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Worth The Wait

──── ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧ ────

summary | Jace spends your entire courtship denying you the pleasures of what you really want. Now that it’s the night of your wedding, he has every intention of making it worth the wait

warnings | husband!jace, first time wedding smut, creampie

this is an eighteen plus fic. minors please do not enter

divider by @princessbellecerise

Jacaerys never let himself have his way with you until your wedding night.

Before that, he’d always cut you off, not letting anything get too far because of his honor. He was so righteous that it nearly made you blind with rage every time he stopped you when you were right there, so close to having him inside of you but stopped every time by his last minute morals.

Jacaerys was a good man and you suffered for it; always being left aching and denied what you truly wanted. But of course, as heir, he knew he couldn’t touch you until your wedding night. The gods, his mother and his reputation frowned upon it. Jacaerys would do not such thing as dishonor you, so he waited.

And waited.

And suddenly, it was the night of your wedding feast and Jacaerys could not bring himself to think of anything expect for you. How good you looked in your gown, the lights seemingly adorning your face.

Marriage looked so good on you that he can hardly contain himself. He grows desperate with each passing minute, strained smiles and polite yet brief words being exchanged with everyone that approaches to congratulate him. A few people even make him laugh and like the future king he is, Jace does not show his true emotions.

He does not show how desperately he wants you, his wife whom he’s denied pleasure so much. He keeps his composure but Jacaerys is suffering, agonizingly and and eagerly awaiting for the sun to go down.

Of course, you take note of his angst and worry that something is wrong with your husband. Or worse—that he’s unhappy to the point where he doesn’t even want to eat.

He hasn’t touched his food since it was brought out and worriedly, you lean over to ask him about his lack of appetite.

You have to admit; you weren’t expecting the response that you got. Words from his mouth that send pure heat through your body and made you feel hot from your heels to your head.

“I am fine, my princess. I am simply not hungry because it is not roast I wish to feast upon right now,” He tells you, and suddenly everything makes since.

Why he’s so tense. Why Jacaerys looks like he cannot wait to leave this damn dinner. And suddenly, your mouth drops into an ‘o’ shape. A smirk slowly adorning your lips because now Jacaerys knows what it feels like. He knows what it’s like to be left waiting, wondering and lusting for the opportunity.

In a way, it sort of makes you satisfied that he has to wait.

Only when the sun goes down is it proper for him to finally announce your fair wells, grabbing your hand and all but dragging you towards your now shared chambers.

Everyone is looking at the two of you, cheering and congratulating you both as you walk though the congregational of people. Friends and allies alike clap Jace on the back and wink at you as your grip on his hand tightens.

With a strained smile, Jace politely nods back but does not entertain their jesting. You’re grateful, because even though what you’re about to do is an open secret, it’s still embarrassing.

Thankfully, there would be no bedding ceremony, Jacaerys way too much of a gentleman to let that happen to you. Instead, it’s only you and him and the flames of desire that grow between the two of you as you walk through the halls.

It burns—it really does. The heat and the longing between you two is almost unbearable as you finally make it behind closed doors, barely locking it before Jacaerys grabs you and jumps you.

You’re surprised, yelping when your husband scoops you into his arms and kisses you without so much as a word.

His hot mouth covers your groans and while it is unexpected, you welcome it.

His kiss is fierce, so passionate that it nearly knocks you to your knees. Jacaerys has clearly grown desperate during the hours of waiting, the future king nearly rabid as he pokes and prods at your clothing.

Never have you seen him in such a way, so ungentleman-like as he drags you to the floor. You don’t even make it to the bed because Jacaerys is so needy, getting you naked in no time while also landing sloppy kisses on your neck.

It ignites an unimaginable fire in your belly to see him so frantic for you. To see him finally give in and want to fuck you like you’ve previously begged for.

Now that his honor isn’t at stake, Jacaerys is not holding back. He’s adamant about what he wants and he wants you; all of you.

You two lay bare before one another and then it’s time; Jace settling himself at your hole and running his cock head against your slick folds.

He’s done this many times before. You’ve been here before, and every time this was the moment that Jace pulled back. Just when he was about to push into you, his sense would smack him in the face and off of you he went.

This was always the stage of stopping but this time there was no return. You found yourself almost opening your mouth, so used to having to beg him for friction.

“Just the tip, at least the tip. Please Jace.” Is what you used to beg for.

Now, it shocks you when he says nothing. Does nothing to pull away, only kisses you so hard it makes your head spin and your lips throb from where he cut it earlier.

He’s so feverish that it hurts, hurts so good to know he finally desires you. To know that this will be the time he doesn’t stop, the time you don’t beg.

Now, it is him that is at his wits ends as he lays his forehead against yours. When it’s time to push himself in, Jacaerys finally speaks. Brown eyes blown from desire, the future king is barely able to hold himself back, but he does.

“Do you wish for me to warm you first, sweetling?” He asks, and it’s not so much as an offer as it is his morals shining through. Jace wants absolutely nothing except to fuck you into oblivion, but he’s kind.

He asks before taking your maidenhood even though he’s shaking at your entrance, will power faltering the longer you contemplate your answer.

He almost cries when he sees you shake your head, breathing a sigh of relief and pursing his pink lips together while nodding. He understands.

“They’ll be time for that later,” You tell him and he’s relived. Back to the mission of penetrating you before you suddenly get an idea, finding yourself stopping him one last time just to be cruel.

“Wait!” You take the role of Jacaerys, and he you as he stares at you with wide eyes. Hungry eyes that are confused and frustrated as you look at him.

“What is it, my love?” He asks slowly.

A crude smirk falls upon your lips. “Maybe we should wait,” You tell him bashfully, loving the way he reels back. The bewilderment in his expression is finally enough to satisfy your revenge for a lifetime, and you want to laugh when he finally feels what you feel. “Maybe we shouldn’t…dishonor ourselves this way. We should wait for marriage, you know? That way—”

You gasp to the high heavens as your cruel joke is suddenly cut off by Jacaerys pushing himself inside of you. In no mood to jest, he takes what he wants and finally sheaths himself in your core.

You were being cruel to him, he justifies. Jacaerys is a kind man that does not take lightly to cruelty.

You moan out as pain briefly graces your lower regions and stare at your husband in shock as his face shows all seriousness. Out of all things, you weren’t expecting for him to do that. To take control in way he’d never shown before.

“Do not jest with me, wife. Not tonight of all nights. Do not deny your husband such pleasure,” He growls in your ear as he finally stills.

Still stunned, you simply lay there and relish in the feeling of him on top of you. Seven hells, you have half a mind to cry with relief but you don’t want him to mistake yours tears for pain. It hurts, yes, but not in a way that makes you want him to stop.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite and though you told yourself no more begging, you find that you do it anyways as you wrap your legs around him. Pulling him close so that Jacaerys is really and truly inside of you, just as your husband should be.

“I’m sorry, my love. Please forgive me—I won’t do it again,” You whisper desperately, desire clawing at your every atom. You need him to move, you need him to finish what he started; to complete what you’ve craved for what seems like forever now.

It would only be fair after denying you that pleasure for half a year.

“Good.”

Jacaerys growls this and that is when you feel him start to move, his hips snapping into yours as his lips find your own. You moan as his cock thrusts his way through your unexplored folds, reaching depths and pleasures you never thought possible.

You clench around him and move your lips, loving the way he groans and pants into your mouth. Your legs still find themselves wrapped around his waist, enticing your love to go deeper, faster, harder.

You need him and he needs you.

His strokes are those of desperation, chasing every feeling he had ran away from you. Chasing those previous nights where he had denied you his cock, denied himself of the pelasure that he was feeling right now.

The feeling of you wrapped around his cock was one that was indescribable. If anyone ever asked, which he doubted they would (expect for Luke, maybe) then Jacaerys would simply have to stare at them, mouth open like it was now.

For what could he say, other than his beloved was inciting things from his body that he had never felt before? Providing him with pleasure and ecstasy that took his breath away more than his first dragon ride.

These feelings lifted him higher than that, higher than Vermax souring through the clouds and he screwed his eyes shut as he saviored the flavors of your cunt.

Soft and wet and warm and his prison that he’d gladly rot away in. If Jacaerys could spend the rest of his days inside of you he’d be a happy man. He’d give up the iron throne, burn the skies and every village if it meant feeling your warmth.

He’d do it all.

He would give you his all, steadying his pace so that you might taste the same drops of pleasure he was experiencing. So that you might throw your head back in ecstasy like he did, identical moans leaving the two of you as you came undone.

For you, it came in the form of clenching down on Jace’s cock, crying out as your peak hit you violently. You panted, biting into his shoulder as he did yours and rocking your hips to the sensation.

For Jacaerys, it came in the form of hot spurts, coating your walls with his seed like a good husband should. Like a good king, who would surely need to provide heirs one day.

You were all too willing to compete this task, sucking him in, milking him of his children until Jacaerys had nothing left to give. Until he was an empty shell above you, eyes closed and utterly exhausted as he rolled to the floor beside you.

It took a few minutes for anything expect for your heavy panting to fill the room. Both you and Jace were dazed, still out of it and not quite sure what had just happened. Still experiencing the bliss from your first night of marriage. One, that if anything, indicated that a good marriage was on the horizon indeed.

For you, the night had been everything you hoped for and more. Worth the wait, which you were sure that Jacaerys appreciated now that his honor and his cock reminded satified.

Perhaps the two could co-exist now, you concluded. Staring at your beloved as he turned to face you too, a small smile peaking at his lips.

“Iksin ziry worth se umbagon syt ao pār, ñuha jorrāelagon?” He asked, as shallow breaths overtook his body still. (Was it worth the wait then, my love?)

You grinned as you looked into his brown eyes and eagerly nodded, reminiscing on your peak that had happened only minutes before.

You were still dazed, still hazy but your mind was clear enough that you knew your answer before you uttered it. You loved this man, and you knew that you had made the right decision.

“Kessa, īles worth se umbagon indeed, ñuha jorrāelagon,” You promised softly, using the High Valerian he had taught you. Gazing into his eyes that had gone soft for you. That held love for you and silently promised you that this was it, that Jacaerys would always be worthy of anything till the end of your days. “Kesā va moriot sagon worth ziry naejot nyke.” (Yes, it was worth the wait indeed, my love. You will always be worth it to me.)

zoro with a huge cock he doesn't know what to do with it

i shall elaborate. ૮˃̵֊ ˂̵ ა

cw. fem! reader, breeding kink if u squint, inexperienced!virgin! zoro (but it’s not mentioned), zoro lowkey acts like a pervert, solo male masturbation, hand/blowjob, cowgirl position, lots of cum, awkward boners, boob job, facials, creampie and/or breeding, damn this shit kinda long :/

note. this was supposed to be a 500 word thirst but i ended up writing this 2.3k monstrosity. so enjoy!

zoro who’s dick is so big & thick he doesn’t know what to do–every time he’d get a hard-on it’d always end up being awkward cause’ anyone who’d be there present with him would be able to notice it. The baggy clothes he’d be wearing would sometimes help him cover up his ridiculously huge erection but zoro still thinks it wasn’t enough coverage.

And when zoro thought it coudn’t get any worse, you suddenly came in the picture. Making the poor man suffer from even more awkward boners.

When he would be hanging around the crew but suddenly he’d get a sudden flash of your face & then he’d be put into this awkward situation. Having to rush to the nearest bathroom in the sunny to take care of his hardening cock.

The whole time zoro was in the bathroom, he would be letting out frustrated groans, he was stroking his cock in an aggressive manner–throwing his head back in frustration and groaning cause’ he was nowhere near his release. And he wishes you were there with him. Because, come on, you were the reason for all this to being with.

Despite zoro’s huge dick, he had heavy breeder balls that’re filled with his hot sperm <3 And zoro sometimes wishes you were with him right now, so he could empty his balls deep insides your cunt. It’s a real shame you aren’t a member of the straw hats, otherwise, zoro would have you stuffed with his massive cock all the time.

Everytime zoro goes off to jerk off, it’d always end up with him edging himself. He thinks he’s doing something wrong at this point–no matter how fast and rough he would be stroking his shaft, it was nowhere near enough and he would never be able to orgasm. Zoro started thinking that the reasoning for this is his ridiculously huge cock. That has to be the reason.

Every time zoro would finally be close to having sex, the person he’s about to fuck always ends up running away as soon and they see his sheer size. So he has been always insecure about his dick size, he’s supposed to be the greatest swordsman for fucks sake. And here he is worrying about the size of his dick.

Maybe if he had a medium sized dick–he would be able to cum as many times as he wants. But with this big one? Yeah, zoro doesn’t think he’ll be able to know what an orgasm feels like any time soon.

That was until zoro bumped into you coincidentally, you greeted him with a sheepish smile and pulled him into an unexpected hug, the poor man felt his face grow hot,, and suddenly his cock was slowly hardening. Zoro curses under his breath, scolding himself mentally, this was not the right time for this.

You were babbling about things you saw on your journey, all while using hand gestures to explain things, you had a small spark in your eyes and zoro could almost feel bad for ignoring whatever you were saying and instead focusing on the way your tits bounced with every move you made, and his eyes travelled downwards to where your crotch was. Your pussy was covered from the layers of clothes you were wearing.

Zoro couldn’t hide it anymore, his erection was poking his clothes and zoro’s face immediately went pale once he saw you take a glimpse of his hard-on. “Zoro we can continue talking in the sunny if that’s alright with you? ’M just tired of standing” and zoro immediately agreed, thinking you actually just wanted to talk–cause what else would you do? A sweet innocent, angel like you wouldn’t pull anything inappropriate.

Zoro had a confused expression when he saw you enter his room instead of just going to sit in the main area, he had an even more confused expression when he saw you lock the door–leaving you two trapped in his room. And when you made zoro sit on the edge of his bed as you went down on your knees, that’s when zoro completely lost it, finally understanding your true intentions.

His lips curved into a smirk once you started tugging on his baggy pants, “oh?” he chuckles, zoro really wasn’t sure about this. He was worried that you might get scared and leave if you saw his ridiculously large cock. “you sure ya’ wanna do this?” and you looked up at him with pleading doe-eyes, you pulled down your shirt, your tits bouncing from the impact; “mhm, wanna have you cum on my face n’ tits, please?”

Zoro’s breath hitched, completely mesmerized from the view in front of him. You finally tugged down his pants, his cock slapping you in the face–zoro immediately muttered a ‘sorry’ his face already turning red. But you honestly didn’t mind, what shocked you more was how big zoro was, you knew he was going to be big by the way his erection was poking his pants but not this big.

His tip itself was huge, it was mushroom shaped and had a pinkish color to it, his shaft was a very light shade of almond, pre-cum dripping down his base and you couldn’t help but worry if it’ll be able to fit inside your mouth or if it’d be able to go between your tits. While you took your time eyeing it, zoro immediately grew worried & insecure–is it too big? did you not like it? And then zoro thought that what if you won’t be able to make him cum as well? He had so many futile jerking off sessions he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to cum anymore.

Zoro was snapped out of his thoughts when you wrapped your small hands around his dick, you had to use both hands to be able to fully satisfy zoro. You started with his tip, circling your thumb around the head until zoro started groaning from the feeling. Slowly moving down to the base and giving it small strokes using both hands, zoro gripped the sheets of his bed–it was completely different from what does.

Zoro would usually just go straight into it, moving his hands rough and fast to get himself to cum but it never worked. But now that you were the one doing it for him, it felt way better than when he does it alone. You were cradling his cock, kneading the tip gently, moving your hands very gently and slow. It was like you were teasing zoro the difference was that it felt so fucking amazing.

You withdrew your hands and zoro groaned in response, his face was flushed red as he took a quick glance at you, his eyes fluttered shut once he saw you positioning his dick between your breasts. He moaned at the soft feeling of your tits around his cock, swallowing his saliva when you took his tip in your mouth, sucking on the fat head of his cock sloppily.

“A-Ahh–shit–” he murmured, running his hands through his hair as he watched your tits swallow his entire length once you squeezed them together. The tip of his cock remained in your mouth, your tongue was wrapped around it–while you kept sucking on it messily. Drool kept dripping from the side of your chin and coating your tits, you looked up at zoro, his head was thrown back as he gripped the sheets beneath him.

When zoro decided to take a small glimpse of your state right now, he immediately regrets it. His huge tip was bulging in your mouth, a few tears covering your lashline, you were squishing your breasts together as you slightly bounced your body. And now, zoro was letting out low hisses, his thighs trembled, cock twitched, and now he was cumming all over your face and tits.

You looked up at zoro with a shocked expression and a cum covered face and zoro himself was shocked as well. He was trying to process this, is this how am orgasm feels like? ’cause fuck, he’s already addicted to the feeling of it.

You licked off the white stains from your face, you got up and pushed zoro back on his bed. “Can i ride you? Pretty please?” zoro’s eyes widened, face becoming even more flushed that even his ears turned red. “I-uh, Are you sure?” you nodded your head, you just had to prepare yourself before taking his stupidly big cock.

You grabbed zoro’s hands, pulling out his middle and index finger, you placed them above your panties, moving zoro’s hands–causing his fingers to rub your clothed cunt, zoro lets you do as you please, watching in amusement as you used him for your own pleasure. Once you took off your panties, you guided zoro’s fingers to your clit, making him rub it until you were moaning from the feeling.

“I think i g-got it, so let me do it” zoro offers and you immediately agreed, letting go of his hands as zoro’s fingers trailed to where your small hole was. This is where his cock was supposed to go? Holy shit. He pushes in his thick digits & your walls immediately clamped down on them, zoro starts with slow thrusts of his fingers–and you were already dripping on them.

With only a few more thrusts, you were already close, zoro’s fingers were already too thick and fulfilling–you can’t imagine how’d it feel to be fucked by his huge dick instead of his fingers. You grabbed zoro’s hands which startled him, “s-stop, wanna cum on your cock instead, please” zoro raised a brow but obeyed nonetheless, retracting his fingers from your drooling cunt.

You placed your hands on his abs for balance as you positioned yourself on top of zoro’s cock, slowly pushing down, your body quivered, breath caught short as the tip was slowly penetrating you and you could already feel the stretch from just the tip alone. And shortly, his whole length was inside you, you still couldn’t move–trying to adjust his ridiculous size.

And zoro couldn’t take it anymore, he wanted you to move, the warmth of your pussy and the way it was sucking him all the way in felt all too good but he can’t stop thinking about how great it’d feel if you’d just fucking move. He then took ahold of your wrists and thrusted his hips upwards, a scream left you, “w-wait zoro!” you weren’t expecting for zoro to be this inpatient.

He thrusted into you one more time, as tears started covering your lashline–he was stretching you so good right now, particularly splitting you open. “Feels so good, fuck” he sighs, feeling your walls clamp down on him, zoro’s eyes fluttered shut, gripping your waist with both hands as he bounced you up and down his cock.

Zoro traces the outline his cock is leaving on your stomach, was this him inside you? He threw his head back, feeling you clench down on him every time the tip hits your cervix. “You’re so good, so good f’me” he coos, and all you could do was nod in response. Tears streaming down your cheeks as you try and bounce on his cock but ending up as a whimpering mess, leaning on zoro for support.

His cock was deep inside you, a bulge visible on your tummy, his hips were pressed against your ass, and his hands were wrapped around your waist. God, You couldn’t ask for more than this, no, zoro couldn’t ask for more. He already came earlier and fuck, it felt so good.

Everytime zoro would thrust upwards, he would let out a hiss, droopy eye’s looking down at your messy face. “shit, you’re so tight” he’d groan, watching as your body trembles with every thrust, as obscene sounds slipped past your lips.

“z-zoro,” and zoro swears he could cum just by the sound of you calling out his name, “gnna’ cum, so close!” you threw your head back as you gripped zoro’s hair, your eyes rolled back as your whole body quivered— pornographic moans left you as you came all over zoro’s cock.

Zoro brought up a hand to your face, wiping the tears from your cheeks, removing a strand of hair and tugging it behind your ear—zoro then gave you a quick peck on the lips. His hands finding their way around your waist once again.

And it wasn’t long after zoro was also near his climax, zoro pressed a hand to his mouth to soak up the moans he’s struggling to hold in while his other hand still held your waist down. Zoro’s thighs trembled, bucking into you until he was cumming deep inside you, stuffing you to the hilt with his thick, creamy cum.

And after that incident, you were zoro’s personal flashlight. Always having his cum on either your tits, face or inside your mouth or/and cunt. You were always getting fucked by zoro, well this was bound to happen — he finally found someone he could give his cum to.

You couldn’t say that you were used to his size, you’d still always get shocked whenever his cock would basically slap you in the face. Always having to do hours of prep to make it fit. And as always, you’d getting fucked too dumb you’d pass out while zoro was still thrusting into you.

Sometimes he’d get too riled up and would slam his cock into your “too small” cunt without any prep and would finally release you when he has already stuffed you with his cum at least five times. He would sometimes make you walk around with his cum dripping down your legs and would watch from afar as you try to run to the nearest valley to clean yourself up.

Despite being stretched by his cock way too many times, you’d always feel tight for zoro and you’d also always feel like his splitting you open every time.

And you’re not sure if you’re supposed to be happy that you got yourself a dumb boyfriend with a stupidly big cock which he doesn’t know how to use without your help.

Oblivious - Zoro Imagine

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader

Summary: Zoro isn't known for being nice. Quite the opposite actually but with (Y/N) it's different. The problem? Everybody seems to notice but her.

Requests are closed

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"Hey, can I get a Cuba Libre, please? But could you maybe use lemonade instead of cola?", (Y/N) leaned over to the barkeeper to order her drink.

"No", the man deadpanned.

"What? Why?", the girl furrowed her brows.

"Because that's not a Cuba Libre", he retorted.

"Well, yes obviously. That's why I'm asking to put lemonade instead", she questioned him - seemingly more confused than angry.

"No accomodations. Just order what's on the menu"

"But Cuba Libre is on the menu?", she inquired.

"Yes"

"And you do have limonade?"

"Yes"

"Then just swap the two ingredients?", her voice grew louder, not understanding why the barkeeper was being so difficult.

Zoro silently watched the interaction. He was sitting only a few barstools over drinking his rum.

"It's easy, sweetheart", (Y/N) and Zoro both pulled a face at the condescending nickname, "if I start accomodating your request, soon everybody in this dump will want to have their own special creations", the barkeeper ended.

"Fine! Just a beer then", she exclaimed.

"See? Was that so hard?", the barkeeper said as he slid the bottle over towards her.

(Y/N) sent him a mocking smile as she slammed a few coins on the counter, grabbing her beer and then leaving before she did something that would result in a house ban for her and the crew.

Zoro's eyes followed the girl as she took a seat with the others, who managed to find a table in the corner of the room.

It only took a few minutes for Zoro to follow her aswell - in his hand a drink that, for some reason, was still full.

"Here", he shoved the drink towards the girl.

"What is this?", she asked but didn't even wait for an answer as she already took a sip. Her eyes widened when she realized what it was that she was drinking, "That's a Cuba Libre with lemonade! How did you do that?"

"I asked nicely", he grinned.

"Oh god. What did you do to that poor man?", she scrunched up her face, knowing her friend likes a hands-on approach to conflict.

"Nothing he didn't deserve, sweetheart"

"Uh, don't call me that...", she shuddered, "Anyways, what do I owe you?"

"Oh no, it's fine...", he shrugged.

"Are you sure?", she asked again just to make sure but when he confirmed yet again, her face spilt into wide grin, "You're the best! Next round's on me!"

Nami raised her brow at the interaction. It wasn't like Zoro to be so nice - especially not without any type of reward.

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"Oof, I'm tired", (Y/N) moaned not feeling like doing the night watch at all.

"Too bad, it's your turn", Usopp mocked the girl, a happy laugh leaving his lips which earned him a raised middle finger.

"I need my beauty sleep", she whined knowing there wasn't a chance to get out of the situation.

"What? No! You don't need any beauty sleep, (Y/N)-san! You're already so beautiful ~", Sanji gladly protested.

"Oi, whose side are you on?", she scolded the cook, "Do you want me to suffer?"

Sanji started to back paddle immediatly. It wasn't his intention to upset her further but rather to compliment the girl.

"I'll do it", Zoro's voice cut through the discussion.

"Huh?", (Y/N) thought she misheard the swordsman.

"I'll do the guard duty for you", he repeated.

"What? No!", now it was her time to protest, "I can't ask you to do that for me! It's not that bad... you know, I was just being silly"

"It's no problem at all. Really!", he insisted.

"Are you sure? You love sleeping even more than I do", she wasn't quite convinced yet.

"Yeah, yeah! Don't you even worry. You said it yourself, you need your beauty sleep and I'll be napping anyways", he shrugged.

"Hmmm", she seemed to consider it for a moment before finally shaking her head.

"If it's that important to you, you can keep me company until you get too tired. That way you didn't completely abandon your responsibility while still getting at least some sleep", he grinned sheepishly.

The girl hugged the taller man happily, "You're the greatest!"

"Oi, how come you never offer to take over my guard duty", Luffy furrowed his brows.

"Do I look like a charity to you?", Zoro's voice was harsh. The kindness replaced by a holler.

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

"You're tired, go to sleep", he told (Y/N). He had lost count of how many times he's seen the girl's eyes flutter shut only for her to jolt awake immediately after. She was struggling to stay awake.

"Nu-huh", she weakly protested.

"It doesn't make sense for the both of us to lose sleep", his voice was soft.

"It's fine, I'm awake. You can go to sleep", she mumbled, eyes already half-closed as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I can see that", he chuckled but didn't get an answer anymore as her even breaths indicated that she had finally fallen asleep.

He looked down at her. There was a strange feeling in his chest and he thought to himself that he could get used to this. He laid his arm around her to make sure she wouldn't start freezing later on as he prepared to spend the rest of the night like this - his plans for a nap long forgotten, not wanting to miss any moment of this.

The sun was already out when Nami found the two of them like this.

"You really like her, huh?"

"Do you even know what you're talking about, woman? I was just helping her because now she'll have to do me a favour in the future... Quid quo pro or something", he denied Nami's accusations but couldn't hide the soft blush that turned his ears a deep shade of red.

The navigator defensively raised her hands. Usually she would've kept pushing but she noticed how uncomfortable the swordsman was.

"Well, night watch is over. Sanji is serving breakfast as we speak. Wake her up and come eat before Luffy eats your portion"

With that Nami left Zoro to deal with waking the sleeping girl tucked underneath his arm.

"Hey, uhm... (Y/N)?", if he was completely honest, Zoro didn't feel like disturbing their togetherness just to be confronted with these other idiots, but he knew that wouldn't be fair to her as she was probably pretty hungry, "You have to wake up now... Uhm, breakfast is ready..."

(Y/N) groaned as she woke up not wanting to leave her perfect pillow but when she realized what position she was in, she immediately slipped away from him.

"Oof, Zoro, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep on you! Why didn't you wake me?"

"I uh- Don't worry about it. It was only for like twenty minutes. We had to be up soon anyways so I just didn't bother", he lied, not wanting her to think bad of him for not re-positioning her.

"Oh... Still though. I owe you one", she laughed happily, "Twice actually. Once for saving me from guard duty and twice because of the absolutely amazing nightsleep I just had"

Zoro was glad that the girl was already stood up with her back towards him so that she wouldn't see the stupid smile that he couldn't fight back. What was wrong with him? He already gathered that he had a crush on (Y/N). As much as it pained him to admit but he couldn't deny it any further. The thing that bothered him about it was rather that he couldn't conceal it better.

"I sure hope Sanji made pancakes", she said more to herself than to him.

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

Zoro stared daggers across the room. The bar was loud but he still clearly made out (Y/N)'s laugh - he would've loved the sound if it weren't for the guy who was the reason for her happiness.

The swordsman knew he should probably look away. That he'd only hurt himself if he continued. But still his eyes were glued to (Y/N) and the way her hand reached out to touch the stranger's arm.

"You should ask her out, you know?", Nami seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Usually he'd be more aware of his surroundings but at the moment he wasn't thinking straight.

"Don't you have anyone else to annoy?", he answered her without taking his eye off of their target.

"You know? I'm just trying to be nice here. You're making it hard though", she retorted.

"Did I ask you to be nice?", his question was clearly rhetorical.

Nami raised her hands in defense and left the man standing. If he wanted to stay there and wallow in his self-pity, then so be it.

Zoro's heart skipped a beat as (Y/N) came over towards him and the crew - her little flirt seemingly forgotten. The swordsman felt stupid when he realized how giddy it made him.

"Hey guys", she smiled at her friends, "We're staying here a little longer, yes?"

"Uh, sure", Nami was confused, "We're staying for at least another night until the Log Pose recalibrates"

"Great, don't wait up for me", (Y/N) grinned, "Because this gentleman over there has asked me to dinner"

(Y/N) turned around and sent a flirty wave towards her suitor, who was already waiting for her by the door.

"My drink's empty", Zoro murmured.

"Can you bring me another one, aswell?", Usopp shouted after the swordsman.

"No", his answer was short as he left the group to make his way towards the bar. Nami's eyes following him closely.

"Uhm, (Y/N)? Can I talk to you for a minute?", she didn't even wait for an answer as she already grabbed (Y/N) by the elbow, dragging her away from the group.

"So what's up?", the other woman furrowed her brows. What was the problem?, "Do I look bad?"

"No, no, no! You look great actually"

"So what's the problem?", (Y/N) didn't want her suitor wait for too long.

"I'm not trying to spoil the mood but you do realize Zoro's got a crush on you, right? I mean, you can do whatever you please but maybe don't do it infront of the mosshead" - there was no sensible way to soften the blow, so the navigator just said it.

"What? Zoro? Nah, he's just being nice", (Y/N) waved away her concerns.

"Yes, exactly!" - how oblivious could one person be? - "When did you ever see Zoro being nice to any of us? Except for maybe, MAYBE sometimes Chopper?" - Did she have to spell it out for her?

(Y/N)'s eyes moved rapidly as she thought about what her friend just told her. But when she finally realized what Nami was not so subtely implying, her eyes widened.

"Oh my God! I think you're right...", she could've slapped herself.

"Yep", Nami popped the 'p'.

"Shit, I-I need to go", and with that (Y/N) let Nami stand there as she made her way towards the man that was still waiting for her by the door.

Nami shook her head. She didn't have a problem with innocent flirts and sometimes even one-night stands but to say she wasn't at least a little disappointed would be a lie. The red-head shrugged as she made her way back to the table - she did her due diligence in telling (Y/N) about Zoro's feelings, now it wasn't in her hands anymore.

Back at the bar, Zoro downed his cup for what must've been the fourth or fifth time. He stopped counting after a while. He didn't even know what he was so upset about. (Y/N) didn't owe him anything. She had every right to go back home with that guy. This didn't mean that it hurt any less though.

"Hey, is this seat taken", he didn't look up from his drink as (Y/N) greeted him.

"Shouldn't you be with your date?", he asked bitterly.

"Nah, told him I changed my mind", she said almost nonchalantly.

Zoro was shocked when he heard that - finally looking up from his drink.

"Why?", there were a thousand thoughts running through his mind. He was happy to hear that she decided against leaving with some stranger. He knew that she could take care of herself and he knew that he didn't have a chance with her anyways but the thought of some random man placing his hands anywhere near her made his blood boil.

(Y/N) shrugged, "I thought, I'd rather spend my evening with you"

"You- you don't have to", he hated how insecure she made him feel. He was a master swordsman goddamnit! Why couldn't he think clearly whenever she was close to him?

"I know that I don't have to, Silly!", the little nickname made Zoro's heart skip a beat, "But I want to"

(Y/N) slowly maneuvered her hand towards his own, interlicking their pinky fingers. Usually the swordsman would've pulled his hand away - not a big fan of physical touch - but with her it was different. When she realized that he allowed her advances, she decided to test the waters a little further. Almost gently, she leaned her head against his shoulder like she had during their guard shift together. The position felt right to her.

As she looked up at him, she met his eye. His gaze was so full of love and she asked herself how she didn't notice sooner.

"Zoro?", she casually continued, "You know, I was promised dinner..."

"Dinner?", he didn't catch on to her proposal immediately, which made her chuckle.

"Yeah... I don't think I should have to miss out just because I changed my mind"

Finally the pin dropped and a goofy smile lit up his features.

