La-de-vil - Lust For Life

bleeding blue | apocalypse au

part i

pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!reader words: 3.3k tags: death. blood. zombies of course. single dad ghost. there will be sex but it isn't here yet. summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival. a/n: of course i am watching tlou right now so this is what came about in my brain! i can't stop thinking about this story.

The forest is covered in a blanket of white.

You’ve been monitoring the unfamiliar area by the pond for hours. Most of it is half-frozen slush, but there’s enough liquid water left for life to visit. At least, you hope. The brittle cold laced in your bones and the pained hunger in your gut clings to this hope as you wait in position against frayed tree bark.

Desperation has brought you this far into the forest— uncharted territory. The risk is buried beneath the long week you’ve had, days that have blurred together with only death and solitude as the glue between the cracks. You are still alive, somehow. Your blood is still red. It moves. The pulse in your neck— the loudest thing in this forest.

But still, it’s quieting. Slowing.

You drag numb fingers over the bits of snow sticking to your hair, the light flakes feathering down. Then, your hand settles back on the curve of your wooden bow, whittled from oak years ago. Chiseled by hands that belonged to a friend whose corpse you’d left behind. This bow is your only momentum of him, along with the memories. But those memories are turning shallow with each day, killed by starvation. Thirst. Fear.

The clouds above the trees are grey and swollen.

Grey— an in-between color.

Somewhere between white and black, life and death.

You can feel yourself slipping closer to the grey.

Maybe you will be one of them soon— the Greys.

They are the reason for the lack of fresh meat in this forest, man and animal alike, and the reason for the loss of your companions. The smell of their molten flesh, greyed and tattered against rotting bones, has faded from the air the further you journeyed. Over the years, you’ve grown accustomed to flaring your nostrils in constant search for their scent. Right now, as you keep your eyes on the pond, you don’t bother sniffing for them. If they come, they’ll put an end to your hunger.

There is not even much of you left for a Grey to sink its teeth in. You’ve turned slack and gangly. Your fingers could easily slip between the spaces of your ribs. Clothes hang loosely over your frame— Paul’s frayed winter coat, your sister’s trousers. You’d quickly peeled them off their dead bodies in your fleeing because your own clothes had been torn and doused in blood, unsuitable for the winter.

But that was days ago— now, you barely remember what their dead faces looked like. Grey, maybe. Empty.

Not too different than your own face as you sigh through your nose and dig the tip of your bow into the frost. Only a few hours of daylight remain. You will have to find a tree to sling yourself upon once night falls. That has been your strategy since the loss of your old camp, but you’re not sure how much longer you can keep it up. Climbing the oaks requires fuel.

You swallow the dryness in your throat, thick and tasteless, and listen carefully to the sounds around you: branches in the wind, low whistles, your own heartbeat. And then—

A new sound.

The crackling of snow beneath light footsteps.

Lifting your bow back up, your pained breath quickens in a matter of instinct as you squint through blurred vision. A deer—? You have memorized the sound of their hooves after five years of hunting them. This isn’t it. Maybe it is a lone Grey crawling through the forest towards your scrawny, awaiting flesh.

Your eyes shift around. When you finally spot the owner of the footsteps, shock skips like a stone over the blood in your veins. More than ten meters away stands a child; not too young, not too skinny. Human eyes stare intently into yours, but you keep a strong grip on your bow and take aim.

A child—?

Would your hunger take you there?

Your stomach quivers and howls and chews at its own lining, but even in your desperation, you don’t consider the idea.

You can't.

The child continues to peer at you as you shakily lower the bow. You can’t make out much from this distance, not even gender— all you see is a thick coat on their small shoulders, a hood drawn over their head. When was the last time you had seen someone so young? Children, elderly: they’d been picked off the quickest.

A child could not survive on their own—

In your weakened state, you take a second too long to catch up to this realization.

A burly arm grabs you from behind.

A blade to your throat.

The bow slips from your grip and from your unused larynx, a hoarse scream ripples.

The end came on a day of homemade marmalade and Hemingway. The morning started quietly at your sister’s northern property. A quaint house in the suburbs where her son and husband played in the backyard while the two of you spread the jam on slabs of bread. Breakfast was shared between the four of you before their days began. You were visiting. You often did, taking the four-hour bus ride from London in search of a break from tantalizing coursework. Nursing school had been your dream, but it quickly took the form of a nightmare. Their home, their small family— you found sanity in it all.

