months

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Character Spotlight: Nyota Uhura

By Ames

All channels open! We hope you’ve been enjoying our character-by-character spotlight series here on A Star to Steer Her By, because we’ve got a ways to go! This week, we’re shining the spotlight on the OG Enterprise’s communications officer, Lieutenant Uhura, whose mere presence on the bridge did more than people give credit for. I talked about this a bit when I covered Nichelle Nichols’s autobiography, but everything she did as a prominent Black woman character on this show was progressive, boldly representative, and kickass.

While we wish her character got more to do (that’s the understatement of the year), she also got some absolutely triumphant moments, and also a handful of moments that could have been handled better. So join us as we celebrate Nyota Uhura as you scroll on below or listen to the banter on this week’s podcast episode (coverage starts at 1:19:26). We hope you brought your dancin’ fronds.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best Moments

Sorry, neither I’d say you can’t get much more badass than this, but I also know what else is on this list. When Sulu is swashbuckling around and wants to rescue the “fair maiden” in “The Naked Time,” Uhura’s response of “sorry, neither” drops so many mics it blows out the speaker. And Nichelle adding the line herself, especially this early in the series, is nothing short of awesome.

Now that’s what I call music, stardate 2126.1 This is just a fluffy moment from “The Squire of Gothos,” but when Uhura starts playing the harpsichord per Trelane’s request and she seemingly magically knows how, it’s super adorable. Watching the pleased look on her face as she rocks out on an unfamiliar instrument is a fun moment from a fun episode, even if Trelane did address her pretty tactlessly first.

I can think no one better equipped to handle it Throughout The Original Series, we see background characters sliding into other roles when needed, and we’ve seen Uhura or Rand at the front stations before for sure. But when Scotty’s away in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” and Uhura hops into a technician’s uniform to rig up a subspace bypass circuit AND get commended by Spock, it’s clear she knows her stuff!

The game has rules Uhura really gets to shine in “Mirror Mirror,” so much so it’s on this list twice. Even though she’s dropped into the deep end, Uhura adapts to the situation, blends in with the mirror crew enough to enact a plan, and uses mirror Sulu’s obvious lechery as a weapon against him in an act so convincing she has him eating out of the palm of her hand!

There’s not enough room on this pad for the both of us Later in “Mirror Mirror,” Uhura straight up overpowers Marlena Moreau, yoinking a phaser out of her hands and cooling off a tense situation in which the captain’s woman was demanding that she go with them back to the good (or at least better) universe. Sorry, toots, there’s only room for one femme fatale on this ship, and she just handed you your own ass.

Only the sweetest creature known to man Could you blame Uhura for naively succumbing to the cuteness of tribbles and bringing one aboard? I mean, you could, but you’d be wrong because Uhura’s inclination in “The Trouble with Tribbles” to accept the tribble as a gift from Cyrano Jones and to share her offspring with the crew comes from a place of generosity and kindness, and I’ll not hear otherwise.

It is not allowed to refuse selection Sorry for the whiplash because we’re going from a fun episode about tribbles, to watching a Black woman having to fight off a rapist in “The Gamesters of Triskelion” (this is what happens when I order lists chronologically). It’s an uncomfortable scene and you have to listen to Uhura brutally screaming offscreen and watch her battle off a giant brute in shadow, but holy shit, she beats him back.

The future feminists want Somehow, it takes until The Animated Series to finally see women in control of the Enterprise. We give so much kudos to Uhura and Nurse Chapel in “The Lorelei Signal” for showing that each and every one of them is capable of commanding the ship, rescuing the men, and saving the day, all while having to wear those really unfortunate skirts that don’t even cover their asses.

Fool! Human females are intelligent “The Slaver Weapon” is a fascinating episode because it doesn’t feature Kirk at all, giving other characters a chance to shine. We already covered that Sulu becomes the champion of the episode by virtue of being neither a female or a vegetarian (both shunned in Kzinti culture), but Uhura does get some moments herself, like when she escapes their police web, if only briefly.

Get in the closet What might be Uhura’s best highlight comes in The Search for Spock, because movies have more time for secondary characters to do stuff. So when Uhura locks Mr. Adventure in the closet, it is a triumph for her character. Not only does it help her and the crew save the day, but this guy was being a prick to her about her job assignment, and she shuts him the hell up. Hell yes.

Shakespeare is better in the original cetacean Spock may have figured out that the probe in The Voyage Home was trying to communicate with Earth’s whales, but Uhura is the one to clean up the probe’s signal to hear what it would sound like somewhere in the ocean underwater. How does one even know how to do that? Do they train all communication officers how to translate messages in and out of whale song?

I’ve always wanted to play to a captive audience Speaking of singing, there’s more singing to talk about (though some of that will come in the next section). Last on the highlight reel is Uhura singing “The Moon’s a Window to Heaven” and using her fan dance in The Final Frontier to distract a bunch of natives while the others steal their horses. Is it also a little cringey and sexist? Probably, but look at her go! As you’ll see, it’s also one of few instances in TOS that her singing didn’t end in calamity…

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Worst Moments

Oh, on the Starship Enterprise, there’s someone who’s in Satan’s guise In contrast to recent episodes of Strange New Worlds, bad things always happen to Uhura whenever she sings in The Original Series. Her mocking songs about Spock and Charlie in “Charlie X” make Charlie jealous and perhaps a bit offended (rightly so; it’s hella rude of her!), so he takes her voice from her. And to add insult to injury, no one in the mess hall even notices!

Does she not have object permanence? This small moment always bugged me. In “Arena,” after the Metron have boinged Kirk down to the planet to fight the Gorn, Uhura lets out a piercing scream. It’s always struck me as out of place and out of character for someone who’s usually so level headed and cool as a cucumber to go ballistic over an action the Metron literally just told you they were about to do. Overreact much?

I'm sorry, Captain, I can't do that Okay, she may have been under the influence of mind-altering spores, but it still hurts a little to see Uhura sabotage the communications system in “This Side of Paradise.” And since we haven’t given other characters a pass when they were possessed by things or mirror universe equivalents of themselves or are just pod people, we’re going to do the same here.

No singing on the bridge Yet again, Uhura is singing and something bad happens! It’s like she didn’t learn from the “Charlie X” incident. The instance in “The Changeling” is particularly horrifying though because Nomad finds her singing illogical and wipes Uhura’s memories. All of them! And we’re left for the rest of the whole series to wonder if she was able to get them back and still be herself!!

Immortality and eternal beauty Every so often we get glimpses of Uhura’s vanity as well, which is probably just a little bit of latent misogyny on the parts of the writers. We certainly see Uhura almost get tempted by Harry Mudd in “I, Mudd” when he offers to put her in one of the robo-bodies of his androids and keep her young and beautiful. Lucky for us, she uses this offer to her advantage to turn the tables on the robots instead.

It’s not the sun up in the sky It was bad enough for us that “Bread and Circuses” focuses on another parallel-development planet. But Uhura revealing that the denizens aren’t sun worshippers but followers of the Son of God just makes us groan out loud. Not only did this planet somehow develop one of the same religions as Earth (the one that matters to the producers, for those keeping track), but it’s revealed in a terrible pun. Groan.

I see my death! Here’s another strange moment in which Uhura comes across as vain. Like Sulu’s hallucinating knives in space, Uhura suddenly sees herself as an old woman in her reflection in “And the Children Shall Lead.” Gorgan finds the one thing in her mind that would freak her out, and that’s getting old and wrinkly and infirm. Maybe she should have taken one of those android bodies after all.

I would hear your voice and my fears would fade As much as it’s extolled for featuring one of the first interracial kisses on television, the Uhura-Kirk scene in “Plato’s Stepchildren” is not okay. For one thing, it is nonconsensual as hell and played to be unwanted from both parties, but Uhura’s finding comfort in memories of the captain’s leadership gives the impression that she has found a way to get through it by rationalizing that it’s okay. It is seriously not. And it makes what could be a progressive moment in history into something gross.

We’ve learned not to fear words The writers of TOS had some outdated ideas about the utopian future. When Lincoln calls Uhura “a charming negress” in “The Savage Curtain,” for instance, and then apologizes because of how belittling a term that was in his time (and for viewers of the show), Uhura shrugs it off as if, because so much time has passed, the intention in old Abe’s words are just erased. It’s complicated and there are much better ways this scene could have gone than clean-slating centuries of history and context, is what I’m saying.

I refer to the sky machine which enslaves you Oh boy, here’s another complicated moment for Uhura that could have been handled better. The Shore Leave computer in “Once Upon a Planet” has kidnapped Uhura, spends a while explaining slavery to her (of all people!), and then only listens to reason when Kirk and Spock show up to save her. Come on! Uhura was in prime position to save herself, but the two white men have to bring us home?

Feelings we’ve always been afraid to express Sorry, shippers, but whatever the hell is happening between Uhura and Scotty in The Final Frontier just comes across as weird and forced to me. When Uhura is under Sybok’s influence and starts coming on to Scotty, I just find it uncomfortable, and I give Scotty credit for his line “I don't think I could take it in my present condition. ...Or yours.” Otherwise it’d just get gross.

Dujvetlh 'oH nuq? rIn. Finally, and absolutely the worst of all, Uhura is made to look absolutely incompetent at her job in The Undiscovered Country. How, after all these years, does your communications officer seem to not know a damn word of Klingon? In what was meant to be a comic scene of the crew flipping through dictionaries in a panic, Uhura simply makes a fool of herself. In this final movie, it brings a character we loved down a couple pegs and that’s a crying shame.

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Signal lost, folks. That’s it for this week, but we’ve still got some The Original Series characters to give their moments in the sun, so keep your eyes here. You can also battle with us through season one of Enterprise in our watchthrough over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and maybe don’t sing in front of lifeforms we pick up in space.

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japper2 · 2 years

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“So, the Kzinti women. As there have been many patriarchal societies in real life, it is not strange to encounter them as we explore the universe. However there seems to more here than simply a patriarchy. For it is Spock that makes the claim that Kzinti women are unintelligent animals. So, for a second let’s say Spock is 100% correct and under no possible misinterpretation. How would such a species function? You have one gender with human level intelligence and the other with the intelligence of a dog? How are courting rituals done? What do family structures look like? It is the only thing I want to know about but the episode never addresses it.”

#star trek #TAS #the slaver weapon #kzinti #Mr. Spock #lt. uhura

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yukipri · 1 year

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Following from your tags on the Galidraan post, there's actually a canon(-ish) source that states that the Darksabre was chosen by VIZSLA as their symbol of the Mand'alor: Tor Vizsla's in-universe Ba'jurne Kyr'tsad Mando'ad, which is included at the end of the real-world book, The Bounty Hunter Code. Direct quote is: "To ensure we would be led by the most powerful, we decreed that any could challenge the Secret Mand'alor for leadership of Death Watch. And, as our symbol of authority, we chose the Darksaber, an ancient weapon liberated from the Jedi long ago." (Please ignore my editing in the image.)

(The whole text of the Ba'jure Kyr'tsad Mando'ad is on google sites: https://sites.google.com/view/bajurne-kyrtsad-mandoad/title-page)

Yep, I have that book, it's actually a really fun reference, all the books in that series are! <3

But yup, see, this is another part where I see how Legends doesn't quite match up with current canon. The info in this book is Legends, specifically Legends as published in 2013. But in New Canon, given how the Darksaber is treated in Rebels and now in the Mandalorian, I feel like it being solely the symbol of "the Secret Mand'alor" is kinda BS—it's much more treated as the symbol of ALL of Mandalore.

Of course, one could interpret all of this through the lens that Clan Wren is part of House Vizsla so all of Sabine's story is biased (I'm still not happy they made that association...), and Bo-Katan used to serve Pre so of course she's got Vizsla bias, and Din was rescued by Death Watch + Paz is in his covert so presumably his covert also has strong Vizsla/Death Watch bias.

New canon is so incredibly Vizsla/Death-Watch centric, perhaps "Vizsla's Mand'alor" is the only Mand'alor that matters anymore. Which. Ugh. But kinda feels that way.

Anyway, while it isn't based on anything official, I do feel like if the Darksaber existed when Open Seasons was written, there might have been some more history with it there. Because keep in mind, even though they're both Legends, Open Seasons still predates the Code book by over a decade, and much of Legends isn't consistent.

My own take is that IF we go by the premise that the Darksaber is the symbol of the rightful leader of all of Mandalore and NOT just Death Watch, then it should make sense that at different points of time between the Darksaber becoming the symbol and the "present," it would have passed between different clans, especially since modern Death Watch is an extremist terrorist organization that has not been depicted as being the rightful anything tbh.

Therefore to me, the Darksaber is more interesting if it's a neutral symbol planetary leadership, which may have originated from Tarre Vizsla, someone who is not synonymous with Death Watch of the Clone Wars~onwards eras. Vizsla may claim that it's only a symbol of them and their Mand'alor, but again then that makes a distinction between that and a leader who unifies all of Mandalore.

It's more interesting if Jaster and Jango once had the Darksaber and were recognized as leaders, and perhaps that too was part of why Tor Vizsla was so determined to take them down, if he felt they were unfit to wield it. His underhanded tactics in getting rid of them would then mean that he didn't win the saber in fair combat, which means that when Pre presumably inherited it, its current presence in his family isn't rightful in the first place, and perhaps he never knew. That then leads to the question of whether any current claim to the Darksaber is legitimate if the last true wielder was taken down by Vizsla manipulating Jedi from the shadows, never lifting a finger himself. That kind of moral debate of honor, of understanding the messy past of Mandalore...that kind of juicy drama, I am all for.

To be clear, I'm biased, and none of the above is me saying "this is the right way to interpret this media." This is just how I, personally, am choosing to internalize it. I don't like Death Watch and don't think they have been depicted as honorable in ANY media they're in. It does not make any narrative sense, at least to me, to put them on a weird pedestal while stripping Boba, Jango, Jaster, and the other True Mandalorians of all historical and cultural relevance. IF the Darksaber is a symbol solely of Vizsla leadership, then I cannot imagine WHY anyone would want to make it into a cool fun symbol to build a franchise around and give to a hero character. So I'm hoping that canon will eventually lean a bit towards my personal interpretation, even though I have little faith that it will.

If it doesn't, eh, that's alright! I'm more than capable of making my own lil stories and entertaining myself!

Anyway, this response went a bit longer than I expected but yeah, those are my thoughts on the Darksaber and how I've personally chosen to combine Legends + New Canon!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

#batsutousai #YukiPri replies #Darksaber #the Mandalorian #Mandalorians #Mandalore #Star Wars #Star Wars Legends #Mand'alor #Death Watch #Vizsla #Jaster Mereel #longpost #long post #OP comment: btw this is the take on that history in all of my own works #at the same time who knows man i don't understand a lot of new canon decisions #like it makes zero sense to me why giving Din a symbol of the Death Watch king would be a cool thing to do #but it also makes zero sense to me why anyone in their right mind would think that giving a child the weapon of a Zygerrian slaver #and make that her iconic weapon is a good idea

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wawhii · 9 months

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Morrowind has me fucked up enough after tonight that I need the fucking Skyrim Tavern Music

#Marlinisms #Ayem if you read this thank you for letting me ramble to you (I will still do that dw :])#I care about you and you're really fun I am just fucking Nutso Berserk right now and also want to give you privacy and rest #I spent most of the day killing slavers (YAYYY!!!!!!) and robbing their stuff so I have really good armor and weapons now #And then when I got back to Balmora after doing the Skooma rounds with Ra'virr and selling him all my shit #And MY BEST FRIEND IN BALMORA LLANDRAS BELAAL TURNS OUT TO BE A SLEEPER #AND BALMORA IS FUCKING *INFESTED WITH SLEEPERS*#SLEEPERS ARE SERVENTS OF DAGOTH UR WHO IS A COSMIC FASCIST FOR THE UNINITATED #I literally have my fucking real world journal in front of me because I write while I play ro temember my opinions #And headcanons and thoughts and that kind of thing #I feel like an actual fucking Altmer who just got back to Skyrim from Morrowind #reviewing the most insane notes he's ever taken in his life #I'm so fucked up after tonight ohhh. My god #BALMORA IS FULL OF AGENTS OF DAGOTH UR AND THERE'S BLIGHTED MONSTERS ALL OVER THE PLACE #My entire BODY IS WARM I'm so fucking like fun stressed about thi #I am literally a scholar by candlelight staying up far past when I should just to get the revelation of my god damn life #Andi t's from videog game #bbooooooogggg. booogggge uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh ahhhhhhh

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palepinkycat · 2 years

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guys I can't sleep so I've beem cheking some of my children's name meanings, hoping to find some cool info and apparently Lena means torch. I mean, I know what they meant by torch but all I can see is this:

yes, it's 100% Lenka

#lenka's new preferred weapon #the slavers will perish #aedan means little fire and while i knew that before i still think itscute and suits him well #he's all fury and rage but he's also smol #leonid means lion and that's pretty much why i chose this name for him #wojmir - stork's real name - means soldier - woj and peace/kindness - mir #he's not the kindest guy in the world but he tries his best lol #veronica means she who brings victory #i didn't know that but i really like it #technically in the end she wins #she still loses pretty much everyone she loves and cares about but she survives and doesn't give up #she has a new life and is at peace with herself #titus means strong/of the giants and aaa i love that for him #he's the kind gentle giant type of guy who's main goal is to protect his loved ones my aby cinnamon roll #heron means hero #he's always wanted to be a hero and even though he feels like he failed he still is a hero #and oktavian won't let him think otherwise neither will vera #nunno means charming sdjjxhhx this sassy kid is a menace #kara/karolina means warrior/manly/free woman and OMG I HAD NO IDEA IT'S 100% HER #also kara as a noun means punishment so yeah that too #sosna is a noun that simply means pine and idk i just liked that for her she always reminds me of pines #oc:lenka #oc:aedan #oc:veronica #oc:leonid #oc:stork #oc:nunno #oc:heron #oc:kara #oc:sosna

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sptoastaddict · 8 days

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#star trek #tales of known space #larry niven #soft weapon #slaver weapon #original animated series #Spotify #playlist #scifi

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liroyalty · 3 months

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Everytime my BF plays FFXVI, I discover more side quests for Sue to do.

Cause she rather pay attention to that then my dream.

#(found a slaver abducting barers)#(that raised child barers to be weapons & now has to get more 'stock' by kidnapping them)#(ma'am sue has some words for you. they're imprinted on her fists-)#musings [lore and ideas]

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mypoisonedvine · 10 months

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𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲 | emmett x reader

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 | after being rescued from your captors, tension grows between you and the man that killed to save you.

𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 | nearly 11K (?!?! WTF?)

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 | smut (18+ only!!), angst, kind of a slow burn?, age gap (reader is twenty, emmett is late forties), pining, voyeurism, dark themes (slavery/kidnapping, discussions of noncon and loss, but emmett is not dark he's nice!!), traumatized reader (and emmett, let's be real, nobody's not traumatized here), violence (use of guns) and minor character death

This was where you waited— at his feet. Every deal, every ‘business meeting’, every mission report, you sat there on the floor beside his legs. He wanted everyone else to know your place just as much as you did.

Living with smugglers and looters like this was a rough life— but the man who bought you, Paul (though you only knew his name from hearing others speak to him) insisted you had a better life in here as his ‘pet’ than out there running missions for him, finding valuables to barter and sell. Considering there were plenty of missions that not everyone made it back from, you knew he kind of had a point.

But even so, it didn’t exactly feel luxurious being a man’s property. You’d been looked at like a thing, like less than human, like a piece of meat since you got here; and you’d been here just long enough to get really used to it. You sat here on the floor while Paul, his men, and his customers stood or at least sat on chairs.

That was why it felt so different, so shocking, when he looked at you. The man that came today, to trade with Paul. He was lean and gaunt, it was obvious even with his heavy layers of clothes; he had long hair on his head and face, but his icy stare pierced through… and it was concentrated on you from the moment he stepped into the smugglers’ compound.

He didn’t say anything, even when one of Paul’s men shut the bunker door and it was safe to talk— he didn’t react much on his face, either, staying stoic and flat. But it was obvious that you had his attention, even your ‘owner’ noticed that.

“Just bought her,” Paul explained with a proud grin as he tightened his grip on your wrist; you winced slightly. “Slavers picked her up just past the lake, she’d been camping out there for not even a week… don’t know where she was hiding before that. Isn’t she cute?”

You figured that was why he brought you here— to show you off. You, like the guards at either end of the room and by the door, were a symbol of Paul’s power. The other man just looked away from you, and back at Paul. “Can we get to business?” he asked in a rough voice.

“Of course,” Paul replied with that customer service smile of his, dropping your wrist which you held yourself right away. “You’ve got a few extra guns, and we have some extra cans of food— good shit, too, not just soggy old veggies. Or, maybe we can throw in some medical supplies, if you have ammo for those weapons,” Paul explained, gesturing to the table of goods for trade. “Whaddaya think?”

The man was silent, looking blankly ahead at the cans and boxes before him. “How much for her?” he asked suddenly, lowly.

Your heart stopped for a moment; feeling the man’s gaze run over you, you looked away and pressed your lips together. “Oh, she caught your eye, huh?” Paul purred. “Sorry, pal— not for sale. But the folks I bought her from had a couple other girls, how’s about I tell them where to find you and they can strike up a deal of their own?”

The man shook his head. “Her. I want her.”