"I could eat", he said as he hopped off the barstool, helping (Y/N) down in the process.

With his hand on the small of her back he guided her towards the entrance.

"Oi, where you going?", Luffy yelled over to the two lovebirds when he noticed them leaving.

"Dinner", (Y/N) yelled back - a happy smile on her face.

"Oooh, dinner sounds good", he already was about to join the two when Nami held him back.

"Nope, leave them alone. Sanji can make us something back on the Sunny. Right Sanji-kun?", she knew how to play the cook to get what she wanted and of course the blonde man was like putty in her hands with the way he immediately started to assemble a possible menu for the crew. Nami only listened with one ear though - too occupied with patting herself on the back for successfully playing matchmaker.

Once outside, (Y/N) turned towards Zoro. That same happy smile that made his heart beat fast and his mind go blank still on her face. She laced her fingers with his calloused ones and decided she liked the feeling of it.

"So, where are we going?", he awkwardly asked. He still couldn't believe that this was really happening.

"I think I passed a nice little restaurant on the way here", she already pulled him with her towards the direction she remembered the restaurant to be. But then she stopped abruptly. She didn't want to overwhelm the poor guy but decided to press a sweet little kiss on his cheek anyways. A dreamy smile lit up his features and (Y/N) asked herself yet again how she never noticed how handsome the swordfighter was.

"I'm sorry for not noticing sooner", she almost whispered but Zoro didn't care at all. What mattered to him now was that he finally had the girl of his dreams right next to him, holding his hand.

"You should probably thank Nami though", (Y/N) continued, "If it weren't for her I'd probably still be oblivious..."

"Ugh, she already has such an inflated ego to begin with", he dismissed the thought - not wanting the red-head to boast about her achievement. In fact, he didn't even want to think about her at all at the moment. The only thing on his mind was getting (Y/N) to that restaurant and having dinner.

"C'mon let's go", he told her as he lead the way.

A soft chuckle disrupted his plans though.

"Zoro... the restaurant is the other way!"

Footage emerged from Gazan journalist Nooh Al-Shagboni of the heroes of the Civil Defense rescuing a number of children, women, and youth from under the rubble of a home bombed by the IOF in Gaza.

A 37-day-old baby named Salam (peace), born during the first days of the war amidst the bombing, was rescued after a four-hour-long operation, reborn from under the rubble after all thought she had been martyred.

Salam was the firstborn child of her mother and father, who both ascended to martyrdom as a result of the bombing.

𝕜𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕝!

summary: sometimes, zoro really can't handle your praise... pairing: zoro x afab!reader cw: mdni, choking, praise, creampie wc: 600sih an: a little blurb of smut bc i was getting too fluffy •`_´• jk we love fluff here

the hold you have on the swordsman is immeasurable.

you have him wrapped around your finger, even in moments like this when his large hand is wrapped around your throat.

“so, so good, zo’!” you manage to whine out, the sound barely audible over the sound of wet slaps and his rasped breaths. one of your hands is over his, tracing his knuckles as he chokes you, while the other plants itself higher up on his forearm where you can feel the muscle tensing underneath. "m'want more, i need it!"

he grits his teeth, squeezing just a bit tighter until your eyes flutter closed. he knew you liked it though, at least he figured you did judging by the way your walls pulsed around him.

he needed you to stop talking.

his cheeks are burning, the reddish hue on them darkening with every bit of praise that spilled from your lips. "be quiet, will ya?" he grumbles, perhaps a bit too sharply, not knowing how much more of your cloying words he could take.

his thrusts get harder, his hips hammering into yours with an intense passion. the tip of his cock kisses your cervix and coats it with pre-cum, desperate to spill into you.

you’re so sweet to him.

it’s a blessing so foreign to him that sometimes he forgets it’s okay to be seen, to be vulnerable. even though he knows you’ve seen the depths of his soul, there are moments where he reverts to old habits and puts up a tough front.

that’s why he’s trying so hard to keep his cool.

your pretty little pussy squeezing around him like a damn vice is one thing, but the praises that dripped like honey past your lips was a completely different story. when you struggle to take an inhale, gasping sharply, he loosens his grip. the feel of your rapid pulse under his palm only drives him closer to the edge and he hopes, for his sake, that you're too fucked out to spoil him with more undeserved praise.

he should've known better though.

a solid intake of air is followed by a shaky exhale turned moan as your head becomes light with ecstasy. your lashes, dotted with tears, make you look like an angel underneath him and he growls, his abdomen tensing as he tried to stop himself from cumming too fast.

he always made sure that you came first. your pleasure was priority and he takes a deep breath, closing his eye as he focused on maintaining some sort of self-control. he could hold out, he thinks, continuing to fuck you at a steady pace.

it all goes out the door when you open your mouth again. "y'make me feel so good!" you moan, desperately bucking your hips to his tempo to drive him deeper. "cum inside me, baby, please!"

the hand on your throat squeezes once more, his hips losing their rhythm as he begins bucking into you uncontrollably. "stop talk-" his breath hitches, the coil inside of him snapping as he snarls and throws his head back. "fuck!"

his whole body shudders and he bites down on his tongue, almost pushing you into the headboard of the bed as he buries himself deep inside of you. there's no point in keeping his cool anymore, his muscles relaxing and mouth falling open as he let out a sinful groan.

you're overflowing with his release, the thick, hot liquid dripping out of you and onto the bedsheets below. when you look up, the smile you give him is much too innocent and he clicks his tongue at the sight. you know damn well that he's putty in your hands and you know that he loves it.

even now, as he looks down at you with furrowed brows and reddened cheeks, his exasperated tone does little to hide the affection he feels toward you.

"damn you, woman."

Could you please write a poly!ghostface X reader friends to lovers smut (w/ some fluff)

I had so much fun with this! Thank you so much for the request! I hope you enjoy it! Please leave feedback🩷

(A/N: Header by me)

Warnings: SMUT! 18+, mdni. fem!reader. Oral both female and male recieving. Name calling, pet names, p in v sex. No use if condom(be responsible please, life isn't fanfiction). Drinking. Everyone in this fic is over 18. if I missed anything please let me know.

Pairing: Stu Macher x fem!reader x Billy Loomis

Word count: 6.7k

Just the three of us

You and Stu have been best friends since first grade. You were paired to sit together. Initially you thought he was pretty annoying. Always talking, not paying much attention and messing up your work. Little you was really ready to throw hands. Stu loved annoying you! He thought that was the best way to make friends. Taking away the pens you needed to finish your drawing in art class. Or copying your maths notes. Always asking you ridiculous questions that he knew you couldn't answer. He thought it funny how your little face scrunched up. Little Stu was a menace. But he didn't take too kindly to other kids picking on you. It almost never happened.

But when one of the older boys pushed you into the dirt one day, with your new dress, which he knew was new because he's never seen you wear it before and you told him so and were so happy about it, it was over. He didn't care that the boy was older than him, and slightly taller, he threw himself at the boy and a fight broke loose. The teacher pulled them apart. Stu was dirty but he didn't care. All he cared for was you. So once the teacher's were done with their chiding he ran to look for you. He didn't have to go very far as you were waiting for him. He thought you would snap at him but you gave him the biggest hug you could. Stu didn't know it yet but his heart skipped a beat and would do so ever since when you hugged him. Ever since then the two of you have been inseparable. He still annoyed you during classes but now you knew that he didn't mean bad by it and always had a smart comeback to his weird questions. No one could come between the two of you. 

Or so you thought. Once you two entered middle school Stu met a new friend. His name was Billy. Suddenly Stu spent every minute with him. You hated it. You tried confronting Stu but he said that you made stuff up. Of course it hurt but maybe he was right? You gave him some space, which seemed to work in your favour as you made some other friends along the way. Girl friends, which you really didn't have before. Stu hated to see that. He was supposed to be your best friend. Suddenly he kept inviting you over again, so much so that you didn't spend so much time with your girl friends anymore. You tried to make time for them but it wasn't nearly enough. Most of them didn't want to hang out with you anymore. The only real girl friend you had was Tatum. She had a lot of friends so she never minded when you didn't have time, but she was also happy when you did. 

The other down side with Stu inviting you over again was that Billy was there as well. You still didn't like him the first few times you came around. It wasn't like he was unfriendly or anything, just the fact that he stole your best friend. Stu must have talked to Billy cause the boy always made sure to be at his best behaviour around you. Making sure you started to like him. You don't really remember how it happened but suddenly it wasn't just you and Stu anymore but you, Stu and Billy. You really grew fond of Billy, you even developed a little crush on the boy at one point. Of course you never told him or Stu, for many reasons. One because you knew he didn't feel the same and two Stu would make fun of you. You also didn't want to ruin your little friend group. So you ignored it, which worked very well.

Until the summer before you guys started High School. You guys were 15 and at the Lake in the woods. You had bought a new bikini for the occasion. Stu's eyes widened as you took off your summer dress to reveal the new swimwear you bought. He was checking you out, and when he noticed his swim trunks getting tighter, he jumped into the lake immediately. He didn't care that it was cold as hell, on the contrary it helped him. When he came back up to the surface he heard your laugh and gave you his usual wide grin in return. He also noticed Billy checking you out, more subtle than him. He felt a little jealous but shook his head. That was silly. 

You guys had an amazing day at the lake, several water fights and dunking each other, the previous thoughts all gone. It was late but the sun was still up. You were dry again and laughing with your boys. You don't know how it came up but they were telling you about their first kisses. To be honest you felt a little jealous but you thought that was because you didn't have your first kiss yet. It was a little embarrassing really, though you knew there was nothing wrong with it but you kind of felt left out of a secret club, that your best friends already joined without you. You had gotten really quiet as Stu tells the story of how he had "a real makeout session" with Stacy from your Math class. Billy noticed your lack of attention and nudged you softly, asking you what's wrong with you. That also got Stu's attention. Your face grew hot as now both Stu and Billy were looking at you. You averted your gaze and told them that you didn't have your first kiss yet. Billy shrugged his shoulders.

"That's not that bad. It's not like it's a big deal." 

But that didn't really convince you. 

"If it bothers you so much one of us could kiss ya." That got your attention and you looked at Stu. 

"You are making fun of me!" 

"Babes you know I would never!"

You just raise an eyebrow at that. 

"Fine I do. But not right now. I am dead serious! Cross my heart!" He was doing the cross over his heart trying to look serious, but his eyes were full of mischief. You looked over to Billy. 

"I mean… he is not wrong. If you really wanna."

That took you even more by surprise. You thought Billy would try to talk Stu out of it but you were wrong. He was also thinking this idea was great. You contemplated it. What would be the harm right? It's just a kiss. It's not like that would change anything. Right? Right. 

"Alright."

"Really?" Stu asked, his face lit up like a childs on christmas. 

"Yeah. I mean it's just a kiss right?"

"Yeah nothing special about it." Billy said.

"So who do you want to be your first?" Stu wiggled his eyebrows. 

Your face grew hot again. Of course they were both attractive. And you had a crush on Billy once. But Stu was your best friend, you knew him longer. This gave you anxiety already. You didn't want it to be awkward with either one of them. But you also wanted this to be over. And who knows how much longer you'd have to go without kissing. You didn't want to be a bloody amateur when you got your first boyfriend.

So you decided. You stood up only to sit down right in front of Stu, who gave you a big smile. Little did you know that jealousy bubbled up in Billy at that. Though he didn't know who he was more jealous of, you or Stu. He shook his head.

"What do I do with my hands?"

"Whatever you want. You can put them around my neck or one on my face. Or you can just leave them at your side. Though that would be kinda awkward."

You nodded and so you shyly put your hands on Stu's shoulders, softly gripping them.

Your nerves were acting up as Stu slowly scooted a little closer and his face was inches from your own. You closed your eyes as you felt your lips connect. His lips were a little chapped but it didn't feel unpleasant. Then he started to move his lips, you tried to copy his movements. It wasn't perfect by any means, even a little sloppy, but you actually enjoyed yourself. You were clinging to Stu as he somehow managed to slip his tongue into your mouth and you let out a little squeak, feeling Stu grin against your lips. All too soon he broke the kiss. With your eyes still closed you tried to follow his lips. Stu let out a chuckle at that and you could hear Billy clear his throat. That snapped you out of your little trance, your face incredibly hot. You looked over to Billy.

"Wanna show me what you learned?" 

Your eyes widened a little at that but you nodded nonetheless. He switched places with Stu real quick, Stu taking off his hands from your hips which you didn't even know were there. You already missed them. But they were replaced with Billy's. A little smaller than Stu's, but just as pleasantly warm. You wrapped your arms around his neck and Billy grinned, squeezing your hips a little.

"Ready?"

You nodded, smiling. Closing your eyes again as he closed the space between you two and his lips met yours. His lips were softer than Stu's, the kiss already feeling different than Stu's too. Less sloppy, as if Billy really knew what he was doing. He was easily dominating that kiss. You could really get used to kissing them. Scraping together every ounce of confidence you had you let your tongue slip inside his mouth, teasing his tongue with yours, just like you felt Stu do to you just moments ago. You could feel Billy letting out a soft sigh. Unbeknownst to you Stu was watching you two like a hawk. He wished he could join the two of you. You were getting a little lost in the feeling, your heart beating out of your chest. But Billy decided that this was long enough and broke the kiss. Your eyes fluttered open and you looked at Billy, his eyes never sucked you in more.

"I think you will be good now."

"Yeah, your future boyfriend will be really lucky." There was a slight edge to Stu's voice. But you couldn't figure out why. 

After that, conversation resumed as normal and you were convinced that was the end of that. And it was. Nothing seemed to have changed and after the summer you guys went to highschool. Still the best of friends. Both Billy and Stu started dating a few girls here and there during that time. And even you went on a few dates but you were never really in love with them. They always seemed to have a problem with how close you were with Billy and Stu. More often than not they cheered you up after another guy dumped you. You were very grateful for that. You of course were there for them too. Stu being dumped by Casey Becker was really hard on him. You had a sleepover with him the whole weekend, with Billy showing up as well in the middle of the night. As much as Stu was upset it was one of the best weekends in a long time. You guys were watching movies all night, stuffing your face with Junk Food and sweets, and talking a lot. It felt like you grew closer to them again. While you guys were sleeping you were squished between them, Stu in front of you and Billy pressed against your back. It made you feel all warm inside and you realised that you might be feeling more for your best friends than you were supposed to. You knew nothing would happen so you were just happy with what you've got.

Now it was your 18th Birthday. Initially you just wanted a chill day, maybe going to eat some pizza with your boys but Stu had a different idea. And so you were at his house, which was full of people. You were convinced Stu invited the whole school. Both Billy's and Stu's 18th birthdays were a few months ago but they didn't have this big of a party, you think. You were making your way to the couch, people wishing you a happy birthday left and right. Finally you could join Tatum and Sydney on the sofa letting out a big sigh.

"Stu really went all out for you huh?"

"Yeah. I think it's a bit much but I couldn't say no to him when he looked at me with his big puppy eyes and his stupid grin."

"So when are you going to tell him you are in love with him?"

You choked on your own saliva at that. 

"I am not in love with him."

"Sure, keep telling yourself that."

"You know I am pretty sure you are not supposed to tease the birthday girl on her birthday."

Tatum rolled her eyes playfully. 

"Whatever."

You continued talking with the two girls when suddenly Stu plopped down next to you, throwing an arm around your shoulder.

"You having fun, pretty girl?"

You gave him a soft smile.

"Yeah. Thanks again for the party. But you know I would have been fine with it just being a chill night with you guys and some drinks maybe and a cake. By the way, why is there no cake?" You were pouting a little. The cake was always the best thing about birthdays.

Stu laughed at that.

"Don't worry. Billy is bringing the cake. And no he didn't bake it. That would go horribly." You giggled and softly hit his chest.

"I think you are confusing his baking abilities with your own."

He looked at you in fake shock.

"I am a fantastic baker, just so you know."

"Mhmh yeah and that time you let the cookies burn that were supposed to be sold at the baking sale two years ago was totally intentional."

"Totally!" You two laughed again.

A few moments later Billy came in with the cake. They lit the candles and everyone began to sing Happy Birthday to you. You hated every second of it, not knowing what to do with yourself besides standing there. Both Billy and Stu grinning, they knew you hated this kind of attention on yourself. You were relieved when you finally could blow out the candle and everyone got a piece of cake, including you. 

Billy came over to you, hugging you close. 

"Happy Birthday sweetheart."

"Thanks Billy." You always enjoyed his hugs. Other than Stu, Billy wasn't much of a hugger, so his hugs were a tad more special. Not that you disliked Stu's hugs though. Speaking of Stu, he couldn't stand being left out and so he wrapped you and Billy in a big bear hug.

"I love you guys so much!"

"How much did you have to drink already?" You were giggling. Billy, not so amused, nudged Stu rather harshly with his elbow, so Stu let go of you. 

After finishing your cake, and drinking another beer, you went dancing with your girl friends. You weren't much of a dancer usually but it's your birthday and maybe you should let a little loose here and there. So that's what you did. Soon after you felt a pair of hands on your hips, pulling you close to a hard chest. You were about to tell the person off but you recognised Stu's cologne instantly. Relaxing, you continued dancing. Getting bolder you started to dance more suggestively, swaying your hips more, going down almost to your knees and back up. When you were back up, Stu turned you around. Your arms flew around his neck, smiling up at him. You couldn't quite pin the look in his eyes but you didn't care. You craved his lips on yours. Your eyes flicked down to them and you could see them forming a lazy grin, his tongue poking out to wet them. You were mesmerised by the movement, your own lips parting slightly, making Stu's eyes flick down to then. His eyes became more hooded and his face inched closer. Your eyes were fluttering close, his breath fanning over your face, the smell of beer, which you would normally find disgusting was invading your senses paired with Stu's own intoxicating smell. The anticipation was slowly killing you. You could already feel his lips brush yours when suddenly Stu was janked back making you stumble.

You blinked your eyes open and saw him with a group of guys hollering and throwing shots back. You let out a huff, disappointment settling in. Without looking at him again you pushed past the group and went into the kitchen to get another drink. In the kitchen you found some people making out, blocking you from the counter with the drinks. Groaning, you took a bottle of water and went back to the living room. You could see Stu, he was still with the same group of guys, laughing and dancing. You just shook your head, plopping down on the couch. Your sour mood didn't last long as some Tatum pulled you up by the arms again and started dancing with you. The little incident between you and Stu soon forgotten

Some time around 1 o'clock in the morning when the last person left, you were helping Stu clean up. Billy was also there though really you were the only one cleaning up. The two boys were on the couch talking quietly amongst each other. After you finished the kitchen, you decided that the rest could be done tomorrow. Well technically today. 

You plopped down between them, not noticing the look they shared. 

"You had a great time today?" It was Billy asking you.

You nodded, smiling.

"I normally don't like big parties like that."

"But?" It was Stu's turn to ask.

"But … this was amazing. Thank you again." You put your palm against Stu's cheek, smiling softly at him. Realising how close you were to him, it reminded you of the situation earlier, making your face heat up. You had to look away, opting to look over at Billy. Which was a mistake. He gave you the same intense look you had seen on Stu earlier. You cleared your throat a little, looking away. You felt two fingers softly gripping your chin, turning your face towards Billy again, who was so much closer to you now. Your breath got caught in your throat. You were about to ask him what's wrong but before you could even form one word, Billy's lips were on you, soft yet firm. You were shocked but not in a bad way. Your eyes fluttered close and you were melting against Billy. Completely forgetting that Stu was right behind you. Billy's lips moved against yours with determination, his tongue slipping inside your mouth soon after. You were so lost in the kiss that you at first didn't notice that Stu began to pepper your neck with kisses. Only when he started to suck a mark onto your soft skin did you realise, letting out a breathy moan, leaning against Stu now.

Billy parted from you, making you almost whine. He grinned at that,  taking a quick look at you. Your eyes were closed, now biting your lip as Stu still worked on the one side of your neck. Your eyebrows were pulled together in pleasure. You felt like your heart was beating out of your chest, even more so when Billy began to kiss the other side of your neck. One of Stu's hands creeping you to one of your boobs, groping and squeezing the soft flesh. A breathy moan left you. The both of them were driving you wild. You were gripping at Billy's shirt, making him bite into your neck. One of his hands was working on your pants, slipping a hand inside of them once it was opened. His hand dipped into your panties and he let out a pleased hum.

"My my, already drenched and we barely did anything to you yet sweetheart. 'S that all for us?" Billy spoke against your neck, leaving goosebumps. 

You quickly nodded your head, a breathy "Yes" left your lips. You could feel Stu grinning against your neck. 

Billy slowly dragged a finger through your wet folds, making you squirm in Stu's grip. After a little more of this teasing, having coated his fingers in your juice, Billy slipped one of his fingers inside of your dripping hole. Your mouth opened in a silent moan,  Stu's hand grabbing your boob harder. Billy began to slowly fuck you open with his finger. Your head fell against Stu, one arm behind you, around Stu's neck, gripping him at the nape of his neck, the other hand still fisting Billy's shirt. You tried to muffle your moans, which soon flew out of the window as Billy added a second finger soon after. You had sex before but those guys never fingered you. Heck even the sex with them was nothing compared to what Billy could do to you with his two fingers. You wondered, if this is how good his fingers could make you feel, how amazing must it feel to be really fucked by him. 

Billy's intense gaze never left your face as he fucked you with his fingers, his pants were growing tighter by the minute, he knew Stu was in much the same position. Billy started scissoring his fingers, his thumb soon joining in to play with your clit. You started withering, but lucky for you and Billy, Stu had a tight grip on you. He had resumed sucking hickey's onto your neck. 

"I always knew you were tight. But fuck this is even better than I imagined. Can't wait to stuff you full with my dick." 

Billy's words only made you more wet, if that was even possible. Even with your pants still on you could hear the squelching sound your pussy made, feeling Stu's hard dick press into your lower back told you he liked what he was hearing too. Your skin felt so hot, one could think you had a fever, a soft sheen of sweat on your forehead and your cleavage formed. Stu wanted nothing more than to lick it off of the swell of your boobs. 

Suddenly Billy removed his fingers, making you whine in protest. Both boys chuckled at that. 

"What's the problem, pretty girl?" Stu's tone was mocking, but it only made you hornier. You didn't dare speak.

"Cat's got your tongue?" Billy's voice didn't sound any less taunting. You looked at them both pleadingly. Billy pulled his hand out of your pants, ready to lick his fingers clean, but Stu stopped him, gripping Billy's wrist. Stu leaned forward and closed his mouth around Billy's fingers, holding eye contact with the other one. Billy let out an audible breath through his nose. Your mouth dropped open as you watched the two. It made you realise that this was definitely not the first time these two have fooled around. You felt a bit honoured that they felt comfortable enough to show you this. Once Stu seemed satisfied he popped Billy's fingers out of his mouth, making a show of licking his lips. 

"Delicious." He kept grinning. Billy gave you a quick glance, before his eyes locked back onto Stu. He gripped the boy's shirt and pulled him closer, making you fall a little to the side, as their lips connected. You could see that it was all tongues and teeth, both of them groaning. Billy could taste you on Stu's tongue and it was driving him crazy. They parted and you could see a string of saliva connecting them. They grinned at each other, then their gaze turned back to you, making you feel even hotter than before. Their look was almost predatory, making you gulp. In a matter of seconds they removed your clothes and you were back against Stu's chest, sitting almost at the edge of the couch. Billy was sitting in front of you, having a perfect view at your glistening folds. 

"Damn, Stu wish you could see this. Most perfect little pussy I have ever seen." Billy couldn't take his eyes off of it. You were squirming under Billy's gaze.

"Please Billy."

"Did ya hear that Billy? I think our precious girl wants something." You looked up at Stu, pleading with your eyes.

"I did hear. Though I am not sure what exactly it is that you want. Tell us Princess. Don't be shy."

"Yeah, don't be shy now."

You swallowed, grabbing onto every ounce of confidence and self control you still owned. 

"Could you please put your mouth on my pussy Billy?" Your voice came out weaker than anticipated. You were afraid he didn't hear you, making you repeat yourself. But he did.

"Aw, of course, pretty girl. Can't leave the birthday girl hanging now, can I?"

You shook your head fast. Billy gave you one last grin, before diving in. Your hands gripped onto his hair in seconds. You always knew his mouth was good but this exceeded your expectations. You didn't care if your moans sounded pathetic, you only knew how good it felt having Billy suck on your clit, having two of his fingers in your pussy again. You were basically grinding against him, one of his hands squeezing your thigh. That would definitely leave a bruise you were sure, but you didn't mind in the slightest. Stu turned your face to the side so he could kiss you. Moaning against his lips as you could feel Billy switching it up, his thumb now rubbing your clit as his tongue was deep inside of you. 

Stu on the other hand was kissing you like his life depended on it. There was nothing of the uncertainty he had when you guys first shared your first kiss. But still sloppy, in a different kind of way. His tongue was massaging yours, one of his hands on your boobs again, toying with your nipples. He was biting your lip, almost drawing blood, making you squeal. 

Billy was looking up, groaning at seeing the two of you kiss. Your grip on his hair getting tighter by the second and he could feel your gummy walls clamping around his tongue. He began to lick and suck at your harsher. He desperately wanted to see you fall apart for him and Stu. You had to part from Stu with a gasp, breathing in deep. Stu pulled at your bottom lip. Your eyebrows were creased together. You were so close. Looking down at Billy you swore his eyes were glinting. He knew you were going to come, you could tell. Your lips were swollen, from the kiss with Stu, who was still playing with your nipples. Pulling and squeezing and twisting, the pain of it so pleasurable. This, paired with Billy's relentless mouth on your dripping pussy, seriously you were sure you would be dripping on the floor, wouldn't it be for Billy sucking it all up, were enough to send you flying over the edge. A high pitched moan left your lips, your thighs clamping around Billy's head, your hips lifting off of the edge of the sofa as your orgasm crashed through you. It has never felt so intense before. Stu was holding you close as Billy helped you ride out every last drop of your pleasure. 

Stu softly pecked the side of your head when you finally calmed down. Billy didn't waste a drop of your juice and you had to push his head away from you, releasing him from between your thighs. His chin and lips were wet from your arousal. His eyes almost black. He made a show of licking his lips and you could feel Stu shuffling behind you. 

Billy was the first to speak. "You ok sweetheart?"

You nodded. "I'm fucking fantastic." He gave you a cheeky grin. 

"Do you wanna continue orrrrr…" Stu spoke up behind you.

You chuckled breathless. "Definitely continue." 

Billy stood up helping you stand up on shaky legs. He gave you a cheeky grin at that, making you swat his chest, giggling. 

When Stu stood up he didn't waste a second to throw you over his shoulder, giving your ass a slap, groping it right after. He made his way up the stars, Billy right behind the two of you. 

Inside the room, Stu threw you onto the bed, making you bounce. Both of the boys looking at your boobs. You almost wanted to cover up from their intense staring. Stu was the first to snap out of it, removing his clothes, almost tripping as he took off his pants. His erection slapping against his lower stomach. You moaned quietly at the sight, biting your lip. The tip was a deep pink, already leaking precum, there was a slight curve upwards. He was definitely longer than your previous boyfriends and just a tad bit girthier. 

"Like what ya seeing babe?" He gave you a grin, but you couldn't see any of his usual silliness shine through. All you could see in his eyes was hunger. And you were pretty sure you were his next meal. He came stalking over to you, taking both your ankles into his hand he pulled you closer to him, making you lie down on your back in the process. As he crawled over you, you wrapped your legs around him, making him feel your wet heat on his throbbing dick. 

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this." He was almost growling.

"Then let's not waste any more time, yeah?" Your voice was dripping with excitement. Stu gave you a quick but forceful peck before lining up with your heat. He was rubbing his tip between your folds. Both of you were mesmerising as he slowly pushed inside of you. The both of you are moaning in unison. 

"Fuck Billy's right. 'S the most perfect little pussy. Shit you're grippn me so tight."

"Stu please move."

You were trying to rock against him but he was gripping your hips so hard there would definitely be handprint bruises. No chance of moving. 

"Shit wait a sec babe, don't wanna bust too soon. You feel so good around me."

You could hear a scoff behind you. Craning your neck you could see Billy standing on the other side of the bed. Naked. Your eyes immediately go to his dick. He was definitely girthier than Stu, not as long tho. His tip also a bit darker than Stu's. 

"What are you a fucking virgin Stu?" Billy was teasing.

"Shut up man, you wouldn't be able to control yourself either." 

With that Stu began to almost pull out entirely making you whine, which soon turned into a loud moan as he snapped his hips back into yours, sending you moving along the bed. Your head getting closer to Billy's dick as he was still standing on the edge on the other side. Stu's pace was relentless, reaching so deep inside you, you swear you could almost feel him inside your throat. He didn't hold back with his moans either. Ever the vocal type no matter what. You didn't mind though, it let you know that he was enjoying himself. Billy shuffled a little closer, gripping his dick. You were already salivating at the thought of having him inside your mouth. He twirled his tip on your lips, coating them in his precum. 

"Open up sweetheart."

You didn't need to be told twice, open your mouth eagerly. Billy gave an appreciative hum as he slowly slid into your mouth. You were gagging a little but still wanted more. 

Stu was still snapping into you, watching as you swallowed Billy's cock. 

"Damn you really are an eager little slut huh?"

Stu's speech was slightly slurred, completely drunk on your pussy. Billy was slowly fucking your mouth, tears were welling up in your eyes. You were loving every second of this. His hands gripped your boobs, squeezing them, using them as leverage too. They were making you see stars, especially when Billy pushed himself all the way in, holding you there for a few seconds. Stu groaned seeing your throat swell around Billy's dick. He couldn help but touch it. Then Billy pulled out, letting you take a breath. You were gagging, tears streaming out of your eyes. Once you inhaled enough air again you pulled Billy back in, eagerly taking him back into your mouth. Bobbing your head best you could in this position, sucking on the tip every time you came up. Stu started to rub circles on your clit, making you clamp down on him.

He let out a breathy "Fuck." You were growing closer by the second. You could tell by Stu's sloppy thrusts that he was nearing his end too. Billy started to throb inside your mouth. He was ready to pull out and came all over your tits but you had a different plan. Pulling him back in. Billy groaned at your eagerness, coming down your throat almost instantly. You swallowed everything eagerly. Then he pulled out, with a satisfied hum. He softly strokes your cheek, bending down to give you a peck. Then he left to go get everyone some water to drink.

Stu gripped your cheeks, squeezing them and kissing you hungrily, still drilling into you. You were whimpering, so close now. He was still rubbing your clit and your legs began to shake and you came, with a high pitched scream. With a loud groan Stu followed right behind you and came deep inside of you. Riding out both of your orgasms, your legs still shaking. He came to a halt, dropping on top of you, making all air leave your lungs. You had half a mind telling him to get off, but it was actually nice to have his weight on top of you. You wrapped your arms around him, softly scratching his back. He was letting out satisfied hums.

"Am I interrupting?"

You hadn't noticed Billy entering the room again. His voice had an edge to it. 

"Don't be silly. Come here."

Your voice, a little scratchy, was still soft when saying this. 

He let out a huff but still came over to the bed. Stu finally moved, pulling out of you and laying down beside you. Billy took his place on your other side, giving you an open water bottle that you could drink. You gave him a thankful kiss and you could swear he was actually blushing a little at this, like he hasn't just eaten you out like a starved man and fucked your throat moments ago. You were gulping down the water while Billy cleaned you up between your legs with a rag. Once he was done he threw it to the side not caring where it landed really.

You were snuggling up to him, Stu close behind you, enjoying the comfort of the post orgasmic bliss. You closed your eyes, very tired now. You guys should talk about what just happened and what it meant for your friendship but you were too tired. 

You were almost asleep when suddenly Stu jolted upward. "Oh!"

"Shit! What?!"

You almost had a heart attack. 

"We forgot to give you your birthday present!I'll be right back!"

With that he was out of the bed walking downstairs to get your present. 

"Is he serious now? That could have waited till morning"

You dropped your head onto Billy's chest.

Billy just shrugged. 

Stu came back in with a big smile on his face, jumping onto the bed.

You were sitting up, the blanket dropping into your lap. Revealing your chest, distracting Stu again. You giggled and gently lifted his head again.

"Concentrate Stu."

