Masterlist for the My Little Love Universe. These series revolves around three of our favorite fictional men, Bucky, Steve and Sam. They each get their own story and this universe starts with Bucky’s.
My Little Love
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Enhanched!Reader “Sugar”
Series Masterlist
Bucky was no longer the winter soldier. He was living freely and working with the Avengers. You were one of his closest friends and he was head over heels in love with you. The feeling was mutual. You liked Bucky the moment you met him but neither of you were willing to say anything yet. Everyday that passed, Bucky was able to remove himself more from what Hydra had done to him. Until a mission reveals that Hydra had been creating super soldier children and Bucky happened to be the father. With you by his side Bucky will learn to love and care for his kids. The love you have for each other blooms into a beautiful relationship. But Hydra isn’t happy that the next generation of super soldiers was taken from them and they’ll do whatever it takes to get them back.
Series warnings: major angst, fluff, smut, blood, medical emergencies, hydra, bad family relationships, mentioned child abuse, kidnapping, (please check individual chapters for warnings)
A Love As Sweet As Honey
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Scientist!Reader “Honey”
Series Masterlist
Steve wanted what his best friends had. He wanted love and family and peace. That’s wasn’t too much to ask for, right? Somewhere along the way Steve befriended Bruce’s lab assistant, you. You were guarded, slightly grumpy, you weren’t afraid to say what you were thinking and didn’t trust easily. That didn’t stop Steve from seeing more to you. He liked you and you liked him. While Steve didn’t want to ruin the friendship you had, you were afraid to let him see the more vulnerable part of you. However, after a night of drinking you wake up naked and next to each other. A drunken one night stand that will definitely put a strain on the friendship. Then you get a positive pregnancy test.
Series warnings: angst, fluff, smut, tears, unplanned pregnancy, talks of abortion, bad family dynamics, more to come… (read individual chapters for specific warnings)
A Love On Broken Wings
Pairing: Sam Wilson x Engineer!Reader “Sweets”
Series Masterlist
Sam Wilson had always wanted to fly. He wanted to help people and make a difference. When he saw the opportunity to become a pilot in the Air Force he took it. That choice would change his life forever. Not only would it lead him to become friends with and work along side the Avengers, he’d also met the love of his life. You also wanted to help people. Listening to your father tell stories from his time in the military and the limitations there were you wanted to created something that would change the way missions would be handled. That’s how you met the man that would steal your heart and break it.
Series Warnings: angst, fluff, smut, tears, character death, kidnapping, torture (see future chapters for warnings)
-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-•-
A/N: As always my permanent and series taglists are open. I will only add 18+ so please make sure you let me know if you are 18+ or that it’s on your blog!
Warnings!!: slow burn, reader is an adult!!, gore, mentions of amnesia, themes of guilt, mature themes, strong language, angst, pining.
Summary:
(As soon as your letter finds its way into Daryl’s hands, he can do nothing but ignore your words and realise everything he’d lost now that it was already too late.)
A/N: I’m sorry for how late this has come out, I’ve been quite busy the past few days! I do hope you enjoy angels!
Daryl didn’t know where you were.
He didn’t know if you’d escaped.
He didn’t know if you’d died under the same bat that’d just threatened to split his skull in two.
Had you already been put on a drying rack?
Dead?
All he knew was that no matter the outcome of your status, he wasn’t going to leave you, not in that place.
Didn’t matter if you were cold yet or not.
“We gotta go back in there,” Daryl uttered out into the group, his movements uneasy, his reclaimed crossbow in his grip now after Carol had passed it over to him.
He should’ve been happy to see her face after all this time. He should’ve been happy to see all the familiar faces.
But—
It didn’t feel like he could be…happy.
Not when you were still in there.
“Like hell we are!” Abraham yelled, stepping forward like he was daring to do something. “We just got out!”
Daryl didn’t waste a second stepping forward himself, challenging the ginger-haired man who’d just walked in full guns blazing when he didn’t know shit.
“And we goin’ back.”
It was then that Rick stepped in like he always did.
“I agree with Daryl.” He spoke with that authority that he always seemed to have despite everything. “We’re gonna go back in. We’re not leavin’ her.”
“Let’s go then,” Daryl replied, his eyes flickering coldly over Abraham’s once more, then—
He started moving towards the gap in the fence that they had all just climbed over.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Nobody moved.
Carol sighed, rubbing a hand across her face.
“Wait.”
Daryl’s stilled, his gaze dragging towards Carol’s over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed on her face, noticing the immediate flash of dread wash over her features.
He knew Carol well enough by now to know that look never meant anything good.
She reached into her pocket, slowly, almost as if she didn’t want to do it. The handle of a knife appeared in her grip first then followed a small folded up piece of paper.
He recognised the knife as soon as he spotted the engravings.
Yours.
He could do no more but jump to conclusions seeing it.
“She dead?” Daryl asked, his voice cracking with the severity of the question.
Carol stepped forward, angling the paper towards him like it was a silent answer to his question.
“Just read it.”
His eyes flickered towards Rick’s for a brief moment, then towards Michonne’s before he reached out and took the paper into his own hand.
He unfolded it once.
Then twice.
The writing was undoubtedly yours; no questions about it. Daryl didn’t know when he’d seemed to have memorised your handwriting, but it seemed that he had.