Paul did that thing he did where he sat up straighter, and dropped his smile; you bit down on your lip to hide a whimper, because you got very fucking scared whenever he did that. “If you’re not interested in what’s available, you’d better just leave now and keep your guns, old man.”

He paused for a moment, nodding in acceptance. “Alright,” he said, “I think I will.”

He held tighter onto his gun, looking down at it for a moment.

“After all, this thing’s pretty damn useful.”

It was only a couple seconds of pure chaos. He shot Paul first, then stood up and took down all three men in the back of the room— one of them pulled his pistol fast enough to fire back, but he missed, and in a split-second he was on the ground with the others. You screamed, covering your head with your hands; your ears were ringing, and your whole body shook with shivers as you dared to glance over at the bleeding, lifeless bodies just a few feet away.

“C’mon,” the man said— it took you a half-second to realize he was talking to you, even though you were the only other living person in the room, “grab what you can. We need to run.”

We. He just killed them all, like it was nothing… for you. And now you were a we?

Shuddering, you could only shake your head. “N-no, no,” you choked out, whining when he grabbed you and yanked you to your feet; you could hear the commotion outside the room, it wouldn’t be long before someone from one of the nearby bunkers came to investigate the gunshots.

“They’re coming, and they’ll kill us both,” he growled at you, far too close to your face, and you felt your lip quivering. “Help me carry this shit and let’s go.”

It was a long walk back to… wherever he was taking you. Since you ran from the compound with your stolen supplies, you obviously hadn’t said anything to each other— you’d barely even looked at him, for some reason you were scared to.

The only interaction you’d had since you started your trek was when he noticed you shivering, and stopped to take off his jacket and give it to you; considering all you were wearing was a baggy old t-shirt and socks, it helped a lot against the chilly gusts of wind. It was awkward in the silence, not being able to reject the jacket or even thank him for it, so you just nodded as he slipped it on you. It was baggy even on him so it fit you even more awkwardly, but it made your shivers soothe instantly.

He guided you on the trail, keeping his gun close by, and eventually you came to some kind of processing plant; with what little you knew about manufacturing, your glances around the factory made you guess it was once a metallurgy building. Now it was abandoned, and as you climbed down the ladder he pointed you towards, you realized he was taking you right into some horrible small space— with a massive iron door. You hesitated, but he silently gestured you forward; your heart raced, knowing you had no chance of escape from a place like that. Not that you ever really stood a chance of escape from someone as capable as he had proved himself to be so far— but the idea of going into that little room with him made you feel a bit sick. It reminded you of your first day with Paul, of having all your freedom and dignity torn away, and you wondered if this was all just the beginning of another cycle: out of the frying pan, into the fire.

But you had no choice: you stepped forward, crawling into the little nook, and he followed behind you and shut the large round door.

It was pitch black for a moment, and you felt a sort of primal fear— would he really do this here, in complete darkness— would he really force himself on you? You tried to scoot as far away as you could, until a hard wall hit your back; but you knew there was nothing you could do to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to you now, and you closed your eyes in hopes he wouldn’t be cruel. But within a few seconds, he’d taken out a camping lantern and opened it, filling the room with a sort of speckled white light, and you opened your eyes slowly.

“Are you okay?” he asked first, and you weren’t sure how to answer that. “My name’s Emmett,” he informed you quietly. “Don’t… you don’t need to worry, alright? I won’t hurt you.”

You shrunk away slightly, holding your legs to your chest. Paul had said the same thing, but then again, he’d never actually said it like he meant it. In fact, what he’d said exactly was I won’t hurt you if you behave. And he still did. Because he could.

“I don’t wanna— I won’t do anything with ya,” Emmett explained, and you could’ve sworn you saw a slight blush above that long beard. “Just couldn’t leave that place knowing you were there, against your will and all… it’s not right, keeping people like that, keeping girls…”

You looked away, eventually giving him a small nod as a response. You wanted to believe him, he sounded genuine, but you weren’t ready to trust a stranger you saw kill four men so casually.

“Mind tellin’ me your name?” he encouraged softly.

You mumbled it into your arms into the fabric of the old t-shirt which still smelled like the prison he’d broken you out of.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” he pressed.

You said it again, louder, and he smiled a bit at you; you smiled back, too, but it was partially hidden by the tattered shirt’s sleeve.

“Pretty,” he said. “M’gonna keep you safe here, alright? I-I mean, you don’t have to stay here. You can go back wherever you want, I just… I figure you might end up where I found you again if you go out there on your own. No offense.”

You nodded; you weren’t cut out for making it on your own out there, you weren’t too proud to admit that. You used to run with a group of survivors, which made it much easier to get by, but you’d been naive enough to think you could reject the group leader’s advances without suffering consequences: they left you in the night, without a word, and you only made it one more day on your own before getting captured by slavers. That felt like a lifetime ago now, like stories that happened to a whole other person, but it wasn’t actually that long— Paul bought you a few weeks ago at most. Still, those few weeks had changed you as a person, and you went from being terrified of being alone to being terrified of everyone else. Maybe you were still an impossible mix of both…

“I have a decent set-up here… some food and water, a little more since we took some from your old friends back there,” he chuckled nervously. “And, uh, you can sleep in here… sorry it’s so small, never really planned to share it… I— I can find another place to sleep if this isn’t enough room—“

“Why are you doing this?” you interrupted, and he seemed startled to hear you talk so much.

“Huh?”

“Why are you doing this?” you asked again. “For me? I mean… you don’t know me.”

“Well, I could,” he shrugged, “you could tell me about you.”

“But why did you save me?”

“I said so already, I couldn’t leave you there with those men. Young girl stuck in that place, just about the worst thing I can imagine…”

“M’not that young,” you protested, “I’m twenty.”

He smiled a little. “Of course. Sorry.”

You sighed, relaxing slightly, and he seemed to lower his own shoulders as well.

“You seem tired,” he noticed. “It was a long walk.”

“Yeah,” you nodded, “I used to be able to walk a long way, but I lost my stamina— I wasn’t really going very far when I was there, you know…”

“I’m sure,” Emmett agreed. “You hungry? We could eat something.”

“Um, maybe…” you mumbled nervously. You felt nervous to ask for anything of him— like he might ask you for something in return. It wouldn’t be absurd of him to expect some kind of repayment for saving you; but if he expected that, then he wouldn’t be much of a savior after all.

“I saw granola bars in one of the bags we took,” he said. “Sometimes I still get nervous, opening something crinkly like that— but nothing can hear us in here, I promise. You’re safe.”

You hesitated before nodding; safe. That sounded nice. Now you just had to convince yourself it was true.

You’d noticed him looking at you a lot this evening, while you were both preparing dinner; you tried not to react to it. He kept glancing at you, just for a moment, like he thought you wouldn’t notice. You just kept focusing on the work at hand— peeling an orange— and tried not to think about why he kept looking at you. Maybe he had something to say, but that would be odd since he usually didn’t. Maybe you were doing this wrong somehow, or he was jealous that you were going to eat that fruit as an appetizer before the real meal.

Or maybe he just found you appeeling!

You snorted a little involuntarily, amused by your own joke, and he looked at you again. “You alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, sorry,” you mumbled, fighting a smile as you shook your head. “It’s nothing.”

And the silence continued. Even for a time when most everyone was quiet by necessity, Emmett was quiet. He had this special place, somewhere safe enough to talk, but he didn’t often utilize that privilege; or at least, he hadn’t since you got here a few days ago, but there wouldn’t have been anyone to talk to before then. You figured he just didn’t have a lot to say— and it’s not like you were some kind of conversation queen either. You didn’t ask about him or his life before this, even though you were actually pretty curious: you just watched him, and if he noticed, he didn’t react to it. This was the first time he seemed to be returning some of that attention.

“You can talk about it, if you want,” he suggested suddenly, making you furrow your brow a bit.

“About what?” you asked, not taking your eyes off your orange in progress, but you knew already what he meant.

“About how you came to be where I found you,” he said. “Don’t have to— I wouldn’t wanna talk about it, if I was you— but if you do… I just want you to know you can tell me.”

You shrugged, keeping yourself from looking up at him. “Why do you wanna know?”

“I don’t,” he insisted. “But sometimes I can tell you’re thinking about it.”

Swallowing thickly, you looked away; here you were, wearing the clothes he’d given you, living in his ‘home’, surviving off of him. On paper, it was the same as it had been before— that’s why you were thinking about it. But it was night and day: Paul gave you rags to wear, if that, and Emmett had you in his own clothes— comfy plaids and knitted sweaters that smelled shockingly good for any apocalypse survivor; Emmett had a few creature comforts here, art and decent food and pillows… Paul’s bunker was exactly as flat and rigid and cold as the word ‘bunker’ indicates; and surviving with Emmett felt the most like real living since you were with your old group— though you knew them infinitely better.

“But we don’t have to—” he began again, shaking his head like he regretted the whole idea.

“Who are those pictures of?” you asked, interrupting him.

“Pictures…” he mumbled.

“The ones you hid,” you said, “or tried to hide. Drawings, paintings—”

“You shouldn’t have been looking there,” he said firmly, looking down.

“I know,” you breathed, “but you were gone— I was bored—”

“Gone getting you food,” he reminded you, pointing with his knife— don’t worry, he was just peeling a potato with it— to the orange in your hand.

“Us,” you corrected, “we’re both eating. And I’m sorry… you don’t have to tell me, either. We can just have another quiet dinner.”

He paused before sighing a bit, looking at you and then back to his half-peeled vegetable. “My sons,” he said quietly. “Those are my sons. Were my sons…”

“I know,” you whispered, and he looked at you quizzically. “I could tell, I mean— you have that look in your eyes, I knew you’d lost someone.”

He shrugged. “Everyone lost someone. Some lost everyone.”

You almost found the energy to smile, but it came out more like pressing your lips together. “Yeah,” you agreed. “They kinda look like you, in the pictures. You’re talented.”

“Oh, I didn’t draw them,” he scoffed, “no way— I couldn’t draw a circle. It was my wife.”

Why did you get a little pit in your stomach when he said that. “You’re married?”

“Uh huh,” he nodded, “but she— um, she passed. Not too long ago. Well… I guess a few months is a while ago. But it still feels new.”

You nervously looked down at the orange in your hands, peeling off the last strip of skin and picking off a few white chunks of pith here and there. Not sure what to say, you simply pulled a segment off of the rest and reached over with it, offering it to him. “Here,” you said, and he looked at the piece of fruit in your hand before looking at you.

“No, s’fine,” he shook his head, “I’ll eat when dinner’s ready.”

“Come on,” you insisted, shaking it a little as if that would make it more enticing. “You’re working up an appetite peeling the spuds. Just have a few.”

Finally, he relented. “Thanks,” he said, taking it and putting it in his mouth. He chewed for a moment, working on the potato still, but he talked a bit around it just before he swallowed. “You don’t have kids, do you?”

You shook your head, laughing. “No, do I seem old enough for that?”

“No,” he agreed, “but you know— stuff happens.”

“I wanted them someday,” you admitted, “but no. I actually, uh… I was pretty nervous about getting pregnant in the bunker…”

He swallowed, for more than just the orange. Looking at you, you found his stare somehow both intimidating and comforting.

“I shouldn’t complain too much,” you shook your head, “he wasn’t that bad. He was more interested in showing me off to others than actually doing too much when we were alone.”

“You shouldn’t complain too much about being a sex slave to a smuggler?” he repeated incredulously, like he was offended on your behalf by what you had said.

“I was just a trophy,” you shrugged, “I was the most expensive thing he owned. It was all business with him: he wanted you— you know, anybody who bought from him— to know he was capable of that. Of owning somebody. And, um… that only happened twice. Once the first night, and then, um… well—”

“You don’t have to say,” he offered you softly. “It’s okay if you just never wanna think about him again. I certainly sleep better at night knowing I turned his head inside out.”

You smiled a little, even though the image of that still haunted you. “No, it’s fine. I think it’s easier to just treat it like anything else. Like, one time I broke my arm, one time my pet cat died, one time this gang captured me and sold me to a trader in exchange for pills and pickles— just something that happened that I hated and now… now it’s over.”

Now I’m safe. You could talk about it because you finally believed that Emmett wouldn’t put you through it again. When you looked at him, he smiled at you a little; you popped a piece of the orange into your mouth.

“S’good,” you mumbled as you chewed, giving him another piece and feeling the tips of his fingers just barely brush yours as he accepted it.

A few days later, he did the same thing: interrupted your silent meal with a sudden interjection. “Y’ever shot a gun before?” he asked, and you awkwardly shook your head. He sighed. “Alright, well, you should learn. Case something happens.”

“Guns don’t work on those things,” you noticed.

“They work on people,” he replied. “And you’ve had a lot more trouble with them.”

You shrugged, certainly in no place to deny that. “Guns are loud,” you reminded him.

“A little noise is worth it,” Emmett promised, “if it’s you or them. And if you’re not packing, then it’ll be you. You need to learn.”

Not if I have you with me, you almost blurted out. Thankfully, you stopped yourself and nodded in agreement instead.

“I’ll teach you up there,” he gestured towards the world above with a quick tilt of his head, “unloaded. Obviously.”

Going up to the surface was a strange feeling. You hadn’t felt this safe anywhere since this global nightmare began, honestly, and you were almost spoiled by it now— here, with Emmett, you were sure that nothing would come to harm you. But up there? You knew, logically, that it was usually alright as long as you kept quiet, but you were pretty fucking quiet when the slavers found you.

Even being down here alone gave you the smallest tinge of anxiety— that someone might find you and steal you while Emmett was out foraging— and you never navigated the forest alone. You had the feeling that Emmett was teaching you to use a gun so that you could do just that, but it didn’t sound worth it to be away from him.

But, you had to admit, you sort of enjoyed the lessons.

He stood behind you, wrapping you up in his arms as he corrected your stance. Out here, he had to speak under his breath beside your ear, and it made chills run up your spine. “Align the sights,” he told you, tapping the small metal divot on top of the pistol.

You nodded, shutting one eye tight and trying to aim better; adjusting your head to get the right stance just pushed you up against his shoulder more, and you tried not to lean back into him.

“Pull the trigger when you’re ready,” he instructed; he was barely making any sound at all, more shaping a breath around his words than really speaking.

Even knowing it wouldn’t go off, you started to shrink away as you pulled the trigger; it was heavier than you expected, forcing you to strain to turn the revolver.

“Don’t flinch,” he warned. “Stay steady.”

You still did, a little bit, but you calmed yourself with a breath and tried not to pre-emptively react: when you finally pulled the trigger all the way, the revolver turned with a click, but that was it.

“Good,” he said simply.

“How can you know?” you asked. “Without shooting anything—”

“You’re not using a bullet for practice,” he reminded you with a frown.

“I know, I know— I just mean, how can you know I would’ve hit what I was aiming at?”

“As long as these line up,” he replied as he touched the sights again, “and you don’t flinch, you will.”

You nodded, hoping that was enough, but then he took the revolver and took his shotgun off of his back. “I— I can’t shoot that thing—”

“Yes you can,” he promised, shaking his head dismissively. “The rifle— you can’t shoot that. That requires a steady hand.”

You rolled your eyes, but you were shaking as you took the shotgun from him, so you couldn’t exactly deny it. And, furthermore, the whole point of the sniper rifle was to get things that were far away… you were only planning to use these things if something got too close.

A lot of things had gotten more natural with Emmett— you talked sometimes, you ate together, he even let you come with him on trips out sometimes. But one thing that never really changed was how weird it was to sleep beside him; what did change was why it was weird.

From the beginning, you couldn’t sleep unless you knew where he was. Even if you couldn’t fully trust him then, you still had that anxiety of being abandoned in the night like you had before you were captured; for better or for worse, Emmett was obviously tough enough to protect you and was the only thing between you and certain death or enslavement out there in the world.

As a result, he’d been sleeping beside you, just to get you to stop waking up in cold sweats as often. And now that you trusted him and knew him a little better, you expected it to be easier to sleep with him there… if anything, you were getting less sleep than ever.

You were struggling to understand why— or maybe you were just struggling to accept it— but having him right beside you all night kept you up, kept your heart beating fast, kept you listening to the sound of his breathing instead of just focusing on your own.

At least tonight, you could blame it on the cold. You both had on several layers, but it was pretty much impossible to keep a space like this warm— underground, uninsulated— and it was only getting colder since the sun set.

"Chilly," you announced as you pulled the blankets up higher, and Emmett hummed in agreement. That was the extent of your bravery, you couldn't bring yourself to ask him outright if he'd move a little closer so you could share some heat.

You waited a few minutes, wondering if he was already asleep, and then reached towards him in the dark; but when your hand brushed against him, he shrugged it away. Turning his back to you, he seemed to huddle up a little bit more as if shrinking away from you, and you sighed.

“You don’t have to be so far,” you whispered, and he sighed.

“Yes, I do,” he insisted, stern yet soft-spoken.

“Please, Emmett, it’s cold…”

“I know, sweetheart, I just… I wanna do right by ya, that’s all,” he sighed.

“There’s nothing wrong with holding me to warm up,” you sighed. “I mean, it’s not like you’re… thinking about anything else.”

“Of course,” he choked, “okay, fine, if you’re cold… c’mere, then.”

You wiggled your way closer as he rolled onto his back, sighing when you felt how warm he was even through his clothes. Pressing your head to his chest, you heard his breath catch as you lifted your leg to drape over his, trying to get him as close as possible.

He seemed to hesitate first, but then he relaxed slightly and rested his arms around your back.

It had been a long time since someone held you like this. You sunk into his arms, loving how it felt to be pressed into him, and you let out a little hum of satisfaction as your shivers went away and his warmth began to absorb.

He seemed tense beneath you at times, and you feared that doing this would keep him from sleeping; but, frankly, you were desperate enough for your own sleep that you weren’t planning on worrying too much about his… you quite literally didn’t plan on losing any sleep over it.

It was impossible to say how long you'd been asleep— you weren't even fully awake yet— but when you started to stir, you felt him shifting under you. But you were taken from half-consciousness into pure lucidity when you felt a harder, hotter shape against your inner thigh; didn't take a detective to figure out he had an erection. You shouldn't have reacted, you realized it a second too late, but you had to gasp when you felt it— mostly because it seemed quite thick even though his pajama trousers—

“I’m sorry,” he breathed right away.

"It's okay," you assured, but he kept going.

“I can’t help it— I don’t mean anything by it, I just… I’m only a man.”

“It’s okay,” you repeated softly, though your face had never felt so hot. “I understand, it’s normal—“

He started to pull away, and you whined as you grabbed at his shoulders.

“Wait, you don’t have to go,” you gasped, “I won’t be able to sleep…”

“Well, it’s never gonna go away with you pressed up to me!” he grunted. “C’mon, sweetheart, gimme a chance here…”

“I really don’t mind it, Emmett—“

"I do," he snapped. "You're young— younger than you realize."

"I'm grown," you promised, but he peeled you off of him and turned away.

"Go to sleep," he demanded.

"But—"

"Just go back to sleep!" he ordered.

Though you weren't sure how you were supposed to sleep with your heart racing and your mind playing the moment you felt his cock against your leg on loop, you decided you would try just because his stern voice sort of scared you into obeying.

It did work, eventually— you can only lay down in the dark for so long before sleep is unavoidable— but you still awoke sometime later, and heard him breathing differently beside you. There was no light to see what he was doing, but you could hear his arm moving against the blanket under him— and when you heard him sigh, you imagined that he might be jerking off. Maybe his erection wouldn't go away until he did that, and you bit your lip as you tried to picture it: stroking himself, breathing deeply, being careful not to make too much noise or even move too much. But in your head, he was too desperate, struggling to hold himself back from bucking up into his palm, his cock flexing as his orgasm threatened to spill over at any moment.

The thought made you want to touch yourself, too— you were getting wet already and your hips shifted in hopes of finding something to rub against— but you were far too afraid to get caught or startle Emmett into stopping.

You heard a tense sigh and all that motion behind you stopped; you bit your lip as you wondered if he just came. And if he did, what had he been thinking of? He seemed so offended by the idea of being attracted to you— he didn't even acknowledge it, like it was wrong to even suggest— but you hoped somehow that he had been imagining you. If only he could've told you, if only he had pulled you closer in the dark and asked you to take care of his problem for him… maybe you should've been ashamed for thinking it, but you would've spread your legs for him right away if he'd told you he wanted you. Even if it was just taking care of his needs, not real love— even if it was only a practical thing. You couldn't do much for him, but you could certainly help in that regard.

But, at the same time, you knew that if Emmett ever did use you in such a way, you'd fall in love with him. Even if it meant nothing to him, you wouldn't be able to stop yourself; you couldn't admit to yourself how close you were to that edge already, but you couldn't deny how quickly you would fall over it if he ended up fucking you.

Or maybe it wouldn't be like that— fucking, that is; it's a rather crass way to put it. Maybe it wouldn't be that way, maybe it would be gentle and sweet and passionate. He certainly was kind to you, and unexpectedly patient… you wondered if that would translate into him being delicate with you, soft touches and slow kisses— really making love, you know.

Or, maybe he'd been alone so long that he wouldn't be able to help himself; maybe he'd just have to moan in your ear while he took you roughly, holding tight to your hips so you couldn't do anything but take him just the way he wanted. Maybe he'd leave bruises and marks on your skin, reminders of his work, and bite down on you to keep himself from being too loud.