"Right, sorry. They are just -" He made a motion with his hands towards your boobs.

You rolled your eyes playfully. 

"He is not wrong, you know?"

You giggled.

Stu gave you a little box adorned with a bow.

"You didn't have to get me anything you know that right?"

"Oh we know."

"Yeah but we wanted to. So just enjoy it and say thank you." Billy nudged you. 

You gave them both a kiss. "Thank you."

Smiling softly you opened the box, revealing a delicate bracelet with two charms on it. 

"Get it? The charms represent Billy and me!" Stu was so excited. 

"That is so sweet!" You were  touched. 

"I knew you'd like it!" Stu threw an arm around your shoulder. 

"See? This is me and this is Billy."

He pointed to the little headphones first. It was rare to see him without them and his cd player these days. Then he pointed at the little knife, with a drop of gemstone blood in it. Definitely Billy. He was obsessed with horror stuff.

"It is perfect. Thank you so much."

And you meant it. Billy put it on for you and you looked at it adoringly. You put your arm down and looked at them both happily. 

"Soooooooo…"

"So?"

"I mean I guess I just wanna know what this means for our friendship?"

"Well we should upgrade it."

"To what?"

"A relationship. Duh." Stu said it like it was the most obvious thing.

"You sure?"

"Sweetheart, we've wanted you for ages."

You looked at Billy like he grew a second head.

"You did?!"

"Yeah. You never noticed?"

Shaking your head you looked at the both of them. 

"Guess you are stuck with us now."

Stu grinned from ear to ear.

You rolled your eyes smiling. 

"Like I wasn't before."

"Yeah but now it will be even harder for you to get rid of us."

"Good thing I wanna keep you both."

"Mh. You better." Billy was smiling but there was something else to his tone. You almost wouldn't notice. And you didn't but Stu did, keeps grinning. 

"Of course. I would be lost without you!" You held the back of your hand against your forehead for dramatic effect, giggling. 

Billy groaned playfully. "Damn what have I gotten myself into?"

You and Stu shoved him, laughing until a yawn interrupted you. 

"Alright you two. It's time to get some sleep."

"Yes dad." Stu was rolling his eyes. 

"Damn Stu I didn't know you were into that." You began laughing again.

"Oh you will be surprised about all the things I'm into."

He gave you a mischievous grin. Biting your lip you grinned as well.

"Can't wait to find out."

"Ok stop it you two horny fuckers."

" Pf.  Just you wait until you find out what Billy's into. He actually loves it when he can ca-" Stu couldn't finish the sentence, as Billy hit him across the head.

"Ow!"

"Sleep. Now. We can get into kinks another time." With that Billy was laying down.

"I can't wait. You will be surprised what I'm into." You hummed and got comfy next to Billy, who put an arm around you.

Stu was bouncing next to you.

"Ohhh is it something freaky?"

"Stu…"

"No, now you got me curious!"

"Stu."

"I won't be able to sleep! Give me a hint! Please!" He was basically begging now.

You rolled your eyes. 

"It might involve getting nicked with a knife. Now come here and sleep, I won't say more."

You could feel Billy tensing up a bit, not knowing that this little bit of information riled him up again. Stu's mouth had dropped open. Not believing what he heard. Now he was really intrigued. You could feel he was about to say something else so you stopped him before he could.

"Sleep. Now." 

Stu cuddled close behind you. You were out like a light in seconds.

Stu and Billy looked at you.

"We really hit the jackpot with her."

"Totally!"

Billy was almost asleep when Stu spoke up again.

"You think she would let us carve an S and a B into her? Small ones of course. Maybe on her hip."

Billy groaned at that, now the idea will be stuck with him. But that was a conversation for another time.

Rotten Deal Pt. 1

Modern!Aegon x Fem!Reader

Summary: When your ex boyfriend cheats on you and spreads a vicious rumor about you, you want to make him suffer. So you make a deal with the man you can’t stand: Aegon, the most infamous fuckboy at KLU.

Chapter Summary: Aegon comes to you asking for help and you use it as the perfect opportunity to deal with the disaster of your breakup.

Warning(s): Cursing, mentions of sex, sexual innuendos, cheating mentions

Word Count: 1614 words

When you walked in on your (ex) boyfriend Jason Lannister cheating on you with Cassie Baratheon last night, you didn’t think things could get worse. What could be worse than seeing your boyfriend balls deep in another girl? Well, you find out that things can get much much worse.

As soon as you enter the campus cafeteria and approach your friends, you know something is wrong. The four girls are all huddled together over the table in a heated discussion, and when they take notice of your form near them the air becomes thick with discomfort.

“Hey,” you say plopping down beside Helaena. The silence is palpable as all the girls give you a pitying and worried glance. You can feel your heart drop and your anxiety spike at their reaction, “What’s wrong?”

You see Sara bite her lip for a moment before she speaks, “Jason and Cas are official on socials.” You frown, “Seriously? Already? It hasn’t even been a full day.”

Baela sighs for a moment before picking up where Sara left off. “That’s not all though,” she says, “Jason got called out for everything, and, to put it simply, he started telling everyone that he dumped you because you’re a shitty lay.”

Your jaw drops, “I’m sorry. What?”

“Seven hells Bael, way to put it gently,” Rhaena says sternly. But Baela simply shrugs off her comment. “When Jason and Cas started posting each other everyone asked him what the hell happened,” Rhaena says, “He started getting defensive and not so subtly implied that the reason he broke up with you and cheated on you is because you didn’t…satisfy him.”

“Oh gods,” you exclaim as you drop your head into your arms. You feel like you could die of embarrassment. Helaena rubs your back gently attempting to soothe you as best as she can, “It’s ok Y/N. It’s really not that bad. You’re just too close to the situation.” Every the sweetheart Helaena is trying desperately to salvage your feelings and soften the blows of the news you’ve heard. But this time she’s desperately wrong. Your heart has been shattered, your trust broken, and now your reputation has been completely tarnished.

You lift your head and give Helaena a weak smile in return before facing the other three girls again, “How many people know?”

“Well, Jace and Creagan both know,” Sara says.

“And all of Cas’s friends, plus their boyfriends,” Baela adds on.

“Great so…everyone I know, you guys know, and Jason knows thinks I’m bad at sex. Wonderful,” you stand up and grab your belongings quickly, “I’m going to go to the library a bit before classes. I need a moment to myself.” All four girls nod at you and shoot you apologetic smiles as you turn away quickly. You need to get away from everyone now because you can’t bare to face everyone. They’re all pitying you or judging you and you hate it.

‘Seven Hells, things really can’t get worse’ you think.

Aegon is having a pretty shitty day as well. When he took Valyrian History he thought it would be a breeze. That’s his culture after all. And when he heard that attendance wasn’t mandatory for the class on the first day, he did not return. As far as he was concerned this was a fluff class that he could easily pass by winging it, giving him the time to have fun and focus on…better things.

And now, the consequences are biting him in the ass. He’s still in shock as he stares at the 45% on the top of his essay. It turns out that this class and professor were not easy at all, and Aegon’s passive approach has led to him essentially flunking the class.

“C’mon prof, there’s gotta be something I can do to fix this,” he says pleadingly. The professor looks up at him completely unimpressed as she continues to clean up her work space, “I’ve already told you Mr. Targaryen, there’s no way to change your grade. Your best chance is to improve your performance on any future assignments and exams.”

Aegon groans in frustration. At this point he’s months behind in material and has no idea where to begin. “Might I suggest,” the professor says, “seeking extra help from one of your peers?”

Aegon sighs before nodding his head in defeat. “Yeah, sure. Ok,” he says before shuffling out the door. He doesn’t know anyone in this class due to the whole not attending lectures thing. So, he shoots his sister a quick text asking if she knows anyone in Valyrian History, and her reply comes a few moments later, ‘I’m pretty sure Y/N takes that class. Why?’

Aegon deflates. Of course you’re the only one that can help him. ‘Any idea where I can find her? I need to ask for her help with something,’ he texts back.

‘She should be in the library, but I’d leave her alone right now. She’s not in a great mood.’

Aegon reads the text but shrugs it off. As far as he’s concerned, you’re almost never happy around him anyway so not much will change.

He makes his way to the huge library on campus, and as soon as he enters he scans for your form. He sees you tucked away in a corner reading a book.

The frown on your face is evident even from afar, but even then, he can’t help but think about how pretty you are. It really is a shame that you’re such a stick in the mud and seem to dislike him so much, he’s always thought you were smoking hot and he’d have a good time with you. If only you’d drop your icy walls when he’s around, he bets you’d be extra fun.

He makes his way to you and casually drops into the chair beside you. He throws his arm around the back of your seat before leaning in. “Hey, hot stuff,” he says with his signature smirk, and you audibly groan.

“Go away, Aegon.”

His smirk doesn’t falter even for a second before he continues, “Wow, five seconds. That must be a new record for you, love.”

You shut your book in annoyance before turning to him, you look pissed. More than usual. “What do you want?” You say dully.

“I need you to tutor me in Valyrian history.”

“No.”

“Why not?” He asks, clearly upset with your quick and blunt response.

“Because I’m dealing with a lot right now, and I really don’t want to deal with your shit too.”

Aegon frowns and furrows his brow. He really needs your help if he wants even the slightest chance at passing this course. “Please Y/N. I really need your help. I’ll do anything. Name your price.”

You’re silent for a moment. You’ve got so much going on now. What could possibly make spending time teaching Aegon remotely worthwhile? And then the idea pops into your mind. A terrible idea that can lead to no good. But it feels so perfect.

“Anything?” You ask. There’s a hint of mischief in your eyes now, and Aegon falters in his decision for a moment before doubling down, “Yeah. Anything.”

“Ok. I’ll help you,” Aegon smiles in relief for a moment, “But it’s gonna cost you.”

“How much money are we talking?” He asks.

“I don’t want your money.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

You bite your lip. There’s no good way to say this so you just come right out with it. “In exchange for me helping you pass, I want you to pretend we’re sleeping together.”

Aegon is shocked. You’ve always been a bit of a prude around him so hearing you talk so forwardly is beyond weird though not unwelcome, “Why do you want me to pretend we’re fucking? Aren’t you dating Lannister?”

You drop your gaze away from his. “We broke up,” you say matter-of-factly, “I caught him cheating on me yesterday with Cas Baratheon.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. And to make matters worse. He decided to go around and say that we broke up because I’m bad at sex.”

Aegon has no idea what to say to that, and he’s not sure anything he could say would even help, so he chooses to move on from the topic.

“So you want to pretend we’re dating to get back at your ex for cheating and lying about you?”

“No. Not date. Just pretend we’re having sex.”

Aegon looks at you quizzically, “What’s the difference?” You can’t help but scoff at the question. Of course notorious fuckboy, Aegon Targaryen can’t tell the difference between fucking and dating.

“I don’t want to fake date you because you can’t keep it in your pants,” you say dryly, “You’ll end up sleeping with some other girl, and then I’ll look like the idiot who got cheated on twice in a row. If we’re just sleeping together then I don’t look like a fool.”

Aegon nods, “Ok…so you want me to pretend we’re fucking to make Jason jealous?”

“Basically. I also want you to tell people it’s good”

“Why?”

“Because if the infamous, handsome fuckboy, Aegon Targaryen says that sex with me is good, then nobody will believe what Jason said is true.”

A wolfish grin takes over Aegon’s face, “You think I’m handsome?” You groan and lightly hit him with your elbow. “Shut up. Do we have a deal?” You ask outstretching your hand.

“We have a deal,” he says, but then he leans over to whisper in your ear, “I’ll see you tomorrow, fuck buddy.” He gets up to leave throwing you a wink before making his way out of the library.

What have you gotten yourself into?

Part 2

Tag List: @mysingularitybts

INVISIBLE STRING — Modern!AU

GENERAL MASTERLIST > HERE

STATUS: On going.ㅤLAST UPDATE: May 8th.

PAIRING: Aegon II Targaryen x Fem!Reader.

SUMMARY: A disastrous break up led you to them; three guys living in a huge apartment and in need of a new roommate who helped with the way too expensive rent.

TAGS: strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, slow burn, mutual pining, slight angst, miscommunication, modern!hotd au, new girl!au, roommates to lovers, side pair baela x aemond, cregan stark x reader.

Chapter 1 — Lavender Haze

SUMMARY: After an exhausting search, you finally seemed to find the perfect apartment, though you didn't expect to find three handsome guys living in it. TW/TAGS: mentions of cheating, cursing, mentions of sex(?.

Chapter 2 — Begin Again

SUMMARY: You found yourself unable to move one from the grieving of your break up, and your roommates try to cheer you up with a night out. TAGS/TW: tiny bit of angst, mentions of violence/blood, mentions of cheating, cursing, platonic relationships, alcohol consumption.

Chapter 3 — Bejeweled

SUMMARY: You listened to Aegon, and you decided to give another try to dating and flings, though things, once again, don't go as planned. TAGS/TW: make out sessions with some inappropriate touching, anxiety(?, mentions of sex, robbery(?, alcohol consumption, mentions of drugs.

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

IRIDESCENT LOVE

From a fated meeting to a life filled with wonders, the path of discovery is much, much harder than what I had prepared myself for.

Especially when my identity, the only one I knew of ends up being a total lie

CHAPTERS: INFO , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , ...

BTS X READER

ALPHA/BETA/OMEGA AU

M/F , MULTI

RATED M

Find my masterlist here

The Innocence of Brutality Pt.1 [Legolas/F!Reader]

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PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6

A.N: I’ve been working a lot on FATE (my long fic…you should check it out) so I haven’t been posting many one-shots. BUT FINALLY….here you go! It’s a bit different from my usual one-shots but hey I figured I may as well give it a go. This will have many parts depending on how much traction it gets  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Request: none

Pairing: Legolas X Reader

Summary: The Reader is Rámaitë Mahtar, a warrior spirit race, and she meets the fellowship on their quest to destroy the ring. 

Disclaimer: Any mythology relating to the Rámaitë Mahtar is not canon as I made up Rámaitë Mahtar. Also, all elvish was translated from a translator site—it may not be accurate.

Word count: ~8k (yes I went overboard)

Warnings: nudity (not sex), mentions of war, mentions of torture, violence, fluff

MASTERLIST | AO3 | WATTPAD

The sky had been getting darker and darker as the hours went by, the sun slipping into a restless dream as a storm brewed. Clouds hung deep and gray high above the fellowship while claps of thunder neared them. It was a grumbling and crackling battle of light and dark. With every booming sound, the menacing void loomed closer and closer, electrifying the air with anxiety. It was casting above them at a rapid rate—a rate at which they could not outrun.

Keep reading

New people in town | Prologue

Post-outbreak!Joel Miller x Ex-lover!Fem!Reader, OC!Daughter!May Miller x Mom!Reader, OC!Daughter!May Miller x Dad!Joel Miller (future), Ellie Williams x Platonic!Fem!Reader (future), Ellie Williams x Platonic!OC!May Miller (future)

Chapter I

Summary: May discovers how the new man in town, who was accompanied by a teenage girl, and her mother were closely and intimately related once, and how almost two decades after they last saw each other, their reunion could possibly turn their worlds upside down.

Warning: swear words, mentions of death, violence and sex, possible smut in the future, mentions of possible SA, angst, etc.

A/N: This idea came to me because of a dream I had during my nap. I'm not sure if I'll write about it, if so it would be a one-shot or possible mini-series. Who knows.

Tag list: Open!

Feedback is very much appreciated ❤️

"Hey, mama!" A young woman with curly brown hair said coming through the door. The young adult was 18 years old, tall and slightly tanned. She had a beautiful, radiant smile, which made her nose, identical to her mother's, wrinkle slightly. But undoubtedly her most distinctive features were her huge chocolate eyes and the freckles that adorned her cheeks and nose - a trait her own mother did not know from whom she had inherited them.

"Mi amor, what's wrong?" Her mother, a woman no more than 43 years old, replied as she looked at her daughter curiously. "How did your first expedition out of Jackson go? Did you do what we agreed, May?" she asked, arching an eyebrow and crossing her arms, waiting for an answer.

"Always do what Aunt Maria says. Yes, mama." The young woman said as she leaned against the kitchen counter, and watched intently as her mother prepared the evening's dinner, for them and Maria and Tommy. "It was quite unexpected what happened today. You see, a man and his daughter, whom we found near the river of death, was asking for Uncle Tommy."

"He'll be an old friend of his, anyway. You know, from when he was with the Fireflies." The mother said to her daughter as she opened the oven door, then picked up the large tray she was going to put in the oven.

"No, not exactly. That man was looking for his brother, Uncle Tommy."

CLANK!

Once the tray made contact with the floor, silence reigned in the kitchen for a few seconds. The young girl approached her mother, concern and nervousness flooding her face.

"Mama, are you okay?" the chocolate-eyed girl asked. "Mommy, do you know that man? Do you know who he is?" May asked in a whisper, as she stroked her mother's back.

She could only nod awkwardly and slowly, as she was unable to look her daughter in the eyes. She swallowed and went to one of the kitchen stools, where she sat down and hid her face in her hands.

“Babygirl…” She sighed regretfully, before opening her eyes and pushing her hair behind her ears. "Yes, I know him -- Well, I knew him. That was a lifetime ago, my love. But that was before you were born."

"Did he know... my father? Or may he know what has become of him?"

The woman looked at her daughter, and took a hand to the stool beside her, inviting her beloved daughter, the thing she loved most in this broken world, to take her place beside her. "May. You should sit down, sweetheart, I think it's time I told you about him. It's time I told you about your real father — Joel Miller."

The young girl knew that the time had come and that she had to hold on tight, she knew that there were curves coming, and that what her mother was about to tell her was very possibly going to rock her world.

Maybe for better, maybe for worse.

┌──~❀*̥˚───~❀*̥˚─┐

ＭＡＳＴＥＲＬＩＳＴ

└───~❀*̥˚───~❀*̥˚┘

* indicates +18 content

Ｔｈｅ Ｐｌａｙｌｉｓｔｓ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♩ ♪ ♫

Constantly adding songs that I currently like and help me to imagine I’m dating any of Paul’s characters🧚🏻‍♀️

Constantly adding songs that I currently like and help me to imagine I’m dating any of Pedro’s characters🧞‍♀️

pov: You’re the hot and cool girl of Hawkins, (a mix of Max and Nancy) who caught Eddie Munson’s eye💌🫀🍄🛼🪄

We’re 10 years apart, he loves dolphins and I think they’re evil, no matter what… I think Joseph Quinn is my soulmate <3

______________________

Ｐａｕｌ Ｄａｎｏ ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｓ

-ˋˏ [𝘌𝘥𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘕𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘵𝘰𝘯] ˎ

✿ The ballerina & the serial killer (series)

Part 1

Part 2

Midnight Rehearsals*

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

…

✿ Slasher

-ˋˏ [ 𝘛𝘪𝘮 𝘒𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘻 ] ˎˊ

✿ Myself

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

✿ Summer with Klitz (not part of Myself series)

-ˋˏ [𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯 𝘞𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘍𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘴] ˎˊ

✿ Ocean Tears

-ˋˏ [𝘌𝘭𝘪 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺 ] ˎˊ

✿I hate you (but I love you)

I hate you (but I love you)

I hate you (but I love you) 2 *

-ˋˏ [𝘑𝘢𝘺 ] ˎˊ

✿ Priorities

✿ Penguins!

─── ─── ─── ─── ─── ─── ───

-ˋˏ [𝘌𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘔𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘯] ˎˊ

✿The Pumpkin series

1 Pumpkin Slayer

2 Late Night Talking

3 The idea of him

4 Postpone the future

5 The most amazing woman

6 Danger, It’s hot!*

7 Parallelism

✿Torment

Part 1

Part 2

✿ Fuck it

Part 1

Part 2

___

(Single reads)

✿Red ridding hood running from the

dungeon master wolf

✿That song

✿Team

✿Hold my body. Can you feel it?

✿Tenderness*

✿Lover’s Assembly

─── ─── ─── ─── ─── ─── ───

P e d r o P a s c a l c h a r a c t e r s

-ˋˏ [Javier Peña] ˎˊ

✿ Love Me Not

-ˋˏ [ Din Djarin ] ˎˊ

…The princess who sinned

-ˋˏ [Maxwell Lord] ˎˊ

…

-ˋˏ [Joel Miller] ˎˊ

-Pre-outbreak-

✿ Lucky

✿ Once upon a dream* (Lucky p.2)

-

✿Make a wish

-post-outbreak-

(series)

✿Fallacy: Reject me, I get it

Mine - Chapter 1

Story Summary: Joel Miller finds a woman in Jackson that is head over heels for him, but the trauma from his loss and past puts him in jeopardy of losing the one person he’s close to when he’s unable to show her the kind of love and affection she craves. Will he be able to change his ways or will he lose out to the charming newbie Negan in town? 

Characters: Joel Miller (The Last of Us), Negan (The Walking Dead), the reader (OC, third person), etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45115177/chapters/113491984

Warnings: Swearing, smut, angst, etc.

Notes: I decided to do another cross over story with The Last of Us and The Walking Dead. This is based off The Last of Us universe and I’m starting this story before we actually get to see Jackson, so some of this is going based off the game a bit as well. I know this is different for me, but for some reason my brain was eager to write it. Y/N means your name or whatever name you want to use. This first chapter heavily focuses on Joel and Y/N’s relationship. Gif Credits: @tomshiddles & @jdmorganz​

Keep reading

THE LAST OF US (HBO SERIES)

+18 MINORS DNI !

blue jeans n’ Texas dreams

(Pre! Outbreak Joel x horseback riding instructor f!reader)

Summary/Blurb:

Blue Jeans Playlist

Joel Miller

Sarah Miller

Tommy Miller

Reader (nickname is clover/clove)

Part 1 (out now)

Part 2 (out now)

Part 3 (out now)

Not A Survivalist Girl

(Written by @tightjeansjavi & @chaotic-mystery)

(Coming soon)

(Joel Miller x f!reader)

Burning in a Hopeless Dream

(TLOU Joel Miller x f!o/c)

Joel Miller x Reader Playlist

(Ongoing)

Joel Miller

Tommy Miller

Tess Servopoulos

Ellie Williams

o/c : Gwen Brooks

One shots/blurbs :

Love me Tender

Feeling more human **sexual content**

Tongue Tied **sexual content**

Like Real People Do

Sing me a Lullaby Darlin’ **angst**

Who Do You Belong To Mr. Miller?**sexual content**

Burning in a Hopeless Dream Chapters :

Boston QZ part 1 (out now)

Boston QZ part 2 (out now)

Boston QZ part 3 (out now) **sexual content**

Boston QZ part 4 (out now)

Boston QZ part 5 ‘Long Long Time’ (out now)

Boston QZ part 6 ‘hoax’ (out now)

Boston QZ part 7 ‘illicit affairs’ (out now)

Boston QZ part 8 ‘Dust to Dust’ (out now)

Boston QZ part 9 ‘Rescue’ (out now) **graphic depictions of violence**

Boston QZ part 10 ‘Safe & Sound’ (out now) **sexual content**

Boston QZ Part 11 ‘NFWMB’ (out now) **sexual content & graphic depictions of violence**

Boston QZ Part 12 ‘Hearts Don’t Break Around Here’ (out now)

Boston QZ Part 13 “l can’t breathe”(out now)

Boston QZ Part 14 “Chest infect me, waste my days” (out now)

The Name Game

George Luz - Band of Brothers

Y’all requested some George fluff after that soul-crushing, heart-devouring angst I posted yesterday so here we are, some wholesome fluff with Easy Company’s cutest radioman. 

Tag List: @warmommy @gottapenny @croatianbagudna @wexhappyxfew @scissorsfordoc @curraheev @mayhem24-7forever @one-who-hunts-eagles @bandofmarvels @i-am-a-lost-girl16 @wildwilliamguarnere @majwinters @theonetryingtolive @higgles123 @those-dusty-jump-wings @medievalfangirl @maiden-of-gondor @whoabrekker @thefricklefracklesin @junojelli

“Psst, you awake?”

Keeping your eyes shut, you contemplated whether or not you actually wanted to answer that question. On one hand, if you kept quiet, maybe you could drift back to sleep and catch a few more hours of rest, but on the other hand, you knew it was George based on his voice and the fact that he had a hand gently resting on your leg, and you always enjoyed your evening talks with him.

Exhaling sharply, you snuggled closer to his side and shook your head. “No.” you answered, earning an airy chuckle from him.

“I didn’t know you could talk in your sleep. That’s pretty impressive.” he dipped his head down ever-so-slightly and pressed his lips to yours lightly. “Can you kiss in your sleep too?”

You cracked a small smile as he kissed you again. “Yes.” you finally opened your eyes. “I’m very talented.”

“I’ll say.” he kept his voice low so as to not wake the snoring soldiers around the two of you. “I have a question for you.”

“It better be something important for you to disturb my slumber,” you warned jokingly.

George only shrugged. “What if I just wanted to talk to you?”

“Do you just want to talk to me?”

“Kind of, but I mainly wanted to ask you a question.”

Keep reading

Never Let Me Down Again - Joel Miller x Reader (Part One)

While searching cross-country for his brother, Joel stumbles across Ellie and you, her older sister. Persuaded into letting you two tag along, Joel is reminded that there are some good things left in the world.

A/N: This is a non-canon (timeline is fucked with), highly indulgent story. Based on Pedro Pascal's excellent daddyness in the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us. Also, I'm from the South so I get to make fun of it and beautify it.

One / Two / Two & A Half / Three / Four / Five

AO3 Link♥

RATING: Mature - sexual pining, cursing, gore, canon-typical violence, blood, death of an animal (rabbit).

TAGS: Age Gap (reader is mid-twenties, Joel is mid-forties), Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Angst, Fluff, EVENTUAL SMUT, Happy Ending.

WC: 10.5k

Before the world ended, many a weekend had been spent sleeping under the stars, smelling the heated smoke of a campfire, and listening to your father tell stories of his wild childhood.

But now, in this diseased world, the quiet woodlands around you feel more like victorious kingdoms. 

Eight years ago, nature began a war, successfully colonizing mankind. Neither cities nor the country were safe, but at least the wilderness was fairer: a chance at freedom controlled only by fate and capability. 

You’ve grown to like this area, as far as you can like anywhere that isn’t fortified and full of supplies and weapons. Determining which QZs or communities weren’t run by a violent government or another type of evil had been too risky. You had her to think about. 

The scope of your rifle trains on a furry patch of gray and tan. The rabbit's fluffy head snaps up, preternaturally aware of the danger. As you breathe into the squeeze of the trigger, a bronze shape shifts into your field of vision. You relax your finger and adjust the scope to identify the intrusion.

A man. His hair is downy, a mixture of mahogany and gray, similar to your previous, smaller target. He, too, has a gun pointed at the doomed rabbit. He seems to feel the attention of your firearm as his gaze pinpoints you.

The man has guarded eyes the color of coffee. With a powerful build only broadened by his thick tawny jacket, he's imposing. But his unkempt hair, full lips, and strong jaw tug at your sensibilities.

You recognize the look of hunger on his face; the memory of that feeling ghosts through your gut in empathy. Your weapon lowers, and you tip your head toward the animal, signaling to the stranger.

The man returns your gesture in gratitude and fires. You back away, gun still at the ready, as he advances to retrieve his dinner. Being nice didn't mean that you had to let your guard down.

       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"You bitches," the elderly woman shrieks. "Where's our fuckin' eggs?"

Your hands point skyward as you stare down a shotgun. It’s an antique double barrel. Your grandfather had one like it. You wonder where it is now.

Lightning fast, you kick out to the left, hooking Ellie’s leg, indicating she should get behind you.

"No, ma’am. We didn't take any of your eggs. We came up here to ask you honestly for some." You try to explain, backing up a step. Ellie’s hands are tense on your back, ready for whatever you tell her to do.

The small farm sits in a holler near the base of a mountain; a half day's walk from your failed rabbit hunt. It wasn’t much anymore - the barn had long ago fallen to splinters and the pens contained no livestock.

However, a handful of chickens cluck around in the front yard. Neither you nor Ellie could believe the sound as you approached the old, single-story farmhouse.

Your excitement quickly dissipated. Sickles, rusted farm equipment, and bleached bones you hadn't the time to identify were strung around the front porch. Mason jars filled with suspiciously-colored liquids lined the railings.

"Bullshit. We ain't seen not a single livin' person outside of us in years, and my eggs go missin' the same day you selfish brats appear? Pfft." 

What remains of the woman’s stringy hair flies about as she spits in the dirt. It was hard to believe she’s had a roof over her head all this time. Her once-white nightgown is splotchy and torn. The shotgun is too heavy for her, shaking in her frail arms.

“‘We?’ Ten bucks says she's living with a dead body," Ellie quips under her breath.

"John, get out here!" The woman calls over her shoulder.

"Lady, seriously, we'll just move on," you try again.

"JOHN!"

The silence of the woods had been disturbed by the woman’s accusations and was now replaced by the intimidating thumping and squeaking of a large man's footsteps on bowed, rotten wood.

A bear of a man, roughly mid-fifties (though it was hard to tell through the beard trailing to his chest and the ball cap on his head), stands in the doorway. In his right hand gleams a hammer.

"We like to save bullets," the old bitch sneers.

"Listen to me, lady, we did not take anything from you!" 

John steps slowly off the porch, his eyes trained on you. It was almost ridiculous. Did these people really think you would stand there while a man beat you to death with a hammer? You'd take a shotgun blast over that.

The problem was Ellie. The gun was a double-barreled shotgun which meant the woman only had two shells. If you could get her to fire and miss twice, both of you would have time to run. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Under the cover of a pine tree, Joel Miller squats, watching the scene unfold. With three eggs in his hand, he feels mildly bad about you being blamed for their disappearance. Especially since he recognizes you as the girl who gave up a rabbit for him. 

Joel hears the woman call you thieves and shakes his head. Honestly, the old woman should be on-her-knees-grateful he didn’t take a whole fuckin' chicken. As he watches, he notices that she can barely hold the shotgun. 

They’ll be fine. 

His knees crack as he straightens and turns to leave, but then the shrieking echo of her calling for a man makes him pause. Joel didn’t like the odds so much anymore. He sees the look on the gun-wielding granny’s face and concludes that something far worse than justice for egg theft had fermented in these hillbillies' minds.

Joel's sharp eyes examine you. He can see the gears turning in your head, the plan forming in your mind. Gut feelings and snap judgments were important when they were the difference between life and death. Joel had become adept at both. Joel’s snap judgment was that you were capable. Smart. He figured you probably would be okay without his help, but his conscience grabs hold of him. 

He owed you.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"A’right," a man's low, smooth voice commands. "No need for all this."

Fear drops a weight in your stomach. The voice came from behind you and you don't dare turn. Now you’re outnumbered. And if this man also has a gun, it’s truly game over.

You swallow down the crushing dread, trying not to cry. Guilt and desperation stab at you over your failure to protect your sister.

But as you look at the homeowners' faces, you're confused. John’s lip is curled into a snarl, and his mother shakily moves the gun back and forth between you and the newcomer.

You decide it's worth the risk. You rotate, and from your peripheral, you somehow recognize the figure stepping out from the twilit woods.

How is that possible? Everyone you've ever known - or even heard of - is dead.

"Put it down," the man's southern accent is clear. 

You try to place it subconsciously. The Carolinas? No, his accent is too soft on the vowels. Georgia, maybe?

Slowly, the old woman hunches over the gun as if to set it down, but instead pulls the trigger in the direction of the mystery man. The recoil sends her stumbling. The sound explodes in the clearing, conjoined by the concussion of the newcomer's firearm discharging. The shotgun clatters to the ground, along with the old woman. Blood pools in the grass around her head. 

John roars and charges the man who killed his mother. Dropping your arms, you cage Ellie behind you. John races past, single-minded.

Your savior calmly stands several yards away with a rifle in his hands. To your utter shock, it’s the man from your earlier rabbit hunt. 

How the fuck? 

He’s as unmoving as the surrounding mountains despite Big John barreling down on him. The man from the woods fires one shot. John drops to the ground with a sickening thud and a winded moan. Shot in the gut, he has a few moments to live.

"How're y'all keepin' chickens alive out here for eight years?"

"Fuck you, boy," John chokes up blood, sputtering. Then his breath rattles once, twice, and stops.