‘Please don’t come looking for me.’
He found himself staring at those words like they’d personally wounded him.
Had they?
“Nah,”
Daryl shook his head, his eyes flashing back up towards Carol, his fingers clenching around the paper. His thumb contacted with the damp of your tears by your name.
“She’s not thinkin’ straight,”
“What does it say?” Maggie questioned, stepping forward, that sense of worry already riddling her face.
Daryl didn’t say anything; he could feel something crawling at his throat, though he didn’t dare to put a finger on what it was.
Rick snatched the letter from his hands, pulling it into his own view. Michonne was close behind him, her shoulder contacting his as they both scanned over what you had written.
“What does it say…?” Maggie repeated with urgency this time, directing her question towards Rick this time, because—
Daryl didn’t want to answer that question.
That made it real, and he didn’t plan on going about this the way you’d wished.
A beat.
“She’s gone.” Rick answered finally, his eyes glued to Daryl’s face as he spoke.
“Dead?” Glenn asked.
“No,” Rick responded, folding the letter back up into its previously folded situation, handing it back over to Daryl. “She ran.”
“Well then that settles it.” Abraham butted in again, securing his rifle over his shoulder.
Everyone’s eyes shifted towards him.
“Settles what?” Rick said, the tone in his voice cold.
Abraham narrowed his eyes, his gaze flickering between the group, then towards the plummet of smoke projecting from Terminus.
“That we don’t need to waste our time on this girl. She made her choice.”
That got a rise out of Daryl that he’d never felt before.
Who the hell was this guy to be making claims like that when he’d been around for less than a damn day?
“Ya dont even know er!” He yelled, closing the distance with Abraham, his arm swinging out. “Ya don’t even know what the hell yer fuckin’ talkin’ bout!”
Carol’s hand contacted him firmly against his chest as soon as she saw things getting out of hand again.
“Daryl.”
He didn’t say anything.
He couldn’t even look at her—he was seething. His eyes stayed locked on Abraham, his jaw clenched so hard that it hurt.
“Daryl.” Carol repeated again, shoving him slightly to get his attention.
Daryl’s eyes crossed towards her hesitantly, his whole body still tense.
He didn’t speak.
Neither did Carol.
“I’ll go with Daryl,” Michonne cut through the quiet, stepping forward.
Something in Carol's expression shifted slightly, like she was still waiting to say something.
“We’re all goin’,” Rick pushed forward, already crouching down slightly to brush the dirt away that’d been covering a bag of weapons that he’d stashed before going into Terminus.
Abraham stepped forward at that and just when he was about to shoot another protest—
Carol cut him off.
“I know where Judith is.”
The words dropped from her mouth like a bomb, all eyes dragging towards hers. Rick was practically jumping to follow Carol at that point, as was the rest of the group.
Michonne seemed to have been the only one that stuck to her guns.
Looked like she wanted to find you just as much as Daryl did.
Carol handed your knife to Daryl before he and Michonne separated with a silent promise to the rest of the group to find each other whether things went good or bad.
Daryl found himself turning the knife over in his hand as he made his way through the woods. His thumb traced over the engravings slowly.
Gaining anything, even if so little.
Michonne walked carefully beside him, her hands firm around her newly adopted weapon. She was watching him closely, keeping notes on his actions.
She’d been doing that ever since the predicament with Abraham.
A beat.
“You really care about her, don’t you?” Michonne asked abruptly, her voice echoing through the trees.
Daryl didn’t answer anything to that.
His actions spoke much louder than his words. He wouldn’t have been looking for you now if he didn’t care. That care that he felt wasn’t a new profound thing either—he’d always felt it despite how you and he acted with one another at the prison.
Despite the kiss.
Despite your head injury.
He grunted before he shoved your knife into the sheath on his hip beside his own blade.
“Before that group came, before she hit her head…” Michonne started with a sigh.
Daryl lifted his head finally, his eyes tracking over Michonne's face.
Michonne waited a moment before she spoke again.
“…She told me she never hated you.”
He already knew that.
He already knew that because he had never hated you either. You’d confused him more than anything.
But hate?
He could never have hated you.
Daryl stayed quiet—he didn’t know what to say anymore. A grunt left his lips as if he was done with it all being verbally put out before him.
He didn’t need it said in words.
Not when he had been going over it all in his head ever since he first set his eyes on you back at the prison.
“Gotta find er,”
That was the last thing he muttered before the both of them dipped into utter quiet. He scouted the area, his eyes peeled for any traces of the direction you’d gone in.
Daryl knew he was a good tracker but—
You just seemed to have been ten steps ahead of him.
Even after forgetting.
Even after everything.
And yet—
He couldn’t stop.
He was like an addict searching for a high in whatever of your presence that was left behind, and before he knew it—
A day had already passed.
There had been no signs of you.
Nothing.
He nor Michonne could do anything more but retreat until the aches in their feet fleeted. One thing led to another, and now, he was stuck in a church with the others.
It was the last place he wanted to be.
The house of God.
What damn God?
His back rested against the side of one of the benches. He kept his distance from the others as they sipped communion wine and allowed themselves to get slightly tipsy.
It’d been a day, and it was already beginning to feel like the others had moved on to the next problem.
Like they’d forgotten.