Your back was arching into nothing, just hoping that he would turn around and pull you close, press his chest into your back, and whisper in your ear as he started to tug your pants down. Sorry, sweetheart, I just need you too bad…

It was a miracle you ever fell back asleep with that thought in your mind. But you did, somehow— a frustratingly dreamless sleep— and when you woke up in the morning, he was gone again.

Since that night, you’d felt this tension between you— but you had no clue if he felt it, too. He was nice, in his own way, but definitely on the aloof side; and he seemed to avoid you a little more after all that happened anyway. It sort of made you wonder if he resented you, if he was angry with you somehow for what happened— maybe you’d been too pushy, you were never trying to force him into anything of course— but then again, you figured he wouldn’t be working so hard to take care of you both if that were the case.

Even if you couldn’t hunt or even cook very well, you tried to be helpful in various ways; this little underground hideout was certainly tidier and cozier than it had ever been before, and you tried to take pride in that instead of thinking of yourself as useless to him. And all his clothes were mended, you made sure of that; he seemed to appreciate it, at least.

Now that you thought of it, you were sort of becoming a homemaker now— you felt a bit conflicted at the realization. There’s nothing wrong with it, right? Just being here, helping how you can? But you wanted to be more useful, if you could— you just didn’t know how.

(Well, you had ideas… but you weren’t about to suggest that, after how awkward it all was last time.)

Maybe just your company was enough for him, otherwise he probably wouldn’t still keep you around… but then again, for someone who apparently wanted your company, he wasn’t so talkative. It would make more sense if you two were up all night, telling each other everything about your lives and your dreams and anything you could possibly remember to talk about— but it wasn’t like that at all. He still avoided personal questions even after nearly a month together, and he had a tendency to just hum and nod or shake his head when you asked him something.

But, the good news was, you’d gotten a little more comfortable leaving the underground hideout without him. You never went far, obviously, but you went far enough to stretch your legs and get some fresh air and, today, stumble upon a little clearing with a pond. It was relatively small, but deep, and best of all it had a river that fed into it, over a cliff; to put it more plainly, it had a waterfall. It was small— you figured it probably didn’t pour at all unless there had been good rainfall recently— but it still meant you had a little more freedom here than usual. Ambient noise, as you understood it, deterred the creatures because they couldn’t stop it and couldn’t hear other sounds over it. You weren’t about to belt out Whitney Houston or anything, but you could make some sound— and the sound you made right away when you saw it was getting your clothes off as fast as you could and diving right in.

The water was a little cold— okay, very fucking cold— but it was worth it: being able to clean yourself more thoroughly than normal was quite a treat, and one you planned on relishing.

You found yourself laughing— you sort of couldn’t stop, actually. Partially because you were cold and shivering like crazy, partially because you were giddy… mostly just because you could. You kept your clothes and revolver in a neat pile by the cliff wall, trying not to stray too far from it in case someone came by; but, at the same time, you were also trying to just forget about everything that scared you for a moment and be free.

You soaked your hair and ran your hands over your face, letting the water renew your skin— you couldn’t deny this cold plunge was invigorating, if not especially relaxing like a hot bath would’ve been. But hot baths were obviously rare in these times, and you closed your eyes as you tried to remember the last one you took. You leaned back in the water, floating partially against the flow of the waterfall behind you, and remembered simpler times: long baths, fresh meals,

Not everything was perfect then. Your life was easier, yes, but you’d still longed for someone to share it with. Someone to trust. You opened your eyes and looked up at the sky, a pale grey-ish blue that covered the sun but was still somehow too bright and made you squint; you sighed, moving your arms enough to feel the water swirl between your fingers.

For some reason, you thought of Emmett just then; you wanted to tell him about this place as soon as he got back home, you could bring him here and he could swim too— he probably wouldn’t skinny dip with you, right? Definitely seemed out of his comfort zone, he wouldn’t even sleep next to you at night anymore… but you still giggled at the thought, wondering if you’d get a chance to see the rest of his tattoo that you’d noticed peeking out from his sleeve sometimes. Then you could ask him about it, move closer, trace the lines with your finger; you could watch the goosebumps prickle on his skin from the cold water, and shiver even more when you met his gaze—

You shook your head like it might knock the thought out of your brain. He’d made it clear he didn’t have that sort of interest in you. It broke your heart a little, but you had no choice but to accept it. Still, you had this nagging feeling that it wasn’t you— he implied before it was your age, or some kind of chivalry thing; and then there was all that grief, something anybody left had to have by now.

You, too, had lost loved ones that day, and in the days since— that was unavoidable— but what you had nearly lost most of all was yourself. And then he found you, and you’d found something you’d been looking for for so long… much longer than all this.

Your heart skipped a beat when you heard something moving, just past the trees; you whipped around in the water, looking everywhere for the source of the noise, and you saw a figure slip back behind a trunk. You’d never felt so sick with terror all at once, and in a second, you leaned over and snatched your revolver off the top of your pile of clothes.

Pointing it at the tree, you wondered if you should be barking out orders right now— come out with your hands up or something— but that wouldn’t be helpful if there was a creature nearby… or if there was more than one person in these woods. You swallowed, knowing a revolver wasn’t going to cut it if there was a whole group closing in on you now.

Slowly moving through the water, you walked up the bank of the pond, and when you heard another shifting movement from behind the tree, you shuddered and shut one of your eyes. Align the sights. Stay steady.

Suddenly, the figure stepped out, and you didn’t even stop to think: you pulled the trigger and fired, eyes shutting tight as the kickback flung your arms up and the sound echoed through the forest.

You hesitated to open your eyes, but just before you did, you heard a groan— in a voice all too familiar. When you looked, there was a man on the ground, and your heart stopped again when you saw his face.

“Fuck! Emmett!” you yelped, running the rest of the way out of the water and not caring at all that you were naked and dripping— you ran up to him and straddled him as he rolled on the ground, clutching his arm. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry— oh my god! Please, please tell me you’re okay—”

He didn’t say anything, in fact his face was still screwed into a tight wince as you tried to see where he was holding— his arm, just below the shoulder, you could see where the sleeve of his jacket was torn and blood had begun to stain the fabric.

“Emmett, Jesus, I swear to god— I didn’t know it was you, I—” you began to promise, before you wondered if you should ask what the hell he was doing there. Why didn’t you tell me it was you? Why didn’t you say something? But you decided, as you watched him bite his lip to keep from being any louder, that now was not the time to interrogate him; shooting him had clearly irritated him enough already. “That— that was fucking loud,” you realized, lowering your voice. “We need to go back before—”

He just nodded, and you got up off of him to help him up and grab your clothes— a naked woman and a bleeding man running through the woods. Maybe that’s just a normal day in the post-apocalypse.

He hissed when you applied the disinfectant to the cut, looking away rather than letting you see how this affected him— that, or the other side of the room suddenly got incredibly interesting. But you knew as well as anyone, living in this room for over a month, that it was not very interesting.

“God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you mumbled, wincing yourself just having to put him through this. “Can I keep going, or—?”

He nodded, still looking the other direction, and you gave him a sympathetic frown as you started to dab at the cut.

It wasn’t too deep, thank heavens— it probably didn’t even need stitches, just some alcohol and gauze— but you still felt more guilty than you had for anything you’d ever done in your life. “Thank god I missed,” you chuckled softly, wondering if it was still too soon for humor— and he didn’t laugh, so maybe it was.

“Yeah— you flinched,” he noticed, sounding correctional, and your jaw almost dropped.

“Fucking— are you serious, Emmett?” you snapped. “You’re mad at me for not killing you?!”

“You didn’t know it was me,” he replied.

You sighed, thankful he was looking away so he wouldn’t catch your eyeroll. “Of course,” you breathed. “Of course I didn’t know it was you— I would’ve never…”

He looked at you again. “I know,” he promised quietly.

You chewed your lip and nodded.

Taking the bloodied rag away, you looked at the wound— it was a lot better already, and it looked clean, and you still couldn’t imagine forgiving yourself for doing it to him. You took out a bandage and started to wrap it up around the gash.

“Your ink’s still intact,” you noticed, smiling as you got your look at the tattoo— although you obviously didn’t mean to go through all this just to see it. You didn’t trace the lines but you did run your fingers over the whole piece: a mountainscape, with tall trees and a cloudy sky. “It’s pretty.”

He snorted a little. “I was just a kid when I got that— tryin’ to be tough. Definitely wasn’t going for ‘pretty’.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t have gotten this lovely view,” you smiled back. “Is this a real place?”

“Yeah, Montana— grew up there,” he said. “Always thought I’d go back, then I had my kids— and then, you know—”

“Right,” you nodded, finishing up your gauze-ing of the damage. You were gonna let him put his shirt back on, not that you really wanted him to, but he didn’t yet. “Must have been nice, growing up under mountains like these.”

He shrugged. “It was— sometimes. It was quiet, I’ll tell you that. All I wanted was to escape, back then. Then all I wanted was to go back.”

You smiled a little. “Yeah, I know that feeling— I mean, I think everyone feels like that. I always wanted to move to the city— New York, you know,” you said with a whimsical affect on your words, “it’s like a mythical place to anybody from anywhere else.”

He chuckled slightly, rubbing the back of his neck (with his uninjured arm) and nodding in agreement. “Yeah, I get that. But then how’d you end up in the suburbs? Or— don’t tell me you came all the way from the city—”

“No, no, not that far,” you promised, “but I was a little closer to it before everything happened. I, uh… I actually ended up in the suburbs because of a boy.”

He nodded, wearing a sort of knowing look, and you felt a little embarrassed. “Ah,” he said simply.

“And then, um, you know— he left. As they tend to.”

“Boys?”

“Everyone.”

He swallowed; you regretted saying it, sort of, but you were still talking— like you couldn’t stop yourself. Your hands were shaking— you were looking down at them in your lap, you knew they were— and you just felt like you couldn’t keep your mouth shut any longer.

“You know, this is the first time that I really…” you sighed and shook your head, looking for the words. “This is the most I’ve ever trusted somebody. I guess because I have to— but you—”

“S’alright,” he interrupted, “you don’t have to say all that.”

“You won’t even let me thank you?” you laughed, but your frustration was obvious; when you looked up at him, his eyes were filled with something that finally made your hands stop shaking. Flooded with a sudden wave of courage (and wanting to act on it before it inevitably subsided), you leaned forward and kissed him; you shut your eyes tight— you would’ve lost your nerve otherwise— and you held his cheek in one hand, the tips of your fingers brushing against his hair while your palm pressed against his somewhat unruly beard.

For one moment, it was perfect, but then he reached up and took your hand, guiding you away slowly. You pulled back, more dejected than ever, and he gave you a soft frown as he shook his head.

Falling back into your chair, you slumped dejectedly; you didn’t want to cry, it would just seem pathetic now, but your eyes were watering anyways. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“No— it’s alright,” he promised, “I’m not… offended, or something.”

“What am I to you?” you asked, point blank. “I mean— I know I’m not— fuck, I’m stupid. I know I’m not…”

Despite starting again, you couldn’t find the words the second time, either.

“I just mean… do you see me as, like, a charity case? A daughter figure or something?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I— you’re not my property. That’s not why I took you from that son of a bitch. You can leave whenever you want, you know.”

“But do you want me to stay?” you asked, feeling tears run down your cheeks suddenly even though you had specifically requested that they not do that.

Your real question was trapped in the middle of that sentence: do you want me?

He looked away again, and your hurt started to shift into anger— because that’s all anger really is, anyway: hurt, dressing up as something else. “You treat me like a child! Sometimes you won’t even look at me, like you’re embarrassed of me! I’m not your property but I’m not your equal, either— so what am I to you? Do you even see me as a woman at all?!”

That accusation seemed to get his attention, and he almost looked angry, too. “I am well aware that you’re a woman,” he said sternly.

“Is that why you were watching me at the pond?”

You’d never seen him with that deer in the headlights look— technically, you still didn’t, because he turned his head away quickly.

“That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it?” you pressed. “How long were you there before I heard you? Come on, Emmett— look at me. Or will you only do that when I’m naked?”

He snapped, standing up quickly and grabbing you by your— his— shirt to pull you with him. “Do you know what you’re fucking doing to me?” he growled at you.

“Same thing I did to you that night it got too cold?” you returned with a sneer, and he shoved you away with a shudder, turning to face the wall and crossing his arms.

There was a silence, though it wasn’t nearly as long as the ones you’d gotten used to with him, and he dropped his shoulders as he sighed. “I’ve done what I can for you,” he said quietly— and your stomach twisted in knots. He’s going to ask me to leave, you assumed instantly. “I’ve tried to… to leave you alone—”

“That’s what you think I want?” you realized, almost laughing it was so absurd. “Begging you not to leave, to stay where I can see you all night, trying to get you to talk to me— because I want to be alone?”

“After what happened to you— after how it must have been with him—” he started, turning around and looking at you sadly— “I’d wanna be fucking left alone. I’ll say that.”

“Well, I guess I’m just not strong enough for that,” you decided with an unhappy sort of smile. “I guess I still need someone. I need you. And clearly that’s just my fucking problem, so I’m sorry for making it yours.”

But he stepped closer to you, reaching out to hold your shoulders, and you met his gaze again. You shivered, just like you thought you would. “Say it again,” he requested flatly. It wasn’t very specific, but you knew exactly what he meant.

“I need you,” you said again, softer, and he shut his eyes with a sigh.

Your eyes shut, too, when he leaned down and pressed his forehead against yours; you breathed together for a second, your hands moving up to his bare chest as you bit your lip.

“I need you,” you repeated, even quieter— a whisper now— and another tear striped your face. “Emmett, I need you—”

“Fuck,” he said softly, and you smiled. “Fuck, I need you, too.”

You smiled even wider then; he could probably hear your heartbeat, you would’ve sworn it was beating out of your chest. Opening your eyes when you felt him pull back, you waited patiently— like you had been since this all began.

“I just— I don’t want you thinking that you have to—” he started to explain.

“I don’t have to,” you nodded, “but I want to. Is that wrong?”

He didn’t answer, but he kissed you; he held your jaw gently, tilting your head back, and he kissed you in just the way you’d dreamed of.

It was simple enough at first, sweet and sort of slow— he pulled you closer, wrapping you in a hug while you held onto his shoulders— but then it got… heavier. Hungrier. Hotter.

You were gasping as you opened your mouth wider, all but begging him to dive deeper; and for his part, he kept grabbing your waist and hips, pulling you into him like he couldn’t get you close enough, and you thought your knees were going to buckle.

The two of you stumbled back, together, towards the sort-of bed that you sort-of shared; he laid you back on it, and you heard yourself whimper a little as you let him slot himself between your legs.

His weight was oddly comforting on top of you, pressing you back into the nest of blankets as you arched your back against him.

You both pulled back from the kiss as you looked down, needing to see somewhat what you were doing as you started to open his belt. He looked down too, watching you do it for a second, before laughing a bit and leaning in to kiss your neck. “Fuck,” you sighed, “come on, you’re gonna distract me—”

“What’s the hurry?” he purred, grabbing your hands and pinning them back instead— and that made you moan out loud. “We’ve got all the time we want, darlin’...”

“Fuck, but I—” you whined, though you struggled to pull a sentence together when he dragged his tongue over your pulse like that. “God, I just— please—”

“Shh,” he soothed, “m’gonna take care of you. Gonna take care of you, sweet girl, I promise…”

And he’d taken care of you every way he knew how before, so you trusted him. Still, you weren’t exceptionally patient.

You gasped when you felt him press his hips to yours through all these goddamn clothes; he was hard, really fucking hard, and it made your head spin. How were you supposed to wait for him to be all slow and romantic and stuff when you felt that? “Pretty girl,” he cooed at you quietly, “look at me for a second.”

You looked up at him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, and he smiled back at you as he pet your forehead for a moment.

“There you are,” he breathed, and your heart swelled.

He undressed you carefully, like you were the one with an injury, and you bit your lip to fight the urge to beg him to hurry the fuck up. He kissed all over your neck and chest, even as far down as your belly while he was pulling your panties down your thighs— and of course he looked up at you as he did it, like he knew it would absolutely wreck you. “God, Emmett, please,” you whined, sighing with relief when he sat up and finished opening his belt. He kept looking at you while he did it, something darker and heavier in his stare as he pushed his jeans down; you couldn’t help but look down at it, and you breathed in sharply as you bit your lip.

Of course it was fucking big— you’d figured it was from what you felt before— with a thick, leaking head and a curve that you could just tell was going to fit perfectly inside you. Your hips rocked a little into nothing at the sight, and you moaned when he kissed you again— more desperate than ever, both of you.

You whined loudly, much louder than you meant to, when he pushed inside you all at once. It wasn’t too fast or too rough or anything— but it was plenty to be filled by in one go, and your nails dug into his back.

“Fuck,” he grunted, shutting his eyes tightly for a moment. “So fuckin’ wet.”

You whimpered, feeling your walls tighten up hearing him say that. It was no wonder, with the way he’d been toying with you— and not just tonight. “Oh my god,” you gasped out, instinctively wrapping your legs around his hips like you didn’t want him to move at all. Obviously, though, you couldn’t stop him from pulling back and thrusting in again, nor did you want to; your back arched, hard, and your moan echoed around the room. “F-fuck,” you choked, “it’s so— you’re so— god.”

“Shh,” he soothed, in a sweet way, and his hands found your hips to pull them up higher to his; he moved you just how he wanted, you were putty in his fingers, and he groaned as he thrusted into you at the new angle.

It was deep. It was really, really fucking deep; and you thought you were at your limit, but you still somehow wanted more. Toes curling, you let your back arch between your hips held to his and your shoulders laying back on the blankets— your arms went limp and yet your fingers were searching for something to hold onto as he moved a bit faster.

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he groaned, a spare hand leaving your hips and groping roughly at one of your tits. You just gasped and pushed your chest up into his touch, pulsing inside when he pinched a hard nipple. “Feels good?”

“Yes!” you shouted. “Yes, fuck yes— don’t stop, please, please—”

Panting, he snarled a little, but he sure as hell didn’t stop. He was right about you being wet, you could even hear it when he thrusted faster; and that just turned you on even more, the whole thing was a vicious cycle really.

For the most part, you kept your eyes shut because it was just what felt natural— but when you did open your eyes, you caught glimpses of him staring down at you, his eyes moving from your face to your bouncing tits to where he was inside you, where his hands held onto your hips and pet them soothingly in contrast to his rough thrusts.

Then, he watched his hand move to the middle, just above where his cock filled you, and his thumb started to rub your clit.

You had no excuse for being so sensitive, but you cried out and tried to grab his wrist from how intense it was. “Emmett!” you nearly screamed. “O-oh god, oh god—”

“Jus’ wanna feel you come, sweetheart,” he explained, his voice darker than usual. “Can you come for me?”

“Y-yeah,” you agreed with a nod, already feeling delirious from all this. “Yeah, fuck, I can come— you’re gonna make me come, fuck…”

You went from yelling to whispering by the end of your sentence, though you weren’t sure why, and he kept a steady pace with his hips and his hand until your whole body started to shake.

“I— I’m close,” you choked out.

“I know,” he said. Smug little shit— too bad you were too busy coming to complain about that attitude.

Shuddering all over, you opened your eyes and looked at him one more time— he was looking right back at you, jaw tight and nostrils flaring, so that only made it worse— before you arched back harder than you thought possible and gave into it. Your hands kept searching for something to hold, like you might actually fall somehow if you didn’t get an iron-tight grip on his thigh or arm or something. You found his bent knee but his hands found yours a second later— and he interlaced his fingers with yours, laying on top of you again and pressing deep into you even while you were still in the middle of your ecstasy.

You weren’t even sure what you were saying anymore, you could tell your mouth was moving and that was about it. It probably wasn’t even words; but this pleasure, you were totally submerged in it. He kept kissing you and praising you, fucking you deeper into the feeling and into the thoroughly-disturbed blankets under you. “Good girl,” he whispered against your neck, “good fucking girl— god, I can feel it— so good for me—”

When a hint of your awareness of reality returned, your mind and body coming down from the high and settling into something a little easier and familiar, your arms reached up and held him close. "Fuck, Emmett," you whimpered, tears welling in your eyes as you were flooded with an emotion you couldn't name. "Emmett, I love you. I'm in love with you."

He breathed heavy and held you tighter, burying his face in your neck as you started to really cry.

"I love you," you said again, grabbing at him harder as he began to kiss your neck— your jaw, your cheek— and his hand wiped your tears away.

"Shh, I know," he promised quietly. "It's okay, beautiful, I know."

He wasn't ready to say it yet— but you felt it. You could feel it just in the way he held you.

He pulled back enough that you could see his face, propping himself up above you. Sweat made his hair cling to his forehead, and you smiled at the sight— he looked damn good like this, finally giving in. You hadn’t realized he was going easy on you, until he pushed in a little harder and a little deeper.

You whined, reaching up to grab onto his arm, and he hissed when you accidentally grabbed onto the gauze-wrapped wound. “Fuck, sorry, sorry,” you breathed, moving your hand down, and he laughed a little.

“S’okay,” he assured, leaning down and kissing your cheek sweetly. “It’s okay, sweetheart…”

You eventually ended up holding onto the back of his neck, running your fingers with his hair even if it was damp from sweat— you were sweating, too, and you’d never thought it could be this sensual to get this way. All this heat and movement in such a small space, all these blankets and insulation, somehow it made you both even needier. You didn’t care if it was putting that pond bath to waste, you just wanted more: you made it clear, with the way you needily hugged him closer.