The scruffy stranger reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tan egg. "Haven’t had an egg in..." He retreats from that memory.

You snort good-naturedly, "Well, I was going to say ‘Nice to see you again,’ but that dampens my gratitude."

“Owed you for the rabbit, too” he explains. 

"What's he mean by that? What rabbit?" Ellie inputs.

You ignore her and laugh. “Why didn’t you take a whole chicken?” 

“What’m I gonna do with a live chicken?”

“Eat it.”

“Well, that wouldn’t have been very nice of me, would it?” He mutters, toeing John. “Sure would like to know how these idiots survived all this time without bein’ raided, though. This place isn’t that hidden. We both found it.” 

His suspicions were starting to sprout in you, too. “Maybe it wasn’t just those two. We should check the house. Might be good stuff in there.” But after the way this family looked and acted, you knew you were unlikely to find anything besides toads collected in jars.  

The brown-eyed man nods, "Yeah, guess so."

“What’s your name?” You inquire.

The man simply looks at you.

“So I can call if I need something.”

He sighs, hesitating.

“Joel,” he answers, his voice quick and deep. It suits him. Strong, fitting somehow. 

“Alright, Joel.” You give him your name. “Let’s get it over with - I’m getting the creeps out here, and I doubt it'll be better inside.” 

“Fuck me, I guess?” Ellie chimes in again now that a bit of trust has been established.

Joel looks at her, shocked, but addresses you: “She always talk like that?”

“Yeah, pretty much. You keep watch, El.” You point to the stump of a fallen tree. “Get comfy.”

The interior of the house is precisely what you expected. Dirt, decay, bugs, and stains cover every surface. Mold decorates several corners of the ceiling, and at least two walls have water damage, causing the old paint to swell and burst. The living room is cramped - a time capsule of trash litters the floor. You gleefully point out a crushed can of Vanilla Pepsi. 

“They released that like a month before it all went to shit,” you remember. “I loved that soda.” 

Your mind wanders, no longer seeing the house. Ellie was only six back then. You, just seventeen. You’d taken your younger sister out of school early. You’d bought that same soda and driven to a park, watching Ellie be a kid on the playground. 

How incredible the difference a few hours can make. It was painful to remember your parents, and you tried not to. When you left the house that morning, did you say goodbye properly? Did you hug your mom? It’s been too long to remember with certainty. 

An impatient voice slams you back into the present, “Can’t be cryin’ over trash all day.” 

You paw at a lonely tear with your sleeve. “You know damn well I wasn’t crying over trash.” 

He’s got his back to you as he leans to dig through a cabinet in the adjoining kitchen. In the center of the floor, an old rug makes a squelching noise when he steps on it.

“Can’t be cryin’ over that now, either,” he says with a glimmer of empathy, moving through the kitchen with a practiced sweep of his rifle. It reminds you that he, too, has a tragic backstory. Everyone does. 

You inhale deeply to collect yourself and regret it. You quickly pull the collar of your flannel over your nose. A sickly sweet smell permeates the place, as if the house itself were decomposing.

The floorboards, once a pretty oak, are black and squishy. The walls are yellow and the black-and-white photos framed down the hallway wall make the place seem even older than it is. This house is condemnable.

You sweep the other rooms, all of them in nearly unlivable conditions, and find nothing besides two equally disgusting beds. But it was strange. How were these people thriving? They must have friends. A compound nearby, a trader, some smuggling friends, someone.

You step out from the last bedroom and back into the long, yellow hallway. 

Joel stands in the living room, backlit by the open front door. He’s staring at a piece of paper in his hands like it’s a map to Atlantis. It might as well be.

“You good?” You ask as you advance on him, curious about his find. 

He looks up and his face, while unsmiling, is excited. “My brother’s on a damn beach.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In the east, the sun rises over the hill. You’re awoken by the bright heat on your cheeks and eyelids. To your left, among the trees, you can hear fabric rustling and buckles snapping together. Joel must be packing up his gear. He’d slept as far away from the two of you as he could after making your deal. 

In the dying light of the previous evening, you had offered to watch his back and help procure food if he’d let you tag along to his brother’s camp.

Joel had let slip that this brother of his was a “joiner; joins every ‘good’ cause he can find” and whatever he was up to typically meant his location was safer than most. After aimlessly wandering for the last several years, you figure a destination would be good for Ellie. 

Groggily, you sit up and unzip your sleeping bag. Ellie’s arm is thrown over her face, yet to awaken from the natural alarm clock. You groan as you stand, your back not as young as it once was. Catching his attention, Joel lifts his pack and stomps toward you - or, maybe he’s just a big guy and I’m not used to staring at a man when he walks, you think amusedly.

He clears the tree line and asserts, “Need to go. If you’re still comin’, we’re gonna be slow, an’ it’s already a ways.” 

You disagree, “We’re not gonna slow you down. We both made it to that place,” you wave at the chicken coop down the hill, “at the same time, buddy.” 

“Technically, I got there first,” he argues. 

You suck your teeth, unwilling to battle technicalities this early in the morning. You move over to your sister and gently shake her arm.

“I didn’t sleep at all,” she moans.

“Yeah, El, welcome to life. Get up.”

She glares up at you, huffing, and rises from her makeshift bed. 

Joel stands with his hands on his hips, watching impassively. From under the curtain of your hair, as you squat to roll your bag, you take stock of him.

The lines radiating from the corners of his eyes and across his forehead tell you that he’s older than you by at least a decade, probably two, but the wavy, graying hair, solid build, and confident demeanor only add to your interest. His pack looks bulky and burdensome, but he carries it on his shoulders as though it weighs nothing. He’s hardened but kind enough to have felt in your debt. His red, faded plaid shirt is snug across his torso and his biceps. His hands are strong and capable. 

As you study his hands, you notice he wears a watch. It looks old, its face cracked, but your brief once-over isn’t enough to be sure. That would be odd if so.

Why wear an old, broken watch?

Maybe it was broken recently and he hasn’t noticed. But Joel didn’t seem like the type of man who wouldn't notice something like that, nor would he keep items of no use to him. Your eyebrows furrow. 

Maybe it’s sentimental.

You absentmindedly touch your necklace and your heart aches for him. That makes more sense. You have no proof besides a quick character study of the man, but you’re sure he wears that thing for the same reason you wear yours. 

Joel's mind swells with impatience, nearly telling you that he’s leaving without you several times despite it taking you less than five minutes to pack. As he opens his mouth to speak his mind, you rise from your squatted position. 

Since you'd already been staring, you make eye contact with him. Your warm smile brands him. Joel blinks twice, his bad mood disarmed. He has no idea how long it's been since someone genuinely smiled at him.

“Uh,” Joel clears his throat, “Okay. We’re goin’ east.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It has been silent for several hours at this point. Hiking uphill was strenuous no matter the athletic ability, and talking was out of the question. Your head hangs as you focus on your two feet crunching upon the dead leaves and brambles. Dead twigs scratch at your boots. 

You might’ve been embarrassed about your lethargy if Joel hadn’t been worse. His legs actually stomp, determined to get where they're going. He had been ahead when you first started this morning, but now he was level with you. You couldn’t blame him. He was in excellent shape, but this was exhausting. 

“Wanna - take a break?” You push out the words between breaths. 

From under his hooded eyes, he throws a sidelong glance at you, unsure if you’re mocking him. He looks over his shoulder at Ellie. She throws him a thumbs-up. 

“She’s a baby. We’re not,” you tell him. 

He snorts and you want to believe his lip twitches. “What are you - twenty-two?” 

“No,” you answer. He snorts again in disbelief. You continue, “I haven’t been twenty-two in a while.” 

“It was, like, a few years ago,” Ellie interjects. Her face is amused. She knows.

“A few years is a long time out here. Especially on my poor back.” You glare at her.

Due to the incline of the earth, you plant your legs to keep yourself from tumbling down the hill. Joel follows suit, sitting down where he’d been standing. You take a swig from your canteen, the cold water almost painful to your parched throat.

Joel paces his breath. His heart begins to slow and his body relaxes before his peace is ended by Ellie.

“So, Joel, what’re you doing out here? So far from your home… of…?” 

Her arms are propped on her knees, her chin resting on her folded hands. It isn’t a polite question though she asks it with innocence. She's as curious about him and his accent as you are. 

It was rare to meet someone out here that wasn’t an automatic enemy, so Joel couldn’t blame your sister too much for asking. He’s still irritated by it. 

“I'm transporting cargo.”

“What cargo? Something cool?”

Joel motions between you and Ellie.

“No, dude, I mean where are you from and what were you doing before you ran into us.” She sounds exasperated.

“Nothin' for you to be worried about,” Joel answers with honesty and finality.

Ellie holds up her hands in surrender, “Hey, I was just curious. We’ve never met a man like you out here is all.” 

Joel wants to let that go in one ear and out the other, and he doesn’t comment on it, but internally he feels a spasm of some long-forgotten emotion. A man like him? A smuggler, a criminal, a murderer? Sure she has. 

             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A few, long days later, Ellie tries again.

"Georgia?" She quizzes. She gets no answer from the wall of Joel's back. She tries again:

"Florida?"

Joel snorts. "No." 

"Texas?" You finally guess.

Joel freezes his face to prevent giving anything away, but that's his biggest tell. Walking near him, you can see his mouth twitch, too.

"Ah. So, a cowboy," you say slyly. "The best kind of southerner." 

Joel scoffs, not wanting the praise. "Wasn't no cowboy."

"What'd you do? If you don't mind me asking."

"I do mind." He successfully shuts you up.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“I’ve always liked North Carolina,” you offer to no one in particular. 

It’s been five days of walking in this new triad. Joel sighs. You and your sister talk so much. He refuses to acknowledge the part of him that would 've enjoyed the banter.

As the three of you plod along, the wind picks up and the Carolina pines creak in response.

“You’ve never been here before,” Ellie accuses. 

All you can see is Joel’s broad back as the two of you follow him down the empty road, but he might’ve shaken his head at the petty argument. 

The freeways and interstates were impossible to walk down due to the number of cars, but these state back roads were almost pleasant. Few people had evacuated this way, but occasionally you'd pass a long-abandoned car.

“I know, stupid. I saw pictures.” You might be her guardian, but you’re still sisters. 

“Hey Joel, have you ever been here before?” Ellie goes over your head.

A single head shake. 

“Is the beach nice?” She continues.

Joel stops, half-turns, and looks over his shoulder. One eyebrow is raised as he deadpans, “You wan’ me to tell your fortune, too?”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “But you’re old. You were around before. Surely you know more than she does.” She jerks her thumb in your direction. 

Joel’s eyes flick to you, then he abruptly turns back around. He hoists his bag higher onto his shoulder and continues walking.

“I was basically an adult on outbreak day, Ellie.” You mouth at her: What the fuck are you doing? 

Why do you care? She mouths back, I think you like him.

She punctuates her statement by pointing at you, then his broad back. She curls her arms as if she were in a body-building competition. Your cheeks flush.

He - is - helping us! You wave your hands dramatically, semi-mocking her and instantly feeling less mature for the motion.

Oh, yeah, out of the goodness of his lil’ heart? She looks incredulous. 

Maybe! Your eyes widen, trying to convince her.

You could believe it. Sure, he had a rough exterior, and you doubted he’d be throwing his ass on the line for you again, but he was decent enough to give one or two shits.

Ellie belts one short laugh, easily mistaken for a cry of alarm which causes Joel to whirl around sharply. His large, dark eyes dart behind and to either side before he realizes you’d just been communicating between yourselves. He says nothing, his expression once again that of a disappointed parent.

“Sorry. Thought of a… great joke.” Ellie bites her cheek to quell the laughter in her throat. 

Your younger sister is a horrible liar. Ellie had been banned from all diplomatic jobs required for survival. If it required white lies, good lies, or bad lies, the job fell to you. 

Joel grimaces, “Well, keep it to yourself.”

Ellie salutes with her first two fingers; Joel turns away once more, only partly curious as to what you’d been talking about. It made him miss his brother. Made him miss laughing with his brother. The kid sure was a pain-in-the-ass right-fighter, but god, he loved him.

A few hours later, Ellie catches you admiring the fit of Joel’s jeans. In your defense, his red flannel had ridden up underneath his backpack like a velvet stage curtain. His brown leather belt lined the edge of his deeply-tanned skin. The colors look so warm - he looks so warm. It’s such a pathetic thought and you feel an insane desire to giggle. You clamp a hand over your mouth, and Ellie slaps you on the arm.

“You’re so obvious,” she whispers. “Are you okay?” She’s half-serious, half-mocking, but at the mention of it, you do a mental calculation and realize something. 

“No, I’m losing it. I’m gonna need to find some water. Been a couple of days,” you frown. 

Joel must've heard you because he stops and pulls out his map.

“Says there’s a creek running just south of us,” he leans against the first car (crashed and unusable, of course) you'd seen in nearly an hour. He nods toward the woods, tapping the map against his thigh. You grab Ellie by the hand, and trek in the direction he’d indicated. 

While you’re gone, Joel interrogates the map. How in the sweet fuck did he get this lucky? If he had to guess, he’d say that Tommy had either given those hillbillies this map in case they needed to find him (Tradin', maybe? Or to give them a place to retreat to?), or they had stolen the map from someone else who had it for the same reasons.

It didn’t matter, really; all Joel cares about is that Tommy’s name and handwriting had circled a spot near the coast. At least a ten-day walk, probably more; he sighs. 

Joel lifts his eyes to the moody sky. The breeze cools the sweaty, tan skin of his throat. Joel closes his eyes, allowing himself a moment of calm. 

Projected on his eyelids, he sees you lowering your gun amongst the trees, allowing him to have the rabbit. You’d been there first. Food wasn’t something people compromised on and yet… you’d had mercy on him. A stranger. 

His eyes fly open and he shakes his shoulders, unhappy about the squirming feeling inside him. 

Since he'd met you the second time, you’d talked more than he’d heard anyone speak in over a month. 

“Our parents used to take us into the woods and announce that we had to ‘Fend for ourselves.’ It was a fun exercise - at the time. We learned how to fish and hunt and gather berries or mushrooms or edible plants, and it was always this big adventure. We’d pile everything next to our campfire and my dad would say-”

“Eatin’ goooooood t’night!” Ellie finished the story in your father’s inflection, a tinge of sadness around the sound. You’d nudged her shoulder in camaraderie.

 Joel had yet to smile or talk about himself. The two of you asked enough questions, but he did his best to ignore them. He was completely confused as to your gaiety. 

You hadn’t lost as much of your social nature as you believed. Joel supposed having your sister by your side constantly would go far in preserving your pre-outbreak self. 

He’d been on his own too long. That was another reason he hadn’t denied your suggestion to follow him to the coast. The accompaniment of two unreasonably optimistic people caused him anxiety, but having experienced companions he could trust (and, inexplicably, he did feel that he could trust you) would always be invaluable. 

Joel had formed another snap judgment about you: you’re naive. He couldn’t understand how that was possible, though, and he almost felt guilty for even thinking it. You have survived with the added pressure of a dependant for eight years in this shit sandwich of a world. How could you have done that if you were naive? 

But his own eyes saw your willingness to give up food, your honesty in trying to ask for eggs, and now your blind trust in his guiding you three.

You needed an objective partner. He was willing to be such temporarily, and wherever Tommy was would be a safe place for you and your sister. 

You return a little while later clearly unhappy. Ellie, fighting a self-conscious smile, brings up the rear. She’d taunted you more about your infatuation with ‘your savior,’ as she’d called him. Which, of course, he wasn’t. Technically, he was the reason you’d gotten into trouble in the first place. 

You'd explained to Ellie that he was like a new toy. Different, interesting, and unthreatening. 

Well, sort of. 

You ring out the ends of your hair as Joel asks, tilting his chin up, “What happened?”

“Accidentally tipped her into the stream,” Ellie answers, patting your elbow apologetically. “I was just trying to nudge her as a joke but -”

“I slipped on the moss.” You finish for her. Since you were able to catch your fall, you hadn’t been soaked, but you had fallen on your knees and part of your hair had swung into the creek bed.

Joel lowers his eyebrows. You could’ve been hurt, or come down with pneumonia had you gotten your clothes wet. Spending winter nights in sleeping bags wasn’t the haven you wished and doing it wet may have killed you.

Joel eyes Ellie. Her cheek is twitching as if she’s nervously biting the inside of it, and her hands twist in her lap as she plunks down on the ground. 

She feels bad. Good. He was assessing a threat. If the kid was so wanton about causing problems, he’d re-evaluate this deal. But no: Just a kid actin’ like one. 

“Sun’ll be down in about an hour. Might as well set up shop here.”

“That's cool with me - it’s a nice view,” you can’t help but observe. And you’re right. The old state highway curves around and down a small, rolling mountain. Old farms divvy up the valley below like a patchwork quilt. 

Uncaring about the cliche, you’re struck by the sight. So many people spent their lives looking for a purpose. Thrills? Surviving? Power? You may be young, but you saw the answer every day, and you see it now. Your eyes drink in the blue ridges of the hazy mountains and the safe greenness that was alien to so many who sequestered in the QZs. 

Your head turns a fraction to see your sister stand and quirk her lips. Her hands land on her hips as she squints into the distance, thinking the same thing you had been. Beauty and love.

Your irritation is erased as if it had never been. Still smiling, you turn to Joel and ask, “Alright, you want to start the fire or set up the tent?”

Joel is staring at you. His face, so often canyoned by worry lines, was open to you now. Wide, coffee-colored eyes shine as he wonders who you are. How you could be so untroubled. 

But the look disappears the instant you register his curiosity. His brow drops and he grunts, “I’ll set up the tent.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The next morning, your vision is filled with a utilitarian-green canvas ceiling. This tent belonged to your parents. It was one of your prized possessions, only pitching it when necessary, or whenever safe enough.

Later, you would convince yourself your cold, wet hair had been what led you to whip out the tent that night, not the inherent security of Joel’s presence. He, of course, had remained outside the tent despite it being just big enough to squeeze the three of you. You wouldn’t have let him inside, anyway. Trusting a man only went so far when it concerned your baby sister.

A crackling sound licks your ears and you smell smoke. You fight your way out of your sleeping bag and unzip the tent.

Joel is tired. He’s wearing his heavy jacket in the chill of the morning, and the biting breeze tussles with his already windswept hair. His eyes meet yours and he thins his lips in greeting. His lackluster "good morning" notwithstanding, he looked simultaneously soft and rough - in your opinion, exactly how a man should. 

He looks so fucking good. Your stomach somersaults in response. Wonder if I’d be this easy if the world hadn’t died, you laugh at yourself.

"Caught another rabbit. Here,” Joel leans, plucking a small piece of cooked meat from a roasting stick. 

You stride over to him and take the hot food from his outstretched hand. Sitting down next to him, your warm fingers graze his cold ones. Joel leans back, retreating a short distance. 

“Mmm, been a while since I’ve had rabbit,” you nod your head in thanks and plop the bite into your mouth. It burns your tongue for a moment, but you let it, imagining that it’s heating your entire body. 

“Can’t say the same,” he replies, then can’t help but ask: “Why’d you do it?” 

It’s been gnawing at him ever since. Joel’s concluded that you’re a good person. Too good, in fact, and you had your sister to think about. How could you put him - a random man - over your reliant sister? You were a walking dichotomy. Happy when this world is unhappy, kind when this world is unkind, trusting but alive.

“You were hungry,” you answer simply, shrugging. Humanity is rare now, and therefore precious. 

That doesn’t satisfy him in the least. “And you weren’t? And…” he doesn’t want to use Ellie’s name, it feels too friendly. “Your sister?” 

This time you turn your face to look up at him. He’s so much taller, so much larger than you, even sitting down. His chin is licked by the orange glow of the flames. The sun has started to rise over the mountain ridge behind him, recoloring his jacket from brown to gold. 

Apocalypse or not, he's fucking hot. You had the answer to your earlier thought. Dwindled pool of men? Who cares when he looks like that?

“We had food. I’d found a few houses a couple of days before and we still had, like, two or three granola bars and some berries.” You turn your face away to the view beyond your encampment. 

Joel blinks twice in disbelief. A couple goddamn granola bars?

“You need to be a better guardian,” he reprimands you.

Your head snaps to him, a look of shocked anger coloring your face. “What?” 

Joel looks down toward the valley where your eyes had been peacefully resting a moment earlier. “You can’t think about other people when you have her to worry about.” 

“I’ve kept us alive for almost a fucking decade, Joel. I know what to do.” You sneer his name and stand. 

“Listen, I appreciated it. You backin’ off the bunny. But I’m just saying, that girl’s gotta be your priority. You have to be your priority.” 

Joel doesn't know why he cares. Or at least, he wants to pretend that he doesn't know. He clamps his lips shut. 

“Thanks for the advice,” you say acidly, “I’d love to see you raise a kid through this.” 

You watch as his jaw ticks, as he looks away at your words, but you’re too angry to analyze that at the moment. 

“Teaching her that we can still be good people is almost as important as surviving. I don’t need to justify myself to you, but I'll warn you, in case you think you can take advantage of us: I’ve killed for her. I have done awful, horrible things. Things I see at night when I try to sleep. Things you’d probably be proud of.”

A statement meant to hurt him.

“But you go ahead and judge me from your fucking high horse.” 

Joel’s eyes never meet yours, but they involuntarily trail after you as you disappear into the tent, zipping it shut with as much violence as possible.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Joel doesn’t apologize. Neither one of you speaks during the trudge down into the valley. The silence is broken only by the breathing and grunting of descending a steep hill. You glance back at your little sister and she grins at you. The answer to Joel’s question was so obvious. How could you sink into despair when you had her? You answer her grin.

“Oh, good, I thought maybe I snored too loud or something.” 

You laugh, “What?”

“You’re acting all,” she scrunches her eyebrows, “pissed. I haven’t seen you this mad since that guy in Philadelphia last year.” 

“That guy was twice my age and I was downright angelic to him,” you grimace. 

“You never told me what he said about me,” she pushes. 

You stop and look at her, certain that Joel had kept walking. That was fine with you. He could keep going.

“What that motherfucker said was so vile, I’m not going to dirty my mouth by repeating it.” 

“Dude... you stabbed him in the balls. I saw that. So violence is fine for me to see, but I don’t get to know the dirty joke that made you mad?” Ellie asks, genuinely curious. 

Joel’s sonorous voice answers from right behind you, “Violence is necessary. The only reason we’re all still here. As a kid… no, you shouldn’t have to get used to it, but that’s not an option anymore. Perverts, you don’t have to get used to - so you shouldn’t.” 

Your head turns sharply to look at him, taken by surprise. He backed you up. His explanation isn’t entirely articulate, but Ellie seems to understand. It’s also the longest he’s spoken to her. He catches your eye briefly, then continues down the road. Ellie grabs for your hand.

What’s going on?

She mouths, seeing too much for your liking.

Nothing.

Your eyes are wide, convincing, as you reply. You once read that liars tend to make too much eye contact, or none at all. Looks like you’re the former.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The ear-splitting crack of a firearm echoes through the sparse valley. Two dilapidated houses sit on either side: one next to the road and nearly destroyed by fire; the other, a pale blue, one-floor ranch style, sits on a steep incline slightly back from the road, and from its living room window comes the flash of a muzzle. 

There is no need to think. Your brain automatically identifies both the location of the shooter and your closest cover. Your hand clasps around Ellie’s wrist and you sprint to the right, up the burnt stone steps, and into the blackened house. 

Some timbers still stand, and some crumbling walls as well, but your goal is through what used to be the kitchen and down behind the back of the house’s foundation. As you skirt around a piece of drywall in the kitchen,  a bullet blasts into it, sending powder and small chunks into the air. 

A short scream escapes you in surprise, but you yank Ellie down the back steps and behind cover. Joel is there a heartbeat later, his weapon already in hand. He sits back against the concrete slab, his face alight with frustration.

“Damn,” you tell him like this is a minor inconvenience, though your heart is hammering like a carpenter. 

His eyes fall to the gun in your hand and a deep chasm appears between his eyebrows. No, you glance down, he wasn’t looking at your gun but at your arm. A red substance? Blood? 

Your head whips to your sister, but she’s looking at you with concern. Your head snaps back toward Joel. 

“I’m shot?” You ask breathlessly. Then - bless those adrenaline chemicals, they did their best - then, the pain waves over you, through you. Your arm burns as your nerve endings erupt. That piece of shit had shot you through the forearm. 

Joel examines the bloody mess, then his calloused hand rips a strip off his undershirt and loops it around your arm. You grind your teeth to bear the pain as he tightens the fabric, but darkness offers to take you away from it anyway. Joel ties it off and the darkness retreats.

The bullet’s path hadn’t gone through your arm but across it, cutting a gaping trench in your flesh. That’s good. No digging for gold necessary. The shots continue at a slower rate, intentionally keeping you three pinned down. 

“It’s not that bad,” Joel drops his head to steal your attention, his eyes intensely boring into yours. “Hey, listen. It’s not bad. Can you wiggle your fingers?”

You shake your head, eyes filling with tears before you even try, the pain so all-consuming. But your fingers curl when you command. 

“Guess so,” you groan.

“Right. Not that bad,” he cannot let you panic now. “You’re not a lefty, anyway. You can shoot?” 

Inhaling, you nod. Words were an unnecessary use of energy. His eyes continue pouring into your own for a moment, willing you strength.

“This is my valley!” A man’s booming voice announces. He sounds much closer than the seventy yards between the two houses. “We're not going to no concentration camps!”

Joel finally looks away from you and slowly raises his head over the edge of the concrete foundation. A tall man around Joel’s age stands in full view. Based on the man’s pronouncement, he doesn’t seem to have a complete grasp of reality. 

Joel thinks about answering. He thinks about telling the man that you three meant him no harm, that you were only passing through. Joel doesn’t feel like killing today. 

But then he looks down and his eyes snag on your face. He feels your pain, sees your terror, and it wrenches something loose in his chest. 

You’d done nothing wrong, you were innocent and this man just shot you. You could still die from an infection or blood loss. This man might’ve just killed you. Joel’s jaw sets so angrily that you hear his teeth grit. 

As his thoughts catch up with him, Joel’s rifle fires twice. One bullet tears through the shooter’s center of mass. Joel watches the man stumble, fall. If he strained his ears, he could probably hear the man’s last pained breaths. 

Instead, he stands and rushes through the burnt debris, taking shelter behind a small tree before deciding the shooter is alone. You call after him quietly, unhappy he went alone. He cautiously starts up the driveway. You groan in resolution as you force yourself to your feet. 

Heavily breathing, Joel kicks away the gun from the now-deceased man and busts through the ripped screen door. It’s incredibly dim, and the air is heavy. Bedsheets cover the windows and Joel’s eyes aren’t as young as they used to be. He notices the house is relatively clean. The baseboards are layered in dust, but there is a decent couch, blankets folded in a neat pile, and books neatly lined up on the shelf. Joel turns the corner to the hallway and, finding it clear, slowly treads down the carpeted path. 

The bathroom door creaks once as he pushes it open with his boot. A blue shag rug, gray walls, and a clean sink greet him, but his attention focuses on the medicine cabinet. He strides forward, his gun in one hand as he searches through the cabinet. 

Ibuprofen. Helpful.

Tums.

Nail clippers.

Saline solution. He snatches the clear bottle from its dusty place, a satisfied smirk.

Menstrual pads? Could be helpful if this fucker ain’t got a goddamn bandage. Er, maybe helpful anyway?

But then Joel sees the red cross. He picks up the white case, cracking it open just to check. Yep, bandages. You were going to need stitches, too. 

Needle an’ thread; he turns away from the cabinet.

“Joel?” You ask soberly, standing out of view beside the doorway. You didn’t want to startle him and have him shoot you, too. His stomach lurches at the tone of your voice. He chalks it up to you getting the drop on him. 

“Yeah. Y’alright?” His boots clomp to the doorway and he tilts his head down to see you in the gloom. 

“Did you check the whole house?” You’re staring at the last door on the right and Joel doesn’t wonder why. A notepad is strung up next to it, and a pen is taped to the wall. A list of times and dates is scrawled down the cover page, and instinctively you know that there are many pages similarly marked. 

“In the bathroom,” Joel indicates behind him with a commanding whisper.

“No, I’m here to cover you,” you look at him like he’s stupid. 

Course. The fuck’s wrong with me? Joel moves forward. 

You take a position diagonal to the door, your right hand directing your weapon while your left arm is cradled to your chest. You ignore the throbbing, biting pain as best you can, and what you can’t ignore, you hope sharpens your senses. 

Joel twists the knob and kicks the heavy, wood door open so violently that it nearly swings back on itself. His flashlight casts a ghostly white pall over the room. You see nothing but a dresser from your position, so you move forward, following Joel into the room. It’s a master bedroom. Spacious, dusty, cold. 

Tomb-like, you observe.

The body on the bed confirms your thought. Joel’s flashlight trains on the corpse, and it’s clear that it had been an infected woman. She’s been dead for several months, probably nearer years, as the fungus grows throughout the bedroom. You slowly back out of the room in horror. 

Your eyes catch on the paper hanging next to the door:

November 4th, 2009 - I couldn’t stay away. I’m not sure she’s gone.

November 5th, 2009 - I think she ate a little bit today. Fed her roast beef and mashed potatoes.

November 6th, 2009 - She smiled at me today. I’m so relieved.

On and on, this man had cataloged his descent into madness. Daily, he had been visiting his wife. Feeding her, hoping she’d heal from the infection and return to him. How had he not managed to get infected? Your stomach heaves. 

Joel appears and gently clutches the upper portion of your uninjured arm to haul you out of there. His fingers accidentally brush the side of your breast and Joel fights down the sick thrill he feels.

“C’mon.” 

He guides you to the front porch and sits you down on the steps. The body of the man next to your looks unbitten, uninfected. He must’ve kept her in that room alone until the infection killed her. 

The two of you take a moment to breathe in clean air. It’s quiet. The sun is hidden behind the clouds now which casts the valley in a gray shadow. Ellie pops her head up from across the road.

Standing over you, Joel can’t help but like the way you look up at him. His imagination takes him by surprise: your soft skin under his calloused hands, your legs hooked around his waist, and the way you might tell him his own name. 

Fuck, you’re as perverted as the guy she stabbed. Joel grumbles something unintelligible to you and heads back inside the house.

Ellie’s sneakers slap on the pavement as she runs up the driveway, “Oh, god, are you okay?”

You manage a smile, “Yeah. Don’t go in there, though. It was disgusting. Guy shat everywhere.”

“I mean your arm, dumbass.” 

“It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be,” you lie again. 

Joel, exiting the house with the medical supplies, hears your lies with satisfaction. Maybe his earlier words had been unnecessary. Ellie was lucky to have you.

“I need to get that wound cleaned out but it’s gonna hurt like hell,” he explains. “You sit behind her,” he suggests to your sister and she eagerly positions herself to support you. 

“This is helpful of you considering we’re just cargo,” Ellie mutters. 

Joel ignores her and addresses you, “’m serious, it’s gonna be a bitch.”

“You think I’m such a wimp,” you feign offense.

“No, I don’t,” Joel states, opening the bottle of saline. He unfastens the makeshift bandage made from his shirt and, without warning, pours some of the bottle’s contents onto your wound. 

A strangled howl escapes. You force your body to confront the pain, then try to accept it and lean into your sister. Your breathing is ragged. Ellie wraps an arm around your middle, comforting you with a squeeze. 

“’m gonna stitch you up now. You’re still losin’ blood. It’ll hurt.” His face drops to a thoughtful frown. “Might be better if you don’t fight it,” he advises, giving you permission to lose consciousness.

You clench your teeth in preparation. Your right hand grasps Ellie’s arm around your waist, and this time, Joel waits until you’re ready. You meet his dark eyes and nod. He carefully takes your elbow in his left hand. Then he pierces the needle through your skin. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The pain in your arm has subsided to a constant throb as your body restores itself. The wound was deep and would eventually leave a thick white scar. But for now, you keep it clean with the saline Joel had found. 

Four more days pass, and in that time Ellie wears Joel down even further. On the rare occasion when you three had traveled down a freeway, Ellie rescued a tattered book full of jokes and puns from a vacant car. 

Having known the girl her entire life, you’re not sure you’d ever seen her as happy as she was now. The first day she found it, she must’ve read four full pages aloud. 