It was all catching up to him now.
How much he hadn’t realised what he had in you until it was gone like it’d never been there in the first place.
A laugh tore him from his thoughts and just as quickly snapped him back to what he’d set out to do in the first place.
He didn’t give the others any warning, picking up his crossbow and heading towards the double doors at the front of the church.
A walker stumbled forward from behind a row of trees, then another. His crossbow ejected two arrows, setting their marks in rotted brain.
He pulled your knife from his sheath, dragging it along tree bark. He didn’t know what he was marking at first and then after doing the same thing on each tree his passed—
It became clear to him.
D.D.
His initials.
“What are you doing?” Carol's voice filtered through the breeze, causing him to still slightly.
His eyes met hers slowly, narrowing slightly as he looked at her properly.
“What ya think?” Daryl spoke. He came across much harsher than he’d meant to and he immediately felt guilt bubble in his chest.
A beat passed.
Daryl sighed, turning back towards the tree and etching the letters into the wood.
“Sorry.”
Carol closed the gap between the two of them, her eyes trailing over the now light beige carving surrounded by its previous dark brown tone.
“Daryl, what are you doing?” She repeated again, gesturing towards his initials set in wood.
He pulled the knife away from the tree, clasping it tightly in his hand—the friction of the wood against his skin was so harsh that it could have splintered.
He was doing exactly what you’d told him to do back after the two of you had left John’s cabin. You’d told him that you’d carve your initials into the trees to find your way back to one another.
He didn’t do it then, but he was doing it now.
He didn’t say anything for a moment; he was just looking at Carol as if he wanted her to figure it all out herself.
But…how was she supposed to know?
Carol raised an eyebrow.
“Daryl…?”
His eyes tore away from her for a minute, towards the knife in his hand, then back up towards hers.
“When it was just us,” he spoke quietly, the gruffness in his tone noticeable, the tiredness even more so. “She wanted to go off on er own.”
A breath.
“I didn’t let er.”
Carol tilted her head, clearly invested in what he had to say.
“She told me that we coulda marked our initials in the trees to find our way back to one another,” he added, scratching the side of his face. “Never let er do that either.”
And suddenly, it felt like the one thing that’d he’d disagreed to originally was the only thing to guide you back.
Get you back.
A sense of hope that you’d remember something that he could never forget.
Daryl turned after the confession, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable with Carol's intense and all-knowing gaze.
She knew what he was thinking.
She always did.
“And the lighter she wrote about?” Carol questioned, moving further into the woods before Daryl like she’d already decided she’d go looking for you too.
“S’nothin’” Daryl lied, pushing forward to join Carol by her side.
It wasn’t just nothing, and he knew that.
Carol pressed her lips into a thin line, both of her brows lifting now like she could see straight through him.
She always could.
“Are you sure?”
“M’sure.”
She just looked at him once more before nodding and turning her gaze forward.
He was thankful that she didn’t press him on it.
He let the blade of your knife sink into another tree, then his initials soon followed.
D.D.
And with that—
He swore to himself that he’d mark every tree he passed until you found it and led your own way back to the group.
Back to…him.
A/N: Ooo we got a Daryl pov now! Honestly him remembering what reader said about the initials is so heartwarming. He’s just too cute.
Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the Taglist!🖤
Red Velvet Lounge is the low hum of bass beneath your ribs, the glow of red light against bare skin, and the taste of something expensive you didn't mean to order. It is indulgence dressed up as elegance, where crystal glasses clink like quiet confessions and every corner holds a secret someone paid to keep. Politicians, old money, new money, and men who don't like to be named all pass through its doors. No cameras. No questions. No mistakes. Some come to be seen. Some come to watch. People don't talk about what happens inside.
T H E | V E L V E T R O O M S
Behind a closed door and a polite smile lies the part of the lounge that isn't listed, advertised, or acknowledged. The door itself is unremarkable at first glance, dark wood, gold handle, always polished to a mirror shine. But it's never propped open, never left unattended. A soft red light glows just above the frame, constant and quiet, like a warning no one acknowledges.
Access is invitation-only. No exceptions.
The music is quieter there. The lighting is softer. The drinks are harder. Servers come and go. They're told not to ask. And they don't. Because the tips are impossible to ignore. Folded bills pressed into palms. Hundreds for a single round. Enough to pay rent in one night, if you keep your head down and your mouth shut.
T H E | R U L E S
For the comfort, discretion, and continued indulgence of our guests, we kindly ask that you observe the following:
— Be respectful.
— Be discreet.
— Ask for what you desire.
— Physical contact is permitted by invitation only.
— If you are asked to leave, do so immediately.
Management reserves the right to refuse service without explanation. We ensure an unforgettable experience for all our guests.
╰──────── · · ♰ · · ─────────╯
"𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞."
"𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞."
"𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐈 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠?"
╭──────── · · ♰ · · ─────────╮
˚.⋆ֹ ┆ 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓁ℴ𝓉𝓉ℯ ℳ𝒾𝓁𝓁ℯ𝓇 ┆ℛ𝒶𝒷𝒷𝒾𝓉
“Careful, Cowboy. You keep looking at me like that, people’ll start talking.”