You didn’t even realize you were about to come again until he pointed it out. “Fuck, another one for me?” he realized with a proud groan. “Gonna give me another one, sweet girl? Fuck, that’s it— so good for me—”

It was so sudden, not like the last one that built up and spilled over slowly— this one was hard and fast and left you completely spent and almost too fucked out to notice how much faster he was moving. But it was impossible not to notice him picking up the pace, getting a little louder himself, grabbing your hands again and squeezing them tightly.

The way he moaned in your ear was just too perfect; you whimpered and tightened your legs around him, gasping each time he reached the deepest parts of you.

"Baby," he grunted, "say you’re mine.”

“Yours, Emmett,” you promised with a whimper. "I'm yours, I fucking swear— all yours."

You'd never had a chance to know how good it could be to belong to someone— it didn't have to be bad, it didn't have to be like it was before.

He didn’t slow down until every drop was inside you; he gasped in heavy breaths, he held on tightly to your waist, but he didn’t stop until you were completely filled and he was exhausted in every way.

You both took a long time to catch your breath, and in the meantime, he kissed you again. You figured you weren’t a very good kisser in this state, you were completely numb in the mind and body (in the most amazing way) and you could barely find the energy to even lift your hands— but he didn’t seem to mind, because he kissed you for a long, long time.

Eventually, you were both (mostly) in reality again, and he pulled up to hover above you. You touched his arm softly, and he looked at your hand before looking at your face again.

“Sorry,” he blurted out suddenly as he looked down at where your bodies were joined, like he was just realizing what he’d done. “I didn’t mean to— I shouldn’t have finished inside, I just—”

“It’s okay,” you laughed, “I would’ve been kind of pissed if you pulled out.”

“But we should— I mean, we need to be careful,” he panted. “Next time we have to—”

“Next time,” you breathed happily, pulling him down into another kiss— less tired, more… smiley. You’d probably seen him smile more in the last ten minutes than the rest of your time together combined.

“What, you thought that was a one-night stand?” he laughed, biting your lip playfully before he broke away from the kiss. “Or do you just wanna fuck around and pretend not to want each other like a couple of morons before we do it again?”

“I mean, maybe that’s why this time was so great,” you shrugged, “all the anticipation.”

“Nah,” he breathed, leaning in and kissing your neck again— tender and patient, making you sigh and shut your eyes. “It’s so great ‘cause it’s how this is supposed to be. ‘Cause we need each other.”

You shivered, just as much from his words as his delicate kisses along your pulse, and you almost melted right back into those blankets again— but instead, you startled him by sitting up quickly. “Alright, I think I’m ready for that next time now,” you purred, rolling him onto his back and straddling him with a mischievous grin.

“Jesus, woman,” he groaned, hands settling on your waist, “you’re gonna kill me, I think.”

“Well, I missed the first time,” you giggled as you touched the edge of his bandage. “And we have some time to make up for. God, I wanted you so bad, Emmett.”

He sighed, his chest sinking, and he let his head fall back as he gave in. “This is how I always hoped I’d go out anyways,” he decided.

#cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy smut #a quiet place emmett x reader #emmett quiet place smut #sorry he has no last name yall lmao #emmett quiet place x reader

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joelsgreys · 11 months

Text

to hell and back l two

Post Outbreak! Joel Miller x Female Reader

series masterlist l main masterlist l next chapter

summary: After escaping a group of brutal slavers, you are left with permanent physical and emotional scars. Unwilling to put your trust in another human being ever again, you spend a year fighting for survival alone in the post outbreak world. But when you choose to save the life of a man named Joel Miller, the wall that you’ve built to protect yourself slowly begins to crumble.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. canon violence, canon language, reader has a flashback, mentions of slavers, implied threat of assault, guns, reader gets groped, reader has a panic attack, a lot of angst, trauma. soft Joel, protective Joel, and i even threw in some domestic Joel because just imagine that old man making you a nice lil late night snack. 🥹 i think i got most of the major warnings out of the way, i’m sorry if i missed anything!

Word Count: 8.7k

Smoke was coming off my jacket

and you didn’t seem to mind

I left a long trail of ashes and

you said, I like your style

California l Spring, 2023

Your hand trembled slightly as you gripped your pistol and aimed it at his chest.

You’d never pointed your gun at another human being before. At least not one that was still alive.

“Hey now, it’s alright. You can trust us.”

Anxiously, you glimpsed from the man who had just spoken to the woman who stood beside him.

Surely the two had to be related. Both possessed the same fiery red hair, a face full of freckles, and vivid green eyes. They stood before you with their weapons lowered in an attempt to show you that they weren’t a threat to your safety.

The man, who had to be in his mid to late thirties, moved to step forward, but halted in his tracks when he caught sight of the way your finger had twitched over the trigger. “My name is Mark,” he said, carefully gesturing to himself with his free hand. In his opposite hand, he clutched his rifle, an assault style weapon that made your gun look like a fucking toy in comparison. Still, it was you who had the upper hand, at least for now. “This here is my sister. Her name is Jessa.” He paused and when you said nothing, he asked, “Can you tell us your name?”

Chewing your bottom lip, you shook your head at him in response.

You didn’t trust them.

Not quite yet.

Jessa, who was younger and looked to be closer to your own age, offered you a kind smile. “That’s alright. You don’t have to tell us your name until you feel comfortable.” She took a look around at the small, makeshift camp that you had made for yourself. “Are you all by yourself, sweets?”

You quickly wracked your brain.

“No,” You fibbed. “I’m with my father. He should be back any minute now. He’s armed and he does not take all too kindly to strangers, so you’d best be on your way before he sees you.” You added in a steadier tone, “He won’t even think twice. He’ll just kill you on the spot, so you better leave right now. Or else.”

Amused, Mark let out a soft chuckle. “Oh, come on now, dollface. You don’t have to lie to us,” he stated, shaking his head. “Let’s try this again and let’s be honest this time, alright? How long have you been alone?”

Your throat bobbed as you swallowed harshly.

Fuck.

He had seen right through the bullshit threat.

“For about three or four days now,” You admitted, your shoulders sagging in defeat. “I was with my father and my sister. The three of us were on our way up north. We were trying to get to Seattle to the quarantine zone, but then they were—”

You suddenly stopped.

It felt like someone had driven their fist right into your gut, knocking all the wind out of your lungs and hindering your ability to speak.

You couldn’t even say it out loud.

Gruesome images of them being torn apart limb from limb flashed through your mind. Bile slowly started climbing its way up your throat and your stomach churned violently.

You were going to be sick.

“Are they both dead?” Mark questioned you.

You nodded, whispering shakily, “Yes.”

Jessa frowned. “I’m so sorry for your loss, honey. If it’s any consolation, me and Mark know exactly how it feels. We lost our entire family about three years ago. It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever been through.” Swinging back her own rifle behind her, she approached you and reached out, placing her hand over yours—the one that was still clutching your weapon. She didn’t even so much as flinch at the way the barrel was now pointed at her, how it was just an inch or two away from her chest. It didn’t seem to faze her that all it would take was you bringing your index finger down a bit harder on the trigger and she would be dead. “We know you must be fucking terrified, but it’s okay. You can trust us. We’re good, honest people and we just want to help you. But we can’t do that if you try and kill us, now can we?”

Slowly, Jessa guided you to lower your gun. She then looked over her shoulder, exchanging a look with her brother, as if asking him to back her up.

“Yeah. She’s right. We just want to help you,” he repeated after her. “We aren’t going to hurt you. If we wanted to, we probably would have by now, don’t you think so?”

You let out a tiny breath you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding and loosened your iron grip on your pistol.

He did make a fair point.

Now that your gun was pointed at the ground, he could have easily killed you. And yet, he’d made no move to blow your fucking head off.

Maybe they really were good people.

But what if they weren’t?

What if it was just a trap?

You didn’t know what to fucking think.

All you knew was that you were so helplessly lost now that your family was gone.

You were afraid.

Alone.

Jessa turned back to you. “Listen, we’re part of a settlement,” she informed you. “It’s not all too far from here, maybe six or seven miles tops. We’ve got a really big group of people and we’re always looking to bring in anyone in need. Come with us, sweets. There’s plenty of food, water, and we can you into some fresh, clean clothes too. How does that sound?”

You momentarily hesitated, still unsure whether or not you could trust the two strangers.

How did it sound?

It sounded too fucking good to be true.

“It’s a safe place,” Mark assured you from behind her. He could see the reluctance written all over your face.

“It’s as safe as safe can be,” Jessa promised. She touched your arm and flashed you another smile, one that was more kind than the first—one that was so comforting it made you feel like you could actually trust her. “So? What do you say? Will you come back with us? Will you let us help you?”

You nervously bit the inside of your cheek.

Scared, starving, and exhausted, their offer for a safe haven was much too tempting to decline.

Besides, how long could you possibly survive out here all on your own?

“Alright,” You finally agreed after a moment. “I’ll come with you.”

“There’s just one condition,” Mark stated, falling into step beside his sister in front of you. “We’re going to need you to hand over your weapon.”

“What?” You stared at him. “Why?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s protocol,” he said, waving a hand dismissively at you. “It’s purely for safety reasons. Anyone who comes into our group must surrender their weapons. We want to be sure that we’re bringing in someone who isn’t going to be a threat to our people. We have children, so we just want to be cautious, you know?”

“I guess that does makes sense,” You admitted.

“You’ll get it back,” Jessa reassured you. “Once you speak to the council and they determine you aren’t a threat, you’ll get your gun back. Okay?”

Left with very little choice, you agreed. “Okay.”

Mark held out his hand for the weapon.

Slowly, you placed your pistol in his open palm.

“Perfect.” Jessa chirped. “Now grab your things and let’s get going. If we hurry up, we can make it back before nightfall.”

Nodding, you turned around to grab your pack.

The second you turned your back, the barrel of the same gun you’d just handed to Mark poked you between your shoulder blades and you froze, your blood running cold in your veins.

“Hands up, bitch,” Jessa commanded. Her warm and friendly tone had vanished. “And turn around towards me slowly. Now.”

Terrified, you did as you were told and you lifted both of your hands, turning around on the heel of your sneaker to face her.

Her expression, much like her tone, was frigid.

Hostile.

“You’re going to do exactly as I say when I say it.” She held up her rifle, aiming it at you. “And if you don’t, you fucking die. Do you understand?”

“Please,” You choked out. “Don’t—”

“Do you fucking understand?” Jessa repeated in a hiss, her finger hovering over the trigger. When she was met with a small, meek nod, she turned to look at her brother. “Cuff her.”

Mark smirked. He tucked your gun away into the waistband of his jeans and reached into his back pocket, pulling out a pair of rusted handcuffs. He walked around and stood behind you, instructing, “Hands behind your back.” Once he had both of your wrists in one hand, he used the other to slip on the cuffs, tightening them so hard that the old oxidized steel dug painfully into your skin. “She’s a pretty one,” he murmured. As soon as he made certain the cuffs were securely fastened, he put a hand on your ass, groping it roughly. “Oh, you’re going to be popular with the guys, dollface. Kind of makes me want to break you in, right here and right now—give me a few minutes with her, Jess.”

Completely paralyzed with fear, all you could do was stand there in silence as his hands continued to roam your lower body, feeling you up through your jeans. He squeezed at your inner thigh, then brushed up over your zipper.

“Mark! That’s not what she’s for, you idiot,” Jessa reminded him, rolling her eyes. “Now quit fucking around and let’s start heading back to camp.”

She whirled around and started leading the way.

Mark grinned and pressed his mouth to your ear as he whispered in cruel reassurance, “Don’t you worry, now. I’ll get my chance with you—we’re all going to our chance with you.”

He grabbed you by your upper arm and roughly shoved you forward, leading you to what would inevitably be hell on earth.

Joel leans against the tree with his arms crossed over his chest. His dark eyes are fixed intently on you, carefully observing you from where he stands, more so out of concern rather than curiosity. Something isn’t right.

It’s late in the afternoon and the two of you had been about halfway into the six hour trek down south to Jackson when Joel offered to stop for a while, just long enough for the both of you to rest and take a quick breather, find a second wind before finishing the journey—but as he continues watching you, Joel starts to realize that perhaps stopping had done you much more harm than it’s done you good.

Just a few feet away from where he’s standing and keeping a watchful eye on you, you sit perched on top of a small, flat boulder hugging your knees up to your chest with both hands wrapped tightly around the grip of your pistol.

You’re in a trance like state, staring straight off into the distance at nothing in particular. Your face is completely blank. Emotionless. It appears that while all the lights are on, nobody is fucking home.

Squinting against the sunlight, Joel takes a closer look at you. He sees it so clearly, the faraway look in your eyes.

You are gone. You’ve checked out and completely disconnected from reality.

He would go as far as saying you’ve disconnected from this fucking planet.

You’re sinking, slowly drowning in some kind of thought or perhaps it was a memory—whatever it is that’s currently preoccupying your mind, it sure as hell isn’t anything good. He has no fucking clue how he’d managed to clock it so easily, so quickly, but Joel had sensed something was wrong the instant you’d drifted off.

The deeper you go and the further you lose yourself, the harder your hands clutch at your grin, the thin delicate skin on your knuckles stretching taught over the bones. It’s not until Joel notices the way your chest begins to rise and fall rapidly as your breaths quicken, the way you start struggling for air, that he knows it’s time for him to intervene before you worsen and suffocate under the weight of whatever it is that’s sitting so heavily on you.

Pushing himself away from the tree, Joel begins to approach you, taking extra care so as not to spook you into turning your pistol on him and pulling the trigger in a moment of panic. He lifts both of his hands and holds them out in front of him. Cautiously, Joel makes his way over towards where you’re sitting on the boulder, his footsteps slow and careful.

“Hey,” he calls out to you, keeping his tone firm, but somehow still gentle as he tries to garner your attention. When you don’t even acknowledge him or his presence, he tries again, speaking a little bit louder. “Hey. S’okay. S’alright. Everythin’ is alright—come on back now.” Joel draws closer and closer to you, taking tiny step after tiny step on the steel toes of his worn, black leather boots. “S’alright, darlin’. I need you to come back to me now, okay? You ain’t where you think you are. You’re alright—”

The sound of a twig snapping underneath his boot startles you. Jumping to your feet, you aim your gun at him with shaking hands and wild, terrified eyes.

Even as your finger trembles over the trigger, Joel remains calm. “Hey, c’mon. Take it easy. S’okay. You’re alright. Look, it’s me. It’s just me and I ain’t gonna do anythin’ to hurt you,” he swears. He shows you his empty hands, hoping that you would be able to snap out of it and realize that he isn’t a threat. That you aren’t in any kind of danger. But as you hold your weapon, chest heaving as you panic, Joel knows it doesn’t matter that his hands are empty. It doesn’t make a fucking difference. He knows it isn’t him who is standing in front of you.

It’s someone else. Whoever you were seeing standing there in his place, it’s someone who had done god knows what to you. Joel has a gut wrenching hunch it had something to do with the marks he’d seen around your wrists back at the cabin. The mere thought of it is enough to send an unpleasant chill up and down the length of his spine.

Joel speaks again. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.” He feels the sudden urge to reach out for you, but knowing it would be unwelcome, he resists it. All he can do is try and use his words to bring you back to the present. Back to him. “Breathe. You’re safe. I need you to breathe, can you do that for me? Do you think you can breathe for me, darlin’?”

Somehow, his voice penetrates its way in through the thickness of the white fog that you’d been lost in. You had been stumbling around helplessly in it, desperately searching for a way through. Joel’s heavy, deep Southern drawl permeates the memory, causing the haunting images from that fateful day when your life had taken a sharp turn for the worst to dissolve into nothing.

“Just breathe. Nice and slow. Inhale through your nose, then out through your mouth. Easy does it.” Joel controls his own breathing, slowing it down to demonstrate. He inhales deeply through his nose and exhales slowly through his mouth.

You stare at him with wide eyes as you fight to get the rise and fall of your chest to match his. How the hell do you know what to do?

Joel can practically hear your question ringing in your mind amidst the chaos. “My kid, she gets these awful nightmares sometimes. Wakes up in a panic thinkin’ she’s somewhere else, somewhere she ain’t safe. So my brother’s wife, Maria, well she was kind enough to show me what to do whenever it happens. She taught me a couple different breathin’ techniques that help soothe Ellie and calm her down. Told me it helps if I do them with her,” he explains to you. He can tell that you’re now coming out of the worst of it and that you’re finally starting to get some oxygen back into your lungs. He lowers his hands. Your pistol is still aimed at him, but Joel trusted you enough to know that you wouldn’t pull the trigger and blow his fucking head off. “C’mon, breathe. There we go. That’s it. Easy does it, now. In through your nose and out through your mouth, that’s it. That’s a good girl.”

It takes you a good minute or two, but your breaths fall into sync with his own and before you know it, the two of you are breathing together in harmony.

Oh. You’re not in California.

The man standing before you doesn’t have red hair and green eyes. He doesn’t have that twisted smirk on his face. He isn’t putting his hands on you. He’s not hurting you. He’s helping you.

Swallowing dryly, you lower your weapon. Your gaze meets Joel’s and somehow you find the courage to look him in his eyes for the very first time. Even though you had turned your gun on him, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by it all. He isn’t upset or angry. The look of worry on his face has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you could have easily killed him just now. It’s as if he’d known for certain that you wouldn’t pull the trigger.

“There we go,” Joel says after another minute passes by. “You see? You’re alright. You’re safe.”

There’s comfort in his words, in his deep brown eyes.

Fuck, there’s comfort in him.

Still. Your mind refuses to allow you to accept it.

At least, not completely.

Averting your gaze, you shuffle your weight from one foot to the other and then back again.

Joel clears his throat lightly. “It’s gettin’ real late,” he murmurs. “We should get a move on. We’ve still got a bit of a way to go and we really don’t wanna get ourselves caught out in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere after dark for too long, y’know?”

You give him a small nod and start to gather up your belongings. You pick up your canteen, which is now almost completely empty after you’d shared your water with him during the first leg of the hike, and shove it into one of the side pockets of your back.

“S’kinda cold,” Joel states. “And it’ll only get colder as nightfall approaches. You, uh—you warm enough in that little denim jacket?”

You shrugged a shoulder at him, not thinking anything much of the question. I’m fine.

However, as if on cue, a chilly breeze blows its way through Wyoming’s plains, causing you to shiver.

Joel quickly shrugs out of his brown jacket. “You mind if I—?”

You toss him a confused glance.

Do I mind if you what?

Joel steps towards you and lifts his arms as if he’s going to put them around you. Flinching, every muscle in your entire body goes rigid and he halts. “S’alright. I’m just gonna give you my jacket, that’s all,” he assures you, his arms frozen midair. He patiently waits for a small nod of approval. Once he has it, he drapes his jacket over your shoulders and then takes several steps back, giving you your space. “Should keep you from freezin’ your ass off out here.”

As he turns around and walks over to where he had set his rifle down, you stand there somewhat stupefied over what he’d just done. Something so simple, and yet you can’t seem to wrap your fucking brain around it.

Willing yourself to move, you carefully slide both of your arms into the sleeves of his jacket, wrapping it around your body. The scent of him, a mixture of earthy sandalwood and whatever soap he uses to wash his clothes, fills your senses and a strange, but pleasant warmth radiates throughout your chest, gradually spreading itself to the rest of your body from head to toe.

Ignoring the feeling, you pick up your backpack along with your bow and quiver of arrows, slinging everything over your shoulders.

Joel slings the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and turns back to you. “Ready to get goin’?”

Pistol in hand, you gesture for him to go ahead and walk in front of you, much like he’d done for the first half of the trip.

He lets out a small sigh. “Alright, I get it. Still don’t fully trust me. Well, we’ll keep workin’ on that, then.”

A couple of hours had gone by. The slanting rays of the setting sun give a warm orange tinge to the skies as late evening begins settling itself in.

“Y’wanna know somethin’?” Joel asks, breaking the silence between you.

You look up at the back of his head, your eyes fixing themselves on his mop of thick, unkempt salt and pepper waves. Occasionally, as you’d been slowly trudging along behind Joel, you stole glimpses of the way his hair curled at the nape of his neck and brushed against the collar of his henley.

Despite the lack of a response, Joel continues to talk. “Earlier at the cabin, just when I was startin’ to come back around, I heard a woman singin’ to me. At least, it sure seemed like she was singin’ to me. It was a real pretty song too.” He glances over his shoulder at you with curiosity. “Was that you?”

You blink at him, keeping a straight face.

“Hm, no I s’ppose it wasn’t you,” he answers his own question. He turns his attention back to the path ahead of him. “I reckon that it must have just been some sorta dream I had while I was out cold. But it sounded so vivid, y’ know? It sounded so fuckin’ real. And the strangest part of it all is that I don’t know how it’s even possible for me to dream of a voice like that,” he muses aloud.

Oh? Unable to help yourself, you move yourself from behind Joel and fall into step beside him. Now it’s you that’s riddled with curiosity. What do you mean by that?

Joel glances down at you. He grips the leather strap of his rifle and shrugs his shoulders. “Well, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a voice quite like that in my whole entire life,” he tells you. He shrugs once more, his arm brushing against yours by accident. Joel half expected you to deck him for it, but much to his surprise, it doesn’t seem like his touch had bothered you. “It was too fuckin’ gorgeous. So beautiful that part of me wonders if it was someone or somethin’ out of this world.” He pauses and peered at you, detecting a slight glimmer of light in your eyes. “Felt like I had a real life angel singin’ to me.”