Joel had put a stop to that. 

You’re grateful to Joel for his presence, but her happiness outweighs his opinion, so you encourage her. Was Joel amused or irritated? It was hard to tell. Sometimes you were certain that he always felt them together.

“Knock knock.” 

You oblige, “Who's there?"

“Amish.” 

“Amish who?”

“Really? You don't look like a shoe.”

That one earns a snort from you. “Not your best work, El.”

She dives back into the book, trying to get away with one more for the day, “Joel, your turn.”

“No.”

“I found the perfect one, I swear,” Ellie promises.

“No.”

“Knock knock.”

Joel swivels his head to glare at her. 

“C’mon, Joel,” she pleads. “Knock, knock.” He doesn’t budge.

“Who’s there?” You undermine the stoic man, smirking.

Ellie bites her lip to prevent her laughter, “Cargo!”

Joel makes a disbelieving scoff, “Wow.”

You snicker, enjoying Joel’s defeated face before you continue the joke: “Cargo who?” 

“No, car go ‘beep beep’.” Ellie delivers the lame punchline with gusto. 

Joel sets his hands on his hips and stares at the ground. He fights the tug of his cheek, then, in a moment that cements Joel in your heart, he shakes his head and huffs one, tiny laugh. 

"That was so fuckin' stupid."

“Ha!” Ellie whoops victoriously, a sound so pure that you start to laugh with her. “I told you.” 

Joel shakes his head more fervently. “I didn’t laugh. I snorted.”

“Same shit,” she retorts, still grinning.

“You get two of those a day, kid.” Joel holds up two fingers and resumes his path. 

          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Two weeks after meeting Joel, or, if you went by Ellie’s timeline, ten chapters in her book later, the sound of the ocean fills your ears. Crossing the flat farmland of the piedmont was the worst part of the journey as there had been no landmarks, no wind, and scarce game. 

Now, there's a breeze you’ve never felt before. Your senses are full of the smell of salt, the whooping call of the few remaining gulls, and the clouds flitting by as though they have places to be. Your and Ellie’s wonder at the coast was not lost on Joel. He, too, feels lighter for the soaring sensation of the oceanside.

Ellie sits on a bench outside of an old tattoo shop. Your eyes scan the storefronts along the abandoned beachside tourist trap. This wasn’t a huge area. Probably a spot that only the locals came to, which is why the souvenir shops looked like they’d dried up several years before the outbreak. 

Joel has the map fully unfolded on the hood of a car. His palms are flat on either side of the document as he hunches over it, fully engrossed in determining the exact location he was supposed to find; and while he’s distracted, you are on high alert. 

In the best-case scenario, there are decent people waiting for you. At worst, there were infected around. Either way, you needed to be looking out for other bipeds. 

To Joel’s consternation, you weren’t seeing anything except old blockades, boarded-up windows, and trash that had yet to decompose blowing down the ghostly street. 

“Think there’s any decent food leftover in those restaurants?” Ellie asks having never eaten seafood.

“That would be a no,” you chuckle. “Seafood doesn’t keep long. And it stinks.”

“It kinda stinks out here sometimes,” Ellie observes.

“That would be what they make seafood out of,” Joel pipes up for the first time since breakfast, unintentionally mimicking your words.

“That’s what fish smells like?” Ellie’s eyes bug out of her head. “People ate that?” 

“So, their camp, settlement, compound - whatever the fuck it is - is at the end of this town. ‘Bout two miles that way,” Joel tilts his head. 

“So, go east more?” You joke. “When do we get to see a different needle on the compass?”

Joel bites the inside of his cheek, refusing you the satisfaction of a smile. “When we split up, I guess.” 

Joel pretends not to notice when both of your faces steel shut at his words. Better to let you two live your life somewhere safe where someone decent will watch your backs. It’d be best for all of you. He turns back to his map, pushing the two of you from his mind; he stares at the circled location trying to decipher what his brother would be doing here. 

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

There’s nothing here. A day later, you’ve explored the length and breadth of the beachside town. There are no signs, no maintained fortifications, and no people. At one point there had been, though. Some walls had been erected between a few alleyways, creating a warren-like hideout. But they were empty. Joel had grown increasingly angry as the search went on. No one spoke. 

The discovery (or lack thereof) was disappointing for you and Ellie, but devastating to Joel; he went missing for most of the afternoon, returning just before sunset. Curiously, he seemed to be in a better mood.

After ensuring that no one had overlooked anything, you and Ellie follow Joel out onto the sand behind an ice cream shop. Ellie wouldn’t have mentioned it for a while to be mature, but she’d been dying to see the actual beach all day long. 

Joel sits on the soft, clean sand. A dune covered in beachgrass at his back, he relaxes. Clouds float by, and though it’s mostly sunny, the winter air is chilled further by the steady wind. Ellie continues out to the water, while you stand next to Joel. Thinking only of body heat, you lower yourself onto the sand as close to Joel as you dare.

“I’m sorry.” 

It feels inadequate. There are only a handful of reasons Joel’s brother wouldn’t be here and only one is hopeful.

“All this way. Two weeks of walkin’, and now I’m gonna have to go back out there,” Joel grumbles. 

Oh, okay. Optimism? He clearly wasn’t giving in to the idea that his brother could be dead, which relieves you. 

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find him. You’re the type of person who finds what he’s looking for,” you smile fondly at him. 

Joel’s heart spasms again. He wishes you’d stop smiling at him, and at the same time, he wishes you’d only ever smile at him. 

“Is our deal over?” He wonders. He hadn’t fulfilled his end yet, but the way you were talking made it seem like your partnership had ended.

“I’m not going to make you drag us cargo all over the United States.”

Joel smirks. “Technically, I ain't held up my end.”

“You and your technicalities. Technically,” you mock him, “I owe you. You’ve saved my ass twice now.”

“First time doesn’t count. I got you into that,” Joel actually laughs this time. It’s short and low, but you’re suddenly out of breath. His cheeks and eyes wrinkle when he grins, and he catches you staring. His grin fades.

A gust of icy wind blows by as you hide down in your thick flannel. You turn your attention from the captivating older man beside you to watch Ellie trying to skip rocks into the waves. She notices you and holds up both hands in a “What?” gesture. 

You shake your head and chuckle at her.

“She’s a good kid,” Joel agrees. 

Would this man ever cease to surprise you? He’s just spent two weeks walking and being tortured by Ellie’s joke book, with a single goal in mind - only to find the goalpost has moved; and he’s being friendly? 

“I’m pretty fond of her,” you reply. 

A lull in the conversation leads to a comfortable silence as you enjoy the sea air. 

Eventually, Joel speaks again. “’m sorry I said those things. It wasn’t my place.” Joel is turned away from you, looking out over the waves.

Though it’s been almost two weeks, you know which words he means. “I know I seem silly to you. Too frivolous and… optimistic, I guess, but I have and will always put her first.” 

Joel doesn’t reply. He’s tempted to deny your first and second statements, but he feels too exposed already. For fuck’s sake, he had been almost sad about the prospect of going your separate ways.

“Guess I’m easily pleased,” you muse.

“What?” Joel doesn’t know how to take that, but he knows the way he wants to take it.

“You know. The meaning of life and shit?” You wave your hand to indicate everything.

“Oh. Did you two plan this?”

“We - what?” 

“Ellie gave me a spiel earlier ‘bout how we need to find reasons to keep going or fightin’ or whatever the hell she said.” 

“She did?” you laugh. “I taught her well. I mean, what’s the point of this? Just surviving? Eating your next meal? Creating power-squabbling communities that end up getting people killed? Ration cards in the QZs? That sucks.”

Joel looks into the sand as if it has the answer. “I think most people lost their reasons a long time ago.” 

And you’re still staring at him as he checks his watch. His old, busted wristwatch that’s been telling only one time for eight years. 

“Yes, you’re right,” you agree, “but there are always other reasons. Sometimes it’s a bunch of small reasons combined with big ones, like the beauty of the earth and my sister for me. Or sunrises, or,” you indicate the waves rolling in front of you. “But there are always reasons. You find them if you look.” 

Taking more bravery than the first time you met an infected, you place your hand on Joel’s wrist, letting your thumb stroke once over his skin. He’s as warm as you hoped, and it makes you want to cry. You knew Joel’s coldness was a front. It’s his defense. 

Joel becomes a statue. It’s the first time you’ve touched him and his first thought is that he’s glad he took his jacket off. His second thought is that you should not feel so comfortable with him. You both needed to be able to separate without lingering emotion.

But, damn, this is like starin’ at the sun. Even when I look away I see her.

“Sorry.”

You remove your hand, not wanting to cause him distress.

“Ellie is right. People need reasons to continue fighting. Otherwise, you end up fighting for the wrong things, or giving up.”  

“You two are gonna love my brother - sound jus’ like him.” 

He earns another laugh from you. “Your brother sounds like a good guy.”

“He’s nothin’ like me,” Joel snorts good-naturedly.

“Well,” you murmur, “that’s not a point in his favor.” 

Joel hums in his chest. “Mm. It’s not?” 

Maybe lettin’ go once wouldn’t be so bad. She’s so... so - Joel realizes he’d leaned into you at some point. 

Your face bravely tilts up to study Joel’s reaction when you shyly shake your head. 

In disbelief, you watch as Joel’s eyes fall to your lips. Your heart pounds in your throat. His side is touching yours now and the contact radiates heat throughout your body. The world could end a second time and you wouldn’t notice. 

“I think it’s been too long since you’ve known a good man, because I sure ain't the standard,” Joel’s warning is coated in his thick accent. 

“I know a good man when I see one. That’s why I gave him my rabbit,” your voice is barely above a whisper, but Joel is so focused on you that he catches every inflection. 

“Hey, I’m hungry.” A teenager’s voice cuts the tension between you and Joel like a scythe. 

Both of you jump, heads jerking up to see Ellie standing much closer than you thought. 

“Um, I think Joel found some edible stuff from a general store.” You unwillingly turn back to him, “Is there enough to split? If not, I’ll take her foraging.” 

Joel’s looking out across the ocean again, refusing to meet your eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, there’s plenty.” 

Too close. Get a fuckin' grip. Joel watches you stand and walk Ellie back to the store you’d set camp in. He can’t help but watch as you walk away.

Wouldn’t be a one-time thing. I’d never leave. 

You think he’s a good man. Is it your naivety? Or do you mean that in spite of everything you can assume he’s done, he’s still capable of good?

Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. 

Joel rips himself away from his daydream and from his pocket, he pulls the piece of paper he found earlier. Written in the NATO phonetic alphabet leftover from Tommy’s military days, the note is directed at Joel. Tommy’s handwriting is cramped and terrible, and it makes Joel grin.

If, by some crazy chance you’re reading this, J, we left. Sorry. Got wind of a group in WY that’s doing some real good. Leaving this note as a long shot. Miss you, man. 

™

He had found it in the store Tommy knew Joel couldn’t pass up. It was a cramped music store featuring acoustic guitars in the window. The shop set back a little from the main thoroughfare which kept it mostly untouched. The note had been taped to a guitar just like the one Joel owned a decade ago. 

It’d been eight years since Joel had cried, and he wouldn’t now, either, but he felt a sting. Wyoming is a long fuckin’ way. He felt frustrated at having walked for two weeks in the wrong direction. A brief, petty thought to abandon his goal of finding his brother crossed his mind - but it was one born of exhaustion and anger. 

The map he carried was an East Coast map. He’d have to find a map of the country, but by his estimation, he was in for a two-month walk minimum. A list of supplies began scrolling in his head, and he itemized everything.

The southeast had been less plundered than the rest of the US, so it’d be worth it to scour the outdoor supply places. Grocery stores were all but ransacked instantly, so he’d be less inclined to check those unless one seemed particularly promising.

You and Ellie. He swallows. He hadn’t forgotten - just had been avoiding it. Should he ask? You always had the opportunity to part ways at any moment, but did he dare extend the offer? 

Two months of puns from the kid. Two months of sufferin’ them as cargo. He looks at his hands to distract himself from a smirk.

More mouths to feed. It’d be nice not to be alone. He pushes this thought away in search of one he can work with.

More eyes, more hands. The older sister’s smart. And brave. She doesn’t even complain about her arm. And the kid… Kid’s a flat-out liability but she’s got her own charm.

Joel quiets his mind and lists the pros and cons. He makes his decision.

Continue->

Red Right Hand// S.M x reader (1)

*previously called; she’s final girl material*

A/n: I have Scream brain worms. Sorry, not sorry

Summary: Y/n, the shiny new toy of Woodsboro. She's hot, smart, and has that innocent little act of her's perfected. Stu knows there's something more to her, more than just a pretty face. Or perhaps that's his obsession talking... either way, she's beginning to ask too many questions.

Content warning/s: Obsession, stalking, unhealthy relationships, eventual smut, talks of committing murder, actual murders. i mean it's a scream fanfiction idk what you want from me

word count: 2.2k

Next Part

February 1996 

He had noticed her, just as everyone in school had noticed her. she sat in the back of classes, listening politely and taking notes. Exchanged kind smiles and mundane small talk with anyone who conversed with her.

Y/n, the shiny new toy of Woodsboro high, was the talk of the school. 

Everyone wanted to be her friend, to have the bragging right of getting the new girl. 

She was hot and at this point, fair game. Being new meant she was not out of anyone's league yet; boys of all species flocked to her, attempting to gain her favour.

Person after person approached, inviting her to lunch and asking if she needed a tour.

It was ultimately Sidney and Tatum who bagged her. 

He supposes that’s when it had started. 

The obsession. 

That lunch break, when Tatum paraded up, Y/n in tow.

He could see she didn’t want to be there, her arms closing her from the rest. The way she wouldn’t quite look anyone in the eye. 

He kept a close eye on her, observing her during lunch. 

Randy was going on about something no one cared about, and while the attention was diverted, he spotted it when no one was paying her any mind.

It was so brief and sudden that he thought he had made it up. 

It was something in her eyes that seemed so familiar yet looked utterly foreign to him. 

Rage?

Boredom?

He couldn’t be sure; he tried to get a better look, subconsciously leaning forward as if she were calling for him. 

“Come closer, look at me,” She seemed to sing. 

She realised he was staring, and the mask went straight back on; she sent him a toothy grin. 

It was a warning, he could tell. 

“Stay away,” 

He looked across to Billy, his arm wrapped around Sidney; his eyes also trained on the new girl. 

Billy sent him a look that communicated to Stu precisely what he had been wondering. 

“Did you see that?”

“Yes, I did.”

March 1996

She avoided him after that. 

He couldn’t seem to catch her alone. Always laughing with Sidney, hanging off Tatum's arm. She always had somewhere else to be or something else to do.

She wouldn’t look at him. 

Maybe he was making it all up in his head; maybe she wasn’t doing it intentionally. 

He followed her home one afternoon, keeping a fair distance behind her as she walked the few miles back to her house. 

He watched across the street as she moved one of the larger rocks in her garden and retrieved the house key. 

Interesting. 

He noticed no cars in the driveway; maybe both her parents worked.

He crossed the street, making sure to stay hidden in the bushes that surrounded her home. 

He could see her in the kitchen, walking about and opening various cabinets. 

He watched as she disappeared around the corner; he could just make out a star case that led up to the second floor. 

He looked up, making his way around the house. He saw a window be thrown open, a perfect view into her bedroom. 

He stayed there, hidden in the bushes for who knows how long, watching the girl at her desk as she walked about her room and did her homework. 

He only left when she finally decided t close the window and shut the curtains. 

He returned the following day and again the day after. 

He couldn’t explain it; it was almost like he had developed a kind of ownership over her. 

Like he was indeed the only person who would understand her deeply. 

He knew her routine, what snacks she liked, and even his favourite song. 

He became more confident, taking greater risks. 

Sneaking into her house when he knew she would be out, he knew where the key to getting in was. It was easy. 

He knew where the bathroom was and which door would lead to her bedroom. He knew what item of clothing was in each drawer and even memorised where her pencils sat on her desk. 

April 1996

Spring break was drawing nearer, and with March on its way out, plans were being made left, right and centre about who was staying with who and what beach they would be at for the week.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, y/n? It could be so much fun,”

Tatum had been at her for the past week about joining her and Sidney on their girl's week.

“I’d love to, really,” she said, adjusting the books in her arms, “but I already have plans of my own.”

Tatum scoffed playfully.

“You need to get your head out of those books,” she teased.

Y/n rolled her eyes.

“What about you, Stu?” Y/n asked, turning her attention to the boy beside her “any plans for spring break?”

It seemed almost overnight she had warmed up to him; yesterday, she didn’t want to talk to him, and today it seemed like they had been friends for decades.

He didn’t know what had happened in those few hours between yesterday and today that changed her, but he wasn’t complaining.

He sent her a grin.

“Billy and I have a horror movie marathon planned,” he announced “seven days of nonstop horror, everything from the cabinet of doctor Caligari to the final hour,” he said, lowering his voice to sound scary.

“That movie sucked,” she said simply, “I much prefer the shining myself, though that book was a bit of a monster to get through. Nothing like IT thought,” she remarked.

Stu remembered earlier that month when he had entered her house when he had gone up the steps and into her room like he often did. 

He looked through her bookshelf.

Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe lined the shelved undercut with various science books on anatomy and forensics. 

“What's your favourite scary movie?” she asked Stu, pulling him out of his thoughts.

She was smiling at him, but there was something else there, just like there always was. Something he couldn't place, lying just below the resurface of that innocent little act she put on.

Something dangerous.

“Easy, the texas chainsaw massacre,” 

“You would,”

He sucked in a deep breath, gasping dramatically and placing a hand on his chest.

“Wounded, truly I am,” before flinging a long arm around her shoulder and squeezing her tightly against him.

She rolled her eyes, smiling at him.

What was it about her?

“Well, you can't stay locked in your room all week,” Tatum interjected, pulling the girl out from under Stu's arm.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because you'll melt your brain and end up like this pair,” she motioned towards Billy and Stu.

“I'm not going to melt my brain,” she insisted “I do a lot of brain-stimulating activities,” 

Tatum scoffed.

“Like what?”

Y/n paused for a second, seemingly thinking over what to say.

“Oh, you know the usual,” she began, “reading thought-provoking literature, listening to music, planning murders,” 

They laughed.

But he could tell there was something more to it. She threw him a sly look and held his gaze longer than necessary.

Did she know? 

How could she know?

“You a murderer? please,” Tatum laughed.

“Hey, I know a lot about the human body,” she defended.

That was the end of the conversation. Tatum continued to try and get Y/n to join her and Sidney on their beach week, but everyone knew there was no point. 

Billy looked at Stu, holding a silent conversation with one another as they walked a few steps behind the two girls. 

Did you hear that?

Of course i did.

Do you think she knows?

How could she?

I don’t know, but something’s off.

You’re overthinking. We’ll talk about this later.

She couldn’t know; they had been discreet with their plans. Making sure every last detail was perfected. 

Five months, five more months before they could implement their plan. 

The rest of the day went by quickly; the final bell sang like an angel as hundreds of students rushed out of the school to begin spring break. 

Stu walked through the halls, easily navigating the wave of students searching for one person. 

He found him standing in the parking lot, talking to y/n. 

Billy had a grimace on his face as y/n chattered like a bird happily to him. 

Their eyes met, and he excused himself from the conversation; y/n turned to watch billy leave, sending both the boys a smile and wave. 

“Have a good spring break, guys,” She sang, unlocking her car and sliding in. 

“What was that?” Stu questioned. 

Billy looked down at the book in his hand, that sour expression on his face. He handed it to Stu. 

“She gave me this and said it might be something I’d be interested in,”

Stu turned the book over in his hands. He recognised it; it was the book she had sitting on her nightstand earlier that week. 

‘Advances in modern forensic DNA analysis’

He just stared down at the book, confusion and fear circulating. 

“Why would she think you would be interested in this?” he questioned. 

“I have no idea,” 

May 1996

He had lost the book.

Billy was going to kill him, quite literally.

Almost two years of planning and it was gone just like that.

He hadn’t seen it since the beginning of March, but they hadn’t needed it since then. He had thought it was somewhere in his disaster zone of a bedroom, but he had torn his room apart, searching every inch of his home. Now he was going through his locker like a mad man.

“Are you trying to dig your way to China or something?”

He jumped back, he shouldn't be surprised that she was there. He’d noticed, since they began talking to each other, that she had a tendency to sneak up on people.

“Yeah, do you want to help?” he offered.

“And get a chance to go through your locker and be nosy? How could I pass that up?”

He smiled at her, shutting the door and locking it once more.

“I was just looking for a book,” he explained, slinging an arm around her like he often did, “noting that important, I'm sure it’ll show up eventually.” 

“What does it look like?” she asked.

Stu shrugged.

“Just your run of the mill composition notebook, I doubt you’ll know it if you saw it.” He explained, trying to shut down the conversation.

This was dangerous waters they were treading and if she asked too many questions her name would have to be brought up on the list.

And she was far too pretty to be gutted.

“Well I hope you find it anyway,” she added, then she did something she had never done before, she stood up on her tip toes and placed a kiss on his cheek, “see you at lunch,” 

He was stunned. 

Where did that come from?

He wasn’t complaining though, a warm sort of excitement made its way up his body.

“What was that?” 

He jumped, pulling his thoughts back to earth. 

“What do you mean?” 

Billy looked at him, unimpressed and shook his head.

“C’mon man, she’s hot and I’m only human,” he defended.

“Remember the plan,” Billy hissed.

“She’s friends with Sidney as well, it doesn’t have to be Tatum,” he defended.

Billy rolled his eyes at the defence.

“Whatever, just stick to the plan okay,” 

Sure watched as his friend disappeared into the crowd.

Now back to that note book.

—

He was back in the bushes, hiding away as she did her homework. Blissfully unaware of his presence.

Stu had found himself in this place more and more often now. It used to be three or four times a week, but since the day she placed that kiss on his cheek, he found himself here every chance he could.

Well he’s not exactly sure what came over him, but it was almost like an addiction. 

He was addicted to her.

He watched, in the dying light of the evening, as she stood up and opened the window.

She leaned out slightly, looking forlorning out.

He watched he intently.

But his stomach dropped and his heart rate increased as she made eye contact with him.

He was frozen.

It felt like and eternity, as she started into the bushes he was hiding in.

But her eyes flickered away, and she made no indication that she had seen him.

A coincidence, surely.

It was a moment more before she ducked her head back into her room and closed the window. 

He was shaken, he had to leave before she really did see him.

He made a move to stand, his hand fell onto something smooth and unfamiliar.

He looked down, and a wave of relief flooded him as he realised it was the notebook.

He picked it up from the damp ground, brushing off the dead leaves.

He probably dropped it one afternoon while watching y/n; he stuffed it into his back pocket and made a run.

Virgin - Billy Loomis and Stu Macher x reader

Warnings: Dubious Consent, coercion, fingering,unprotected sex,dacryphilia,  degradation, praise 

Tatum and Sydney are not dating Stu and Billy in this fic, they are all just friends.

1.9k words

You were in the living room with Sidney and Tatum for the weekly movie night at Stu’s place, Stu and Billy stood in the kitchen, getting some popcorn and drink. The boys could hear the giggles from rooms away. 

“Wait what!” Tatum almost shouted.

You shushed her, but the boys were officially intrigued, listening. 

“No way, there’s no way. No offense Sydney.” Tatum was shocked. 

“I just never got around to it, that’s all.” You sounded embarrassed. 

“There’s no fucking way that you are a virgin.” 

Billy and Stu whip their heads around, looking at each other. They had to have misheard her. You, fishnets and short dresses, Y/n, a virgin? No way. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You were a bit offended. 

“Well, to be honest, we all thought you had sex with Randy.” They could imagine the look on your face when she said that. 

“What!” You quieted down quickly. “Why would you think I had sex with Randy?”

“Probably because he follows you around like a lost puppy.” Sydney interjects. 

“He does not!” You said, flustered. 

“Randy’s got a massive crush on you, y/n.” Tatum states. 

At that moment, Stu and Billy decide to enter the room, causing all three girls to immediately stop talking, and start watching the movie. 

But throughout the whole movie, Billy and Stu can’t focus. Their minds elsewhere. Billy thinks of all the things he could do to you, to ruin you for any other man (or woman). Stu is stuck on the way your dress slides up when you move your feet in their spot on his lap. 

Billy sits at the farthest part of the couch from the TV, and Stu is at the other end, You lay between them, your back pressing up against Billy’s side, your feet draped across Stu. Tatum and Sydney sit on the floor, in front of the couch, intently watching the movie. 

Before Billy and Stu know it, the movie is over and Tatum and Sydney are grabbing their stuff and making their way towards the door. 

“Bye Tatum, Bye Syd.” You say, you decided you would stay for just a bit longer to hang out with the boys.

The boys bid their goodbyes to Sidney and Tatum.

Stu closes the door, and you walk back to the living room and plop yourself onto the couch, sprawling out across it.

“You want some food?” Stu asks from by the door with Billy. 

“Yeah sure!” You yell back, staring at the tv. 

Billy and Stu head to the kitchen, and Billy trifles through the cabinets searching for some form of food. 

“So what are we gonna do about the Y/n thing?” Stu asks quietly, leaning against the counter next to Billy.

“Oh, you wanted to do something?” He asks, “I thought we were just gonna go with the original plan.” 

“No man, this changes everything. We’ve got to make our move tonight.”

Billy pulls a box of cereal out of the pantry, and turns to Stu. “So what’s the plan?”

Stu and Billy return to the living room with a box of your average cereal, and hand it to you. You nod in their direction as a thanks, but are too engrossed in the movie to realize when they sit on either side of you. Trapping you.

But you do notice when Billy lays a soft hand on your fishnet clad thigh. Stu immediately takes notice of how your breath hitches and you clench your thighs together. Stu looks at Billy and then puts his arm around your shoulders. 

Billy takes this as a sign, and slowly creeps his hand up your thigh. You attempt to hide how your breathing picks up and your face grows red. His hand stops, but he’s dangerously close to your heat. And he's so close he can feel the warmth radiating off of it. 

At this point, you aren’t paying any attention to the movie, and your breath comes out in deep pants. When Billy goes to move his hand even closer, your hand rests on top of his, stopping him. 

“B-billy.” Your voice is scolding, this behavior isn’t like him and you think that maybe this is a prank that Stu put him up to. “What- what are you doing?” 

Stu cuddles into your side, his hand moving to your thigh as well. 

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? Uncomfortable?” Stu teases, and you squirm under his hardened gaze. Like he’s enjoying how nervous you are. 

“N-no, it’s just that-” You swallow the lump in your throat. “We are watching a movie.” You squeak as he dips his head down to lay opened mouth kisses on your neck. 

“Well then watch the movie,” Billy says it like it's the simplest thing in the world. And you gasp, when he slides his hand underneath your dress, and makes his way into your underwear. 

You moan embarrassingly loud when his pointer finger swipes across your slick cunt. Stu laughs against your neck, and pulls away to smile wide at Billy. 

“Dude she’s so wet.” Billy is shivering with pride. 

“No way, let me see.” Before you can even scold them for talking about you like you aren’t there. Stu dips his fingers into your underwear as well and slides his fingers across it. You moan again, and Billy moves to rubbing slow circles around your clit. 

It all feels like too much and not enough at the same time. And you’re so confused, why are they acting like this? They’re your best friends, friends shouldn’t touch each other like this. 

“Billy, Stu.” You whimper. “Why are you doing this? Friends shouldn’t- they shouldn’t touch each other like this.”

“It’s okay, beautiful.” Billy starts, as Stu gently rubs your cunt. “You’re our best friend. Best Friends are different. Me and Stu do stuff like this all the time.” 

Stu sends Billy a dirty look for sharing that information, but doesn’t miss the way your cunt clenches at the thought of them together. 

“wha-” You begin to question, but Stu shuts you up by slipping his finger into you. Billy pulls his hand away, and you unintentionally whine in protest. 

Billy then grabs your underwear and fishnets and tugs them down your legs in one swift motion. Stu’s fingers leave you so Billy can sit on the couch, and pull you into his lap. He grabs your hips and pulls you down to rub against his confined cock. 

“J-jesus.” He stutters, the feeling of your warm cunt against his clothed length is heavenly to him. “She’s so warm, Stu.”

Stu hums in approval, coming up to stand behind you. HIs hands slide underneath your dress, pushing it up and over your tits. You’re basically naked, sitting on Billy’s lap with his cock pressing against your virgin cunt. You're shaking mostly from arousal but also from confusion and anticipation. 

“She’s shaking like crazy.” Billy laughs at you.

“I can tell.” Stu responds, his hands massaging your tits.

 One of his hands goes to your nipple, pinching it harshly. You whimper at that, but a few seconds later you moan loudly with Billy’s lips wrapped around the opposite nipple. Billy sucks on one, grazing it with his teeth, and Stu takes the other in between his fingers, pinching and pulling on it.  

You're so distracted by the pleasure you don’t even notice Billy shimmying off his pants and underwear. You gasp loudly when he presses himself against you.

“Billy.” You pant. “I can’t.” 

“Why not, sweetheart?” Billy tilts his head at you, and pouts. 

“I- I just can’t.” He looks at you expectantly, he already knows why you don’t want to, but he wants to hear you say it. “I’m a virgin,” You wince when you say it, expecting him to push you off and tell you to get out. 

He laughs, and Stu giggles, laying wet kisses across your neck. Billy pulls you into a kiss, it's open mouthed and down right dirty. One hand grips the side of your neck, and squeezes. You choke back a moan into his mouth. His other hand is on his cock, gently rubbing the tip against your clit. He breaks away from the kiss and you moan at the feeling of his cock against you. You’re rocking your hips, rutting against his dick. 

Stu begins sucking dark hickeys into the side of your neck that Billy’s hand isn’t on. But you stop all together when he moves his dick to your hole, pushing at his chest. 

“You can’t.” You beg, Billy think’s it's adorable. Stu laughs, his hand going to your hips to hold you still. 

“Shhh, it's okay.” Billy attempts to coerce you. “Just the tip? please baby.” 

“But we don’t have condoms.” You gasp, as he begins to push in. 

“I’ll pull out,” He promises, but he knows he won't. He’s got you exactly where he wants you. And you think he’s going to miss out on the opportunity to cum inside of you? So dumb of you. 

You begin whining when he gets the tip in. “It hurts.” You murmur, tears welling in your eyes. 

“Oh babe..” Stu says, mockingly sympathetic. 

Billy moans at the feeling of your pussy clenching at the intrusion. He groans when he notices the tears falling from your eyes. 

“Fuck man, she’s crying.” He moans again, pushing a little further inside you. 

“Billy!’ You squeal, he’s more inside you than the tip, and you're a little upset that he lied to you. 

“C’mon baby, just a little more. I won't go any further than that,” Billy says, pushing in just a little bit. 

Your hands go to his shoulder, and you attempt to hide your face in his neck. But Stu grabs your shoulders and leans around to pull you into a kiss. Suddenly, Bill grabs your hips and slams them down, pushing all the way into you. You cry out, pulling away from Stu.

“Damn dude, You’re gonna break her,” Stu laughs. 

“If you could feel how tight she is you’d do the same thing.” Billy groans, and you babble incoherently about something they can’t understand. He’s hitting something so deep inside you that you can’t speak properly. 

“Awww, look at her.” Stu mocks. “She’s so cock drunk she can’t even speak.” 

You instinctually start rocking your hips, and Billy pulls out a bit before shoving back inside of you. You moan, really loud.  Stu seems entranced, staring at where you and Billy are connected. 

“Doing so well, Baby.” Billy grunts, pressing into you and then pulling out just to repeat the action. “You’re so beautiful.” You moan at the praise. There's a tightness in your stomach, and it seems to be getting tighter by the second. 

“Babe, You’re so dumb.” Stu says, lips next to your ear. “You thought that if you let Billy fuck you raw he wouldn’t use the opportunity to cum inside you?” He laughs. “You sweet, dumb little thing.” 

“Huh?” You say, confused. “What?” You moan again, squeezing down on Billy’s cock. 

“Listen here, Billy boy is going to cum inside you, and then I’m going to fuck you, then I’m gonna’  cum inside you.” 

You whine in protest, trying to pull away from Billy when his dick starts twitching inside you. Stu reaches around, and rubs your clit, gently pinching it once before rubbing it again. That tightness in your stomach snaps, and you cry out, clenching around Billy’s dick. 