🍒🖤
Charlie is the sweet scent of a magnolia flower dipped in bourbon and lit by a neon sign. She is the ghost of a Southern debutante who traded Sunday sermons for midnight money. Her drawl drops like honey when she asks for your order, but her eyes are as cold and calculating as a banker's. She knows how to manage a room of powerful men, playing the "sweet, naive thing" until they tip her double. She is polite as a saint, but dangerous as a sinner, all wrapped up in a sequined bow. She works as a cocktail waitress and dancer at The Red Velvet Lounge, one of the city's most exclusive high-end clubs.
🍒 The Fragrance: Tom Ford's Lost Cherry. Sweet, nostalgic, and intensely intoxicating.
💄 The Look: Red is not a color on Charlie, it's a strategy. Red stiletto heels that click like a warning. Silk slip dresses that move like liquid under neon light. Sequined pieces that catch attention before she ever speaks. Corset tops that blur the line between delicate and dangerous. A velvet bow, sometimes in her hair, sometimes at her throat, always intentional. On slower nights, she strips it back without losing control, black mini dresses, sheer stockings with quiet imperfections, oversized jackets thrown over bare shoulders between sets. But she never forgets the Rabbit ears. Everything she wears is chosen with purpose. Everything can be taken off just as easily.
🍷 Habits: Smoking. Drinking. She adjusts her velvet bow whenever she's nervous/anxious/worried.
╰──────── · · ♰ · · ─────────╯
╭──────── · · ♰ · · ─────────╮
˚.⋆ֹ ┆ 𝒟ℯ𝓁𝓁 𝒞𝒶𝓇𝓉ℯ𝓇
"Fix your hair, Charlie. You're trailing sequins again. And don't look at that cowboy at table four, he's nothing but trouble."
Dell is the comfort of a warm bar on a rainy night, but she's also the lock on the door. She's the girl who will braid your hair in the dressing room while telling you exactly why your latest crush is a red flag. She has a "tough love" exterior, but she's the first one to hand Charlie a glass of water and a pair of flat shoes the second a shift ends. She is a soft soul who learned how to be harsh to keep the people she loves safe. Dell has been at the club longer than anyone. She knows everyone's secrets and which "V.I.P.s" to never leave Charlie alone with. Dell doesn't ask what happened. She just slides a drink across the bar and decides what happens next. She's "harsh" because she's seen too many girls get chewed up by the city, but she's "soft" enough to stay up until 5:00 AM listening to Charlie talk about home.
🍂 The Fragrance: Soft vanilla, sandalwood, pine needles, and a whisper of smoke. Warm without being sweet. Familiar enough to feel like home after a long night.
🤎The Look: Oversized brown sweaters or silk button-downs with the top few buttons undone paired with tight black jeans. She wears gold jewelry, thin chains and small hoops that clink softly when she moves. A smudge of winged eyeliner that's always slightly blurred by the end of the night, and the faint scent of vanilla and tobacco.
🌼Habits: Keeps a lighter in her back pocket whether she smokes or not. Always knows who’s working, who’s missing, and who’s lying. Cleans the bar whenever she’s thinking. Calls everyone “Honey” except when she’s angry. Slips Charlie a glass of water between sets before Charlie realizes she needs one. Stays an hour after closing to make sure every girl gets home safe.
╰──────── · · ♰ · · ─────────╯
╭──────── · · ♰ · · ─────────╮
˚.⋆ֹ ┆ 𝒟𝒶𝓇𝓎𝓁 𝒟𝒾𝓍ℴ𝓃 ┆𝒞ℴ𝓌𝒷ℴ𝓎
“Hey, Rabbit.”
🛠️🖤
Daryl is the smell of gasoline on worn denim, cigarette smoke caught in old flannel, and the first crack of thunder after weeks without rain. He is quiet in the way abandoned places are quiet, never empty, just guarded. His words are few, his temper is short, and his loyalty is stubborn enough to ruin him. He spends his days underneath rusted trucks and old muscle cars in a run-down garage on the edge of town, where grease stains never quite leave his hands and country music leaks from a battered radio with more static than signal. Home is a weather-beaten trailer tucked into the back of a forgotten park. It’s nothing special, but it’s his. A dog asleep on the steps. A cooler full of cheap beer. Cigarette smoke curling into the evening air. Peace, when he can find it.
People know him as the mechanic who can fix damn near anything except himself.
Then one night, he meets Rabbit.
🥃 The Fragrance: Cedarwood, worn leather, motor oil clinging stubbornly to rough hands, tobacco smoke caught in old flannel, and a trace of whiskey that only appears after sunset.
🤠 The Look: Faded jeans worn soft with age. Oil-stained work boots. Sleeves rolled to his forearms. Well-worn flannel shirts over old band tees. A leather jacket that’s survived more winters than he can count. Fingerless gloves stuffed into a back pocket. Scruff that’s always a little overdue. Silver rings on rough hands that smell faintly of motor oil and tobacco.
🚬 Habits: Smoking. Drinking cheap beer on the trailer steps after work. Twirling a wrench between his fingers while he thinks. Fixing things instead of talking about them. Leaves before sunrise whenever life gets too loud.
warning/notes: omegaverse dynamics. this is less of a ficlet and more of a sneak peek for a series that will be coming fall-ish. The last ficlet for my 9k celebration. Thank you all.
wc: 600 or so
Jack Abbot and Michael Robinavitch had been mated and married for nearly fifteen years. Though they were both Alphas, their scents called to each other. It wasn’t unheard of for Alphas to mate, but there was normally an Omega in the mix. They’d managed to resist being anything but friends until Jack’s rut six weeks after they met. His pheromones threw Robby into his and by the time the two of them emerged a week later, they wore matching marks. And that, as they say, was that.