You ate with them.

Your sister took the boy to school.

Michael promised to bring curry for dinner before he left for work.

In the quiet house, you cleaned for them. You didn’t know what would happen that day as you folded their laundry and stacked toys in the bins. At noon, the neighbor you knew to be Paul knocked at the door.

“You’re her sister, right?”

He was kind-eyed and of retirement age, yet thick-boned and strong. You’d heard a few stories about the gestures he sprinkled their household with in the loneliness since his wife’s passing. On that day, he offered you a stack of books as you propped the door open. All Hemingway.

“Dropping these off for Michael. He said he was a fan.”

“I’ll make sure they get to him, thanks.”

It was funny how the end of society could bring unlikely souls into collision. When everything cracked later that afternoon, Paul would become the reason for five years worth of your survival. It started with another knock on the door— but this time, Paul knocked with grave urgency. You had paused from cleaning after his first visit. You sat on the couch with A Farewell to Arms in your grip, but when you opened the door for him again, your finger parting your place among the pages, his words caused the book to slip from your hand to the floor.

“Call your sister— Michael, both of them.”

“I— I don’t understand. Who said all this?”

“The news. Fuck— have you not been listening for the past hour?”

You called your sister with fingers that trembled. She panicked on the other end: I'm driving home with Joseph right now and the streets are insane. I can’t even get a hold of Michael - oh god - try calling him for me?

You tried. He never answered. Your sister returned. The three of you followed Paul. You learned he was an ex forest-ranger. He calmed you through the screams you heard in the distance, through the strewn of bodies that began to litter the roads. Some sliced in half, crawling. Cars battered into each other.

“They’re coming from the city.”

He packed a bag. It was a flurry. Your sister carried the weeping boy. Your stomach felt full of acid. Panic. Paul kept a radio on him as you traversed towards the treeline, away from the entanglement of screams and blood and chaos. You overheard some pieces through the static: London was in shambles. The military was closing in on itself.

It is all in the brains. An infection.

Between living and dead.

Grey, grey, grey.

That first week felt like seconds.

Paul took you to a fenced-off parcel of land he owned in the forest; a private shooting range. He only had a few shotguns, outdated. Limited ammo. But he was quick to string tarps along the chain-link fence and add bolted locks to the gate. You helped him pin up two tents. Nailed wood boards to any gaps along the perimeter. You didn’t bring much with you; there hadn’t been time. All you managed was two changes of clothes, a thick coat, canned beans from the pantry, A Farewell to Arms.

You read it ten times over.

Paul did the hunting.

You begged to help, so he made you the bow. The arrows.

He took monthly trips to nearby, abandoned supermarkets.

“Never let anyone into our camp.”

You did well to listen, filling in as the second leader in his absence. Your older sister never did well under stress, never liked the outdoors. She’d lost her husband. A little boy clung to her. You tried to offer quiet comfort to the brokenness of their family, but it was all in vain.

A year.

Only a few hoards of Greys approached the fence. You helped Paul eradicate them. It’s all in their brains. Obliterate the brains.

Two years.

Joseph caught some sickness. Flu, you figured. You did your best with what Paul had picked up from the pharmacies, but you had little to work with. You listened to his wheezing, the dry and insistent cough. The winter didn’t help. Pneumonia.

He died just before his eighth birthday.

Your sister might as well have died that day, too.

She was a ghost for the three years following. You had to force food down her throat. You had to mother her, nurse her grief. Until the fifth winter, when the deer began to diminish. Their carcasses sprung up like daisies in the nearby wood. Eaten and gnawed by encroaching Greys, the smell of spilled blood and their own rotting stench attracted more and more of them from the distant city.

There were just too many for your handmade arrows and Paul’s shotgun. He ran out of ammo. The fence and tarp and wood did little against the coalesced wave of them that finally scraggled over it with moaned hisses and mindless teeth.

You watched them consume your sister.

Then, Paul.

You lived. You ran.

A week.

You slept up in the trees.

You had a knife. Your bow. You whittled more arrows.

Alive.

But barely.