 You quiver in Billy’s lap, waves of pleasure flowing through your body.You feel warmth flooding your cunt as he spills inside of you. 

“M’ not dumb.” You whine, panting. Billy pulls out of you, his cock softening. 

“Yes, you are sweetheart,” Stu says. “My turn.” He pulls you off Billy’s lap, slamming you down on the other end of the couch and positioning himself in between your legs. 

—--------------------

Part two with Stu’s turn?

its the masterlist, baby

FINAL GIRL | billy loomis x fem!reader

You were his final girl. And there was no chance in hell that anyone or anything was going to mess that up.

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | eight point five | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen | fifteen | sixteen | seventeen | eighteen | nineteen | 

more to come…

* inspo found here | playlist here  | ao3 link here

various ghostface x fem!reader one shots

somebody’s baby [stu macher x fem!reader one shot] chew on my heart [stu macher x fem!reader one shot] one more time [stu macher x fem!reader one shot] director’s cut [richie kirsch x fem!reader one shot] | inspo found here  WOLF [billy loomis x fem!reader x stu macher] |  inspo found here  dangerous [billy loomis x vampire fem!reader]  don’t fear the reaper [ghost!billy x fem!reader one shot]

slasher one shots

the darkness, visible [corey cunningham x fem!reader]

Masterlist:

Links

AO3

Wattpad

Set Up Series (Scream 1996)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17. Sequels Suck: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23. Terrible Trilogy: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25 pt 1, Chapter 25 pt 2:Final Four’s a Franchise: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4,

Imagines & Headcanons

House of Wax

Near Dark

Scream

Lost Boys

One Shots

Scream

🔞 Lemon / Smut 🍋

Near Dark

Scream

DESPERATELY NEED FERAL READER WITH EP 8 WITH AN INJURED JOEL AND KIDNAPPED ELLIE…….. I KNOW OUR CRAZY QUEEN WOULD KILL EVERYONE ♥️♥️♥️♥️

Yall asked for it lol

Violent Delights Joel Miller x f!Reader The Last of Us 6.7k Words/ 3rd POV Feral Reader Masterlist Summary: They took her kid and she was getting her back. Warning: Graphic depictions of violence and torture

She woke up with a start, having drifted off unknowingly after trying to keep watch, a sense of disorientation as she tried to figure out where she was and what was happening. The basement. They were still in the basement, the cold leeching any warmth from the walls and floors, the haggard breathing of her companion her only company. It’d been over 48 hours since she last slept, since Joel was hurt and they’d had to drag him into the house and patch him up. He wasn’t in good shape. Joel was so close to death’s door, it terrified her. They were so close to losing him and she had never felt more helpless.

She could still hear his pained groans, the glazed and blank look in his eyes, as she put pressure on the bleeding hole in his stomach just a couple days before. “Don’t you dare die, Joel. You still have to make shit up to me and you can’t do that dead. You can’t leave us again.” He’d tried to tell them to leave him. To go back to Tommy’s and leave him behind, the stubborn asshole. But Ellie managed to find the first aid kit and they’d sewn up the hole, wrapping it best they could with the little supplies they had. She knew it wasn’t enough. There could be shards left from the baseball bat, they weren’t the cleanest, nothing was sterile. She didn’t even know if something internal had been damaged. But it was all they could do. They’d been so focused on getting to Colorado they’d been using their food storage rather than hunting over the past week. Now it was biting them in the ass, their supplies dwindled. She’d managed to briefly go out and hunt down a rabbit, but game seemed scarce and leaving meant leaving Ellie and Joel alone. Without Joel, it was hard to sleep, look after Ellie, look after him and keep him stable, look after the fucking horses, and hunt. She was overwhelmed. So sleep went out the window. She took watch when Ellie was asleep, went and tried to hunt and scavenge the nearby houses when she was awake, and kept an eye on Joel in between taking care of the two horses in the garage. But at some point she’d fallen asleep finally, fallen deep and hard enough that she hadn’t noticed Ellie slipping the rifle from her hands and leaving the two adults alone.  A small scribbled note was placed on her lap on a piece of what looked like newspaper, “Be back soon -E.” She scrambled to her feet, looking around and cursed herself. Joel was still breathing steadily but his brow was covered with sweat from the infection he was staving off. Both their packs were against the wall but Ellie’s was gone and the panic that took hold was like a lightning bolt. It stole the breath from her lungs. Ellie was gone, Ellie was gone, Ellie was gone- it was a racing thought that circulated over and over again. Her main purpose, main job, and she’d fucking fallen asleep.

Her heart jumped further at hearing footsteps above her head, the slight creak and shift in the old wood, a door slamming…then it all came out in deep relief as she recognized the light shuffling.

Ellie raced down the steps, cheeks pink from cold and wind, and breath huffing out in a rush as she entered the basement.

She grabbed the girl immediately, shaking her by the shoulders with the vestiges of panic still in her blood, “Where did you go, Ellie? You weren’t supposed to leave!”

The teenager paused, eyes frantic and a little wild, but a tough set to her lips as she shook her head, “I went hunting and you needed sleep! I had to, but look! I got Joel medicine!” Ellie took the bottles out of their wrap, quickly moving away from her and kneeling down to Joel, beginning to lift up his shirt before she could even get a good look at what she had. The wound was ugly and discolored and she could hear him groan at the small touches. Her mind was still caught up in the panic of discovering the girl was gone and she quickly snatched the bottles away before the syringe was inserted. “Where did you get this?” she asked, turning it over in her hands. Penicillin. Two whole bottles of penicillin, practically liquid gold in their world, and Ellie had managed to get it while she slept. The teen looked nervous and tried to snatch it back, but she was quick even if she was exhausted and pulled her hand away, “Please, can we give it to him first and then I’ll explain?” Her eyes were so big for her face, cheeks pink. Her desperation to help Joel was evident. Ellie knew how bad he was doing and believed she held the cure to it all in her hands. She could only sigh and hand it back over, instructing her to give just a fourth of the bottle and to tap the syringe. Joel would probably have a heart attack if he knew she was letting the kid give it to him, but she knew Ellie had to do this herself. It was her win and she had to feel like she was the one saving him so she let her. But then they both stared, her knowledge only getting them that far. “Where the fuck am I suppose to put this?” Ellie cursed, looking at the wound and Joel’s arm, eyes switching between hers and his closed ones, “Fuck, how are we supposed to do this?” She cursed herself. Her medical knowledge was mediocre. Stitching, cleaning wounds, pulling out bullets, the basics they needed. Infections and medicine she had no clue about, “Just give it to him in his stomach. As long as it enters his blood stream, it should be fine.” At least, that’s what she thought. Ellie winced and inserted the needle, Joel giving out pained groans as it sunk into the sensitive area. They both watched the plunger empty the contents and then she pulled it out, trying to clean the needle the best she could. They only had one syringe and would have to reuse it. “And now we wait,” the teen commented and looked at his face as if at any second he would be magically better. He would wake up and smile and tell her good job. But he didn’t, staying silent on the small makeshift bed. “No, now you tell me where you went and how you got that,” she bit out, sitting on the other side of Joel to face her. Ellie winced and looked down at the small glass bottles in her hand, “You needed to sleep and we needed food. I know you think you can take care of all of us, but you can’t and I wanted to help by trying to hunt.” “That’s not your responsibility-” “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to help,” Ellie cut her off but then sighed, “And I did manage to actually get a deer…but I ran into these guys...” Instantly, she was on high alert, eyes searching everything that was visible and checking her for any wounds, “You ran into people and you’re barely telling me!” “I know!” the young girl argued back, hand resting on top of Joel’s, “They found my deer before me and said they were from a group with starving women and children. They offered to trade for half the deer and said they had medicine. I did everything I was supposed to! Got them to drop their guns, unloaded their rifles, and had them back away. One went to get the medicine and I kept the gun on the other.”

“So you gave them half the deer and they gave you the medicine then just let you go?” she asked and clenched and unclenched her fists. Ellie wouldn’t look so nervous if  that was the whole story and she wasn’t nearly tired enough to have been dragging half a deer carcass back. Shrugging, Ellie grimaced and refused to meet her eyes, “That was the deal…but they knew who we were. The people that attacked us at the university belonged to their group and this guy started talking about how one of theirs had been killed by a crazy man with two girls. He knows that was Joel. I don’t know why he let me go, but I think they’re looking for us.” With a curse, she quickly stood, hands on her hips and pacing in a tight circle, “Fuck. Fuck. And they didn’t come after you?”

“No, I think they let me go because I was a kid.” She doubted that. People rarely were that charitable, even to children in this world. Especially a child with a gun and an attitude like Ellie’s. The unspoken words were there though. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t come for her and Joel though. Ellie may be deemed innocent but the two of them were problems and only one of them was in commission currently. But what could they do? They couldn’t move Joel in his state. They couldn’t leave him behind either. They were stuck. “Okay. Maybe if they let you go they don’t plan on coming. Maybe they think both of us are injured if you were out on your own and won’t come,” she lied comfortingly and tried to speak the words into existence, knowing the kid was probably feeling guilty and needed some hope. They needed rest, needed to breathe for a second, and panicking now wouldn’t help.  It took a while to relax enough to let the adrenaline fade away.

Ellie laid down, exhausted, tucking into Joel’s side as she had the past couple nights and resting her head on his shoulder. He subconsciously leaned into her, still alive for now. Her heart ached at the sight, the way they held each other in their own ways. She didn’t have the strength to get after the girl more or uproot them out of precaution. They were all exhausted and Ellie had somehow managed to bring hope even if there was a cost.

She sat down by the stairs, flipped her knife between her fingers to keep her awake and focused, and watched the two sleep with her heart in her throat.

The men would come. Now that they knew they were in the area, they would come and they were stuck in this spot until Joel was better. There was no way they could get him on a horse and move him now without undoing all the healing he’d done. A thousand scenarios went through her head, sleep now a distant memory in the face of the panic and anxiety plaguing her. How was she supposed to fight off a group and keep them both safe?

She couldn’t. That was the reality of the situation.

The thought hit her over and over again like a blow to the chest, the knife turning between her fingers. _________________________________________ Morning came and she could see Ellie’s disappointment that the medicine hadn’t instantly woken Joel up and made him all better. To ease her mind, they gave him another dose, trying to make the bottles last before shoving the remainder in their bags. They were out of food, the rabbit she had caught two days ago long gone without a way to store it. Joel still wasn’t eating or drinking and she worried that even if they got the infection under control, his body wouldn’t be strong enough to get better. Things were bad. The possibility of Joel dying was a constant chime in her head. It felt like a mockery that he had left and came back only to be almost taken from them permanently. She was angry. He wasn’t supposed to be the one that took the hit. It had been meant for her but he’d pushed her out the way as the bat swung, breaking on the tree, and then tackled the guy. If it had been her, Joel would know what to do. He could take care of them both or at least would have the strength to leave her behind if necessary. She wasn’t sure she could. She was failing him. Failing them both. The basement was suffocating, pressing in on her, and she took the opportunity to go tend to the horses, leaving the girl and her unconscious companion to the pressing weight of disappointment. Her body was beginning to ache from the lack of sleep and food, joints protesting her movement, but she reached down and scooped snow into the small metal bucket for them to get some water. Soon the horses would starve too or be too weak to carry them. Death was creeping up on them. Looking over the neighborhood they were held up in, she sighed at the obvious foot steps leading up through the streets before beginning to methodically cover what she could. Ellie knew better than to leave a trail but she guessed in her hurry to get the medicine back to Joel and get away from the men she had forgotten. And as birds took off in a rush further down the road towards the wooded outskirts, she froze and her heart thundered in her ears. 

She felt fear run through her as her thoughts from the night resurfaced and became reality, a living nightmare. They were coming. They had waited for daylight to search them out and were coming now. She knew it, could feel it, and they were out of time. Quickly covering what she could and making false tracks from the other houses, she ran back inside and flew down the stairs to the basement taking two at a time. No time, there was no time.  Ellie startled at her rushed appearance and the way she flew across the room to the rifle and her own pack, “What’s happening?”

“Those men you saw are coming,” she huffed out, grabbing the rifle and checking it was loaded before looking around the room as if she could find the answer there.

Turning to Joel, Ellie began to shake his shoulders as if he were merely sleeping and not borderline in a coma, “Fuck. Joel! You have to wake up, Joel. Joel, wake up! Wake the fuck up, Joel!” But he only gasped, pained whimpers leaving his lips, eyelids fluttering.

She bent down and grabbed Ellie by the shoulders, forcing her to look into her eyes, “Ellie, I need you to listen to me. I need you to take the horse and run.”

“What? No, what about-”

“You run and I’ll follow behind and try to pick them off,” she interrupted, voice adamant, “They’re going to search every house and they will find us eventually. I can’t hold them off like this. I need to know you’re good first and if we’re away from here then it will take the focus off Joel.”

“You want me to go without you?” Ellie’s eyes were wide with fear and her heart ached at the sight, but there was no time.

“I’ll find you,” she promised and dug her fingers tightly into her shoulders as if she could sink the words into her skin, “I will. But you have to go now. We’ll block the entrance to down here, give Joel some time.”

Ellie pressed her lips together and nodded, running to grab her backpack and last minute grabbed one of the larger knives they had. Running back over to Joel, the teen knelt down and placed it on his chest, forcing his hand to grab it. She let her while grabbing the rest of her stuff and placed Joel’s pack into a small cubby under the steps to make it less noticeable.

“Okay, look at me,” Ellie whispered to him while he only groaned in reply, “There are men coming, okay? I’m gonna lead them away from you, Red is going to help get rid of them. But if anybody makes it down here, you fucking kill them. You got it?”

“Ellie, hurry,” she bit out, peeking out the small window along the top of the wall. “Joel, do not fall asleep,” the teenager pleaded desperately, squeezing his hand around the knife. She could see his eyes partially open, see his lips trying to move and his fingers twitching trying to grasp the knife. But Ellie finally got up quickly and rushed up the stairs. She went to follow after her and paused, staring back at the unconscious man on the floor. A part of her whispered that this could be the last time she saw him alive. One or both of them could be dead if this didn’t go right. Heart in her throat, she ran back to him and kneeled, kissing his forehead and grasping his hand. “Stay alive for us, please, Joel,” she whispered, squeezing the hand around the knife, but getting back up and running up the stairs. She tried not to look back. Both of them moved the tall kitchen cabinet over the door entryway to the basement, trying to shuffle things around to not make the spot obvious before heading to the garage. They got both horses out, grabbing what she needed from hers and sending silent apologies to Tommy before forcing it to gallop away in the opposite direction with a sharp smack. The other she saved for Ellie to ride, closing the garage door behind them. They’d figure out transportation later when they were out of this mess, but they needed the guys off their trail and two different horse tracks would help. With quick hands, she helped Ellie climb up onto its back. 

Shakily, she bit out, “You ride hard and fast and loud. They’re going to come after you but if you go fast they won’t catch you and I’ll hit them from behind. They only know for sure about you right now. Do not look back, Ellie. I’ll find you once it’s safe, I promise.” Ellie was shaking but tried to put on a brave face, nodding and holding onto the reins. She wanted to hug the girl, tell her it was going to be okay, but she wouldn’t lie to her. Not now. The men were close, she knew that. She patted the rear of the horse and nodded a final goodbye, beckoning her to go forward. Her heart screamed to not let her go, that it was safer with her than alone, but they were backed into a corner and she had no choice. They wouldn’t win in a shootout and losing meant Ellie would die. So she watched as the girl rode away down the street away from her, turning until she was completely out of sight, and tried not to flinch at the gunshots that came soon after and the yells of men. She tried to shut off the part of her that wanted to panic, to react and worry. That wasn’t the part she needed to listen to at the moment. Running as far as she could, crossing over fences and staying against the walls of the house, she followed the sound of loud hoof beats and chased after them as they chased after Ellie. Her ears caught on one of them screaming that she was to be left alive, but that didn’t ease the worry in her. Being captured alive wasn’t always a good thing. One of the slower men chasing Ellie fell the furthest behind, wheezing in the cold and trying to clamber in the dense snow. Her own knife in hand, she ran and jumped onto his back, using both their weight to send them forward onto his front behind the cover of some of the shrubs. 

He hadn’t been expecting to be attacked from behind and it took him a moment to try and struggle, to lift his face out of the snow to breathe, and she took advantage of that by stabbing deep into the back of his neck. He groaned, the sound muffled, and she pulled the blade out and sunk it in again and again with a growl. The snow was staining red around them. He stopped moving. One down. She stood and took off, the cold biting into her lungs and stealing her breath. The terrain was hard and the one kill had put her farther behind the group, forcing her to cut across more backyards to catch up, but she could only hope Ellie had done what she asked and was out of range. She could catch the rest of them once they scattered. But then a gunshot rang out close by. The sound of a horse’s cry ripped through her, tore her soul to shreds, and she knew if she lived beyond the day she would hear that sound forever in her nightmares.

She ran. She left all care of stealth behind and ran fast and hard, dodging trees and fallen branches and then ran faster when another gun shot rang out. The chest felt like it was being cleaved open by the panic, fear gripping her tightly. They wouldn’t have shot her. They wouldn’t have killed her. She was a kid, they wouldn’t-

And then she watched from the trees as the group surrounded Ellie who was on the ground, her horse unmoving not far away, and a tall skinny man picked her up and began to walk away with her. She raised the rifle, looking down the scope, and cursed as the men separated and began to head back into the neighborhood. No doubt to continue their search for Joel and her.

She could see Ellie’s face through the scope, the loll of her head, but she was gripped too closely to the man’s body. He was walking further and further away. Two sides of her screamed. Leaving to go after them meant abandoning Joel, but staying behind meant leaving Ellie. She wanted to press the trigger, shoot, but knew it was too risky with Ellie in the man’s arms. She could so easily accidentally kill the girl if she was one inch off and her hands were too shaky from exhaustion to be precise. Only some of the group was going back, the others looking like they were continuing to scout the area.

She knew what she had to do, what Joel would tell her to do, but the reality of it felt impossible. If they found Joel, he’d die for sure. But she wasn’t sure she could live with leaving Ellie.

The men with the girl were getting farther away and a choice had to be made.

So she swallowed the sob in her throat and let the rage she felt consume her completely, push her forward, and followed behind the group to where they would take her kid.  __________________________ It was getting harder and harder to follow along as the wind began to kick up a notch. She needed to see where they were taking Ellie, but she was tired and the cold was sinking in, her body struggling to keep going. And as they entered the town, it was getting difficult to avoid being seen. Too many buildings, too many open areas, and she didn’t know who could be watching. She knew they had entered one of the nearby buildings, but wasn’t sure which. The clock was ticking in her mind, Ellie’s life on one hand and Joel’s on the other. What good was she if she couldn’t save her people? Blood crusted on her fingers as she entered the first of the buildings quietly, finding a back entrance. It was dark but she could hear voices nearby as she found herself in some kind of storage room, the cold still reaching her through the walls. She wasn’t used to carrying the rifle. It had always been Joel’s weapon thanks to its weight, her preferring knives or a small pistol or even a bow when she could find one. So when she crouched down to ease her way over to the swinging door leading further inside, she winced when it thudded and scraped against the floor, the sound so loud in her ears. The voices paused and she froze, eyes wide and watching the door. There was shuffling and she quickly backed away into a darkened corner, pulling her knife out. Steps came closer and she held her breath, trying to calm her racing heart. The door swung open and she could see a man enter, beard a little rough and looking a little ragged, cheeks red from the cold. He frowned, looking around, gaze shifting over what he could. He turned to look at the back door, back facing her, and only then did she realize she had tracked snow inside and it hadn’t quite melted. Lunging, she stuck the blade deep into his lower back with all her might and threw her arm around his neck, choking him hard. A cry of pain tried to leave his lips, breath cut off, and he struggled wildly. She twisted the knife, feeling blood coat her hand. “Where is the girl?” she hissed, jerking the blade deeper. He sobbed and made pathetic mewling sounds of pain, voice wispy from lack of air, “Please, I don’t know-” She twisted, hearing the squelch of flesh tearing, “The teenage girl your buddy grabbed, where is she?” The distinct smell of piss lingered in the air and he sobbed out, “I don’t know! Oh god.” Steps were coming close again and she growled, keeping her grip on the knife buried in his body and shifting her arm away from his neck to hold the back of his collar. He wheezed in air, blood starting to bubble from his lips. The door burst open and the distinct sound of a gun rising echoed in the tiny room, only to pause as she held the man in front of her like a shield, mostly hidden by his body. “Howard-” A woman’s voice. All the people who had attacked them had been men. 

She wouldn’t have the information she needed. With a growl of frustration, she shoved the body at her, letting his dead weight hit her and trap the woman against the wall. She let out a startled cry and the delay gave her just enough time to unholster her pistol and shoot her in the head. The numbness that was a twin to her rage had sunk into her skin, blanketing her all over. She’d search the buildings, one by one, and kill whoever she had to to find her kid. She didn’t care. Stepping over the bodies, she moved into the area they had been in before she drew their attention and paused, icy horror filling her. A leg was in the process of being cut apart, small chunks set aside and being wrapped up as if to store for later. It was a kitchen, most likely used to prepare food for stage, large makeshift smokers and pits along the back unused. The ticking clock in her mind sped up as the reality of what she’d uncovered hit her. Cannibals. These people that had taken Ellie were cannibals. A strong hit to her back sent her stumbling forward and clattering to her knees. She grunted and scrambled forward as a stomp missed her, hitting the ground instead. There’d been someone still in the room and she’d been too distracted to notice. 

Rolling onto her back, gun still in her hand, she aimed and managed to shoot the knee out of her assailant as he raised a butcher knife. He crumpled to the ground with a cry and she got to her feet slowly, gun raised and trained on him. 

The guy was younger, but thin and haggard looking. His bravado hadn’t fully left him though as he stared her down, anger in his eyes, “You fucking bitch. You blew out my fucking knee.” He tried to get up but she aimed at his head, making him freeze. “I’ll shoot the other one too if you don’t shut up and tell me where the girl you kidnapped is,” she snarled, adrenaline helping to keep the firearm steady on him. His nose wrinkled and he spit at her, brow furrowed.

Stubborn. Younger guys were so stubborn.

She pulled the trigger and watched his other knee explode as the bullet met his target. The man screamed and she quickly knelt down, shoving her hand over his mouth and placing the still warm barrel against his forehead. Tears leaked out his eyes, making little dirt tracks through the grime on his skin.

“Where the fuck is she?” she screamed into his face and the sound was almost inhuman, gravel and fury warping it almost into a howl.

But he only shook his head, eyes defiant. Frustrated, she stood, looking at the meat cleaver in his hand and the human leg on the table. She didn’t have time for this. Ellie was out there and the situation was worse than she thought. Not even meeting his eyes, she raised the gun and shot him in the head. He wasn’t going to give her any information.

She raced back outside through the back door she had entered, heart in her throat and a panicked scream wanting to leave her lips.

The storm was picking up as an idea hit her. If she searched each building, there was no guarantee she’d find someone with information in time. She had to draw their attention. Maybe lure them out. They had wanted Ellie alive for the moment. If she could distract them, it may buy her time.

Chewing her lip, she kneeled behind the building and swung her pack around to dig through it. Her hand wrapped around a small glass bottle that had been carefully secured in the middle of her clothes and yanked it out along with one of her old shirts. They’d been saving it for emergencies, using it to sterilize what they could, but she needed it for something else now. Her face stung from the cold wind and her hands shook, but she managed to tear cloth and shove it into the liquor bottle, saturating the fabric, before she put her pack back on and stood.

Time to make a big fucking distraction.

Blocking the wind with her hands, she lit a match and watched as the tip of the cloth burned bright with flames.

With a snarl, she tossed the molotov through the window of the next building, ducking down and watching as the flames exploded inside. Screams and shouts followed, telling her there had been people inside, and she waited for more voices to join them. Someone would investigate or come outside.

Like clockwork, a man rushed out into the cold and she gripped her bloody knife at the familiar face. One of the men that had come back with Ellie. He cursed and ran through the snow, yelling that he was going to grab the fire extinguisher next door while the others scrambled to put the flames out. She followed, quiet, lava flowing through her and teeth bared. She couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. 

The wind blocked any sound she made as she rushed after him into the alley and lunged, shoving him into the cold brick wall with a loud crack. She growled and grabbed his hair, gripping it tightly and smashing it into the bricks once then twice. He tried to push away and turn, but she kneed him hard in the spine, driving him to his knees. “Where is the girl?” she snarled into his ear, knife to his throat. Blood poured down an open wound on his forehead, one eye blinded by red, as he finally took in who had grabbed him, “fuck you,” “Wrong answer,” she yanked his hair and slammed it into the wall again. When he went to raise his hand to fight her, she stabbed the blade through his hand and into the ground. His screams were carried away by the wind and snow, the shouts of his group telling her they were still distracted by the fire. “The girl your group grabbed,” the words were all razors and broken glass, almost the sound of an animal snarl, “Where did you take her?” He sneered at her, trying to put on a strong front through the pain, “That bitch is probably soup by now.” She stepped on the knife, the blade so far in his hand the hilt was pressing against the back, “I can make this last a fucking lifetime. Your choice. Where-” “Please, don’t-” Frustrated, she ripped the knife out and placed the tip just inside his mouth, “Last chance. Where is she?” The tip clinked against his teeth and he hung his mouth open to avoid being cut, his beard a mess of blood and spit and green eyes wide with fear finally. She tried not to feel satisfaction as seeing that, understanding setting in for him. He lifted his bloody hand and tried to point across the street, stuttering out, “Steakhouse. The fucking steakhouse. David has her in there.” She looked at him, eye swollen, and blood coating the front of his face, clearly terrified.

Slowly, she took the blade away, watching his lips wobble with sobs and slight relief. Then she slit his throat, continuing to move behind the buildings even as his blood sprayed out and soaked her clothes and his pleas gurgled and quieted.

The steakhouse was a few more buildings down across the street, “Todd’s Steakhouse” still written on the sign out front. The storm was a blizzard now, sharp stinging snow hitting her skin and turning the blood on her into patches of ice. There were yells, panicked screams, and she wondered if they had found the bodies. If they had found the blood and chaos she had left in her wake.

But with a destination in sight, she had let her guard down and she cursed herself later on for it. Arms wrapped around her torso, crushing the rifle into her back, and she kicked at the air as she was dragged back against a brick wall.

“You fucking bitch!” Screamed into her ear and she was tossed to the ground, teeth clattering from the impact.

A kick landed in her stomach and she grunted, the air leaving her lungs, but she had enough sense to grab onto the leg and cling to it. The move caught the man off balance and he tripped, falling to the ground next to her. Her blade was somewhere in the snow and she struggled to dig around for it, sharp steel nicking her fingers as she found it only to be thrown onto her back.

The man climbed on top of her, straddling her waist, his weight so heavy and her pack on her back making the move crushing. She grit her teeth and bucked, thrashing to try and get him off of her. But he only grinned, pulling back and decking her in the face. Stars lit up behind her eyes, a high pitch ringing all she could hear as pain exploded through her head.

He pulled back to punch again and her fingers found the cold metal in the snow. She wrapped her hand around it, feeling the sharp steel cut into her palm as she grabbed it by the blade instead of the hilt, and stabbed it into his lower throat. She didn’t stop, only switching to pull it out by its handle this time, and stabbed again and again, blood reigning down onto her.

With a howl, she shoved him off of her and sent a final stab into his face, snow soaking into her and pain a radiating heat. Everything hurt and it was an effort to get up and roll onto her side, staring at the decimated body next to her. 

She spit blood on him and stood. There was smoke coming from all around her, the fire having caught from the molotov and moving on building to building. Across the way, smoke could be seen from the steakhouse and she swallowed her pain, letting adrenaline carry her to the front doors. Her hands shook as she tried the handles, pulling again and again but they stayed locked and shut. Growling, she threw her shoulder into it. She was so close. She had found the place and was so close and a locked fucking door was all that was keeping her away. Her breathing was quick and frantic as she looked over the front and tried to reason that there had to be a back door or an employee entrance. Her hands skimmed the wall to try and keep upright, knowing soon the exhaustion and pain would take over, but she tried to push it back. Ellie had to be close. She needed to keep going a little bit further and then she’d get her kid and they’d go get Joel. 

Her steps stumbled and she pushed off the wall, screaming at herself to stay steady. There, she could see the back door. Plain and wooden, easy enough to shoot the lock off and get inside. With shaky fingers, she unhooked the rifle from her shoulder, the weight of it almost unbearable, and took two shots to get the lock blown off. Her legs were shaky as she climbed the few steps and opened the door, smoke pouring out. She coughed and tried to wave it away, stepping inside and feeling the heat. She had taken only a few steps into the building and stopped, hearing a familiar voice. “Red?” Relief flooded her, eyes instantly filling with tears, as Ellie emerged from the smoke not too far in front of her. Ellie was there, hair a mess and half tumbling out of her ponytail, blood splattered and smeared all over her face and clothes. It took her a while to realize she was standing there, actually standing there, watching as the girl stumbled forward and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. 

Smoke and fire was all around them, but she couldn’t care because she had Ellie and they were both alive and safe now. With shaky hands, she managed to direct them back out of the building and into the cold, fresh air. Her promise rang in her ears and she whispered them out loud as she clung to the girl, “I found you. I found you. I’ll always find you.” And she had, but not quick enough. She knew that something awful had happened, that Ellie was now one step closer to being what her and Joel were. The tough exterior had crumbled away and all that was left was a shocked girl who’d had a piece of her soul cleaved away. Her nose was busted and she knew that look in her eyes, the horror and pain at doing something ugly but necessary. Ellie’s lips were shaking as she looked her over and she was so focused on the girl she almost didn’t see Joel coming around the corner. Joel, standing and whole and alive, coming towards them like Ellie was a gravity well pulling both of them towards her. His eyes met hers and the relief was bright, even if she was dripping in blood. But Ellie hadn’t noticed the shift in attention, hadn’t heard his steps, and when he went to grab her she bucked and thrashed in his arms in sheer desperation. So much like her, a wild animal fighting not to be caged. Her heart tore apart, shredded to pieces, at the painful screams then broken sobs as she realized who was holding on to her. 

Joel only kept whispering, “It’s me, it’s me, I’m here.” “He- I-” she stuttered, eyes glazed and searching both of theirs. Joel held on with all his might, trying to ease her, gentle words soothing. And the girl crumbled, falling into his arms and clinging to him tightly as much as he was clinging to her. His eyes met hers and she let the exhaustion hit her and carry her towards them, falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around them both. All three of them, blood soaked, finally home with each other.

______________ Feral Reader Taglist: @alouise20 @faceache111

The Revenant Wife

Pairing: Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of grief and death. 

Summary: Ellie knows very little of Joel and even less of the wife he had before the outbreak. When she finally meets you, its just as much as shock to her as it is to your husband. 

Word count: 1.6k

Note: ficlet is based off of this previous post about Joel getting separated from his wife during the outbreak and assuming you died until you find one another years later. Reader is described to look like Sarah. Title came from the ever lovely @djarin-junk​ <3

Tagging those I think would enjoy: @pedrostories​ @thesadvampire​ @joel-mlller @softanon​ @max–phillips​ @captainsamwlsn​ @hooplahoopla​ @moondirti​ 

——————————-

Ellie didn’t know that Joel had a wife. 

Granted, she didn’t know much about his old life at all. 

She knew he built things. That he had a brother named Tommy and a daughter named Sarah, but didn’t like to talk about the latter that much. In one fleeting conversation, full of mumbles as her eyes began to close while they rested under the night sky she heard him mention you but was far too gone to truly hear what he said. Nothing more than the vague rumble of his voice saying “my wife” before her eyes opened once more. 

“You’re married?”

Keep reading

If I leave here tomorrow

Summary: Joel used to know her, before the outbreak. All these years, he told himself she was dead, that she was just a ghost.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: 7.4k

Warnings: smut (piv, fingering, f!receiving oral), canon typical violence, mention of past rape, grief, angst, emotionally unavailable Joel, emotionally unavailable reader, (until they're both not oops), hopeful ending and a lil fluff

A/N: Thank you for reading! As always, I would love to know your thoughts! I'm apparently only capable of writing about loss and grief and trauma these days. Disclaimer: I have not played the video games and this was written before episode three came out. If there are in world inconsistencies, its fanfiction, I'm sure you'll get over it. Let me know if any additional warnings need added.