You feel the corners of your lips threatening to turn upwards into a smile. Turning your face away from him, it takes everything you had in you to force them back down.

“Well look at that. You’re walkin’ right next to me,” Joel observes after a minute, raising an eyebrow.

Your head whips back around.

“Must mean that I’m doin’ somethin’ right, huh darlin’?”

You snort and roll your eyes.

I think I liked it better when you weren’t talking.

Still, you remain at his side.

The rest of the trek is silent.

Night had just fallen by the time that you and Joel finally made it to Jackson. The moment that you set your sights on the massive wooden gate out in the distance, your heart begins to pound, slamming against your ribcage.

The closer the both of you draw to the barrier, the easier it is for you to see the men and women who are standing on a platform on top of the gate, heavily armed as they keep watch—their lights illuminate the perimeter of the settlement and light up the velvet purple sky.

You stop dead in your tracks. Oh fuck that.

Joel shakes his head. “S’alright. Don’t be scared.”

There’s six people standing on top of that gate armed with fucking assault rifles. And you don’t expect me to be scared? Are you for real?

“Look, things might be a little tense at first when the patrolmen see us,” he admits, raking a hand through his hair. “None of them have any idea that I’m still alive, but as soon as they see that it’s me, they’re gonna stand down. All I need is for you to stay calm and follow my lead, alright?” He nods at the pistol in your hand. “M’also gonna need for you to put your gun away and out of sight.”

You glare at him, your eyes flashing angrily in the darkness.

You said I could have my weapons on me.

Joel holds up his hand. “I promise that I ain’t gonna let anythin’ bad happen to you, alright? I swear it on my fuckin’ life,” he vows. “You have my word. No one’s gonna hurt you. I won’t let them. Just stay calm and do as I say. Please,” he adds, a hint of desperation lacing his tone. “Y’think you can do that for me?”

Your mind is screaming, begging you to run and run fast. Instead, you find yourself reluctantly tucking your gun into the waistband of your jeans, concealing it just like Joel had asked you to do.

“Stay behind me,” he instructs, shoving his own rifle behind him. He begins leading the way towards the gate and beckons for you to follow close.

The second the two of you step out from the darkness and into the light, the sound of firearms cocking breaks through the silence of the night.

“Stop right there!” A woman’s voice shouts. “Freeze! Or we’ll fucking shoot!”

“Melissa, it’s me!” Joel calls out, holding up his hands. “It’s Joel!”

“What?”

He huffs and yells again, “It’s Joel!”

“Wait a goddamn minute, everyone fucking stand down!” Melissa loudly barks the order at the five other patrol men and women who are standing on either side of her with their firearms aimed and at the ready. “Joel? Joel Miller, is that really you?” She leans her body forward over the gate and squints at him, letting out an incredulous laugh. “Well butter my fucking ass and call me a goddamn biscuit, the man is fucking alive! Quick, open up the gates! Somebody go and get Tommy! Let’s go, fucking move it people!”

Joel drops his hands, sighing in relief.

You, on the other hand, are scared shitless and wonder if it’s too late to make a run for it.

“Remember,” he says, looking back at you. “Calm. Okay?”

You force a small, tight nod of your head.

Okay.

The gate’s doors pull apart and he leads you up to them and through to the other side where you and Joel are met with a frantic crowd of at least two dozen people—the obnoxious, overlapping chatter coupled with the blatant stares you’re receiving cause an overwhelming feeling of anxiousness to wash over you in a massive wave that, if you allow it, is going to drown you right there on the spot. Refusing to make eye contact with anybody, you fix your gaze on Joel, keeping it focused on the broadness of his back as more and more people circle around the both of you, caging you in with nowhere to run.

“Joel!” Melissa elbows her way through the large crowd, rushing up to him. She grabs him by the arms, giving him a quick once over. “Holy shit! We thought you were fucking dead! I can’t fucking believe it!”

“Where’s Tommy?” Joel asks her.

“At home with Maria. Lisa went to pull him out of bed—where the hell have you been, Joel? It’s been three fucking days!”

Joel purses his lips together tightly. He can feel you inching yourself forward, trying to stand as close to him as possible as more people join the scene. The toes of your boots touch the heels of his, your chest lightly brushing against his back. While Joel doesn’t blame the people of the town for being curious, he isn’t all too fond of the way they’re staring at you—the gestures and the finger pointing, the mutters and the whispers. He doesn’t have to see you to know it’s making you uncomfortable, and his priority is to get you out of there and somewhere where you would feel safe. “Listen, it’s a real long story that I ain’t got time for right this minute. I need Tommy—”

“Miller!”

A loud, booming voice comes from behind Melissa.

It belongs to a tall, bulky blond haired man—his mere presence is intimidating, proven by how it had taken absolutely nothing for the crowd to part and make room for him to pass through. Smirking, he saunters up to Joel and remarks, “I thought you were a fucking goner.”

Joel’s jaw clenches, but he says nothing.

The tension between the two men could be sliced with a fucking machete.

His blue eyes flit over Joel’s shoulder to you. “Well, well, well. Who is this sweet little lady?”

You step even closer to Joel, pressing yourself against his backside and taking a fistful of his shirt.

“None of your fuckin’ business, that’s who.”

Keith’s smirk widens. “Actually, as head of safety and security for this community, it fucking is my business,” he reminds him. “She infected?”

Joel raises his eyebrows. “Does she look fuckin’ infected to you?”

“You know the commune’s rules, Miller.” Without tearing his eyes away from you, Keith calls over his shoulder, “Bring out one of the hounds! Now!”

Behind him, Joel hears a small gasp.

Hounds?

Joel whirls around. “Hey, s’alright,” he says quickly before you can start to panic. “We have dogs that have been trained to sniff out the cordyceps infection. S’just gonna smell you, that’s all.”

The crowd backs away as a woman with cropped hair brings out a large black dog on a chain leash attached to a brown leather harness. Once it catches sight of you, the unfamiliar newcomer, the animal begins to bark and growl, thrashing around as it tries to lunge towards you. The dog tugs and pulls at his leash so violently that he nearly knocks his handler over. The woman unclips the leash and sets the dog free—it approaches you, snarling and baring its teeth.

You start to back away, but Joel stops you.

“Relax,” he mutters to you under his breath. He moves to stand beside you and holds out his hand, offering it in an attempt to comfort you and ease the fear. He hadn’t expected you to accept it, so when you place your hand in his and lace your fingers with his own, he’s taken by complete surprise.

You squeeze his rough, calloused fingers as the dog comes closer towards you. Nervously, you hold your other hand out to it, prompting it to snap at you, its teeth snapping together. Somehow, you muster enough courage to hold your hand steady and the animal growls, but then gives it a sniff. When it doesn’t detect what it’s searching for, the dog happily wags his tail and gives your hand a friendly lick before running back over to its handler who puts the animal back on the leash.

You breathe out in relief.

“There,” Joel snaps at Keith. “You satisfied?”

Keith clicks his tongue. “Almost,” he drawls. He walks over to you, another smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “What’s your name, dollface?”

Your stomach drops at the nickname. Looking down at the dirt, you don’t reply.

“Aw, she’s shy! Well isn’t that just adorable.” Keith lets out a raspy laugh, causing a couple of the onlookers to laugh along with him. “What’s the matter, sweetie pie? Hm? Cat got your tongue?”

Joel drops your hand, his nostrils flaring. “Back off asshole or else—”

Ignoring him, the blond patrolman eyes the weapon hanging on your shoulder. “That’s a really nice bow you’ve got there,” Keith states, cutting off Joel’s threat. “But we do have rules here. Newcomers have to surrender their weapons so they can be stored away securely. We don’t know you and until we can know for sure you won’t be a threat to the people of this town, you’re going to have to surrender that bow along with all other weapons you’re carrying.” Keith lowers his voice as he adds, “And I would advise you not to try and hide anything because I’m going to be the one to pat you down—and I’ll be thorough. I don’t take all too kindly to liars, so keep that in mind.”

“You just threaten her in front of me?” Trying his hardest not to cause a scene with so many people watching the three of you, Joel keeps his voice low and quiet—but the sharp, dangerous edge to his tone can’t be missed.

“Of course I didn’t,” Keith responds, innocently. “All I was doing was letting her know how we work around here in Jackson. We’ve been operating the town the same way for years now for a good reason. The rules we set in place apply to any and all newcomers, regardless of who they came here with.” He holds out his hands to you. “Surrender all of your weapons to me. Now.”

Shaking your head, you take a step back. This was not what you’d agreed to. This wasn’t the promise that Joel had made you back at the cabin.

Joel glares at him. “She ain’t surrenderin’ a goddamn thing—”

It’s too late.

Keith steps towards you and goes for the bow. As his hand shoots out to take it from your shoulder, you quickly turn your body and swiftly dodge it. He feels his face burn with red hot anger as several onlookers gasp at your act of rebelliousness. Furious, Keith reaches for you again and grabs you, taking the upper part of your arm in a harsh grip that makes you squeak out in pain.

You lift your opposite arm and swing a curled fist up towards his face, but he catches your wrist in his other hand before it can connect with his jawline.

Joel!

You try to say his name, but you fucking can’t.

Your mouth opens and nothing comes out. For as hard you push and try to force it, you can’t find your voice. Instead, all that falls from your lips is a pathetic, strangled little cry. You yank and pull, struggling as you try to tear yourself out of Keith’s grasp.

Livid, Joel nearly goes fucking blind with rage. He snatches Keith by the collar of his leather jacket, ripping him away from you. Though he’s still sore as from the fall off of his horse three days ago, he uses every ounce of strength he has left in him to throw him down into the dirt at the feet of a fellow patrolman named Wyatt. “Don’t. Fuckin’. Touch. Her.” He barely manages to bite out the words through gritted teeth. “Ever.”

Wyatt helps him up to his feet. “You alright, man?”

“Get the fuck off me!” Keith snarls, pushing him away. His chest is heaving and his face turns a deep shade of red. Whether it’s because he’s embarrassed or if it’s because he’s angry, no one can quite tell the difference. One thing is for damn sure, he isn’t used to someone going against his authority and everyone watching holds their breath, waiting to see what he’s going to do next. After all, the man going against him happened to be their leader’s brother in law. “What the fuck is your goddamn problem, Miller? It’s protocol—”

“Not today it ain’t.”

Keith approaches him, his hands curled into tight fists at his sides. He stands so close that the two of them are chest to chest, ready to tear each other to shreds. “Do you think just because your fucking brother is second in command, you can just do as you please? Is that it?” He questions, bitterly. “It doesn’t fucking work like that. We have rules set in place for a reason, Joel. We are going to do this by the fucking book whether your little girlfriend here likes it or not, got it?”

Stepping around him, he starts towards you but Joel is quick to block his path. He stands in front of you and squares his shoulders.

He speaks, his voice dangerously low. “You listen and you listen good. If you even so much as think about layin’ another fuckin’ finger on her, I’ll make sure you spend the rest of tonight pickin’ up your teeth off the ground. You understand me?”

“That a threat?”

“It ain’t a threat. It’s a fuckin’ promise.”

Keith pulls his arm back and he’s about ready to take a swing when he’s stopped by the sound of Tommy Miller’s frantic voice.

“Joel! Where is he—where the fuck is Joel?”

The much younger, raven haired man approaches the scene, shrugging a blue denim jacket over his cotton white t-shirt. The instant that he spots Joel, he runs up to him and throws his arms around his shoulders. “Fuckin’ Christ, I thought I fuckin’ lost you out there! What the hell happened?”

“Where’s Ellie?” Joel demands. “She okay?”

“She’s fast asleep at my place with Maria and the baby. She’s been with us this entire time.”

Joel’s shoulders sag in relief.

Tommy looks around, frowning. “What’s going on? What’s everyone doin’ out here?” He then sees you and raises his eyebrows at his older brother. “Joel? Who’s that?”

“Look, I’ll explain everything, can we just—can we talk in private?”

Although he’s confused, Tommy nods.

“Of course. C’mon, let’s go back to my place.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Tommy states as soon as Joel had finished recounting the story—well, what he could remember, anyway. It wasn’t much.

You’re sitting beside Joel across the table from Tommy and Maria in the kitchen of their home. All three of them speak in quiet, hushed voices so as not to wake Ellie and Samuel, Tommy and Maria’s infant son. Maria had offered to go upstairs to pull Ellie out of bed so that she and Joel could reunite, but when Tommy mentioned tonight had been the first night since Joel had gone missing three days ago that she had finally managed to fall asleep, everyone agreed it would be best to wait until the morning.

“So, she saved your life,” Tommy concludes. His brown eyes, even darker than those of his older brother, flicker over to you once again. You sit there in complete silence, staring at the top of the wooden table, refusing to meet his gaze—or that of his wife.

Joel nods. “She did, Tommy. I don’t fuckin’ know how, but what I do know is that if it wasn’t for her, then I wouldn’t be sittin’ here at this table right now.”

You shuffle uncomfortably in your chair. Though the couple had been kind to you, it didn’t make it any easier when they stared at you like you had a second head.

“She saved your life and you don’t even know her name?” Tommy’s in complete disbelief.

“No. She doesn’t talk.”

Maria hums. “I have an idea. Let me find her a notepad or something to write on,” she suggests after a minute. She stands up, wrapping her cotton blue robe around herself, concealing her pajamas as she walks over to the kitchen counter. It takes her a bit of digging around, but in one of her junk drawers, she finds a pen and a small notepad. She makes her way back over to the table and sets the items down in front of you. “Can you write down your name for us?”

You don’t move a single muscle.

“It’s okay, honey. Just write down your name—”

“Best we don’t push her too much,” Joel warns her, holding out his hand to stop her from coming too close into your space.

You glance up at him, your lips parting slightly.

“Don’t worry,” he tells you. “You ain’t gotta tell us anythin’ until you’re good and ready. Alright?”

Tommy clears his throat. “Joel? Can me and you have a quick word in private please?”

Your heart skips an anxious beat.

No, wait! Please don’t leave me.

Less than eight hours ago, you’d been wary of this man, unable to fully trust him. Now, just the mere thought of him leaving your side puts you on edge.

“S’fine, we’re just gonna be out in the hallway,” he assures you. “It’ll only be for a minute or two.”

Realizing you didn’t want to be left alone with her, Maria jabs a thumb over her shoulder towards the gas powered stove. “I’m going to make myself a hot cup of chamomile tea. I can boil water for an extra mug if you’d like some?” she offers, warmly.

You’d turned down food and water already, much too afraid to accept anything from her. However, a warm drink did sound tempting and truth be told, Maria did seem like a nice woman. She’s Joel’s family—maybe it wouldn’t hurt to at the very least try and trust her too.

Finally, you nod your head.

“Great,” Maria smiles, looking pleased. “I think it’ll do you some good. Chamomile is very soothing. It helps me relax—something that’s hard to do when you have a fussy six month old,” she kids as she whirls around and goes about preparing the tea.

After making certain that you’ll be fine without him, Joel follows Tommy out into the hallway.

“Joel, what were you thinkin’ bringing her here?”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

Tommy sighs. “We need to be careful about who we bring into Jackson—”

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me right now? You worried about this girl bein’ a threat?” Joel stares at him in complete shock. “You serious, Tommy?”

“For all we know, she could be a threat. She didn’t want to give up her weapons, Joel! She even took a swing at Keith!” He hisses. “And she did it in front of a fuckin’ crowd!”

“He put his fuckin’ hands on her—”

“She didn’t cooperate, Joel. You know damn good and well what happens when someone isn’t willin’ to cooperate with the rules. It leads to nothin’ but trouble and you know it as well as I do,” Tommy says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Her first impression here wasn’t a good one. And to make matters a whole lot worse, we don’t know anythin’ about her. It’s a risk takin’ her into the community.”

Joel can’t even believe what he’s hearing.

“So you’d rather I just left her out there alone?”

“Look Joel, we don’t know what she’s capable of,” Tommy reminds him, quietly. “If she’s managed to survive out there all on her own for this fuckin’ long, then who the hell knows what she’s done or what kind of blood is on her hands—you might be thinkin’ that she’s some helpless little victim, but maybe she’s not. Hell, we’ll never know because the girl can’t fuckin’ talk. Or maybe she just won’t talk. Either way, we’re runnin’ a huge risk by takin’ her in without knowin’ who the hell she is or where she came from.”

Joel glares at him. “Listen here, whether she can’t talk or just won’t talk, that doesn’t fuckin’ matter,” he says. He pauses briefly, long enough to take a peek back into the kitchen where you’re still sitting at the table. After she’d finished making the tea, Maria took the two steaming mugs and sat down in the chair beside you. She’s now trying almost desperately to get you to write down your name on the notepad. He immediately notices the way that you’d started wringing your hands together anxiously in your lap and he knows you’re debating in your mind whether or not you should reveal your identity to the stranger. He turns back to his brother with a frown. “She ain’t a helpless victim. She’s a survivor. She saved my fuckin’ life out there, Tommy. If it weren’t for her, I would be dead right now.”

“And where is she gonna stay?”

“With me and Ellie, of course.”

Tommy almost laughs. “Wait. You’re gonna be in charge of her? Someone who won’t fuckin’ talk to you? Whose name you don’t even know? Are you serious?”

Joel doesn’t even think twice about it. “Yeah.”

“Look Joel, I know you can be kind of a fuckin’ dumbass, but you can’t possibly be this goddamn dumb, big brother. Think ‘bout it—”

“I already have thought about it. She’s stayin’ with me.” Joel shrugs. “I know it ain’t gonna be easy, but maybe I can get her to trust me enough to talk to me.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow at him. “You really think she can talk and she’s just choosin’ not to?”

“I think she wants to talk, but she can’t. She’s too scared right now. But if I can get her to really trust me—”

“That girl ain’t gonna fuckin’ trust you, Joel.”

“She trusted me enough to come to Jackson,” he says, fiercely. “That has to mean somethin’, I just know it does.”

Tommy exhales a long and heavy sigh. He already knew just how fucking stubborn his brother could be. There’s no changing Joel’s mind once it was made up.

Maria steps out into the hallway. “No luck,” she tells them, shaking her head lightly. “I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s been through. If she’s too terrified to even give us her name—”

“It must’ve been somethin’ real bad,” Joel finishes for her. He places his hands on his hips. “I think I might have some idea of what happened to her.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Joel lowers his voice as he briefly tells Tommy and Maria about the scars he’d seen around your wrist. “Like she’s been in handcuffs or somethin’,” he murmurs. “Think it could’ve been FEDRA?”

“Possibly.” Maria thinks it over for a moment. “There’s also a good possibility that she’s been a prisoner in a slave camp.”

Slavers.

Joel’s stomach churns at the thought of it. He’d heard about those kinds of groups, about the cruel and inhumane things they did to their prisoners.

He fucking hoped that wasn’t it. But something in his gut told him not to be so goddamn naive.

“Listen, we feel for the girl, Joel. We do,” Tommy admits. “And we’re willin’ to give her some time to adjust, same as we did with you and with Ellie—same as we do with all newcomers. But regardless of what she’s been through, she’s still gonna need to pull her weight around here, just like the rest of us. She’s expected to take on work duty just like everybody else. It’ll be hard findin’ the right job for her if she’s not gonna talk to anyone so the sooner you can get her to break her silence, the better it’ll be,” he advises. He points a finger at his brother. “From this point on, she’s your responsibility.”

“I can handle it, Tommy.”

“For your sake, I really hope you can.”

“Good to know you’ve got faith in me,” Joel makes the sarcastic comment under his breath, but he’s certain Tommy had heard it. “It’s gettin’ pretty late now. She’s exhausted and so am I. M’gonna take her back to my place and get her settled in for the night.”

“What ‘bout Ellie?”

“Best she just stays here with you two tonight. As soon as she’s up in the mornin’, you can bring her on over to mine if that’s alright with you and Maria?”

Tommy nods. “You got it, brother.”

“Besides, I figure it’ll give me a bit of extra time to think of how I’m gonna explain everythin’ to her.” Joel suddenly realizes that he hadn’t given much thought about how he was going to tell Ellie about you—how he was going to explain your condition to her and how you’d be sharing a roof with them from this point on.

Tommy chuckles. “Yeah, good luck with that one.”

Rolling his eyes, Joel roughly shoves past him and back into the kitchen.

You hadn’t drank the tea Maria had made you, but you’d wrapped your hands around the ceramic red mug to warm them up.

“C’mon,” he beckons to you with his hand. “Let’s go. M’gonna take you home now.”

Home.

The word rinds oddly in your ears.

You stand up from the table.

“Wait.” Maria picks up the notepad and pen, handing them over to you. “Here. Take these with you. Just in case you decide you want to use them.”

Joel pushes through the front door, switching on the lights in the foyer of his home before stepping aside to let you in. He watches as you stand there at the door looking rather apprehensive. “It’s okay, darlin’. S’just me and you here tonight.”

Carefully, you step over the threshold. When was the last time you’d even set foot in an actual house? One with running water and electricity?

You couldn’t remember.

Joel shuts the front door behind you and locks it. “Let’s go upstairs.” He gestures for you to follow him up the cherrywood staircase. “It’s pretty late, so I’ll show you the rest of the house tomorrow in the mornin’,” he promises you over his shoulder. At the top of the staircase, Joel switches on more lights that illuminate a short hallway. He points to a door at the end of it, stating, “That one there at the end, that’s mine. This one here is Ellie’s. We also have a third spare, it’s right across from her.” He nods with his head towards the door of the bedroom he’d been referring to. “Go on. Open it up and check it out for yourself.”