The strong arm cages your body against something hard— a chest. The blade on your neck is icier than the air and it stings and burns with a threat that instantly has you squirming in the owner’s hold.

“Stop movin’ or I’ll fucking kill you.”

It is a gruff, quiet threat in your ear accompanied by a heated breath. Your eyes fill with moisture and you gasp for panicked gulps of air. You lift your hands up to the arm that holds you and attempt to claw at it feebly because your muscles, at this point, are nothing but hungered dust.

“I said stop movin’.”

A growl.

He presses the knife harder against your throat until you feel the skin prickle. The man behind you doesn’t need to step before your eyes in order to make his strength and size known. It is apparent in how easily he restrains you. You understand you have no chance— though, you’re certain even a child could pin you. Bony hands drop to your sides and you turn limp and helpless against him.

“This is my territory.”

“I didn't know anyone was here,” you hiss, voice scratchy. “I’m just passing through.”

His hold has you lifted up to the balls of your feet. The soles of your worn boots hover over crackling snow. There is something hard pressing against the top of your cranium as he lowers his head to utter more words in your ear.

“Give me a reason not to slit your throat.”

Your heart pounds. Adrenaline. A human instinct to survive, even though death is already at your fingertips.

“I’m a nurse,” you half-lie. You never finished. Your credentials are shortened to textbooks and little experience.

“Don’t need a nurse,” he murmurs. “Anythin’ else?”

Words float through the soupy mess that is your brain. It is hard to think. There isn’t a good reason for him not to kill you— you and Paul had to do it a few times before. Other humans could pose even greater threats than the mindless Greys. Humans are smarter. They have something to strive for; something to kill for by all means necessary— survival.

Your failure to respond is cut off by sudden footsteps crunching the ice, as light as a curious rabbit. It's the kid. A young girl you now realize, even through your state of panic. Her cheeks are pale like porcelain under the hood of her coat and her azure eyes observe you from head to toe.

Her lips part, but nothing comes out.

Instead, another growl in your ear.

“I know you have a knife,” he says, tightening his hold until you whimper. “Empty your pockets.”

There is not much room in this situation for you to disobey.

Flushing out your pockets, your nimble hands reveal only a small blade.

“Drop it.”

The knife falls to the ground with a quiet thud, just beside the oak bow. The only two items that have kept you alive for the last week lay in the thin snow. Even if you had the strength or will to fight back, you no longer had the resources to.

“Pick it up, Blue.”

The man behind you nods his chin. The young girl leans down to grab the handle of your knife. She inspects the blade, runs her index gently along the dull edge with her brows furrowed together. She stuffs it somewhere in her coat. Then, she looks back up. She flickers her blue gaze between you and whoever it is that stands behind you.

“So,” he grumbles with a click of his tongue. “Thought of that reason yet?”

You swallow. Then, your throat spasms around a sneer.

“This is your kid, isn’t it? Are you really going to kill me in front of your kid? You want her to see that?”

“Nothin’ she hasn’t seen before,” he muses in a dark brass. “Good lesson for her.”

Oh—

Blood chills in your veins.

Freezes over like the nearby pond.

You can’t think of any more words, so it is now that your eyes flutter shut. You seek darkness in preparation for whatever may happen once his knife digs deeper. Death— maybe it’s not so bad. It must be better than whatever it is you have been doing for the past week. Struggling. Life has little meaning at this point, and getting bitten by a Grey seems too transient. Death, on the other hand, will be permanent. Your sister, her family, and many others are waiting for you in the crevices of its darkness.

“Ghost…”

It is a soft voice.

The girl speaks now, and you open your eyes to watch as she nibbles at her lip.

“Ghost, do you have to?” She looks over the length of your body, inspecting it with a softness that is so different from the harsh grip you are locked in. “She's not much of a threat, right? It looks like she hasn’t eaten in days.”

“Told you, Blue.” The gruff voice arrives from over your shoulder. “The hungrier they are, the less you can trust ‘em.”

If you cared enough, you might have pleaded your case some more. You can trust me, you might have said. But you know how this goes. For as long as you are alive within their space, you are a problem. A problem for their food sources, and a problem for wherever they have made camp. The child may not fully understand this, but he certainly does.

“Just do it,” comes your voice; exhausted. The adrenaline hides under defeat. “Just fucking do it, alright? Kill me.”