Like the first bite of sun after winter, like a fox emerging from a den. 

Joel remembers thinking she was entirely feral. 

Before the outbreak. 

She was loud. She couldn’t hold a job down to save her life - hopping from one to the next like it was a game, never still. She ran on luck and caffeine and whatever bit of cash she had. 

Somehow, she was always laughing. Somehow, things always worked out for her.

She was never late on bills, always had food on the table. She was always ready with kindness to spare someone who needed it, and was never one to look away when trouble came knocking or when someone needed help. 

Especially, he hates to admit, when it came to him and his. 

She was resourceful, clever. Knew when to owe people favors and when to be owed favors. 

Chaotic as she was, she was stable where it mattered. And where it mattered - usually it was with him and Sarah. 

She’d baked cupcakes one year, for Sarah’s birthday. It was a year he thought he’d known struggle in, struggling to balance work and home, being a single father to a little girl. 

And then, she’d just kept doing it. She’d baked cupcakes for Sarah every year after that. 

She’d watched Sarah for him more times than he could count, when he was late coming home. 

“There’s always a light on here for her, Joel,” she used to say, holding the screen door open with her hip when he came to collect his daughter. “Anytime.” 

He’d appreciated it because things were always hard and she didn’t have to offer. Tommy couldn’t always be around, they both worked more than they should have. 

She liked folksy country and anti-war music and the sun. She liked books and long drives. 

Any time he stopped over, she’d have a record on the turntable. Bob Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Fleetwood Mac and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Bruce Springsteen. Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. 

“Your girl needs to know when it's okay to burn her draft card,” she’d say with a laugh. 

Tommy would roll his eyes, and Joel would always say, “Don’t pretend you remember the 70s.” 

She listened to Free Bird so many times, Tommy started calling her Birdie. She’d just closed her eyes and said, “That song was written about me.” That had only concerned him slightly, considering what the song was about. 

Sometimes she’d disappeared for days on end, and scare him just a little. But Joel always knew she’d come home. 

Even if she disappeared, she was always there, somehow, when they needed her to be. 

And - 

Sarah liked her.  

Sarah loved her. 

Sarah had loved sitting on her front porch. Liked baking with her. Liked listening to her wax poetic about 70s rock and the dime paperbacks she picked up in the line at the grocery store. Liked reading with her in the light of the lantern she kept out front, swatting away mosquitoes. 

The big, loud of her stuck out before the outbreak, in a charming, chaotic kind of way.

It sticks out even worse on the other side. 

That big personality that Joel had pretended to be annoyed by, sticks out like a sore fucking thumb.

Mostly, because she’s supposed to be fucking dead. 

It makes sense, maybe, that she’d survived, found a way to survive when she’d always done so badly with fitting into the structure of before. 

Of course, she’d survived.

Of course, eighteen years later, she’d still be alive and kicking. She might even be thriving.

In this world. 

Surviving is a daily struggle for Joel, time passes slowly, agonies linger. 

When she emerges from the treeline, she’s alone. There’s a rifle over her shoulder, and a backpack. It’s like seeing a ghost, and the pit inside his heart, that thing he thought long dead, flutters. 

Against his will, it kicks him in the ribs, sucks the air out of his lungs. 

She only looks at him with a lifted brow, a wry twist of her mouth, like she isn’t surprised at all, and says, “Damn Joel, ya look like shit.” 

He hadn’t known she was the smuggler they were meeting. How could he have? 

Still, it’s like looking into a mirror and seeing another face peering back. 

Joel presses a hand over his face, unable to believe the past could still sneak up on him like this. He sweeps a hand down his face, cups his chin and glances away, up at the blue, clear sky, the swaying tops of the trees.  

The past could still sneak up on him. 

Like this, like her. 

“Shit,” he mutters. 

Tess glances between them, eyebrows raised. “You know each other?” 

“Used to,” she says, unfazed as she crouches down to unzip her pack. “Neighbors. Once.” 

Neighbors. 

They’d been a little closer than that. They’d been a little more than that. 

She’d been like - well, she’d been almost like family. Once. 

The trees sway with a light breeze. It carries the scent of spring, decomposing undergrowth, wet leaf and new life. 

And sage. 

She’d always smelled like sage. 

Tess raises her gun, sharp eyes on her hands digging through the bag. “Relax,” she laughs. “Here.” She tosses a plastic bag across to them, over the pine needles and wet earth. 

It lands at their feet.

Pills. Oxy. 

Way more than they’re used to seeing all at once.

“Holy shit,” Tess mutters and lowers her gun. 

“Go ahead and count ‘em if you’ve gotta.” She zips the pack up, slings it on and leans back against the bark of a tree. “Got all day.” 

Tess stoops to pick up the bag before snapping it open. 

Joel glances back at the ghost standing across from him and doesn’t look away. Casually, as though she hasn’t been dead for years. 

Decades. 

In his mind, she died with Sarah. In his mind, she still lives in a Texas that no longer exists. 

Birdie, he thinks. Finally gone away. 

That’s what he’d always told himself. 

“Calm down,” she grins at him with bared teeth, mistaking the cut of his gaze for something that it’s not.

“I’m not staying, just passin’ through,” she continues, glancing away from Joel, jaw set, brows tucked inward. Her accent is as thick as the last time he’d heard her voice. When she’d shouted from down the street that last morning in normalcy. 

She’d playfully wolf whistled at him from the step of her front porch. 

Hands cupped around her mouth as they drove by. Happy birthday, Miller! You don’t look as old as you could! 

Sarah had laughed, whispered, yeah, dinosaur, under her breath. Tommy had laughed too and waved at her as they drove past her house.

She’d been smoking a cigarette, a habit she’d recently taken up again, leaning against her porch railing. 

And Joel remembers suddenly how she’d stopped smoking the first time. Because of Sarah. When she started watching Sarah when she was still little, still practically a baby. 

She hadn’t just stopped smoking when Sarah was around, but stopped smoking period. 

She’d been so goddamned loud and beautiful and -

He hadn’t seen her after that, but with all the neighbors turning right around him, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of her survival. He hadn’t seen her on the street that night, just the couple across the way and next door. 

He hasn’t thought about that part of that day in a long time, too busy replaying that morning’s breakfast, the failed pancakes, and that day’s evening, a movie with his girl and no cake. 

She looks older, but not old, not like him. She’d been younger than him then too, not by much, and certainly not so young that he felt bad about fucking her. About seeing her and wanting her more than he should have. 

The mere sight of her, here, is wrong. She’s supposed to be back there, in the past, standing on the porch while a record played inside, ribbing him with Tommy when they invited her over for dinner, offering poorly wrapped presents to Sarah every Christmas morning they knew her. 

“What do you mean you’re just passin’ through?” He has to look away from her, diverting his gaze up to the tops of the trees again, the blue of the sky. He doesn’t have to be looking at her to know she’s rolling her eyes at him. 

He feels Tess’s gaze cut to him, sharp as a knife. 

“I mean exactly what I damn well said, Joel.” Something shuffles, and his head whips down, eyes fastened on her, gun already raised. She has her backpack twisted around her front, digging through one of the pockets. She doesn’t seem fazed, doesn’t even glance up. 

Her hands are bruised, bloody, cracked skin showing lines of red beneath. Her lip is split too. 

He doesn’t like the flicker of concern it drags up out of him, the feeling kicking and screaming all the way up the back of his throat. 

It’s hard to look at her, not just because of the split lip and bruised knuckles, but because she’s not supposed to be there. 

She’s not supposed to be there.

He wishes viciously, suddenly, that she were dead. 

Dead is easier. 

Dead means she never lived through the last eighteen years. 

It means that protective, preserving instinct inside him, of him and his, rises up. 

“Jesus, calm down, just adjustin’ some stuff.” She grouses. “If I was gonna shoot you I woulda done it by now.” 

Joel watches her, the twist of muscle in her arms, the shape of her hips beneath the jeans she wears, the cut of her collarbone under the frayed hem of her t-shirt. 

“Listen, if I knew I’d be meeting you,” she snaps suddenly, hard gaze meeting his, “I wouldn’t have fuckin’ come. Trust me on that. I don’t like seeing the past either. I don’t wanna see you either.”

That’s not what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t correct her.  

Joel lowers the gun, taking the bag of pills from Tess when she offers it to him to inspect. “Gotta be kidding me. Where’d you get this much?” He’s never seen this much of it at once. Tiny bags, tiny amounts, that’s what he’s used to. 

“I wouldn’t worry about that.” She crosses her arms over her chest and juts a hip out. “Want it or not?” She kicks up one brow.

“You came here all the way from Atlanta by yourself?” Tess asks. 

“No,” she answers simply, not clarifying whether she didn’t come from Atlanta, or if she isn't alone. “You want ‘em or not?” She asks again. 

She smiles at them and it's like looking into the teeth of a wild animal. 

She’s always been feral though, he thinks again. 

And he always liked the slightly sharp cut of her.  

Things he thought had died a long time ago come swirling back, fingers of feelings crushed beneath the cold boot of reality rear back to life. 

She’s exactly what he remembers, almost exactly how he remembers her. 

Birdie. 

Like the fox out of a den. 

She tilts her head, blinking long and slow at him.

“It hasn’t been so bad,” She answers a question that he doesn’t ask, her eyes boring into his. “Lotta scary stuff out there,” she shrugs. “But a lotta good too.” 

Joel scoffs.

“You wanna believe the world is so bad, huh?” She shakes her head, and holds out a hand when Tess steps forward with what she’d agreed to trade the Oxy for. 

“Look around you,” he snaps, waving a hand at the space around them, though it's peaceful at that moment. The wind is light, spring is in the air, and the dead apparently rise in ways that aren’t always bad. “What good is there left?” 

She shakes her head. “Not everywhere is here. And not everyone is you, Joel.” 

Joel doesn’t answer her, chest heaving with emotions he wishes the boot of the world would stomp back down again. 

She unwraps the cloth of the package Tess handed her, a soft expression shifting over her face at the sight. 

It’s a book, flat and thin. 

It’s fucking Goodnight Moon.

She’d just traded a fortune for a children’s book.

They’d just grifted her. She’s not stupid. She knows, she just doesn’t care.  

The expression on her face makes her look much younger. “See y’all around,” she says, not looking back as she tucks the book away and disappears into the treeline behind her. 

She’s gone but the memories she leaves in her wake don’t dissolve. 

Joel dreams of her. After that. 

His subconscious is subsumed by his past not being as dead as he thought it was. The keys to his humanity dangling in front of his face, within reach. 

He dreams. 

Of that fatal night. That last morning. That first brutal day in his cold new reality. 

Happy Birthday, Miller! 

He hasn’t thought about that part of that day in years, in decades. The memories of that morning had been eaten away at, consumed by what came later. He’s almost surprised the memories are still there, cupped between his ribs, stuffed back in the dark corners of his spine that he can’t reach himself. 

He dreams of her and Sarah pressed side by side on the couch, a picture book opened on their laps, tiny fingers tracing pictures and letters. They’d had a favorite book, one with a hidden mouse on each page. 

Sarah had liked to find the mouse, read each word slowly. And Birdie only laughed when Sarah pretended not to be able to find the mouse, despite the damn thing never moving, always in the same place on each page. 

He dreams of the meals left on the counter in his kitchen, a little voice telling him we made it together!

He dreams of the days she was gone, having to reassure Sarah, yes, she will come home. He dreams of the music on her porch, in the kitchen. 

Joel dreams of other nights too. 

The first night they fucked, the wet push of her bottom lip, the graze of her teeth against the flesh after she smiled at him and glanced at his mouth, lashes soft around her eyes. 

It had been one of those rare nights he was alone. Sarah was at a friend’s place, no parental responsibilities. He should have been asleep, catching up on something any parent knew to be elusive. 

Should have been. 

But he wasn’t, couldn’t. 

So, a cold beer on Birdie’s front porch sounded good. 

He dreams of the walk across the road, right up onto her porch where he knew he’d find her, feet up on the railing, a record spinning on so low he almost couldn’t hear it over the crickets and cicadas. 

He can’t remember, not now, what they’d talked about, how exactly they’d gone from her front porch to her bedroom. But he knows a Cash song had been playing.  

Joel just knows he had. He’d followed her, through the dark. To her bedroom. 

Her air conditioning was busted which was why she’d been on the porch in the first place so late at night. 

He remembers her being warm. The soft channel of her cunt hot. 

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he’d murmured into her damp skin. “You feel like fire.” 

He remembers the way she’d tasted, the way her belly clenched under his hands, the rise and fall of her ribs beneath his fingers, her hitched breath when he’d clutched at her sides, dug into her flesh like he could have pressed his fingers right through her ribcage, between the slats of her ribs, into the meat of her. 

She hadn’t held it against him when he left before she woke up. 

He’d had to go, to pick up Sarah from the friend’s house. But he’d wrestled with it, whether to wake her or let her go on sleeping. He’d settled for kissing her forehead, and leaving her be. 

When he wakes from that dream, he wishes she was dead for the second time. It’s only a distraction, what she’s caused. 

Weeks later, she’s in the QZ.

Another drop off, this time inside the walls. He doesn’t know what she smuggled in, what she’s trading. It doesn’t matter. It matters that she’s there. 

There’s a girl with her, too similar in coloring and size not to be her daughter. 

Joel doesn’t mean to approach them the way he does, doesn’t mean to grip her by her upper arm and drag her into a nearby alley. Her daughter is smart enough not to make any noise when she follows. 

“What are you doin’ here? I thought you weren’t hanging around.” His eyes cut to the girl. She looks eighteen, maybe younger or older. “Why would you come back here?” 

She shakes his arm off and leans back into the brick of the alleyway. “We had to circle back. There’s more here for us.” 

“More of what?” 

“Books.” 

Joel stares at her. 

“And music. CDs mainly. Somebody’s got ‘em.” 

Her daughter moves closer to her side, hand hovering over the knife at her side. He’s forced to look at the daughter then, really look at her, the shape of her face and eyes. They look similar enough, but Joel has to blink away the features that layer over hers. 

He tells himself that he doesn’t see himself in her, that he doesn’t see Sarah in her. 

She lies a hand on her daughter’s arm. “It’s okay. Joel’s an old friend.” Her daughter lowers her arm, relaxes into an easier pose but doesn’t take her eyes off him. 

Good, she’d been taught well.

“Joel, my daughter Daisy. Daisy, Joel.” 

Joel doesn't acknowledge the introduction and neither does she. “You should go. If you aren’t stuck here, you don’t wanna be.” 

“I came to collect,” she says, fingers still circled around her daughter's wrist. “There’s someone here that has a book I need.” 

“Need?” He rumbles. “Really? Need?” 

“Lotta books were destroyed. Fire. Neglect. Water damage.  More is lost every year. Music too. And that needs electricity, batteries.” She shrugs. “Some people will pay a lot for that.” 

Joel knew she was a smuggler, that was obvious. This he hadn’t expected.

People traded in necessities, food, drugs, contraband - not this. 

“Like you?” 

“Like me. It’s worth it.” 

He doesn’t see how, not when she had to risk so much for - all for sound and paper. 

“Building a fuckin’ library or somethin’?” 

She lifts a brow, nudges her daughter toward the street with her knee and a jerk of her chin. There’s a new bruise on her jaw, discolored skin disappearing into the top of her shirt. “So what if I am? Just don’t look too closely. Just look away.” 

They’re gone in second, disappearing into the crowd. 

Joel feels the worry, the care, he’s tried to tramp down, rise back up, bite into his lungs with sharp teeth. 

Just look away. 

Right. 

Joel sees her every couple weeks after that. 

For some reason, she sticks close to Boston, comes into the QZ every so often. 

She isn’t stupid, must know the risks of sticking around the QZ. But maybe she’s finished running around. 

“Daisy is moving on,” she says when Joel passes her the book she’d been looking for. He watches her pull back the cloth and inspect the spine of it. He’s still not sure if it's her daughter’s real name, or something she’d made up and given to him that day he dragged them into an alleyway. 

He’d spent too much time looking for the book. Denies that the smile it tugs her mouth into does anything for him. “Movin’ on? Without you?” 

“She’s that age. Needs to go on by herself,” she shrugs. “We’ll come back together if we need to. She knows how to find me. Knows how to handle herself. And I’m tired.” She rewraps the book - a banged up edition of something called American Gods. 

Joel watches her hands, the shake in them. She looks drawn. Tired. 

Something old and long dead makes him say, “You hungry?”

“Almost always,” she answers without hesitation.

When she first moved in down the street from him, all those years ago, they’d said almost the same thing. She’d been getting her mail, and he and Tommy had been barbequing. It had been the neighborly thing to do, to invite her over. 

If she remembers, she doesn’t show it. She follows him without a word, lets Joel guide her with a hand at the small of her back. 

She sits at the kitchen table, relaxes, but doesn’t talk, like its her home and she’s always been there. 

She used to talk, she used to talk a lot. 

He says as much to her. 

“Yeah,” she answers. “And you still don’t.” Her nails drum on the wooden table. The first time she’d had dinner with him, after that impromptu barbeque, with all of them, his little family, they’d had pizza. It wasn’t good pizza but it was better than what he sits in front of her now. 

It occurs to him then, that she’s never asked about Sarah. 

Not once, in all these months. 

She knows him well enough to know that if Sarah wasn’t there with him, something must have happened to her. That if she were alive, she’d still be with him, and he’d be different.

He wonders if she grieved them, him and Sarah and even Tommy. If she looked for them in the days after the outbreak. 

Joel hadn’t looked for her, there wasn’t time, and he hadn’t thought of it, not with the new wash of grief in him, the loss of his whole world. He’d only thought of her once, when they drove back down the street past her dark house. 

If she’s grieving all over again, she doesn’t show it. There’d been a closeness between her and Sarah that only existed between a mother figure and daughter. 

It reminds him of her hand on Daisy’s arm in the alleyway. 

Daisy, who kind of looks like him, who looks mostly like her. 

“Is your girl okay?”

She glances up and nods once, slowly, not meeting his eyes. “Fine. She’s smart, resourceful.” 

“How old is she?” He ventures, not sure he wants to know. 

She shrugs, “Eighteen, about.” 

Joel doesn’t even have to do the math on that one. It’s been nineteen years, about, since the outbreak. He figures in the time she would have been pregnant, and the reality of a situation falls into place in his mind. 

“Is she mine?” He asks, voice gruff. 

Her head jerks up from the plate in front of her, eyes flat and unamused. “Are you fuckin’ serious Joel?” 

“Is she? Timing’s right.” 

They’d fucked a few days before the outbreak. An early birthday present, she’d said then. There’d been a lot of sun that day, warm spears of late September heat. She’d smiled into his skin, promised he wasn’t old even if she teased him about it. He’d kissed her, thought about how things could be settled like that forever between them if she just let it.

She scoffs, “Fuck off.”

“I’m serious,” he growls. “Is she?” 

“What would it change, Joel?” she snarls suddenly. “I wish she was, but she’s not.” 

He doesn’t pause to think on that, on how she wishes Daisy was his. “Don’t fuckin’ lie to me-,” 

“She’s not,” she slams down the fork in her hand, the dishware rattling on the table. “She’s not, Joel.” 

Joel stares at her for a long moment, unrelenting and hard. He doesn’t believe her. 

“Jesus,” she mutters, running her fingers over her face and down the side of her neck, squeezing her eyes shut. “Jesus, she’s…Joel. I was raped. Okay? A month after the outbreak. Thought I could trust this fucker -,” her rage surfaces before she takes a breath and glances up at him. “It doesn't matter. I was raped. Next month, I missed my period. I wish she was yours but she’s not.” She shakes her head and looks down, brows pulling together, “She’s not.”  

He stares at her, reaches out and tips her face up. 

Rage, inhuman in its intensity crawls up the back of his throat, lights a holy fire he only feels when him and his are in trouble. It’s a years’ dead wound, a decades’ old trauma. It was twenty years ago. “Who?” 

She laughs, low and bitter, but doesn’t look away. “I was lookin’ for you, y’know.” He tries not to show how that guts him. “Or Tommy, I dunno. That fuck from the gas station down the road? We were gonna head north together, didn’t know what else to do. Anyways. It happened. He’s dead.” 

“Mm.” He presses his thumb to the center of her chin. He doesn’t want to release her just yet. He strokes a thumb over her cheek, shifts to cup her face between his palms, fingers rubbing slowly against the side of her neck, the space behind her ears. He traces over her jaw slowly with the pads of his thumbs. “Are you sure?” 

“Stabbed him through the fuckin’ throat so if he’s not we got bigger problems.” 

“You did?” He’s not surprised. 

“First one, for me. Not counting the infected. You think I’d let him walk away after that?” 

No. He knows she wouldn’t. “Atta girl,” he releases her gently, picks up his fork. “You did good with her. With Daisy.”

It had been hard, those first years. He can’t imagine it - the added stress of pregnancy, a baby. Going through it alone, pregnant and then with a child. A baby, a toddler, a child, who didn’t understand the world, the need to be quiet, the need to hunt or be hunted. 

She’s always been strong, but he wishes she didn’t have to be that strong. 

“What would you do? If I said he was still alive?” 

He remembers thinking once that she reminded him of summer. Beautiful, warm, wild - brutal in excess, harsh enough to kill if he didn’t watch himself, if she was crossed. There’s that brutality in her eyes now, she wants to know that he’d do something about it. Despite the years and the distance, the improbability of ever finding that man again. “He’d get a knife through his throat.” 

There’s a gleam in her eyes, a sparkle that glitters as her brow quirks and she resumes eating.

Joel follows suit, quiet again.

“You used to listen to them.” 

She taps her nails along the edges of the tape case. “Lynyrd Skynyrd,” she smiles. “Yeah I did.” 

Her favorite. It’s her favorite, but he doesn’t say that. 

“You already got it, don’t you?” He drops into the seat next to her when she sits down at the table.

“Yeah,” she says, “But mine skips. The tape is fucked up.” She opens her backpack, pulls out a walkman. “Yours might not be.” 

She sticks the headphones on, stuffs the tape into the player, and slams her finger against the play button. For a moment, her eyes flutter closed, and Joel is back on her porch, watching her from the front step, head tilted back in the sun while a record player crooned away. 

Fleetwood Mac. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Beastie Boys. Pink Floyd. 

“Is it?” He asks.

“What?” Her eyes flicker open.

“Skipping.” 

“No,” she takes the headphones off and offers them to him. “Careful now, I gotta conserve the batteries.” 

Joel takes a moment to listen to a few verses of a song he listened to probably thousands of times with you, hundreds of minutes. All nine damn minutes of that song, over and over. 

“What do I owe ya for it?” She asks. 

“Nothin’.” 

“Seriously,” she tilts her head at him. “C’mon. Can’t be outta the goodness of your heart. These aren’t easy to come by. I should know.” 

Joel gives a tight shake of his head. “It’s really on me. Wouldn’t be able to play it anyways. Only got the radio. Y’know how that goes.” 

“Sure,” she nods, eyes cutting into him. She tucks the walkman and the tape into her backpack. “Am I makin’ you soft or something, Miller?” 

She means it as a joke, but Tess had only argued with him the day before about it. That he loses his head around her, that she reminds him of who he used to be.

It pisses him off, that she’s right. 

The tape is enough evidence of that. It took him forever to find, cost him too much.

A distraction, a liability, a softness, that his world does not allow for. 

He stands, rounds the table, leans down over her. She looks up, eyelids lowered and gaze calm. Joel anchors one hand to the back of her chair. He doesn’t answer her question. 

She has lines by her eyes, gray is just starting to creep into her hairline. Like it's taken her a long time to age. She tilts her head up, not off put by the sudden movement, the closeness. 

“Sorry.” 

“What for?” 

“Makin’ you remember. I should just move on. Stop comin’ back.” 

He doesn’t know where she goes when she leaves the QZ, when she disappears for weeks, sometimes months. She has a home, a place, something clearly closer to normal, to before, than here. 

“Yeah,” he says. “You should.” 

Before he can think better of it, he leans down and kisses her. 

Her lips part beneath his, tongue readily meeting his. 

It’s not a gentle kiss, not by any stretch of the imagination. 

But she only moans when he jerks her up from the chair, pushes her back into the nearest wall.

Joel presses a hand to the nape of her neck, and slips his tongue into her mouth. She moans into him, fingers scrabbling for purchase against his sides, tangling roughly into his jacket. 

She tips her head back when he pulls away from her mouth. Her skin is like lava, warm like summer, like sun. The past. Like a warm night and a busted air conditioner. 

He presses the edge of his teeth into her throat, tongue laving over the spot. “C’mon,” he whispers against her, mouth moving down toward her collar. Her head lolls back, eyes fluttering closed. 

She hooks her fingers into the loops of his jeans, tugs him closer to her. His thigh falls between hers, and she digs her nails into his waist, fire hot hands fitted beneath his shirt, sliding over his ribs, his stomach. 

Her touch isn’t gentle. He knows if he looks, he’ll find crescents marking his skin, maybe bruises too. 

Her teeth snag against his bottom lip. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, jerking back. 

“You gonna fuck me?” 

“Not yet, sweetheart.” 

She crushed between him and the wall. Her lungs heave in tight little breaths. 

She smells like the breath of the woods, a little like that sage he knows, though he can’t see how that’s possible. Layered beneath that, the scent of her want, the need that buzzes on the surface of her skin. 

Maybe she didn’t think about him all those years, but she certainly never forgot him. Her body folds into his, her other hand curling around his shoulder and digging into his hair. 

Joel hisses when she tugs on the strands, nails raking along his scalp. He fumbles with the button of her jeans, but finds her bare when he shoves his hand between her legs. 

She’s already wet, slick with heat.

It’s unceremonious, the way he shoves his fingers between the lips of her cunt. She buries her head against his shoulder, biting back a whine. “Lemme in honey,” he whispers, winding his free arm around her waist. 

She hikes one knee up against his hip, thighs parting for him. He slips the pad of his middle finger against her clit before thrusting two fingers inside her. A startled gasp echoes around the room, the sound of her wet. His cock strains against his jeans, eager for her, the clasp of her pussy. 

She shifts the hand against his waist to the outline of his dick, teasingly running the pads of her fingers along him. 

The walls of her pussy are soft, the sheath of her warmth clenching around him. “Gonna come for me like this, sweetheart?” 

Her hips buck forward, his fingers sliding deeper inside her with the movement. “Don’t be a fuckin’ tease, Joel-,” He presses his thumb against her clit and her voice clips off in an agonized moan. 

“Mm, you asked for it.” 

He fucks her hard, fast, the squelch of her wet cunt taking his fingers the only sound in the room. She breathes his name out, tugs at his hair, rubs his cock through the thick material of his jeans, but he doesn’t feel it, focused on the way she sucks him in, the press of her breath against his cheek, the damp feel of his skin against his. 

He feels it when she comes, when her cunt clamps down around his fingers and she shakes around him, head thrown back. 

Joel doesn’t give her a moment to breathe, to catch her breath. 

He has to have her, has to feel her around him. 

On watery legs she follows his insistent hand, lets herself be pushed face down on the couch. “Hold on,” she pants, not looking at him. “Christ, Joel.” She shoves his hand away, chest heaving, so she can take off her jeans. This time, she gets her knees under her, positions her thighs wider. 

Joel slides a hand down her spine, rests his hand at the back of her neck. He takes only a second to look at her cunt, the wet glistening strands of her release between the lips of her pussy. 

A thought breaks through the need, a reminder of what she’d been through, but when her hand reaches back for him and pulls him closer, pleas on her lips, he forgets it. She looks back at him, cheek pressed to the sofa. Her eyes are hazy, lids lowered to half mast. 

Joel ignores the flutter of feeling the look in her eyes inspires. 

He frees his aching cock from his jeans and sinks into her warmth, the fit is tight. She feels just like he remembers. She must run hotter than most people, the warmth of her so molten it almost burns.

Summer, he thinks as he presses one hand to the back of her neck, the other traveling to her waist, holding her flush against him. She still reminds him of summer. 

He knocks the thought away, irritated by it. 

Annoyed with the feeling attached to that old sentiment. 

Her fingers clench into fists, when he pulls back and slams into her again. She keens, voice muffled by the cushion she buries her face into. Joel can’t look at her, focuses on the tug of pleasure wrapping around his spine, the familiar way her body feels against his. She bites down the moan that tries to wriggle past her clenched teeth, moving with the press of him against her. 

Joel fits himself against her back, laces their fingers together for just a second before he releases her again and presses a demanding hand to her cheek. She turns her face into his, kisses him hard with tongue and teeth. 

“Joel-,” 

“I know,” he whispers, pressing his other hand against her soaked cunt. “C’mon.” 

She clenches hard around him, her eyes fluttering closed. Joel thrusts hard, sheathes himself inside her and stills, the aftershocks of her orgasm threatening to bring to him his own.  

“C’mere, c’mere,” he hears himself muttering, pulling away and turning her over, tugging her down the couch. “Fuck, c’mere.” 

He goes to his knees on the floor, joints protesting all the way down. Fingers dig into her plush skin, divoting the muscle, when he covers her cunt with his mouth. 

She whines and squirms, his name on her lips, repeated over and over. Her fingers dig into his hair, tugging hard. He moans into her, the taste of her like sin, musky and slightly sweet. 

“I can’t,” she whispers, one hand flying to grip behind her head, scrabbling at nothing, at anything to latch onto. “Fuck, I can’t-,” 

“Yeah,” he lifts himself just far enough away for her wet heat to whisper. “Yeah, ya can.” 

He closes his eyes, unable to look at her, tongue circling her clenching hole, nose bumping against her clit. He fists one hand around his cock, the ache impossible to ignore. He’s going to fucking come in his own hand, face buried between her thighs. 

She pants out his name again, “Joel, please-,” Her fingers push at his head, then tug him closer, pain radiating from his roots. 

Joel slips his other hand beneath her shirt, broad palm resting flat against her belly, the pulsing breath sliding through her lungs vibrating against his fingers. He slides his hand high, to rest between her breasts. He still wants to sink his fingers into her, all these years later, wants to feel the air in her lungs with his own hands. 

When one of her hands presses down on his, holding it against her chest, he sweeps his tongue up through her pussy, seals his mouth around her clit and sucks. 

She goes still, a silent cry frozen in her mouth, back arching away from the sofa. He blinks up at the sight, twists his wrist along his cock and comes hard, eyes fastened on the ecstasy pulled across her face. 

He allows himself to briefly press his forehead to the inside of her thigh, breathing her in deeply, the scent of her skin and arousal, before he staggers to his feet. She’s still shivering, still trembling, but he can’t make himself stay with her. 

Joel doesn’t look at her when he zips himself up and stumbles to the bathroom. 

He can’t decide if it's a mistake, twitching fingers gripping the sides of the sink for a few long minutes as his breathing settles and evens out. Too long, he spends too much time standing alone in the bathroom, trying to crush the familiarity the intimacy has just brought him. 

No time at all might have passed. He might as well still be in Birdie’s bathroom, twenty years ago, still thinking he might have a chance with her. 

He decides not to try to categorize what just happened, or compartmentalize it. He’s a fucking asshole, though, for leaving her shivering half-naked on the couch. 

Joel finds a spare cloth and wets it, intending to bring it back to her to clean up, but when he emerges from the bathroom, she’s already gone. 

The sofa is still warm from her body, but he doesn’t try to go after her. 

It’s a sharp contrast to the first time they’d had sex. The way he’d left her before she woke, but she doesn’t know he’d struggled with it, considered calling Tommy and asking him to pick Sarah up. She doesn’t know about the kiss he’d pressed to her forehead. 

He doesn’t see her after that. Not for a long time. 

Daisy meets with him and Tess, once. 

But that’s it.

It’s winter again, when he finally sees her. 

She’s waiting for him, and doesn’t say anything when she sees him. 

Joel stops, watches her shift from foot to foot on dirty paving stones. “Got somethin’ for you.” 

He doesn’t move, wary of her. 

She just rolls her eyes and steps closer, digging in her bag when she swings it around to her front. This time, unlike the first, he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t reach for his gun. 