They’d been open to finding an Omega but as the years passed and they failed to find anyone compatible, they accepted it might be just the two of them. Truth be told, they were fine with that. They loved each other, they knew each other’s quirks and the demons that haunted them. They would be two grumpy old Alphas taking care of each other for the rest of their lives.
Then came a warm Tuesday spring morning and a car in the driveway of the house next door. The house had been empty for several months but no ‘for sale’ sign had ever appeared in the yard. A service had kept things cleaned up so Jack hadn’t given it much thought. His gaze fell on a woman with her arms so full of clothes he couldn’t see her face. Ordinarily he’d offer to help but he’d just finished hour fourteen of a twelve hour shift. His leg hurt and he needed to wash the stench of hospital off.
“Hey,” he called as he entered the house, shutting the door behind him.
“Kitchen,” Robby yelled back.
Jack popped his head in to greet his husband. “Looks like we have a new neighbor,” he said after he’d kissed him hello.
“Do we?” Robby turned to look out the kitchen window that faced the other house.
“Just one car but they were carrying clothes inside. I’ve got to clean up.”
Robby kissed him again. “Yeah, you go ahead. I’ll make you some food.”
Jack took his time in the shower decompressing and washing off the hospital along with the remnants of the suppressant gel he had to wear at work. Robby had food ready by the time he emerged and they sat at the table in the kitchen to eat.
They’d been eating and chatting for about five minutes when there was a knock at the door. Robby frowned but stood. “Stay put. I’ll be back.” He kissed the top of Jack’s head on the way by.
The longer Robby was gone the deeper the furrow in Jack’s brow became. How long did it take to grab a package?
“Hey, Jack,” Robby called from the door. “You should come meet the new neighbor.”
Jack sighed and dropped his bacon back on his plate. He wiped his hands then wheeled his chair into the front hall. Robby stood in the open doorframe, blocking Jack’s view of whoever was on the porch. “Hey,” he said.
Robby turned with a smile and stepped aside. “Meet the neighbor, honey.”
Jack’s gaze shifted from him to the woman standing outside. You turned with a smile of your own and introduced yourself. You were beautiful. He wheeled closer, ready to say something by way of greeting when a breeze blew past you and into the house. Jack was suddenly enveloped in the scent of honeysuckle and vanilla mixed with something that was all you. It smelled like home.
His eyes snapped from you to Robby who gave a small nod in confirmation.
Warnings!!: slow burn, reader is an adult!!, gore, murder, injury detail, amnesia, mentions of vomit, mentions of blood, angst, hurt/no comfort, themes of self sabotage, strong language, mature themes.
Summary:
(After those assholes shoved you into a train car and stripped you of all your belongings, the only thing you could think about was getting that damn lighter back.)
A/N: enjoyyyy!!
“Hey, wake up.”
“I think she’s dead.”
“She’s not.”
A hand pushed forcefully at your shoulder.
At this point, you’d been conscious for a while, and you’d been ignoring the attempts of people trying to wake you up.
You knew it wasn’t anybody you were familiar with, so what was even the point in responding?
Was that selfish of you? Yes.
Did you care? No.
You didn’t even want to open your eyes anyway—not after what you’d seen in that damn room.
The bodies.
The blood.
You wished your brain would wipe that away from your conscious like it had done with most things, but it hadn’t; guess it was picking and choosing what you could and couldn’t remember.
The hand shook you again, even harsher this time.
You would’ve ignored it like you had been doing for the past hour or so, but you were starting to get pissed off with people prying and poking at you.
“Take your fucking hands off me!” you scolded, smacking the hand away from your arm, your eyes flickering open at once.
There were four people gathered around you like you were somebody's newborn baby that they wanted to see.
“Woah,” one of the men protested, holding his hands up.
“Can you all back up?” You adjusted your position, your face twisting into one of complete annoyance. “Seriously.”
They all exchanged a glance with one another before they shuffled back, giving you your space.
Your eyes narrowed on each face, finally getting a good glance at them all.
Then you looked away with a scoff, your hand instinctively reaching for your pocket.
Searching for the photograph.
The lighter.
Only to be met with nothingness.
Empty.
“No, no, no,” you whispered to yourself, pulling yourself to your feet immediately to make sure that you hadn’t put them elsewhere on your person.
You hadn’t.
“Fuck!”
Daryl had given you that lighter in hopes that you’d remember something.
Anything.
The photograph was personal to you and now—
It was all gone like it had never been there in the first place.
Was it ever there?
Was it something your brain had made up?
No, you knew it was real.
You knew.
“She’s goddamn crazy!” A voice rang out from the corner of the train car.
“Don’t you ever call me crazy!” You shouted, your voice cracking. “Don’t ever—”
You couldn’t even finish your sentence; your breathing was completely out of control.
Sharp enough to sting your lungs and knock the words straight from you.
“I didn’t mean—” The man who’d called you crazy stepped forward.