You want me to open the door?

Seeing your expression, Joel chuckles. “Go on. It’s alright. There’s nothin’ bad in there. I promise.”

You momentarily hesitate. Fingers trembling, you reach out and grasp the brass door knob, slowly turning it and pushing the door open. You peek inside and flip the light switch next to the door frame.

You gasp. Holy shit, is this fucking real?

The spare bedroom is fully furnished with light oakwood furniture—a dresser up against one wall, a desk nestled in the corner, and two nightstands on either side of the most comfortable, full sized bed that you’d ever seen. The décor is minimal, but whoever had occupied the space before had a clear adoration for simple, warm, earthy tones. You nearly smile at the shades of mud brown, forest green, and autumn orange. Setting your things down on the hardwood floor, you make your way over to the bed and sit down, planting your hands firmly on either side of you. You relish in the softness of the cream colored duvet comforter.

“I’m guessin’ you like it.” Joel can’t help but grin a little. “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go see if I can get you one of my shirts or somethin’ that you can sleep in. Make yourself comfortable.” He spins around on the heel of his boot, disappearing into the hallway.

Unable to resist, you lay back onto the bed. Your body sinks into it, melting right into the mattress. It feels like a fucking cloud.

Joel reappears in the room just seconds later. “I can see you took what I said about makin’ yourself comfortable quite literally.” His voice causes you to shoot back up into a sitting position. Joel stands there at the door holding a long sleeved, navy and white flannel shirt in one hand—in the other, he’d been holding a gray hooded sweatshirt and from his arm swings a brown canvas tote bag. “Not too sure what you would prefer to sleep in. I figured you might want somethin’ on the warmer side. Here’s a couple options to choose from. I’ve also got t-shirts if you’d rather sleep in one of those.”

Standing up from the bed, you walk over to him and he holds out the articles of clothing for you to see better. It’s his flannel you gravitate to the most. Taking it from him, you run your fingers over the fabric.

“I can throw your clothes in the washing machine for you first thing tomorrow so they’ll be clean by the time you wake up,” he adds.

You breath out shakily.

A fucking washing machine.

“Overwhelming, ain’t it?”Joel drapes the hooded sweatshirt over a nearby chair, deciding to leave it for you as well. “Trust me, I get it. I felt the same when I first got here with Ellie. It took a lot of time for the both of us to adjust to this new way of life after being out there for so long,” he confesses to you. “The important thing is to take it one step at a time, darlin’. And somethin’ is tellin’ me the next step for you is probably takin’ a nice hot shower?”

Your mouth falls open. A hot shower? Hot?

“You’ll have to share a bathroom with Ellie.” Joel leads you out of the bedroom and to another door adjacent to yours. He shows you the bathroom, telling you which knob in the shower was for hot water and which one was for cold water. “You can use Ellie’s shampoo, m’sure she won’t mind. I’d offer you some of my own, but I don’t think you’ll wanna walk around smellin’ like sandalwood and spice.” Joel hands you the canvas bag he’d had draped over his arm. “Here. Should be pretty much everythin’ you’re gonna need. There’s a bar of soap, a couple clean washcloths, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste. There’s also a razor.” He pauses. “It’s a men’s razor, one of mine I’ve never used, but I reckon it does the job just the same as a woman’s razor.”

Amused, you quirk an eyebrow at him. What the hell are you trying to say? That I need to shave?

“Not that you have to use it,” he adds quickly, his cheeks burning bright red at what you thought he had been insinuating. He shifts awkwardly from boot to boot. “I tossed it in there just in case you’d want to, but you ain’t gotta use it, that’s not what I meant at all—”

Deciding you don’t want to see him squirm, you lift a hand up to stop him and shake your head.

Truth be told, you actually couldn’t fucking wait to shave your legs.

Calm down, cowboy. It’s all good.

Realizing he hadn’t offended you, Joel relaxes. “I’ll let you get to your shower. You take as long as you want, but just try and leave some hot water for me since I’m next,” he chuckles. “As soon as we both get all cleaned up, we can meet downstairs in the kitchen for a quick bite to eat before bed. Deal?”

Deal.

He’s about to leave you to it when you stop him, grabbing his arm. Wait a second, Joel.

Joel’s eyes meet yours. “Yeah?”

Thank you.

Your gratitude might have been silent, but it was there and he knew it.

Feeling brave, Joel reaches up and places his hand over yours for a moment, his thumb brushing against the softness of your skin. “No need to thank me, sweetheart.”

Letting his hand drop away from yours, Joel then turns and leaves the bathroom, closing the door behind him to give you your privacy.

Once you have the hot water running, you kick off your boots and start to peel off your clothes, tossing them into a pile on the floor near the door. Completely naked, you turn your back towards the oval shaped mirror hanging over the bathroom sink, unwilling to take a look at the scars on your body—painful reminders of the cruel punishments you’d endured during your time in captivity.

You grab the toiletries from the tote bag Joel had given you and set them on the side of the tub. Pulling the yellow floral curtain aside, you step into the shower and position yourself directly underneath the scalding hot water, letting it burn your skin to give you an entirely different kind of pain to think about, even if it was just for a minute until your body adjusted to the temperature of the water and it no longer hurt.

You begin washing yourself, trying your hardest to keep from crumbling. But you couldn’t. Lump in your throat and a tightness in your chest, tears brim your eyes, ready to fall.

You’re willing to let them.

Two years. For almost two fucking years, you had been suppressing your emotions. You’d been in a constant survival mode, there had been no time to feel anything. And now here you were, standing in a fucking shower with all the freedom in the world to just let it all out.

Silent sobs wrack your body, bringing you down onto your knees.

Joel’s shower had been a quick one.

You hadn’t left him very much hot water—but he couldn’t even be mad about it.

He pulls on a pair of light gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt. He haphazardly dries off his hair and makes his way downstairs, knowing you would be heading down there any minute now to meet him like you’d agreed. Without much time to make a proper meal for you to eat, Joel goes about the dimly lit kitchen and prepares a couple of cold turkey sandwiches. He’d just plated them and set them on the table when the soft padding of bare feet on the hardwood floor prompts him to look up.

His breath catches in his throat. You stand there in the doorway wearing nothing but his flannel shirt. The hem of it falls to the middle of your thighs, and it takes everything in him not to think about the fact that you weren’t wearing anything under his shirt. His fucking shirt.

Clearing his throat lightly, he makes sure not to let his gaze wander where it’s not supposed to. “I bet you feel a lot better, don’t you?”

You sigh softly. Oh, you have no fucking idea.

Noticing you’re holding your hands behind your back, Joel shoots you a puzzled look. “What’cha got there?”

You bring your arms forward. Clutched in your hands is the notepad and pen that Maria had given you.

Although he takes it as a sign that you are willing to communicate with him, Joel knows better than to get too far ahead of himself. He’d wait until you were ready to make the first move and he’d follow your lead. “I made you a sandwich to eat,” he tells you, pulling out a chair at the table. “C’mon, come have a seat.”

After you sit down, Joel goes over to the sink and fills two glasses of water, one for you and one for himself. Setting them down on the table, he finally takes a seat across from you—that’s when he notices the redness in your eyes. You’d been crying. Even though he wants to ask you if you’re alright, Joel decides against it for the time being and the two of you eat in comfortable, tranquil silence.

“I can make you another one if you’re still hungry,” Joel offers when you polish off the last couple bites of your sandwich.

Shaking your head, you place your hands on your belly signaling that you’re full. You’re not, though. You’d eagerly scarf another three of them down if you could, but you were a lot more exhausted than you were hungry and you couldn’t wait to crawl into that bed upstairs and get some sleep..

Joel studies you. “You okay, darlin’?”

You shrug. This has just been a lot to process.

“I know it’s gonna be tough for you. It’s like I told you earlier, it’s gonna take some time to adjust to your new life here in Jackson. But I need you to know you ain’t alone anymore. I’m gonna be here to look out for you. And trust me, I know you don’t really need me to.” Joel pauses and shoots you a crooked little grin. “Hell, you took a swing at Keith. You’ve got bigger fuckin’ balls than half of the men in this town. Includin’ myself.”

You let out a huff of amusement from your nose and the corners of your mouth tug into a small smile—you don’t try to force it down.

Joel blurts the words before he can even think to stop himself. “You’ve got a real nice smile, y’know.”

Biting down on your bottom lip, you move your empty plate off to the side and grab your pen and notepad. You swiftly scribble something onto the blank page, then slide it across the table to Joel.

He picks it up, an odd sensation fluttering inside his chest when he realizes what you had done.

You’d written down your name for him.

He says it out loud, and then looks up at you.

“That’s a real beautiful name.” Sincerity drips from his tone, going hand in hand with his compliment.

Cheeks burning, you glance down at your hands, which you’d begun wringing together on top of the table. It was out of nervousness, but this kind was different. You couldn’t quite explain it.

“I know it’s gonna take a whole lot more than a hot shower and a sandwich to get you to trust me. But I swear that I’m gonna do whatever I can to show you that you ain’t got anythin’ to be afraid of. Not with me around. Okay?”

Okay.

You open your mouth, trying to repeat the word back to him.

Joel’s eyes widen slightly. You wanted to talk to him—you were actually trying to talk to him. But it was a clear struggle. Something wasn’t letting you find your voice.

Clamping your mouth shut, you sigh and sink back into your chair. I’m sorry. I can’t.

“It’s okay,” he says, softly. “We’re gonna take this one step at a time. Together.”

#to hell and back fic #to hell and back #joel miller series #joel miller story #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x you #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller hbo #joel miller comfort #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fic #tlou fanfiction

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solar-wing · 1 month

Text

⚣ Badass 👊

⚣👊 A/N → @natef458 Last request from my previous account. Now, I can focus on one inbox (at least for now)! Shorter than what I've normally done, but I wanted to keep it simple. Hope you enjoy it! Tamaranean male image generated by AI. WARNINGS: Canon-Typical Violence | Tamaranean Male Reader | Dick Is Nightwing |

⚣👊 Summary → It's Y/N's first mission as a part of the team since he came to Earth. The Team and their leader Nightwing soon found out just how capable Tamaraneans are in a fight.

⚣👊 Words → 3.3K

REBLOGS & replies are greatly appreciated, please! 💛

Under the harsh glow of the moonlight, the Young Justice team converged around the abandoned warehouse where Vandal Savage and his cronies were holed up. Nightwing was co-leading the mission with Aqualad, coming far in his leadership and skill since they had founded the team along with their friend and teammate Kid Flash, and new friends Superboy, Miss Martian, Artemis, and eventually Zatanna.

Many of the original members had grown much from their early days as a part of the team, moving away from their past titles as sidekicks and coming into their own identities as heroes.

One of them was the former sidekick to the Dark Knight, previously known as Robin, who’d realized he wanted to separate himself from Batman and forge his own path and identity. Thus, within a few years after the team’s founding, he left his position and title as Robin and took on the persona of Nightwing.

He’d come a long way from the kid he was before, becoming more of the leader his mentor, and friend Aqualad saw in him. So much so, that the Atlantean had decided to start letting him help co-lead missions, seeing that was their original deal during that first fateful mission on Santa Prisca. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Batman had alerted the Team about a new mission concerning Vandal Savage who had just stolen a prototype weapon from a top-secret government facility. This weapon, codenamed "Project Eclipse," was not only a formidable tool of destruction but was clearly another attempt at trying to make humans evolve as a race due to his crazy beliefs in Social Darwinism and survival of the fittest.

By now, the Team knew this could only be the minor puzzle piece to something bigger. But, a weapon of that capability was way too dangerous to be left in his hands. Thus, they were tasked with intercepting Savage and recovering the stolen weapon before he could carry out whatever twisted experiments he had planned.

Only now, their team had grown much larger, bringing in various new members. Some were sidekicks to other heroes a part of the League while others were just regular people who had developed powers and abilities, whether intentionally or not, and were recruited into the team so they could learn how to control them and use them for good.

They’d lost a few along the way, some choosing to leave the team on their own while others had met a different and more grave fate, one of them being the new Robin, Jason Todd, who’d taken Dick’s place after he’d given up the position of Batman’s sidekick. Of course, the team mourned the loss of their fallen teammates, but it didn’t take away from their strength, especially with the other new members who had joined.

One of them being Y/N, an alien refugee who’d made quite the entrance to Earth just two years prior. He’d escaped from the captivity of the Gordanians, an intergalactic race of slavers who’d attacked his home planet, Tamaran, and abducted him as a slave in the process.

But, the slavers were ignorant of the fact that Tamaraneans gained strength from sunlight. So, when traveling closer to Earth within view of the distant sun of the solar system and after encountering the inherent unpredictability of space travel, Y/N seized his opportunity for escape, breaking free from his confines and escaping the vessel.

They’d pursued after him, hot on his trail as he made his way onto Earth, landing in the unsuspecting municipality of Happy Harbor. Unknowingly, but thankful in the end, his arrival had caught the attention of the Young Justice team, whose base was located in the nearby mountain and had come to his rescue.

It’d definitely been an interesting first meeting, considering none of the Team could understand him since he was speaking an alien language they’d never heard of. That’s when Y/N took it upon himself to lock lips with the Boy Wonder, who had yet to give up his identity and position as Batman’s sidekick.

Apparently, Tamaraneans possessed the ability to learn language through skin contact. It didn’t have to be done explicitly through kissing, but they were also a very direct and forward race when it came to their feelings. Being a race ruled more by emotion than reason.

Simply put, Y/N found Dick attractive and planted one on him so he could learn English, much to the then Boy Wonder’s surprise, but also enjoyment. He didn’t know much about Tamaraneans, but, judging by YN’s appearance, it definitely had to be a planet full of attractive people. But, he only had his eyes on one at that moment.

Now, two years later, Y/N had become an integral member of the Young Justice team, his journey from alien refugee to valued ally a testament to his strength and resilience. Despite the initial language barrier and clear cultural differences that in the early stages separated him from his teammates, Y/N had quickly adapted to life on Earth, his determination to learn and grow matched only by his unwavering commitment to the team.

Y/N brought a unique blend of strengths and abilities to the Team, complementing and enhancing the skills of his fellow teammates in various ways. His Tamaranean heritage bestowed upon him powers and abilities that were on par, if not equal, with those of Superboy, making him a formidable force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

Like Superboy, Y/N possessed superhuman strength, allowing him to perform incredible feats of physical prowess and to go toe-to-toe with even the most powerful adversaries. His invulnerability made him virtually indestructible, able to withstand the most devastating attacks without so much as a scratch.

But what truly set Y/N apart was his extreme proficiency in hand-to-hand and weapon combat. Trained from a young age in the art of combat on his home planet of Tamaran, Y/N was a master of various fighting styles and techniques, able to hold his own against opponents of any size or skill level.

In addition to his formidable combat skills, Y/N possessed the ability to generate energy bolts and blasts from his hands and eyes, a power known as star bolts on Tamaran. These powerful energy blasts were capable of incapacitating even the most resilient foes, adding a deadly edge to Y/N's already impressive arsenal of abilities.

Together, Y/N's strength, combat prowess, and energy manipulation abilities made him a major asset to the Young Justice team, capable of turning the tide of battle in their favor with a single well-placed strike. Whether facing off against street-level criminals or cosmic threats, Y/N stood ready to defend his teammates and protect the innocent, his unwavering determination and indomitable spirit serving as a beacon of hope in the darkest of times.

As the Team faced off against Vandal Savage and his henchmen in the abandoned warehouse, the air crackled with tension and anticipation. Nightwing and Aqualad led the charge, their years of experience and leadership guiding the team through the chaotic fray.

Superboy, Miss Martian, and Zatanna with a few of their other teammates had split off to retrieve the stolen weapon, leaving Nightwing, Artemis, Kid Flash, and Y/N to hold off Savage and his goons. The battle was fierce and relentless, with Savage's forces proving to be formidable adversaries.

As Nightwing faced off against Vandal Savage in the dimly lit warehouse, the villain was proving himself to be a most formidable foe. Savage's millennia of combat experience and immortality made him a threatening force, his strength and resilience far surpassing that of any ordinary adversary.

The two circled each other warily, each seeking to gain the upper hand in the deadly dance of combat. Nightwing moved with the grace and precision of a trained acrobat, his nimble movements a stark contrast to Savage's brute force and relentless determination.

With a calculated look, Savage launched himself at Nightwing, his fists crashing down with bone-crushing force. Nightwing barely managed to dodge the blow, rolling to the side and countering with a swift kick to Savage's midsection.

But, he shrugged off the attack as if it were nothing. With a savage grin, he came at Nightwing again delivering multiple strikes that drove the young hero further back towards the edge of defeat.

Even with his own experience and endurance in battle, Nightwing found himself struggling to keep up with the relentless assault. His movements grew sluggish and tired as his body began to succumb to the pain of the attacks, his mind racing as he searched for a way to turn the tide of battle in his favor.

As he staggered back from Vandal Savage's brutal onslaught, his muscles burning with exhaustion and his mind reeling from the relentless barrage of attacks, he knew that he was on the brink of defeat. With Savage bearing down on him, his fists raised for the final, devastating blow, Nightwing braced himself for the inevitable impact, steeling himself for the pain that was sure to follow.

But just as Savage's fist came crashing towards him, a streak of emerald energy shot through the air, intercepting the attack with pinpoint precision. Nightwing's eyes widened in astonishment as he watched Y/N swoop in, his Tamaranean abilities allowing him to move with speed and agility unmatched by any ordinary mortal.

With a powerful surge of energy, Y/N deflected Savage's blow, sending the immortal villain stumbling backward with a grunt of rage and frustration. Nightwing could hardly believe what he was seeing as Y/N stood before him, his expression determined and his eyes blazing with determination.

But the battle was far from over, and Savage wasted no time in launching another furious assault. As he lunged towards Y/N, his hands outstretched for the kill, Y/N met him head-on, his own strength and resilience proving to be more than a match for the immortal foe.

With a swift movement, Savage managed to grab Y/N mid-attack, his grip like iron as he sought to crush the life out of the young hero. As he tightened his grip around the Tamaranean’s midsection, he was despondent to see Y/N unfazed by his move, his expression calm and determined as he looked Savage straight in the eye.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am stronger than I look," Y/N declared, his words resonating with undeniable strength and conviction no matter how soft they were spoken.

As he spoke, a flicker of determination ignited in Y/N's eyes, the vibrant emerald glow intensifying until his eyes shone with a brilliant radiance. The Tamaranean brought his foot back before unleashing a devastating kick to Savage's chest, the force of the blow sending the mastermind staggering back. His expression contorted with pain and surprise despite his strength and healing as he struggled to maintain his footing against the onslaught.

As Savage stumbled backwards, Y/N seized the opportunity to press his advantage, launching a relentless barrage of attacks that left the immortal villain struggling to keep up. Meanwhile, Superboy, Miss Martian, and Zatanna had succeeded in securing and disabling the prototype weapon, turning the tide of battle in their favor.

As the battle raged on and the rest of the team rallied to their side, they watched in awe as the Tamaranean held his own against Savage and his goons, his strength and resilience shining through with every strike.

He was relentless, pressing his advantage with unwavering determination as he launched into a relentless barrage of attacks. Each strike fueled by an inner fire and a fierce determination to protect his teammates and emerge victorious against the forces of evil.

Also, no one was allowed to lay hands on his leader like that without repercussions. Vandal truly did not know who he was fucking with.

As Nightwing watched Y/N in the heat of battle, a wave of admiration washed over him, mingled with a sense of awe that bordered on reverence. His eyes traced the contours of his form, noting the fluid grace with which he moved and the unwavering determination etched upon his features.

In the flickering light of the warehouse, the Tamaranean seemed to glow with an inner fire, his emerald eyes ablaze with determination as he faced off against the immortal menace of Vandal Savage. Nightwing couldn't help but be captivated by the sight, drawn to the raw strength and resilience that seemed to emanate from Y/N's very being.

But it wasn't just his physical prowess that impressed Nightwing. It was the strength of his spirit, the unwavering resolve that burned brightly within him even in the face of overwhelming odds. There was something undeniably magnetic about Y/N, something that stirred a longing within Nightwing's heart that he couldn't quite put into words.

With a determined nod, he rose to his feet, his own resolve renewed as he prepared to join the fray once more.

Together, Nightwing and Y/N fought with a synchronicity that bordered on instinct, their movements fluid and coordinated as they launched a devastating assault on Savage and his forces. As they drove their adversaries back, the rest of the team rallied to their side, their collective strength and determination proving to be more than a match for the forces of evil.

As the battle raged on, Nightwing couldn't help but feel a stirring of something deeper than mere admiration. There was a connection between him and Y/N, a bond that transcended words and defied explanation. It was as if they were two halves of a whole, each complementing the other in ways that went beyond the battlefield.

In that moment, as they fought side by side against their foes, the acrobat couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to truly be with the Tamaranean, to share in the triumphs and trials of life as partners, as equals, as something more.

But for now, he pushed those thoughts aside, focusing instead on the task at hand. There would be time to explore the depths of his feelings later. For now, he fought alongside Y/N with a renewed sense of purpose, his heart filled with admiration and longing for the alien hero who had captured his attention in more ways than one.

Y/N used his incredible strength and ability of flight to help launch Nightwing into the air, while Nightwing used his light and agile nature to deliver a series of lightning-fast blows against the villain. Together, they worked to bring the villain to his knees, their combined efforts finally proving to be too much for the immortal.