“Here,” she pulls out a CD. “Noticed you had a CD player on the radio.” 

Joel takes it from her, flips it around in his hands. It’s blank, so it's clear she’s burned songs onto it somehow. 

“Did you make me a mixtape?” 

“Don’t make me regret it,” she says, arms above her head, clasped hands pressed to her forehead, eyes squeezed closed. 

He chuckles, just a little. “C’mon,” he kicks at her ankle and walks away. 

It takes a second, but she follows. 

This time, when he fucks her, its not so distant. He holds onto her, hard, his grip tight. Fingers that will leave bruises on her skin. He leaves part of himself with her, the part he thought dead and long buried. 

He talks her through it, mouth against her ear, her legs wrapped around his hips. 

“That’s it, beautiful, just like tha’,” he coaxes, forehead against hers. 

She whimpers and clings to him, the knot of her fingers on his skin like burning coals, falling stars. 

Joel tugs her closer after, doesn’t move. His heart races. It feels strange, after all these years, this kind of intimacy. He does better with it this time. 

If it feels strange to her, if there’s been anyone else she’s done this with over the years, she doesn’t mention it. 

“Remember how Tommy called you Birdie?” He asks, her burning fingers tracing over his chest, the cut of his collarbone. “Because of that song?” 

“No,” she touches his mouth. “I remember how you used to, though.” 

“You know,” she starts one morning, her back turned to him. She’s wearing his shirt and nothing else. Joel hasn’t seen her in a month. “Sarah told me she was gonna get you that watch fixed.” 

She turns from the counter, settles at the table, one leg folded beneath her. “For your birthday.”

He glances down at the broken watch on his wrist. Joel knows it's as close as she’ll come to actually asking about her.

“She did,” he says, nodding. “It was.” 

“Uh huh,” she nods. “Asked me about it. Told her about a shop downtown that worked on clocks and watches.” 

Joel closes his eyes, flashes of that evening flashing through his mind. The forgotten birthday cake, the movie, the watch, Tommy’s call. The end. 

“She didn’t make it,” she says suddenly.   

“No.”

She takes a stuttering breath and stands, paces away from him. Joel’s only a little surprised by her reaction. 

He’d supposed - he’d figured - she’d already put it together, that Sarah hadn’t survived. It’s different to know for sure, to know for certain, he supposes. 

She’d spent a lot of time with Sarah, baked cupcakes and bought Christmas gifts even when she didn’t have any money to really be spending. She’d babysat Sarah when she was still a toddler. 

Many nights, he’d come home to the image of her and Sarah together on the couch, book in hand. And when she’d gotten older, music. She’d shared all kinds of music with her, and indulged the new artists Sarah liked. 

Goodnight Moon, he remembers suddenly. It was fucking Goodnight Moon, the book with the mouse they looked for on each page. 

That book that she traded a fortune of Oxy for. It had been the one she read with Sarah when she was still small. 

She turns back suddenly, eyes rimmed red. “I knew. I mean, fuck, of course, I knew. Tellin' myself maybe she was with Tommy or somethin' but-,” 

“I know,” he rumbles. “I know, honey.” 

“I didn’t wanna know what happened to you either, y’know,” she shakes her head, sits close to him. “I told myself you died. Both of you.” She nods. “For a long time. I couldn’t think of it any other way.” 

He nods, inches his hand closer to hers, untangles them and folds one between his. Joel shifts so he can look at her head on, smooth his free hand against her chin and cheek.

There’s nothing to really say about it, and so he doesn’t say anything. “Why’d ya want Goodnight Moon so bad?” He asks instead. 

Her eyes shine, “Me and Sarah always looked for the mouse when you came home late. I still had it when…I took it with me, that night. Read it the same way with Daisy, ‘til we lost it. I needed to have it again. Been lookin’ a long time.” 

So, maybe it was worth that Oxy. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Me too.”

Later that night, when she’s asleep in his bed, he plays the CD you gave him weeks ago. 

The first song isn’t Free Bird. He figures that means you’re sticking around. 

💞 Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

Crush

Genre: fluff

Word count: 6k

Summary: you like peter, he doesn't get it. until you confide in spider-man

i hope you guys like this, i've been really really busy at work but i'm working on my other fic i promise.

You didn’t know Peter Parker was Spider-Man. 

To be fair, no one really knew. Tony Stark knew because he knows everything, May knows because she walked in on him in the suit, so did Ned, and MJ found out on her own, because, well, she knows everything. So enter in you, a girl who moved into the city and got into a smart kid school. Almost immediately you befriended MJ, you sat next to her in English and noticed her head stuck in a book. You leaned over into her space, you saw her tense up and smiled at her eyes peeking at you through the corners.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. I’m new here and I want to die in a falling elevator, what about you?” 

MJ peered at you and smirked, she stuck out a hand to shake yours.

“Hi, I’m MJ. I’m old here and I’m still trying to decide.” 

You two have been friends since. 

“No, you’re not getting it Ned! I dare you to ask Betty, that is if she’ll still talk to you.” Peter grinned at his friend and laughed when Ned threw a spork at him. Ned and Betty were in their usual weekly dispute, usually something dumb but slightly significant. 

“Are you just mad I have a girlfriend that gets mad at me?” Ned teased back. He did feel like he had the upper hand, being honest he always thought Peter would have all his firsts, well, first. But Ned was collecting the firsts while Peter kept to himself. 

Peter scoffed at the assumption, “No way man, If I was a boyfriend I would never pick a fight. I’d be a good boy and listen.” He hummed and shot his eyes to yours, you were already looking at him. 

“Right, Y/N?” He shot a wink at you and you froze, was that real? Was he actually talking to you? 

Peter Parker is beautiful. You’re not sure when you liked him, actually you think you always have. The second you met him you felt pulled to him, you couldn’t stay away from him. Subconsciously you walked the longer loop around the school to peek at him at his locker, and you always laughed at his jokes, and you made constant eye contact when you weren’t staring at his mouth. 

His brown curls laid over his forehead, you remember last week he was talking about getting it cut, and you frowned at him and said ‘absolutely not, if anything you should grow it longer’, you can’t help but notice it hasn’t been cut yet, and he is looking more tempting by the day. Maybe two more weeks and you could have an excuse to run your hand through it, tell him you noticed it was in his eyes and you were just helping. 

Even MJ knew, you think Ned and Betty have an inkling. When the four of you were together they loved to talk about Peter, except they would only praise him. He has the ultimate wingmen even if he didn’t know it. And speaking of not knowing, he had no clue you were into him. It’s not like you’ve been straightforward but you also didn’t hide it. You always made flirty comments towards him, and he would usually smile shyly and brush it off. 

“How did you think you did on Mr. Tusks test? I think I did fine.” He once asked during a passing period, you made a show of looking him up and down, “Oh trust me, you’re fine.” Peter rolled his eyes and then asked if you had heard about Kayte and Brendon. 

“Can you do me a favor?” Peter asked while you and the rest of the group met at his house for a study session before PSATS, looking over at you from his shoulder at the kitchen table. You stepped closer and grabbed his bicep, “Trust me, I’d do anything for you, Peter.” MJ let out a quiet ‘oooh’ and Peter flushed, he cleared his throat and held up some crumpled paper. “Can you throw these away for me, please?” 

You wrapped your hand around the paper in his and let your fingers rest against his palm for a moment, you looked in his eyes and pouted. “Aw, that’s all?” He looked at MJ for help, she instead looked at you and smirked with a slight nod to her head. You met her with a similar smirk and walked away to the trash can. 

Then that time at the movies you hopped around Ned to steal the spot next to Peter, “Dibs! If anyone is gonna get cuddly with Peter it’s gonna be me.” You pushed Ned’s shoulder to prove your seriousness when his jaw dropped open, he sputtered but then slunk to the seat next to you. Peter joked to ease the tension, “There’s enough of me to go around,” you looked at him and smiled, “but most of you is mine, right?” Peter went to respond but the lights dropped and the trailers started. 

You almost thought he made a move, almost. 

During the movie he lent into your ear, his warm breath sent goosebumps down your spine. “Hey.” You turned your head and almost stopped breathing, his face was right against yours, if he lent up half an inch your lips would meet. You wondered if this was the moment, all the flirting was for something. “Yeah?” You whispered back, you looked between his eyes and mouth, he caught you looking at his lips and watched you lean in a tad closer. “Can I get a sip of your slushie?” 

His grin was highlighted in the blue light of the theater screen. You grumbled and thrust the plastic cup at his chest, “Not how I imagined swapping spit with you in a movie theater, but I guess it will do.” Peter nodded absentmindedly while his attention was on the screen, and you might have maybe, just for a second, thought about punching him in the ribs. 

And right now he was asking you if he would be a good boyfriend. 

“Are you kidding me Parker? You’re the definition of boyfriend material.” You matched the grin he gave you and he shot a HA! At Ned. 

“Told you! And when I finally find a girlfriend I’m gonna be the best boyfriend.” He made a cocky grin at Ned that let him know he won the fight. Your ears were ringing, did he just say? He couldn't have. No way he’s that dumb. 

You slap your palms on the table and narrow your eyes at him, “What do you mean find a girlfriend?” 

“Oh! You know, when I finally have a chick that’s into me.” He shrugged, so casual. Did he think you were just playing around? 

“When you have a chick, into you.” You repeated the words slower and watched him nod his head and take a sip of chocolate milk. 

MJ hid her snort under a cough, you turned to look at her, silently saying ‘is he for real right now?’ and MJ gave a look back that said ‘oh i think he is.’ 

You kissed your teeth, “and tell me Peter, how the fuck would you know when a girl is into you?” 

His eyes widened for a second, “Uh, I dunno. I think if she likes me she’ll make it known.” 

You laughed dryly, “Or she can make it known and you’re just totally oblivious.” 

Peter thought for a moment and hummed, “No, I think I’d know.” 

You looked at MJ with a wide mouth.

“Okay. Fuck this, I’m out.” You grabbed your backpack off the table and stomped out the cafetera doors. 

“Did I say something to make her mad?” Peter missed the look MJ and Ned shared. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter couldn’t help but feel guilty, he didn’t know what he did but he’s almost sure he made you upset. And he would normally never interfere with Spider-Man but he’s the one that saw you tossing pebbles and crushed cans at a brick wall down an alleyway. So he had to make sure you were okay, just doing his civilian duties. 

“Fucking stupid, oblivious, what does he want me to do? Fucking show up at his house naked?” You mumbled to yourself and kicked a cardboard box, sending it into the side of a dumpster. 

You heard something drop behind you, spinning to the sound you were met with the masked vigilante seen across the city. You had never seen him in person, not even a glimpse when you were walking around. You were starting to believe he was a figment of people's imagination.   

You narrowed your eyes, you didn’t know or care why he was there. 

“Fuck off, Spider-Man.” You turned to throw another rock at the wall and watch it bounce off, just like all your attempts with Peter. That frustrating prick. 

“Bad day?” 

He didn’t leave and he just brought a shit storm apun himself. 

You spun to face him again, “You have no idea.” 

“Tell me about it.” Maybe you would slip why you were pissed at lunch. 

You looked him up and down and tapped a finger on your chin, “Do you take hits?” 

“Like punches? I mean I try-” 

You cut him off, “No. I mean if I tell you to beat someone up would you do it?” 

Peter’s eyes widened in the mask, but then collected himself. 

“Maybe, it depends why you want them beaten up.” 

“Because he deserves pain.” You threw another rock. 

“Who’s he?” Peter had a feeling it was himself. 

You groaned and rubbed at your eyes, you paused to think of the story and decided to tell the whole thing to make sense. 

“Are you like a therapist or something?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Like patient doctor confidentiality. I can tell you anything and no one knows?”

Peter thought to himself, he had never viewed himself that way but he sees how some may think of him like that. Just a random guy to dump their shit unto. 

“Sure, yeah. I won’t go screaming from the rooftops about your bad day with ‘he’.” He used air quotes around the ‘he’ and smiled when he made you laugh. 

“Alright, cool.” You nodded and paused after rubbing the bridge of your nose, then finally looking into the white masked eyes of Spider-Man.

“You brought this on yourself. Okay look, I’m new here right? Moved here from Manhattan, and got into this, like, super smart kid school.” You watched the masked face nod. 

“And I met this girl on my first day and she’s super cool and she tells me she’s gonna introduce me to her friends, and I was super excited to make friends, right?” You watched him to make sure he was listening, “And sorry for the next part, if you’re like a thirty year old guy just understand I am a horny teenager and you were once me, okay? Okay.” 

“So I met her friends, Ned and Peter. And let me tell you, Peter? Wow! Look, I’ll level with you. I’ve liked dudes before, maybe even kissed a few, who’s to know?” Peter froze for a moment, did you just hint at what he thinks? 

“But, Peter? I have literally never wanted to hump someone's face until I saw him.” 

Peter coughed then cleared his throat, his cheeks felt on fire. 

He knows you’ve always said things to him, he knows it was flirty but he didn’t realize you were being serious, cause he was him, and you were you. Peter never had that aha moment where he realized you were in fact flirting and did like him like that. He now wants to curl in shame because of the way he’s blown you off for so long, he doesn’t know why he thought you were always playing around with him, especially now. Because you only ever told Peter, you wanted Peter. 

Peter feels really dumb right now watching a girl he never thought he could pull, in distress because he is in fact, not pulling her. 

“I don’t know how to explain it but I felt so pulled to him, I hadn’t known him for twelve seconds and I wanted to know everything about him, you know? And I’ve tried everything, man. I don’t know how much more clear I can get, I mean I flirt with him all the time. Like, all the time. I literally told him I wanted to make out with him at the movies and he was just like… But can I get some of that slushie? I wanted to kill him and then myself.” 

You noticed the wide eyes on the mask but held up a hand to continue. 

“And today! My god I really thought he got it, get this, the fucker,” You exclaimed the fucker. “This fucker looks at me, dead in the eye and says ‘I’d be a good boyfriend right?’ and I was like ‘Oh my god, yes. You are literally perfection, look at you. So handsome, such baby, I will die if I don’t kiss you.’ And he goes, and I cannot make this shit up, ‘when I finally find a girlfriend I’ll be the best boyfriend.’” You mocked his voice, well not Peter’s, but a general man's voice. 

“Oh.” The first response you’ve heard from him yet. 

You laughed bitterly. “Oh, I’m not even at the part that made me fly off the wall.” 

Peter knows what you’re talking about. 

“At this point I just thought he was his normal little dumb self but when he said that? Game over. So I said, ‘how the fuck would you know when a girl is into you?’ just like that too, and he goes,” You paused to laugh again and shake your head, “‘I think if she likes me she’ll make it known.’ How fucking disconnected is he from reality? I wonder what it would be like to be in his head, really. Just a fuckton of open space huh? Anyways, I just told him that maybe she is making it known and he’s just not paying attention and he goes, ‘hmm, nope. I’d think I know.’ I couldn’t take it and just walked out.” 

You finished up your rant, “So, in conclusion. Fuck Peter Parker, but also, I want to fuck Peter Parker. It’s hard being 17.” 

For the first time Spider-Man was speechless. He didn’t know how to navigate this because he wanted to take your side but also didn’t want to throw Peter under the bus. When he noticed you were waiting for a response he let out a ‘Wow.’ 

“Well, wow.” He was still trying to find words. 

“I know right? I told you, you brought this on yourself.” You sat against the brick wall and pulled a quarter from your pocket running it across your knuckles. Spider-Man moved to sit next to you. 

“I know you say you’ve been forward but maybe he thinks you’re joking, or maybe he didn’t see it like that because he thought you wouldn’t like him like that.” 

“Babes, you have no idea how much I like him like that.” 

“Right. I mean, maybe give it another shot, you never know.” He shrugged his shoulders, who knows? Peter may even ask for a date next time you talk. 

“Oh, you think I’m giving up?” You raised an eyebrow at him. “No way, if anything this makes him even more attractive. Who doesn’t like a good chase? I will tell you my next method was just popping up at his place like, you, me, lets fuck, right here, right now.” 

“Chasing is only fun if you catch them in the end. And I doubt this Peter kid would ever give into that method, you’d scare the shit out of him.” You sighed and thought about it. “You’re right, he would respect me too much. It’s gross how much I love that.” You watched the quarter roll across your middle knuckle and held it tightly. 

You leaned a cheek against the hero’s shoulder. 

“Don’t beat up Peter Parker. He’s a sweet boy, just a little unaware.” 

“Although, if he doesn’t wake up to smell the bacon next time we talk I’m sending you a smoke signal and his address and I won’t let you leave until I see blood.” 

Peter let out a big laugh, “Deal.” 

You stood up and brushed off your butt then reached a hand out to help Spider-Man up. 

“Thanks for talking me off the ledge. Here’s a tip.” You tossed the quarter in your hand towards the red glove. 

Peter nodded and gave a two finger salute, “Just doing my job ma'am, I am the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man after all. I’ll look around for you, I hope I get a Peter update soon.” 

You smiled at the hero once more. 

“Me too.”

You watched as he took off and started to walk home, not even twenty minutes later a text came through. 

hey, sorry if i made you upset at lunch today. 

It's fine, I'm sure you’ll make it up to me. 

yeah, i’ll show you how sorry i can be.

And hell if your breath didn’t hitch. Did he just flirt with you? There is no way in God’s green earth did he just send a text like that not knowing how you’d take it. Did he finally wake up and smell the roses? Did the behavior at lunch kick in a thinking cell? 

Either way, you couldn’t wait for school tomorrow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walking in the doors you rubbed the palm of your hand over your cold nose, the temperature was slowly reminding you summer was over and the nips of frost and changing leaf colors proved it. You were excited for fall and winter, you would have friends to go to a halloween party with, maybe even get to wear a couples costume with Peter if it worked out for you. You would trickle into thanksgiving and then have a whole season for cookies, movies and snow fights. A part of you couldn’t help but think about Peter's eyes sparkling in the christmas lights. 

Peter’s head darted up at you the second you walked through the door, his teeth nibbling his bottom lip. He wasn’t sure what to say, or if he should say anything. Does he wait for you to say something? Does he walk up and ask you on a date?

Either way you were about to walk past him, you looked preoccupied, in your own world. You were nibbling on your thumb nail, lost in your thoughts about Peter, and the weather, and Peter, and snow, and carving pumpkins with Peter, and the way leaves would crunch under your feet, and then floated to central park and walking hand in hand with Peter, and kissing Peter under a tree, or maybe he’d take you to rockefeller plaza and ask you to be his girlfriend there, and you just know in your heart Peter would always give you extra whipped cream on your hot chocolate. 

You were so lost in thinking about Peter you didn’t see Peter. 

Not until he jumped in front of you. 

“Hey!” He smiled and it made your eyes go hazy. 

“Peter.” You let out dreamily, still stuck in daydreams where he was yours.

“Whatcha thinking about?” His grin gave away he knew, but you know he didn’t.

“Would you give me extra whipped cream on hot chocolate?” 

“Oh yeah. I’d even throw in some mini marshmallows and a cinnamon stick. Or do you like peppermint more?” 

You fawned at his response, he was so gentle it warmed you. 

“Would you carve pumpkins with me?” You looked at his locker. 

“Why not? Seems fun.” He tapped his fist against your shoulder.

“I would need your help, cause I’m good at getting the guts out but the actual carving part hurts my hand because I have to use so much force. So I could draw a design and you could cut it for me, cause you're way stronger than me.” 

“Why are you good at getting the guts out?” He poked a finger at your elbow to get your attention back on his face. 

You bit your bottom lip and changed topics. 

“Have you ever walked through central park?” 

I mean, if Peter thinks about it he’s spent a fair amount of time there, but he’s not roaming around. He’s swinging around or stopping crime or running after someone, so he guesses not. He’s never walked through the park and enjoyed it, he thinks he did it a few times as a kid but he can’t remember the last time he went. 

“As a kid, I haven’t been in a while.” 

“I think it would be really pretty to walk through it when the leaves all change.” 

“I love the feeling of the leaves crunching under my feet.” 

“Me too! As a kid I used to build leaf forts and just roll around for hours.” You smiled brightly at the shared feeling. 

“We could go sometime, just say when. We could even get the group together.” He winked playfully but dropped the grin when he saw the disappointment flash in your eyes when he added the friends part. You didn’t want a group trip, you wanted a Peter trip. 

“Or it could be just a you and me thing, I think I could use some one on one time with you.” Peter retracted his earlier statement. Your eyes lit up at his suggestion, “really? You do?” 

“Yeah, of course. I love talking to you.” He smiled and watched you bite your bottom lip as you stared at his. 

“Anything fun happen yesterday? I didn’t see you after lunch.” Was he possibly hinting at you talking about him to him? Yes. 

“Uh,” You trailed and thought about telling him, scared if you said too much he’d ask details. 

“You know, I started to believe Spider-Man was a mass hallucination, turns out he’s a real guy. Kinda cool.” 

Peter raised his eyebrows, “You suddenly came to that belief yesterday?” 

“Well I mean, you know. He was like, there. And was like, hey.” You gave a general response and shrugged your shoulders. 

“He was just there and said hey?” He slowly repeated the words back. 

“Hey! He promised he wouldn’t talk about what we discussed and I will promise the same. We had a nice conversation about someone close to me and he gave me a little pep talk.” You defended your stance. 

“Like patient doctor confidentiality?” He was having a little fun here. 

“Exactly! It was true alleyway therapy. I even gave him a quarter for his troubles.” You crossed your arms and grinned, it was funny how good you felt after talking to him yesterday. Maybe exploding emotions on a third party stranger was good. 

“Sounds like you have a crush on Spidey.” 

You narrowed your eyes at him, “If he was here right now, and heard that coming from your mouth? He would have a fucking field day, I promise you that.” 

Peter raised his eyebrows in coyness. 

“From me? Sounds like he knows something, was I maybe the close person you had a conversation about?” 

Your cheeks felt warm, you were on the spot. You always hinted at your crush on Peter but you were kind of pussy to outright say it so you hoped he would catch on and ask you out. But now you didn’t know how to react, you had said too much and backed yourself into a corner. 

You opened your mouth to play off a response when the bell for first period rang out, you let out a breath of relief and smiled at Peter. 

“Saved by the bell.” 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

You were begging Spider-Man was out, looking around where he had dropped down yesterday. 

Things have progressed with Peter and you promised him an update, it was just about keeping him in the loop. It had nothing to do with getting to fantasize and romanticize you and Peter’s interactions. 

Jumping in excitement you saw him standing on the corner of the same building you were hiding behind yesterday, hands on his hips with his head turned the opposite way. 

“Spider-Man!” You whisper shouted. 

“Hey! Spidey!” You raised your tone some. 

“Yo! Spider-boy!” You picked up a pebble and threw it up the building. 

Getting his attention the hero looked behind him then pointed at himself with a thumb, “me?” You rolled your eyes, “yes, you. C’mere.” Watching him jump down and land in a squatted pose you couldn’t help but think about how fucked up your ankles would’ve been if you tried it. 

“Peter update, bitch. I don’t have another quarter on me, so this will have to be on the house.” 

“I kept it.” He handed it back to you and you thought about how if Peter did that you would be putty in your shoes. 

“I think he was flirting with me. I think. I don’t know, he’s so coy. I love him.” You sighed and held a hand to your heart. 

“And I am so sadistic, I’m using him as a pawn in my sick games. I’m asking him questions that I’ve already answered in my head about him and when he gives me a response it’s better than I imagined.” 

“Maybe he was flirting, or trying. Something tells me you make him nervous.” 

“Am I intimidating? I don’t want him scared of me, I want to mash my parts with his.” You pouted and thought if you were making him uncomfortable. 

“First, gross.” (Not really, he also wants to mash parts.) 

“Second, I don’t think you’re intimidating. I just think you are much more forward than him.” 

“Oh no. Is that a problem? Do I keep doing what I am, or should I let him do this? Am I over stepping? I’ve never had a boyfriend, is he supposed to pursue me? Have I done everything backwards? Oh god.” You covered your face with your hands and missed Peter's eyes growing wide and his panicked arm movements. 

“No, no, no, no. You’re fine, you’re good. It’s good. You can make the first move, totally okay. I just meant you’re expecting him to ask you out any second and I think you need to make it more noticeable rather than joking.” 

“Ew! Gross! I will not walk up to that man and tell him I wanna smooch.” 

“Oh, C’mon! You basically already have!” 

“Nope. Not happening. You’ve helped me make up my mind, I will wait for Peter Parker to make the next move.” You tossed the quarter back to him, “Don’t worry. You’ll see me again.” 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Woah, wait.” MJ stopped in her tracks and spoke her next words carefully. 

“You told Spider-Man about your crush on Peter?” Her voice was smooth and quick, MJ almost felt panicked for you, because you didn’t know what you just did. 

“Yeah?” You didn’t get the big deal, not like Spider-Man knew who Peter was anyways. 

“What did he say?” MJ was pulling at the thread.

“That I should be more clear, or less intimidating, or something.” 

“He said you were intimidating?” MJ narrowed her eyes. 

“Well kind of, when I said that he kind of back tracked but-” 

MJ cut you off when he locked eyes with Peter coming down the hall towards you, he tilted his head in question, he knew that look and he wasn’t sure why he deserved it. She grabbed Peter’s forearm and tugged him next to her, your eyes went wide. You didn’t need to understand why MJ decided to bring Peter into this conversation, you just needed to end it. 

“Peter, do you think Y/N is intimidating?”  

His eyes saw your subtle head shake at her, an unvocal way of telling her to shut the fuck up. 

“Uh, no. Not at all. Why?” 

MJ waited for you to talk but you stayed silent, you would definitely spill if you tried to navigate the conversation. 

“Because, the Queens nightly hero thinks she is.” Her tone was bitter, who knew MJ was this defensive over you. 

“He said I was too forward, MJ. Drop it.” You pleaded to get out of this alive. 

“Too forward, imagine that, Peter. Imagine confiding in someone about a crush and they say you’re too forward.” 

You felt your knees hit your ankles, Peter would connect the dots. You told him you had a conversation and MJ just admitted it was about a crush. 

You started to dryly laugh, not allowing Peter a chance to answer that. 

“Not a crush! Nope! Don’t know where you got that theory.” You darted your eyes around looking for an escape. 

“No?” Peter questioned you. 

“You know MJ, she lives in her own world. Never said anything about having a crush on someone, definitely not you.” 

Peter had to play into this, your turn to squirm. 

“Who said I thought you had a crush on me?” 

Your heart couldn’t beat any louder than it was at the moment. 

“No one did.” You flashed a nervous smile. 

“No, I think you just did.” 

You breathed heavily out your nose and looked harshly at MJ like ‘wtf? Why did you do this?’ 

“I just didn’t want you to think I have a crush on you.” 

Peter pouted, “Why not? I think it would be cute.” 

It was your turn to sputter. 

“Cute? It would be cute? Cute how? Cute, that's adorable or cute, let's date?” 

You didn’t miss MJ’s look of ‘wow. Subtle much?’ 

“Depends. Do you have a crush on me?” 

“Do you think I have a crush on you?” 

Peter hummed and pretended to think. 

“Sometimes.” He shrugged his shoulders. 

“Only sometimes?” 

“I’m confused. Do you want me to think you have a crush on me or not?” 

MJ raised her hands and slowly started to back away. 

“Depends. How would you react?” You cautioned. 

“Probably how you want me to react.” 

“And how do I want you to react?” 

Peter smiled and leaned in close, you held your breath for a moment. Was he about to kiss you? Is that how you want him to react? Yes. 

“You tell me.” 

Then he straightened himself and winked as he walked away. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter just had to wait for an opening, not that you would take long to give him one. You couldn’t keep it in, it was second nature at this point.

If there was any way he could ask you out casually then you needed to make it a bit clear, as much as you said you wanted it he couldn’t imagine the flip of “he doesn’t notice anything” to “hey, wanna go out?” 

 Peter was trying to set himself up for one of your comments and you tried your best to keep a poker face but when he said that? Game over. 

“I think I have a shot, she totally likes me.” 

Was he talking about you? He better be, because if you were walking into his house for the regular Friday movie night and he was talking about another girl you would actually lose it. You had just got there, still waiting for MJ and Ned to show up when he greeted you with his words. 

“Who likes you?” 

“Kendra! During math she was holding up her highlighters trying to match one to my shirt. It’s pretty obvious right?” 

“No.” 

“No?” 

“No. You can’t be serious.” 

“I am! I told you if someone liked me they would make it obvious, and I’m pretty sure she did.” 

“Oh fuck you Peter! You’re the actual worst, I sit here all fucking day saying things to you, about literally wanting to be all over you and a girl with a fucking highlighter collection is booted to top of the list?” 

“I mean, what am I? Chopped liver? I have been pining after you for months, and all it took was a highlighter? Do you know I wear that green sweater all the time because you said you liked it once, or that I follow you around like a puppy? How about when I flirt with you, or do you even know I’m flirting with you?” 

Peter had a shit eating grin that made you even more upset. 

“Why are you so happy right now, you’re really pissing me off.” 

Peter stalked towards you until you were backed up into the wall, with nowhere to go you felt his chest brush yours, his arms caging you against the wall, your head between both of his hands. 

Save for the position, you were excited. This was going to be a new daydream scenario, he had you pinned to the wall. The only way out was through him. 

He leant in close, if you just pushed yourself up you could have his lips on yours. 

“Because, you finally admitted it.” 

You narrowed your gaze at him. 

“What is that supp-” 

He cut you off. 

With his mouth. 

On yours. 

No matter how many times you dreamed about this exact moment nothing could match the real thing. His lips were soft, his hand cupped your jaw to bring you closer to him. His body leaned in so he was flush against yours, you felt every curve and divot of him blend into yours. You grabbed at the waist of his shirt, begging for him not to leave his position of being on your mouth. 

Instead he opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, the feather touch of his tongue on your lower lip sent your head into a spiral, the boy you had been obsessing and pining over the past few months was moving with your movements, you gasped into his mouth and he squeezed a hip with his hand and you in turn pressed your hips into his. 

He pulled away and placed a kiss to your jaw, then neck. 

“Was that the reaction you wanted?” 

Your eyes stayed closed but you nodded, scared if you opened them the illusion would disappear. 

“I kissed you with my heart and soul baby girl, can’t a guy get a response?” 

You whimpered at the pet name. 

Then a knock at the door, the curtain dropped. The other friends were here and it would go back to pretend this didn’t happen for a few hours. The front door was being opened from the outside, you had your head turned to the right to watch it open. Peter still had you pressed into the wall, he placed an arm out to hold the door shut. 

“I’m not done yet.” 

He leant in for another one, and another. 

And another. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I was beginning to think you forgot about me.” 

You did promise Spider-Man an update, but it’s been a busy few months. Christmas was just around the corner and Peter and you have been busy. Between dates and seasonal activities you haven’t had a moment to track down the hero and catch him up to date. 

First it was Halloween and you did get your couples costume. (and he helped you carve your pumpkin.)

 Then it was Thanksgiving. (and he walked through central park with you.)

And recently you’ve both been busy with present shopping and baking. (and he gives you hot chocolate with extra, extra whipped cream.)

 “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been too busy being a girlfriend.” 

“Girlfriend?” 

You squealed. “Yes! He totally set me up and I was all like, ‘How do you not know I like you?’ and BAM! He just started kissing me, I was seeing fucking stars.” 

“Peter Parker finally smelled the bacon, huh?” 

“Yeah. He’s really awesome. I know we were friends before but it’s gotten so much better now he’s my boyfriend, I don’t even know how to describe it. I think it’s because everything I feel for him is reciprocated times ten by him.” 

“I think it’s because you love him.” 

“Or because we’re mashing parts.” 

You laughed at his reaction. 

“Gross.” (Not gross. He fucking loves mashing parts.)

“But yeah, I think it’s mostly because we love each other.” 

“I’m happy for you, I’m glad I can stop looking for smoke signals now.” 

You grinned at the hero and had to fight back the urge for a hug. 

“Thanks, if it makes you feel better if I knew who you were under the mask I’d buy you dinner.” 

Sirens blaring broke the reunion. 

“It’s alright. I have a feeling you’ll know soon.” 

“Hm, sure. Have a goodnight, Spidey. I’ll see you around.” 

“You too, Y/N.” 

Then he swung off, it left a grin on your face. 

Until. 

‘How did he know my name?’