You didn’t say anything back to him; you couldn’t.
The whole train car spun around you, and before you could stop yourself, you were throwing up whatever was remaining in your stomach.
Even if so little.
You wretched three more times before your back hit the wall.
The feeling of defeat succumbing to your chest.
Unwavering.
The tears poured from your eyes.
“We’re all gonna die,” you sobbed, your shoulder shaking. “We’re all gonna fucking die,”
Nobody spoke.
“I’m gonna die before I can even remember anything,” you cried out again, you were more or less talking to yourself now. “I’m gonna die before I even see if anyone else is alive.”
Nobody reassured you.
Nobody comforted you.
A blonde-haired woman crouched down before you, her face blurred beneath the fortitude of your tears as they streamed mercilessly down your face.
“You came with people?” She asked, her eyes tracking over your face.
You didn’t answer immediately, still half recovering. It was only when her hand hesitantly contacted your shoulder that you broke down yet again.
The words wouldn’t form.
Nothing formed.
“An Archer? A Samurai?” She questioned you again. “Ringleader and a Kid? Any of those…nicknames ring a bell to you?”
Your breath stilled.
Your brows furrowed together.
It took you a minute to realise what she was talking about and then—
It clicked.
“How do you—” You asked abruptly, yet you couldn’t get the question out properly.
She held a hand up, stopping your attempts.
“I’m positive they caused the chaos out there,” she started, her head lowering slightly. “That asshole Gareth put em in a train car.”
You should’ve guessed it.
Every last thought in your head halted, and all you wanted to do now was crawl into a ball and beg a higher power for safety.
For respite from the uncertainty.
Your eyes dragged towards the floor—patterns casting through your retinas; you couldn’t tell if they were real or not.
What was real anymore?
“And they’re alive?” You asked finally, adjusting yourself against the wall again.
“They’re alive,” she started, her eyes flickering away from yours. “I don’t know for how long though.”
You didn’t speak.
The silence filtered through the train car again.
Thick.
Suffocating.
It stayed like that until the light faded out from the gap and returned, signaling for the morning.
You were dragged from the car. A gag was shoved in your mouth and a cloth wrapped around your wrists.
Binding you to your fate.
A pig walking to its slaughter because, after all, that was all this was.
Humanity stripped to benefit the rumbling stomachs of those who viewed you as meat.
Meat and nothing more.
The gag snagged on the stitching in your cheek, pulling one of the wires loose from your flesh.
They didn’t care for the whine that followed; they just shoved you harder.
Why bother stitching you up if they were just going to kill you anyway?
A butcher-looking man lined you up over a sink, pushing your head towards the steel.
The bat struck before you could even process that he’d moved to another woman, the air exploding from a jugular as red spilled before your eyes.
You yelped through the material of the gag, scrambling backwards.
You didn’t get far.
How could you?
The butcher just shoved you straight back into place.
The bat swung again.
The crack of a skull.
More blood.
Rinse and repeat.
Then, you were next—the bat lined up in the centre of your skull.
You closed your eyes tightly, bracing for the blow, but it never came.
Gareth’s voice cut it off completely.
“Shot count?” Gareth questioned the butcher.
“24.”
Gareth’s figure became clear to you as your eyes snapped open; tears were watering at your eyes at this point.
Gareth nodded, noting the number down on a notepad.
“That asshole Rick in the other warehouse?” The butcher questioned.
Gareth nodded.
“Yeah. And the archer.”
His eyes crossed over towards yours after the words left his mouth, like he was rubbing it in your face that he’d caught Daryl.
This had been planned since the start, and that’s why he wouldn’t let Daryl come with you to the infirmary.
That’s why he separated you from the rest of the group and—
That’s why you had to come up with a plan.
You’d told yourself you weren’t dying before getting your memory completely back.
You couldn’t.
“Hey,” you spoke, your voice completely muffled under the material in your mouth. “Hey!”
Gareth rolled his eyes with a huff, making his way towards you and pulling the gag from your mouth.
“What?”
“I was bitten before I got here, y’know.”
A lie.
“I think that’s the amnesia talking.” Gareth mocked, his hand looping around the gag again to pull it back up.
You cut him off with your words before he could even do it properly.
“You really gonna risk serving up an infected person to your people?”
Gareth tilted his head, his eyes flickering up towards the butcher behind you.
Skeptical.
“We checked you.” He started, his eyes flickering back down towards yours. “No signs of being bitten.”
“Well…I don’t think you’ve checked hard enough.” You hissed.
You knew he wouldn’t risk serving up an infected person to his people. He wasn’t stupid enough to do that.
Gareth had gone dead silent, as had the butcher.
The panicked breaths of the other women were the only noise that filtered through the warehouse now.
A beat.
“Check her.” Gareth addressed the butcher, stepping back from you. “I’m going to go and check shot counts in the other warehouse.”
The other warehouse…
God, you hoped Rick or Daryl had formed a plan because if it was just you getting out of this…
You’d never live with yourself.
Then—
Gareth was gone, his footsteps echoing slightly until they filtered out.
The butcher pulled you back from the sink, turning you around to face him. He crouched before you, checking over you, pulling your shirt up and checking over your stomach.
His hands were rough, so much so that you nearly flinched.
What kind of butcher wasn’t delicate with their meat?