He snarls.

You expect darkness.

You expect to see your sister again. Her son. Paul.

“Dad… don’t.”

A gentle plea.

A low huff in response.

And then, instead of receiving a slash to your jugular, you are thrown to the icy ground as if you are nothing more than a sack of bones. Your palms barely have time to spread open and break the fall. A pain shoots up your knees the moment they dig into the frozen dirt, but you don’t have it in you to wince or cry.

He listened to her—?

Shifting onto your butt, you look up at your attacker.

A skull mask stares back at you.

Dark eyes, broad shoulders, a towering height.

If you weren’t so relieved - surprised - to still be breathing, you might have been frightened to the point of tears.

He moves and you flinch, but rather than touching you, his heavy boot stamps something beside you. Your bow. The oak splinters in half under his foot.

“Are you—“ You suck in a strangled breath, looking between him and your now-ruined weapon. “Are you fucking kidding me? Just… just kill me. I can’t - I have nothing now! You might as well fucking kill me!”

But he doesn’t.

He gives another nod to the girl. A silent language that you don’t understand, and in response, she carefully steps around you. She offers an apologetic look before she follows after her skull-faced companion, and then you are left with nothing. Not a knife, not a bow. Only your rapid heartbeat and a pink welt on your throat where his knife had been.

Hi, I was wondering if you could do an imagine of Neteyam and Lo'ak hearing the reader purring for the first time since you did one of them purring? If not that's totally okay (:

If humans could purr we'd be that much more attractive

Pairing: Neteyam, Lo'ak x Fem!Reader

Tags: fluff, established relationship, purring, cuddling, kissing, teasing

A/N: Purring is just so comforting in the right circumstance.

NETEYAM

Neteyam always let himself purr when he had his arm wrapped around you and you leaning against him

He was so comfortable, why wouldn't he let you know that

After all you feel like home to him, even when he's so far away from it

He also purrs when ever you kiss his cheek at the end of the day, something which you did unconsciously one night when he pulled you close and kissed a path from your lips to your shoulder

It made him really happy that you're finally able to feel completely safe and comfortable around him

You're a little bashful that you let yourself get so immersed into cuddling against him that you didn't even notice you were purring until you heard him saying how cute you sound

Much more cute then him in his opinion, a little softer

He loves nuzzling his face against yours, making you both purr

Since his parents were always openly affectionate he likes being openly affectionate with you too

Thinks its adorable how you press your face into his shoulder when you purr

LO'AK

Lo'ak only likes purring when its the two of you alone

Suspects he'd be relentlessly teased by his siblings and friends if they knew how much of a soft spot he has for you

And speaking of those, you know all of his that make him purr

It makes thing pretty unfair in his opinion so he makes it his mission to discover yours

Doesn't take him long to find that spot on your back that makes you stiffen, relax and then let out the most adorable sound he's ever heard

Trails his fingers lightly up your back so he can hear you shakenly purring and feel you shivering against him again

Is very smug knowing he can get to you with just a few simple touches

Similarly to himself he will mostly do this when you're alone together

You don't mind purring around others as long as you can curl up against him

He always presses your foreheads together and purrs when he has to part to go on missions

I am excited for ghost and helen car ride 👀 we need more sass and snark hehe

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x F!Reader (Helen!Reader)

an: just a little something for a Saturday 🚘

He doesn’t elaborate on why he’s here instead of Soap, not when he loads the car, not even when the tyres hit the open road.

No explanation provided an hour in or after your two’s pit-stop-fuck. It niggled, tightened in the back of your mind that he was keeping things from you that he could tell you. Something he promised he’d never to do.

But then, you equally had promised not to put yourself in danger, and here you were accepting a mission not necessary for a medic.

You had ways of pulling information from Ghost, and even ways of retrieving it from Simon.

Both begin in the same way, following a similar pattern: indifference. You lull him into believing telling you would be better than whatever the fuck you’re doing. A bribe, an exchange.

Your chosen play was to keep messing with the radio volume and station until it wound him up. Watching his eyes dart in your direction, even if you never met them. His hips shifted periodically, making your eyes stare at the thighs you’d between your own only hours ago.

That was his play—his line of defence: his ridiculous body and his ridiculous way of knowing every inch of yours.