As Savage finally admitted defeat with a promise and retreated into the shadows, the Young Justice team stood victorious, proud and relieved smiles etched onto their faces from their hard-earned victory. They all surrounded their co-leader and teammate, making sure he was okay while praising Y/N for his prowess in his battle with Savage.

"Dude! That was like total badass moves out there!" Kid Flash exclaimed, his eyes wide with awe.

"Yeah, I know you've been on the team for a while now, but I haven't seen a more well-deserved ass whooping like that in a while," Artemis agreed, her lips curling into a smirk.

"It truly was a sight to behold. Well done, Y/N," Aqualad added, his voice tinged with pride.

"I'm so glad you're both safe," Miss Martian added, relief evident in her voice.

"Yeah, that was a close call," Superboy chimed in, his expression serious.

Nightwing couldn't help but chuckle at their enthusiastic praise, his gaze drifting to Y/N. The Tamaranean smiled, his eyes sparkling with appreciation and gratitude at the praise.

"Thank you. Though, I think my friend here is deserving of just as much credit," he replied, gesturing to the former Boy Wonder.

"Oh, no, you definitely did most of the heavy lifting," Nightwing insisted, shaking his head. "If it weren't for you, I would've been a goner."

"I do not know about that. You were holding your own quite well before I arrived. But, we make a good team, do we not?" Y/N mused, his smile widening.

"Yeah, we do," Nightwing agreed, his cheeks flushing slightly at the compliment.

"And now we know, the next time we need to save our butts, just throw Nightwing into mortal danger and Y/N goes into god mode," Kid Flash teased, breaking the mood.

"Dude!" Nightwing hissed, punching his best friend on the arm.

"Yeah, payback, Robby-Poo," Kid Flash, still using his old nickname for his friend despite his name change.

"Well, we should probably head back to headquarters. We need to get this weapon back to the cave," Aqualad interjected, ever the voice of reason.

"Sounds good to me," Superboy agreed, already heading for the exit.

As the Team made their way out of the warehouse, a warm feeling settled over Nightwing's chest, his gaze lingering on the Tamaranean. There was no doubt in his mind that they would continue to make a great team, both on and off the battlefield.

"Hold on a sec, Y/N. We'll be right behind you, guys!" Nightwing called out to his teammates.

The rest of the team shared a knowing glance, a few snickers, and suggestive grins exchanged between them. But they didn't say anything, opting instead to give their friends some privacy.

Except KF who was giving the vigilante a thumbs-up and a wink.

Nightwing rolled his eyes and shook his head, but the blush didn't fade.

Once they were alone, Y/N turned his attention to the former Boy Wonder, his expression curious.

"Is everything okay, Dick? Are you still hurt?" He asked, voice lilting with curiosity.

The acrobat tried not to blush at Y/N's use of his name, the way it rolled off his tongue like liquid gold. Even though they were technically still in the field and should be addressing each other by their alias names, he didn't mind it. Not one bit.

"No, no, I'm fine. Really. Just wanted to say thank you," Nightwing assured, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"For what? Defeating Vandal Savage?" Y/N questioned, confusion written across his features.

"Well, yeah, that, too. But, I meant, thank you for saving me," Nightwing explained, his tone growing soft.

"Oh," Heat growing under the Tamaranean's golden cheeks.

"I'm not gonna lie, I was worried for a second. But, then you came swooping in and turned the tables. I knew I was safe," the acrobat confessed, his gaze locking with the Tamaranean's.

"You are most welcome. It was an honor to fight alongside you. I would not have let any harm come to you, Dick," Y/N replied, his expression earnest, though he wanted to say more.

Ever since he came to Earth, he'd grown into the Earthling culture, which meant he was a lot less direct with his feelings, which proved to be much more frustrating than he thought. Especially when it came to expressing the lingering feelings he had for his leader.

"Yeah, I know. Thanks," the acrobat said, offering a small smile.

"Of course," the Tamaranean responded, returning the gesture.

"We should probably get going. The others are waiting for us," Nightwing pointed out, though he didn't want the moment to end.

"Yes, they are," Y/N agreed, a hint of reluctance in his voice.

"Maybe after we're finished filing our reports and debriefing, we can hang out? Catch up on things, or whatever," the acrobat suggested, his heart racing in his chest.

"I would like that," the Tamaranean replied, his cheeks flushing pink.

"Cool," Nightwing nodded, trying his best not to grin like an idiot.

"Yes. Cool, indeed," Y/N echoed, his eyes sparkling with gleefulness.

"You two coming or what? Let's go," Kid Flash yelled from the warehouse entrance.

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming!" Nightwing called back, rolling his eyes.

With a final shared smile, the two heroes made their way toward their teammates, the promise of a new beginning and a blossoming relationship hanging in the air.

☀️ | Dick Grayson/Nightwing | ☀️

☀️ | Masterlists | ☀️

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sshbpodcast · 7 months

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Character Spotlight: Hikaru Sulu

By Ames

Have at thee! Pick up your foil and get into the proper stance as A Star to Steer Her By shines this week’s character spotlight on the Enterprise’s helmsman (and occasional musketeer), Hikaru Sulu. We may have had to get a little nitpicky with noteworthy moments from Scott last week because he’s just used less than the three main characters, and Sulu will be even tougher because he does even less and then is gone for a lot of season two while he was off filming The Green Berets (which I wouldn’t even recommend, so that’s a waste!).

That’s not to say Sulu isn’t a great presence in The Original Series, and we came up with some great (and not so great) moments from this ship’s jack of all trades. He swashbuckles, he collects pistols, he tends to plants, he quips with his Russian bestie. Check out the best and worst of Sulu below, listen to this week’s banter on the podcast (discussion starts at 1:19:43), and give us warp speed on my mark. Mark!

Best Moments

Someone give this man a hand… plant Sulu started the series with a passion for botany that never really came up much after it was established in “The Man Trap” (even when it would have been applicable, as you’ll see), but it was endearing to see him caring for Beauregard and worrying about his flowery friend after a salt vampire masquerading as crewman Green gave him a fright. There there, Beauregard.

Richelieu, beware! One of the most memorable moments for Sulu and also for the whole damn series comes in “The Naked Time” where we see our favorite helmsman get affected by the space madness disease and start running around the ship shirtless with a foil, provoking crewmen into duels. It’s that bonkers kind of fun episode that really worked for TOS and gave us decades of referential humor after.

Lower us down a pot of hot coffee While we gave Kirk a lot of guff about his characterization(s) in “The Enemy Within,” we’ve really got to give Sulu credit for his work in the B plot. While slowly freezing on Alfa 177, he manages to keep morale up with the occasional light-hearted room service call to the Enterprise. And this is the first we see of what we dubbed the “Sulu Maneuver,” when you heat up some rocks with a phaser! Clever!

He’s doing a countdown! Okay, this one’s here partly because of the running joke we made out of Bailey’s delivery pointing out Sulu’s rather macabre countdown, but Sulu also displays some serious chops in “The Corbomite Maneuver.” Bailey can’t handle the pressure, and Sulu has to literally lean over and do his job for him at the same time, all without losing count!

You are not of the body Mind-controlled Sulu is best Sulu and gets some really fun acting out of George Takei every time. We see it in the afore-mentioned “The Naked Time,” in “Catspaw,” and in “This Side of Paradise,” to name a few, but my favorite mind-controlled Sulu has got to be in “The Return of the Archons” because of all the extra points he gets for this ruffly outfit!

It’s Greek to me Let’s also commend Sulu for rigging up the ship’s phasers to destroy Apollo’s temple in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” Why this plan worked I have absolutely no idea. What self-respected god entity puts all of their powers in a single object? Trelane wouldn’t gaff this hard. Anyway, props to Sulu for somehow avoiding phasering the humans who were hiding only ten feet away like fools.

Lay back and thinking about vegetables Holy cow, guys. A whole episode in which only Spock, Uhura, and Sulu are featured from the entire cast? It must be “The Slaver Weapon” from The Animated Series. Only TAS could get away with giving to Sulu scenes that would go to Kirk any other day, and he owns it! He outwits the Kzinti. He avoids their telepathy by thinking about broccoli. He does it all!

Don’t call me tiny As usual, some of the best moments we’ve collected come from the films, where the characters all really get the shine. Even the minor characters like Sulu, who gets to sashay around in what we previously dubbed the Ta’cape in The Search for Spock and hold his own against a security officer who stands probably a full foot taller than him, like a small dog in a fight. Bowwow!

Special delivery While we’re a little sad that Sulu had probably the fewest character scenes in The Voyage Home (they evidently cut a family reunion scene due to bad child acting), we do have to thank this San Franciscan for obtaining and flying a helicopter around to deliver the transparent aluminum to the ship. How did he pull it off? We’ll just have to use our imagination.

Emergency Landing Plan B Wow, we’ve had more good moments from The Final Frontier than bad ones to mention in these character spotlight posts, which is kind of fascinating considering that film on the whole is among our least favorites. But when Sulu totally rocks it and manually lands the shuttle in the bay using a barricade, we have to admit that the film knew how to use its characters.

Fly her apart then! How often does Sulu get to save the day? Not often enough, I say, because when he gets the opportunity to have the Excelsior join in the battle in The Undiscovered Country, it’s positively thrilling. Your heart just wells at the love these crewmembers have for each other that Sulu would ignore orders to come rescue his friends with passion that I wish we got to see more often in the show.

Tossing a match into a pool of gasoline For the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, Voyager treated the fans with a little Sulu action in “Flashback” and he proved to be just as heroic as ever! Not only do we get to see his decision to go save his old crewmates, but we see him outwit Kang by igniting the sirillium in a nebula. Not only that, but he does the humane and diplomatic thing and makes sure it won’t destroy the Klingon ship utterly. Now that’s a great birthday gift!

—

Worst Moments

It’s a he plant – a girl can tell Ya know how we were lauding Sulu for all his great botany work before? Well, he insists that Beauregard’s name is Gertrude for some reason in “The Man Trap.” Dude, just let Janice name him Beauregard if she wants to. He’s her plant, you just feed him sometimes. And frankly, Beauregard is the perfect name for this plant, so we have to give you points off for this one.

I’ll protect you, fair maiden Another instance that’s on both our good and bad lists comes in “The Naked Time.” Drunk or not, assaulting his coworkers is not okay, pal. And Uhura can defend herself from the likes of Richelieu or whoever else. Can we do away with the constant need to protect female characters like they’re damsels in distress? Luckily, Uhura managed to own this moment, as we’ll certainly see next week.

I knew he would Here’s another example of Chris putting the same moment in both of his lists. Funny as that interaction with Bailey was, did we really need the countdown in “The Corbomite Maneuver”? Balok was already doing it for us, as we could tell when the Clint Howard–shaped alien was supposed to repeat “one minute” after Sulu, but the line was cut, and Sulu reacts to it anyway like a weirdo.

Fantasy island, er, planet Most things in “Shore Leave” are perplexing since the episode was being written on the fly and all the characters are acting entirely out of character (we postulated the whole planet was drugged, but who knows). So when Sulu is evidently thinking about samurai for some reason, we can just blame the writers if that comes across as a little racist, especially considering Takei fought to NOT be written as a samurai in “The Naked Time.”

If it were two feet from me You know how we were giving credit earlier to Sulu for caring for Beauregard and having a knack for botany? Well all that goes out the window in “This Side of Paradise” where Sulu suddenly can’t notice a plant that is literally right next to him and slowly turning to face him. I call this man’s botany skills into question. No wonder he misgendered Beauregard!

You are away from your post, Mister We can give normal universe Sulu a pass on this one, but his parallel universe self in “Mirror, Mirror” is just a monster. While it’s some good fun to watch Takei got down with his bad self by trying to get the captain killed and all that jazz, it is just plain uncomfortable to watch him terrorizing Uhura, so it’s definitely worth a place on our list.

A literal dagger of the mind In “And the Children Shall Lead,” it’s unclear how far the mental powers of Gorgan go since sometimes the crew only hallucinates things and sometimes they are straight-up mind controlled. Sulu seeing a ton of knives in space (which is just plain impossible and he should know it) is the weirdest instance yet. Kirk has to tell him what he sees isn’t there, but does he understand that? Who knows; it’s a nonsensical episode.

I am for you, Sulu This is just a little moment, but Sulu falls (literally!) for one of the oldest cliches in horror writing: When Losira is coming for him in “That Which Survives,” Sulu backs away and trips on some rocks like a chump, leaving himself prone to her attack. And what makes even less sense is that her touching him doesn’t kill him like the others; it only disrupts the cells in his shoulder. Like a chump.

It’s Walter backwards! More of Sulu getting made to look like a chump comes in The Animated Series episode “The Infinite Vulcan” when he nearly gets himself killed after getting bitten by a retlaw: a walking planet with poisonous bite. Luckily, he gets saved by the Phylosians, but you’d think a botanist like Sulu would know better. Oh wait, I’ve already questioned his botany skills, so there’s that.

You’re a wizard, Sulu! I can’t rant enough on what a trainwreck “The Magicks of Megas-Tu” is, but here’s a taste. To test out how to use magic (not even going to start; we’ll be here all day), Sulu’s first impulse is to make himself a pretty woman and then go in to kiss her. In front of everyone. What the hell, Sulu? I expected better from you, man, but making yourself a sex doll is utterly ridiculous.

One tiny step for a tiny man One more from The Animated Series, and this one’s stupidity is compounded by the super inconsistent animation. When he’s been shrunk in “The Terratin Incident” to somewhere between one foot and one inch tall depending on the art frame, Sulu goes to turn a dial, somehow trips on it, and falls off the equivalent of a ten-story building only to break a leg. Ugh.

Like a bull in a China ship I have to give Sulu grief about something that bugs me whenever I see it in Star Trek. Did you ever notice that the crew seem to use breakable items only so they can get smashed? In any other scene, the ceramic tea cup that we see in The Undiscovered Country might be metal or plastic or the paper cups we saw at one point, but because we need to see it break, it’s ceramic, and I slowly lose my mind about it.

—

Oh my. We’re reducing to impulse speed to prepare for more of these character spotlights, so keep your eyes here for more in the series! Also, keep up with our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, challenge us to a duel over on Facebook or Twitter, and take a moment to smell the flowers, if you take a half a second to notice them.

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barrel-crow-n · 2 months

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Colm Fahey as the Crows' parent

Jesper: He's Jesper's biological dad. He fucks up sometimes but he is still an amazing dad trying his best. He cares for Jesper and wants what's best for him. Jesper loves him a lot.

Wylan: Father in law. Colm loves Jesper's boyfriend. He loves their relationship. He's very supportive. He gave them his blessing and he's the kind dad Wylan needed after that bitch of a father.

Inej: Colm likes Jesper's friend. A strong independent woman; kind, polite. It's hard not to love Inej. Plus she obviously really cares about Jesper and Jesper really cares about her. He was worried when she was hurt, and worries in general - after all she's a pirate that hunts slavers.

Matthias: Matthias clearly needed a good father figure (especially after Brum). Colm notices how to reaches for a weapon whenever he hears something. It worries him but he tries to relax him as much as he can when possible.

Nina: She acts like siblings with Jesper. She's loud and funny and Colm likes her a lot, meanwhile Nina asks for Jesper's baby pictures. Colm decided that's a bad idea.

Kaz: Kaz is so polite (around him). And so kind (around him). And he loves Kaz despite the guy being, well, scary. Interestingly, Kaz asks for Jesper's childhood stories. Colm wouldn't take him for the guy that does that but maybe he just wants to get to know Jesper better? (It's blackmail material.) Jesper obviously sees him as a brother, even if they got in a fight, so Colm feels closer to Kaz accordingly. Kaz hasn't had a good father figure in a long time (Per Haskell was a father figure but not a good one) and Colm kind of reminds him of his father because he is also a farmer.

Also they are all teenagers. And Colm's son's friends. Plus none of them have parental figures anywhere to be seen. It's only natural he starts to feel a little protective. Especially paired with their dangerous activities.

#this has been in my drafts since october so i finally decided to release it #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #inej ghafa #nina zenik #wylan van eck #matthias helvar #colm fahey #six of crows #grishaverse #six of crows duology

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wolven91 · 2 months

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Skin Deep

The crit'yun are an ancient race.

Chitin instead of flesh, feather, scale, or fur. A mind that was vast enough to include all their kind, but also individual minds, all working towards a common goal broken up into hives then castes. They were like ants of old, but massive.

As for the hives, in the deepest, most protected parts of their worlds, there were pools of a biological soup that gave birth to new and needed bodies. There was no 'set' appearance to the crit'yun. If they needed pincers the most, then the creature that crawled from the ominous goop had pincers. If they needed size or bulk, the goop would recede as a titan lifted itself clear of the liquid, allowing it to cascade from it in great waterfalls as it stepped into the galaxy.

The crit'yun had been around since the various races that now dominated the galaxy had begun to crawl from their own primordial soups millennia ago. They watched the galaxy and recorded its comings and goings with a careful eye. Nothing was forgotten, everything was shared. Perhaps once the crit'yun had spread themselves across the galaxy, like a grand empire? But that wasn't the case now.

Their territory with a sliver that spanned several arms of the galaxy. They stayed there, watching and listening to the galaxy that appeared and grew now that they stayed dormant.

But the modern galaxy feared them, even before their most recent awakening.

Not just because they had perfected what was important to the current races, war and weapons, but because they were an antithesis to what was considered beautiful within the galaxy. Skittering. Twitching. Eyes that didn't look like eyes, or none at all, still watched without blinking. Legs and hands that were weapons.

They were judged on their first introduction. The crit'yun were aliens, even to the aliens.

When humanity appeared, it created an almost visible ripple amongst the insectoids. Something new. Something they hadn't seen. Something they hadn't recorded with their incredible minds. Something, that was dying.

Like a locust swarm amassing, the crit'yun, after thousands and thousands of years in isolation and refusal to engage with the wider galaxy; was suddenly abuzz with activity. The galaxy feared the crit'yun despite the diplomats they sent to assure the Galactic Community of their honourable intentions. They avoided crowded systems, sent only the most appealing of the crit'yun to parley when needed, but they were still shunned as dangerous, foreign things.

This was where Max came in.

Max had been in the 'care' of slavers. He was one of the lucky ones. He hadn't even been aware of their foul intentions. They had lied, placed him in comfortable quarters and began their journey towards a buyer before being found by the crit'yun.

"We are still sorry. That this. Was your first step. Sorry, that we, no... you... did not find... ally, friend, family." Chittered the creature. It was the size of a large dog, perhaps a Great Dane? It's red membrane wings flutters and twitched, but the numerous black dots, that Max had come to learn were its eyes, watched him carefully. Its speech pattern was strange, but it sat next to the human on a raised bench of resin that coated the inside of the crit'yun ship.

"It's alright. I should have known, I just didn't... think I suppose?" The human said with a sigh, gesturing with his hand before it fell back down against his knee.

"Absence. No. Lack of knowledge. Ignorance. Not worthy of fault. " Assured the creature as its head tilted one way and then the other.

The human smiled idly, more to the floor than to himself or a crit'yun. His hand, ever moving reach over without thought and rubbed a hand against the almost perfectly rounded head of the alien insect. Although there was no fur there, the distracted human merely felt calmer by the action. It reminded him of his own dog, Max missed him.

It was almost a whole minute before Max turned his head to the crit'yun and blinked, seemingly surprised that he was petting the insect and immediately withdrew his hand.

"I'm sorry! I didn't-" Blurted the human, holding his hands up in apologetic surrender.

"Why?" Asked the creature. It's perfectly round head turning, the beady black eyes rotating with it. It was a perfect impression of a puppy tilting its head.

"I wasn't thinking." Replied the human honestly, lowering his arms once more, paying attention to the creature.

"Ah. This one knows this. Nature. No... Natural action... To act by instinct. True Freedom. Fear no. Fear not. No offence made or received." Confirmed the alien, bobbing its head. Unbeknownst the Max, the instinctual drive it spoke of was its 'purpose'. Every crit'yun was born and made with a goal, a true purpose in life. The broodmother's was to birth and care for their young and vulnerable. The guards was to defend and destroy threats. To this drone? It was to reapply the resin to the ceilings of the crit'yun craft.

Since the human had shown preference to it, it had already been replaced, its purpose was now to stay by the human and ensure it wanted for nothing until the broodmother's craft arrived.

Max gave a smirk as this giant insect spoke in such an odd way, struggling to find the correct words, all the while he had accidently just treated it like a favoured pet. His brow furrowed as he thought about it though.

"How come the translators don't work for you?" The man asked curiously. He was aware that translators normally just adjusted any word heard for the word the speaker meant, in the listener's language. It shouldn't have been hiccupping over the insect's words.

"They do." Replied the creature smartly.

"But you mix up your words?" Pointed out Max.

"Ah. Translators fine. It is mind that is... limited." The insect explained, bobbing on all six legs.

"Mind?" Max was only more confused now.

"Yes. This one. Crit'yun you see with your eyes. Is only drone. Mind limited. In time... We will present acceptable crit'yun to you." The drone explained, speaking the words the broodmother sent through the hive's mind. It was a delicate thing, to speak through a drone, but doable. They didn't normally have the drive to talk or even need to. It was pure luck that this done was a talkative one, often humming to itself as it happily worked. The broodmother could only whisper simple concepts and the drone would repeat them as best it could.