He moved back slightly, looking at you properly, almost as if he knew you were lying.
“It’s on my thigh.” You uttered quickly, trying to gain more time to figure out what you’d do next.
He didn’t say anything, still studying you.
“You might want to cut through the material of my jeans,” you added through the silence. “It’s on the outer side on the right.”
Another lie.
Deceit.
A beat.
“You better not be lying, girl,” he muttered, pulling his knife from its pouch and shuffling closer towards you; he was mere inches from you, his exposed arm resting just at the side of your head against the steel.
You knew what you had to do, and you weren’t going to wait for another chance.
You let out a shaky breath and then—
Your teeth sunk into the flesh of his forearm so hard that you could’ve sworn you met bone.
Blood spewed from the opening, spewing straight on to your face.
The butcher fell to the floor, the seven stages of panic washing over his face before the tears began falling from his eyes.
You didn’t feel an inch of empathy.
How could you?
You spat the flesh from your mouth, pieces of it still clinging between your teeth almost as if it were a trophy.
“You bitch!” The butcher cried out, clutching onto his forearm for dear life.
You didn’t take any notice of his insults; instead, you maneuvered closer, pushing yourself into a sitting position rather than a kneeling one.
Your boot immediately found its way to his crotch area, applying pressure.
“Throw the knife over to me now,” you firmed.
He didn’t move for a minute, like he was testing just how far you’d go with this.
“Do it now or I swear I’ll stomp down on your balls so fucking hard that—”
“Alright!” he panted, chucking the knife over to you. “Alright!”
Coward.
It was almost amusing having a man jump to following your orders when you threatened to crush the one thing they admired most.
Pathetic.
You shuffled over, struggling to get a good grasp on the handle due to the restraints around your wrists.
When you finally managed—
The cloth met the silver and surrendered immediately, splitting into two halves.
You picked yourself up, angling the knife out towards the butcher.
“Don’t you dare move.”
He nodded quickly.
Now you had the upper hand.
You moved again, cutting through the material that bound the two other women.
Their gratitude came in bursts, and before you could even reply—
An explosion shook through the room, knocking you off your balance completely.
“What the hell was that?!” The butcher cried, still clutching his arm, the blood seeping through his fingers.
You didn’t respond but you were thinking the exact same thing.
What was that?
Your eyes dragged towards the pair of women at your side.
“You all need to get—”
Another explosion rattled through the warehouse again, louder this time.
Fuck.
The sound of gunfire followed, and it was then you knew that something bad was going on outside.
Or good.
It just depended on whether it was their people or your people who had the upper hand in it.
You just hoped deep down that the others had managed to get out because you felt like doing something…
Reckless.
Maybe that guy who’d called you crazy was right.
Maybe this head injury was creating a new side to you.
“You all need to get out.” You panted, finally able to get your words out though disturbed by the firing outside.
“What about you?” A blonde-haired woman enquired, her voice shaking with every word that left her mouth.
You needed that lighter back.
“I’m going to go and look for something.” You answered.
“But—”
“Just go.” You finalised, your tone harsher than you’d meant it to be.
The two women looked at you with a sense of hesitation in their eyes.
“Please…” you spoke quieter this time.
They took another glance over you before they darted immediately.
You turned the knife back on the butcher as soon as it was just you and him in the room.
“Where do you keep the things you steal?”
“It’s—” he sighed, clearly embarrassed with himself that he’d gotten in this position. “It’s just out of that door on your left...”
You nodded.
“Great.”
Then—
You crouched down and pressed the knife hard into his chest.
You’d rather he turn than kill him; he didn’t deserve such high treatment.
Not when he would’ve killed you in the blink of an eye and had you for his supper.
The door creaked open, the smell of tar hitting you instantly before the dead bodies made themselves known to your eyes.
Dozens of walkers pushed through the lot that’d been clear beforehand.
This wasn’t coincidental; you knew that now.
A sharp throbbing pain washed through your head again before it fluttered towards the open stitching on your cheek.
Maybe you needed to slow down.
No.
What a stupid thought.
How could you slow down?
You continued through the building, as the butcher had said, your eyes falling on the array of different weapons on both sides of the room.
You found yourself searching for Daryl’s crossbow first even though you’d originally come in here for the lighter.
It was almost as if it were second nature to seek him out in everything.
Through inanimate objects and presence that didn’t belong to you.
To make sure he was safe.
You didn’t know if that was new territory to you or if it was something you’d always done before.
You wished you could’ve remembered.
The crossbow sat idle on one of the tables, Your engraved knife sat just by it. The blade just touched the metal framing of the bow, gaining contact, gaining something, even if so little.
You trailed your hands once over the engraving before they crossed over to the crossbow; the cool metal felt grounding against your touch, almost making you forget everything outside.
And when a glimpse of a memory
pricked its way through, the sharp bang from gunfire outside cut it off as though it weren't allowed.
Your jaw clenched.
Your throat closed up.
“Please…” you begged to your own mind, your voice barely above a whisper. “Just remember.”
Nothing.
The tears threatened to spill, yet nothing came out. You’d already cried enough.
There were no tears left to fall.
You had to keep searching.
You moved towards the personal belongings now, eyes flickering over everything.
Teddy bears.
Beaten-up wallets.
Then—
Bingo.