Except, he’d played his hand too soon. Your knickers are still in his pocket, and his cum is still very much inside of you. So, you turned the volume up another two notches, wondering how tight his jaw was under the thin fabric on his face.

You can’t assume you’re getting to him.

That’s how you fail. But, the volume is piercing your ears, so you have to wonder if it is for him. The songs neither of you know blaring, filling the small space with sounds both irritating to you, and him.

So, naturally, you turn it up again. Almost pulling your hand back when his wraps around yours, gripping it with enough purpose to tell you you’re getting to him—but not enough to hurt.

“You not like that song?”

“Enough, Helen. For fuck sake.”

You grin, keeping score as the sun sets. The ambient temperature lessens as the breezes rushes through both of your open windows. Allowing clothes to fall away from damp skin as the low light catches the metal in the car and the metal on his left hand—the evidence of your cover.

A story not far from the truth. One you’d supposed to be spinning with Soap, and not your actual lover.

Soap would also have been bare faced.

“I’d have been fine with Soap, if that’s what you were worried about.”

His hands tightens on the steering wheel. “Wasn’t worried.”

“And, as good as his singing is, it wouldn’t have swayed me from your broody nature. In case, you’re jealous that he’d get to spend two to three days with me.”

He shoots you a glare—eyes standing out due to the lack of paint around them. The same ones you see when he’s bare to you, all walls down, and willing to let you in.

Pieces of truth slide into place in front of your eyes, the puzzle almost readable—almost identifiable.

“How you going to be explain the balaclava, hubby?”

You watch for him tensing at the affectionate name. He doesn’t. If anything, he doesn’t react at all. Likely knowing it’s what you want—that right now the best the two of you have is fighting and fucking to make up for it.

He won’t tell you what’s wrong, and you’re already bored of him being difficult.

“Tell them I’m ugly. Warn ‘em I’m doing them a favour by keepin’ it on.”

You smirk, letting your head roll back on the seat as the breeze whips your hair around your neck. “Next to me, they won’t believe that.”

“Bit full of yourself, Helen.”

“If I remember, I’ma bit full of you.”

“Watch it.”

Snorting, you roll your head to look at him. “Or what? You’ll pull over and stuff more of yourself in me… cause I’ll tell you now, Simon. I’d like that too much for it to be a punishment.”

“You’re something else.”

“It’s why you married me, remember?”

“Engaged, Helen,” he snarls, and your eyes narrow at his side-profile and his tone.

Because you know that, know that the two of you haven’t quite crossed that line just yet. But for this… you’re married. A lie that you’ll need to spin when you reach the end of this particular half of the journey.

You almost saying that, it fermenting on the tip of your tongue.

But his hand takes yours again, clutching it, weaving his bare fingers in between yours. And you let the words die, wilt and fade. Beginning to maybe see what may have been bothering him.

Maybe.

simon 'ghost' riley (cod mw)

all works contain fem!reader and are for 18+ readers only, minors do not interact. back to main masterlist

standalone one-shots

• you don't learn | 1.2k (s)

• keep you close | 3.6k & i'm with you | 3.7k

• this year's love | 5.5k (non-military!reader)

drabble: christmas with ghost

drabble: ghost x non-military!reader

ghost x reader!rain

• had to see you | 5.7k (r: part one)

• need to see you | 4.7k (r: part two)

drabble: it begins in the bar | light 18+

drabble: solo party | fluff (drabble) *newest*

ghost x reader!helen

(can be read as individual pieces. helen is not the reader's name, she is a medic and Helen is a nickname after Helen of Troy — ghodt thought he was being hilarious)

• helen. simon | 4.3k (the original)

• i don't want to miss you | 1.2k

• rusty knife (drabble-ish) | 1k

• hands | 1.7k

• rattled your bones | 2.2K (wounded!helen, hea)

• i and love and you | 2.7k fluff

• borrowed | 1.2k *spice*

• those three words | 2.4k

• it's you. it's me. | 5.3k (smut, angst, proposal)

drabble: what made ghost fall in love

drabble/ask: would ghost marry helen (longer piece incoming)

drabble/ask: ghost and helen on the road

ghost x helen tag

to soap mactavish masterlist

someone write me an apocalypse au where ghost is surviving with just his daughter, protecting her and teaching her how to take care of herself