"What does that mean?" Enquired the human. The crit'yun was pleased with the new specie's curiosity but feared that this was the moment they would lose this creature's trust. The crit'yun knew what they looked like, and the diplomat form could only look so much like them before it caused distress.

"We hide. Will hide. What makes us. Robes will hide chitin. Our eyes will be only... One... Two..." Counted the drone, repeating the broodmother's words. Her signal was getting stronger, straining the creature's mind.

"You don't have to change for me you know? I don't mind." Promised the young man.

"You... flinch." Pointed out the drone.

"I'm not going to lie, its intimidating, being surrounded by bugs, but I bet I don't look great to you."

"Clicks for this one. True. Truth is spoken. Very well. When this drone... is returned to the hive. Hive will not attempt... much... to hide selves..." Promised the drone, settling down onto its folded limbs. Tired now.

"Good. I was always told be proud of who you are. And you guys saved my life, so in my book you're alright."

"We wish to record your book. Please present it." Asked the drone, it's mind growing tired now that the broodmother had relinquished her hold on its mind. She was on the ship now. The idea the drone could record new history and present it to the broodmother? As it slipped from the waking world, if it could smile; it would have.

"Oh. Uuhh..." The human said, unaware he was the only one present now.

[r/WolvensStories]

[AO3]

[Ko-Fi]

#conservationverse #cuddleverse #human #hfy #haso #humans are space orcs #insect #insect x human #crit'yun

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prolix-yuy · 4 months

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Beautiful Release

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader

Summary: You and Din have an agreement. Simple, clean, easy. But not this time.

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ MINORS DNI, IT'S PEGGING DIN TIME! Anal sex (m receiving), rough sex, sex toys, fingering (m receiving), handjob, frottage, blowjob, swallowing, cumshot, mentions of oral sex (f receiving), mild dubcon (Reader isn't aware of Din's mental state and stops the session to re-negotiate boundaries), painful sex, sex as self-flagellation, hurt/comfort.

Notes: Welcome to my addition to the Peg That Middle Aged Man Event 2024! This idea had been bumping around in my brain and this gave me the perfect excuse to write it. Thanks @wannab-urs for organizing this event, making the gorgeous banners, and giving me a chance to live my fantasies after S3 gave us the most delicious kneeling restrained Din image. I will never forget it, it's burned into my brain forever.

Set after S2 and before The Book of Boba Fett.

Cross-posted on AO3

He’s come to you before, but never like this.

Din always treats your encounters like serendipity, but from the first time you’ve known how far from the truth that is. He finds ways to drift into your path, tilting his helmet like he never expected you to be at this spaceport, which you prefer for its discretion, or in this cantina, which serves a hell of a barium fizz. The niceties always devolve into the silent request, which you never fail to fulfill.

But now, there’s a holomessage blinking on your control panel.

Send me your coordinates. Usual encoding.

It’s brisk, cold, mostly to protect you both, but even then something’s off. He’s never admitted to seeking you out. Something stirs deep in your stomach, consulting the encoding slug he gave you ages ago in case you ever needed him. Funny, the first time you’d use it would be because you think he needs you.

Your winding relationship with Din Djarin began at the business end of a blaster, but you can’t fault him for that. The ship you were flying then had all the hallmarks of a slaver vessel, but when he found your crew of rebel sympathizers he lowered his weapon. One escort and a few short-lived conversations later, and you’d forged a razor-thin alliance.

Your paths wound their way across and through each other for over a year, and in that time Din warmed to you. He gave you his name, his allegiances, his contacts if needed. In return you forged documents and built jammers for his ramshackle ship. Mutually beneficial, and after a time pleasantly warm. His laugh always surprised you, a low chuckle when you turned a phrase just right on him.

And the kid! The curious little gremlin that had been accompanying him more in recent times did help to smooth the rough spots. Grogu’s presence always brightened your days, brief moments of pure joy from his tireless antics. Din seemed to be ever the exasperated protector, but when he tucked Grogu into his arm his aura glowed.

However, the times when Din “stumbled” upon you with seemingly no purpose had little to do with play dates or trades. Well, maybe only in the most euphemistic sense.

It was on a cargo run - cargo being more frightened people fleeing under the guise of your fake shipping business - that Din first encountered what would bring him back to you time and time again. There was a man among the stowaways who took an interest in you, the feeling mutual. He wound his way around like a lothcat in heat, and when you whispered how you might be able to pass the time he enthusiastically agreed.

You weren’t much of an exhibitionist, but the ship wasn’t meant for privacy. So when Din happened upon you bending the man over a cargo crate, your strap slickly splitting him open as he moaned behind your clamped hand, you did feel some mild embarrassment. You weren’t sure how long he watched you thrust into the other man, but the little cough that alerted you to his presence made you turn and take him in.

He was clearly affected, hand gripping his belt as the other clenched by his side. Fascinating. The Mandalorian had surprises in store.

The man garbled about sucking Din’s cock, letting the Mando cum on his face while you pounded his tight hole, but you stuck your fingers in his mouth and picked up your rhythm again. You’d met other Mandalorians in your travels, but Din’s particular religion was much stricter than most. He might take hefty offense if you assumed any of the armor could come off. Instead you let him watch without comment as your companion came all over the side of the cargo crate, soothing him through the aftershocks. As you cleaned him up you noticed your audience fled, and you determined never to speak of this.

It would take two months for Din to come to you.

“People like this?” he asked when you showed him your strap and assortment of attachments. You shrugged, picking out the one you secretly thought he’d enjoy.

“Some do, some don’t. It’s just one of many things I like,” you said, leaning against your bedroom wall as he filled the small space with restless energy. “I’m sure you like plenty of things too.”

There it was. The little roll of the shoulders and flex of a hand that told you Din wasn’t as inexperienced as some would believe.

“Never tried something like this,” he mumbled, and you smiled under the knowledge that he was nervous. Din Djarin, feared throughout the galaxy, and dearer friend than you ever expected, had something he wanted and didn't know how to ask for.

“Would you like to try it?” you said, taking the last barrier away. He tilted the helmet down, fingers restless on his hip.

“Yes.”

That first night you didn’t fuck him, though by the end he was so close to begging you almost came from the sound. Instead you opened him up with your fingers, got him used to the feeling of fullness and how to connect it to pleasure, while he laid on your bed and gripped the sheets so hard you thought he’d rip them. His pants bunched across his thighs, you got to admire the cords of muscle rippling as you made him shake and choke. His cock, velvety and weeping on his stomach, made your mouth water, but you only offered to suck it when he was just on the precipice. Your hot mouth wrapping around his head, two clever fingers stroking his prostate, tipped him over into bliss as he shouted his completion. Pride swelled in your chest at his belabored breath, chestplate heaving and thighs quivering on either side of your head.

When you returned from cleaning up he was already dressed again, despite your protests to wait and let you ease him down from this new experience. He thanked you, awkwardly, and left quickly. Lying in the same bed that night, still smelling of him, you reasoned with yourself. He probably had a lot of feelings to sort out, both around his pleasure and the fact that you gave it to him. You hoped he trusted you enough to know you’d be discreet. And, as your fingers slid into your underwear, you hoped he’d seek you out again.

It was only a week before you were at the same spaceport again, his heavy boots clanking up your ramp. You tried to hide your own nerves, but when Din stood before you and let the visor drag up and down your body, a delicious grin crept onto your face.

“Ready to try more?”

Indeed he was.

He enters your ship without preamble, a brief flit of concern clouding your features at how quickly he disarmed your security measures. You weren’t expecting him for another hour. He must have jumped to get to you.

It’s thrilling, to know the Mandalorian’s need is so great.

But when he enters and closes the door behind him, the energy is…off. Not seductive, teasing, edged like the other times. No, he’s holding his body so tight and so still. There’s nothing aggressive in it, but you glimpse why his enemies fear him. Without a face, and with so much obscuring the flesh beneath, you’re not sure when he’ll strike.

He catches you rummaging through your drawer, the strap in your hand. Assessing, you give him a gentler smile than usual, hands visible, softening your stance.

“Hello, Din.”

He nods, quickly, unbuckling his belt and yanking his cape free. Both fall to the floor carelessly. You press on.

“How about you tell me what you want?” you say, watching him carefully as he opens his pants plaquet. The mouthwatering strip of skin you covet peeks from beneath his top.

“Just need…need this,” he says, and while naturally a man of few words you’d taught him to be more vocal in this respect.

“Okay, Din. How about you kneel on the bed and we start there?” Your voice lowers into a soothing register, reaching for his arm.

“No,” he almost shouts, startling your hand back. He recovers. “No, I want…” You can practically hear him licking his lips on a sigh, slowing himself down. “Can you sit against the headboard?”

Brows raised, you nod. He’s never ridden you before, always preferring to let you take him from behind or on his back. Pulling the strap-on over your leggings, you settle against the headboard and wait for him. He doesn’t take long, kneeling on the bed briefly in contemplation before swinging over your lap. Shucking his pants half down his legs, you can’t resist a giggle.

“Might be better to take them off,” you tease, letting your hands lay featherlight on his hips. A huff crackles through the vocoder but he doesn’t move to disrobe further.

“I’ll open you up a bit first,” you say, one hand reaching for lube while the other snakes its way to his hole. You encounter surprising slickness, but he’s nowhere as warmed up as you get him.

“S’okay, I took care of it,” he mumbles, both hands coming up to grip the headboard above your head. Slicking lube on the dildo, you move to finger him enough to ease your way in.

“Just a little more…”

“I’m fine.”

The curt retort snaps your face to the helmet, now more of a cowled chin and shining halo of beskar above your head. There’s something bubbling uncomfortably under the surface, something you feel the need to drag out by the scruff of the neck, but it’s Din. You never talk feelings with Din. Frankly, you barely talk at all during, or after, any of your nights together.

“Sorry,” he breathes, forcing relaxation. “I’m ready. Please.”

Your eyes linger for a moment longer, then you circle the base of your cock in waiting.

He descends slowly, gritted breaths and sharp blasts of air from his nose echoing above you. You watch the strain in his thighs as he sinks and sinks, his cock only half-hard against his stomach. Leaving a hand on one hip, you stroke soothing paths up and down his lower back, watching for discomfort. Instead he’s marble around you, coiled, body not releasing as usual. Normally when you fuck him he dissolves, rolling his hips back onto you and choking out praises of how good you feel.

None of that comes. He meets the base of your cock and immediately slides back up at an almost punishing pace. He can’t be that acclimated yet, and his pained hisses and grunts only make that more apparent.

“Din, slow down,” you request, hands firmer on his hips to try and even his pace. If he heard you he says nothing, now slamming his hips down on your cock. “Din,” you beseech again, nails starting to dig in. His grunts grow to growls, something from the heat of battle, your headboard creaking from his crushing grip.

Clarity overtakes you, the shudder of his stomach and forceful downstrokes only getting more intense. There wasn’t pleasure in this. Something is eating up Din inside and he’s trying to fuck it out of himself. And he’s using you to do that.

“Din Djarin, STOP.”

The echo of your voice, strong and steely, finally brings Din to a stop with your cock buried deep in his ass. His chest heaves in front of you, limbs quivering from the exertion, but he’s as still as he can be. Gripping his chestplate, you push him back enough to look him in the visor, your anger righteously reflected back.

“You don’t punish yourself with my cock,” you order, teeth clenched and seething. “Do you think so little of me, that I’d just let you rip yourself to shreds without a word?”

Din freezes, but this time you know it’s shame. If you were in a clearer headspace you might have tried reassurance, or asked him to lay beside you and talk about what’s destroying him, but you’re just too upset.

“Is that all you come to me for?” you spit out, knuckles aching from gripping his armor. He’s silent for long enough that you consider throwing him out before he speaks.

“Something happened. And I just want to…be empty. To not think about it every moment.” He leans forward and your visage warps as he presses his forehead to the crown of your head. The anger thrums but starts to ebb as he folds around you. “I didn’t know where else to go. You’ve always taken care of me. More than I deserve.”

The sadness in his voice is palpable, and even with your mouth still sour from his deception you find the compassion to wrap your arms around his middle. The chestplate presses into your cheek, a metronome for Din’s slowing breaths.

“If you have any care in your heart for me, don’t ever do that again,” you grit out. Din’s breath catches.

“I care for you,” he says, and a door in your heart you never realized was cracked widens for Din’s admission.

“I care for you too, you karking asshole, which is why I want you to say something instead of trying to hate fuck your feelings out.”

Din’s chest begins to shake again, but you’re sure it’s laughter this time. You manage a giggle of your own, letting him lean back and look at you again. The motion shifts your cock in him, and his sharp sigh arches your brow.

“If you wanted to forget, you could have just told me,” you say, rolling your hips sensuously up into his clenching hole. Din’s head drops back, grip tightening on the headboard again as you grind into him.

“Please,” he begs, so soft and vulnerable you can’t help but give him what he needs.

Slowly you press up into him, guiding his hips to rock on your cock. You love the feel of his ass in your hands, well muscled and perfect for grabbing, manhandling him just enough to show he can let go. He follows your direction reluctantly at first, but as you plant your feet and start thrusting with more range he loosens. You can feel it in his arms, holding on to the headboard for dear life, and the building rhythm of his hips meeting yours. For a man whose life is violence, you never want to bring that into your sessions. But a light swat on one asscheek pulls the most delicious moan from deep in his chest.

“Fuck,” he groans, bearing down on you even more. Tilting your hips, you arch his back enough that you’re sure to hit his prostate on the next thrust.

“Maker!”

There it is.

“Close your eyes,” you whisper. Waiting a moment, you zero in on that perfect spot inside him and hit it with every one of your thrusts. “Do you feel that? Feel how good I’m fucking you?”

“Yes, fuck,” Din curses, one hand flitting down to squeeze the base of his cock. He’s at full attention now, head bobbing against your stomach. You swell with pride that he’s having to stave off his orgasm so quickly, but you’ll be the one to make those decisions now.

“All I want you to think about is how good you feel,” you purr, tugging his hand away and replacing it with your own. You long for his skin against yours, so you pull up your shirt to skim the head of his cock against your soft belly. He chokes, stuttering away but he’s trapped between your hand and thighs.

“Wait, Maker, I’ll cum if you…” he garbles, but his body keeps meeting your grinds. You shush him gently, stroking from base to tip and smearing precum over the head.

“You will, but only when I let you. You know I’ll make it good for you, make nothing but this pleasure you’re feeling fill that head of yours.” His rapid nod almost knocks you in the head with the beskar, but he manages to tuck into your neck instead. The helmet is a shocking cool against your skin, but the act of burrowing into you must be rewarded. Bringing your arms around him, you press along the length of his body, trapping his cock between.

“I’m gonna pound into this tight ass until you cum all over us. You like that?” The wail Din lets out shoots heat to your cunt, wishing more than anything that you’d opted for a toy that gave you a little stimulation too. Instead you hammer fast and hard, barely pulling out. Your hips and thighs burn with exertion at his bulk on top of you, but he’s frantically bouncing back and rutting his cock into the wet mess your bodies make.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps, and you’re not sure if it’s the vocoder but you think his voice sounds watery. “Please, cyar’ika, don’t stop.”

Cupping the back of his neck, damp with sweat, you whisper, “I’ve got you.”

With a handful of final pumps you’re coated in his cum, sliding around your belly as he seizes over and over. Pressing deep, you hold strong against his shuddering body as he finishes. Each weakening thrust draws him down on you, heavier and loose-limbed.

The armor makes it hard to find the soft spots, so you take to kneading the back of his neck and palming his spine. Before his last aftershock, you urge him higher on his knees so you can slip your cock out - slowly, so as not to shock his jellying body. Easing him down, you hold his head in the crook of your neck and settle him on your lap. His hands slide down from the headboard to your shoulders.

Then you hear it. A tiny sniff, then another. You can’t pretend you didn’t notice them so close to your ear. So you gather the broad man in your arms and hold him. His hands don’t know where to rest, finally winding loosely around your lower back.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” you tell him again, and the sniffing starts to recede. His body, however, slumps against yours, and it takes all of your strength not to start giggling.

You fucked the Mandalorian right to sleep. Bravo to you.

When Din finally stirs, a deep rumble in his throat, it’s been almost an hour. Your toes are half numb and you’re dying to shift into any other position, but much like a lothcat falling asleep on your lap, you couldn’t bear to move Din. Especially when he started snoring, one of the most endearing and hilarious sounds you’d ever heard him make.

In the time he slept you wondered what happened. What terrible thing hollowed him out and haunts him. Something keeps him up at night, if the depth of his sleep is any indication. Recent, possibly. Traumatic.

Your breath caught in your throat. If something happened to Grogu you know he would have told you. You ask after him all the time, teasing that you’ll be his Auntie (Din always says he has plenty of them across the galaxy).

Had you seen the Razor Crest fly up? Where was that old bird anyway?

What happened in the time since Din last saw you?

The cycle of possibilities always ends the same. Maybe he cares for you in some way, but not enough for you to ask. No matter how much you want to.

A shift on your lap alerts you to Din waking, kneading his shoulders and neck lightly to alert him to your presence. He’s never slept with you before, but it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that he’s quick to draw at unexpected circumstances. Of which this one definitely is.

“What…” Din croaks, and if not for the helmet you would have offered him water.

“It’s okay, you’re on my ship. You’re okay.”

It takes Din another minute to realize what’s happened. Him, half naked on your lap with your strap pressing against his ass. You, covered in drying cum beneath him. In a flash he’s swinging his leg off your lap, attempting to stand but obviously they’ve gone as numb as yours because he stumbles and crashes out of sight.

“Oh kriff, are you…?” you start to ask, but as quick as he’s out of sight he pops back up again, tugging up his pants and tucking himself away.

“Sorry, that was…I didn’t mean to…do that.”

All of the heaviness and anger and lust fizzles away to laughter as you try to suppress the ridiculousness of the moment. After a moment of indigent head tilting Din’s shoulder also shake, chuckles fuzzing out of the vocoder.

“Oh Maker, what an understatement that is,” you sigh, wiping your stomach with the edge of your bedsheets. Din visibly cringes, hands on his hips.

“Sorry for the mess,” he apologizes, but you wave it off.

“I’ve had much worse, believe me,” you shoot back. Clean enough, you sit on the edge of the bed and look up at the inscrutable man.

“Want to talk about it?”

Din’s stance shifts, helmet tipping down for a moment before coming back to your face.

“...Not yet.”

You hum and nod. “Well, you know how to find me if you do.”

Din nods. “Thank you.”

As he picks up his effects you shimmy off the harness at the foot of the bed, mentally ticking through the steps to clean everything. Din watches you set it down, stilling until your eyes come back to him.

“It gives you pleasure as well?” he asks, which raises one of your eyebrows.

“I mean, about as much as rhythmically hitting your hips against someone can do.” His posture changes into something hard to decipher, so you continue. “I’ve got a few that do more for me, but it depends on the person I’m with. Comfort, boundaries. As you’re well aware.” You gesture to the armor, his chin tucking down to look at it.

“So you’ve never cum with me?” he asks, and a sudden feverish heat blooms under your skin. Din has a sex appeal you appreciate, but have never acted on beyond what he’s asked for. Now, something’s changed so dizzyingly fast you’re scrambling.

“Well, you’re pretty spent after our sessions. And you leave quickly. I don’t ask for more than you can give.”

Din takes a step towards you, putting his belt and cloak back down.

“What do you ask of other people you fuck?”

Your heart hammers in your chest. How can he turn the tables so quickly and spectacularly? Trying to gain the upper hand, you pull a confident face on and speak as breezily as possible.

“Most can’t get it up twice after I fuck them within an inch of their life, so fingers, tongues, toys, any and all of the above are excellent ways to repay the favor.”

He’s even closer now, and the facade is barely holding up. It’s like the vulnerability he showed you can’t possibly be returned.

“You’ve never asked me,” he says, and you can’t believe there’s a note of regret in his voice. The bed hits the back of your legs, and you steady your voice even though those words make your pussy throb.

“I didn’t think it was allowed.” Your voice drops low as Din steps into your space.

“Difficult, but not forbidden.” Din’s hands come to your shoulders. “Sit down, please.”

Your knees fold so fast you bounce on the bed, looking up at him. He joins you on one knee, hands coming to rest on your thighs.

“I broke my Creed. I would do it again, for the exact same reason, but now that makes me an apostate.” His hands come to the helmet, thumbs tucking underneath the lip.

“Din, what happened?”

He pauses, and you swear you can feel his gaze through that smoky visor.

“Close your eyes.”

Darkness surrounds you, then a hiss and a thunk.

Then the voice of a man you care for, unfiltered and bare.

“I’m not ready for anyone to see my face. But I want this, with you. If you can forgive me.”

You could be dreaming still. It would make just as much sense.

“I forgive you, Din. But just this once,” you sneak in at the end just to hear how melodic his laugh sounds. Then his hand splays over your stomach and urges you to lie back.

“I hope you don’t mind teaching me this. I don’t have much experience,” he says, fire licking through your body as he tugs your leggings and underwear off.

“Don’t worry, you’re a quick learner,” you say breathily.

And when he finally kisses you, sweet with your musk on his tongue and your orgasm dripping from his fingers, you teach him how to do that as well.

END

"I need some distraction Oh a beautiful release Memories seep from my veins Let me be empty Oh and weightless and maybe I'll find some peace tonight.

Sarah McLachlan, Angel (yeah I know I used the sad dog song)

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