The lighter.
The photograph.
Both sat slightly obscured behind the mass of belongings like they were dying for refuge and—
You didn’t waste a single second giving them that refuge, shoving both items back into the pocket that they had been in before.
Still holding onto that hope through and through.
Even if it put you in danger.
Even if it resulted in nothing.
Because—
Remembering meant more than anything else to you right now.
More than the fighting.
More than surviving.
And that’s why you’d become a liability to the others if you went back.
You couldn’t go back.
Not to Rick nor Michonne nor Carl.
Not to…Daryl.
Because…
What was a girl to them if she’d already been dammed from the start?
Rick said there was nothing wrong with you, trying to save you from that turmoil of your loss of identity.
Save you from your loss of everything.
You couldn’t be…
Saved.
This world had already decided that.
You were a liability to them, and you wouldn’t risk their lives in an attempt to receive comfort.
You couldn’t go back.
Your hands trembled slightly as they skimmed over the piles of belongings again, searching for something in particular, and just as if the world were pushing this initiative to you—
You found it.
Paper and pen.
Gunfire sparked again from outside.
The pen found its way to your shaking hand before it met the paper; you knew who you’d write to despite not knowing the rest.
————
Daryl,
If you're reading this, then it means you’ve made it out of this place, and I hope you’ve got the others with you. I figure I’m writing this to you directly because you’re the one that I can remember most.
I want to be on my own whilst I figure myself out again. I hope you can understand that or at least try to understand it.
I’ve still got the lighter, and I'm taking it with me. I think it’s the only thing that might lead me back to remembering. I know it meant something or you wouldn’t have given it to me.
If I remember, then I’ll come and find you. I promise.
Tell the others I’m sorry even though I know they will all be reading this from this piece of paper.
Thank you for everything I’m sure you’ve done for me.
Please don’t come looking for me.
————
A tear splashed onto the paper, smudging your name as you signed it off. This felt like a goodbye, and you weren’t sure if it was yet.
Was the letter even enough? It sure didn’t feel like it as you looked down at it now.
Was this the right thing to do? Was this selfish?
Your boots moved before you could even decide; you folded the letter up twice before you eased it through a gap in the metal of Daryl’s crossbow.
Half secure.
Half not.
Your hand lingered over the metal for a moment before more gunfire pulled you back.
You couldn’t waste time dwelling on your decision, not when the hoard outside was growing larger with every second.
Not when every second you stood still made you doubt everything you’d just done.
Your fingers slipped away from the crossbow, crossing over towards a rogue AK-47 that lay just beside it.
You threw the strap over your shoulder.
Then—
You hesitated slightly when your fingers fell over your knife once again; you probably should’ve taken it with you but…
You didn't.
You left it lingering in the same spot by the crossbow—you’d rather it be a parting gift.
Then you were out of that room, firing a line into walkers that dared to come too close.
Your boots thudded against the floor as you ran for a gap in the fencing round the back of Terminus.
You didn’t stop.
You just ran like you always did.
Running to face your problems face-first, yet this time…
Alone.
A/N: No Daryl this chapter😥 BUT, DARYL POV NEXT CHAPTER HEHEHE. I’m so excited omg😩
Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the Taglist!🖤
Notes: This takes place in a post-Endgame scenario where Steve stays and generally most of TFATWS happened.
Additional Notes: Another 4th of July and I had to return to this AU with something I've had in mind for over a year. I hope you enjoy!
Series Masterlist
↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest
You are standing on the roof of the White House, above the Truman balcony, wanting to kick your shoes off, but needing to play the host for just a little longer. This is your second Fourth of July in the White House and you thought you knew what to expect, but you are happy to be wrong, because the fireworks are impossibly brighter and more wonderful this year, the celebrations more grand, and you’re shoulder to shoulder with your husband, hands entwined as the dazzling show plays out before you over the South Lawn.
It’s breathtaking.
And so is he. Still. Always.
The grand finale erupts overhead, a cascading symphony of red, white, and blue that paints the night sky in impossible, starburst glory. You can feel the percussion in your chest, reverberating through the soles of your shoes, and you tip your head back to watch the last brilliant volley streak upward and burst into a thousand glittering silver and gold tendrils that drift lazily toward the earth.
Then jubilant cheers and applause and the faint, sweet smell of smoke and the distant roar of the crowd on the lawn below, cheering, waving, singing.
You turn to Steve, a smile already blooming on your lips, ready to say something about how beautiful it was, but he's already looking at you, and his eyes are doing that thing—that thing they've done since the very first kiss you shared, the real one, in Kansas City, that thing where the whole world seems to narrow to the blue of his gaze and the impossible softness of his mouth.
He pulls you close.
One hand slides to the small of your back, warm and certain through the fabric of your dress, and the other rises to cradle your jaw, his thumb brushing the apple of your cheek as if he can't quite believe you're real, as if he needs to check. And you have to admit there are moments you still can’t quite believe yourself that this is your life, these moments, and him. The night air is still thick with the scent of gunpowder and summer heat, and the last of the silver sparks are drifting down behind him like slow, glittering rain, and you have just enough time to think oh before his mouth finds yours.
It's quick. It has to be quick—you're standing on the roof of the White House, surrounded by friends and aides and a few dignitaries, Secret Service agents with their earpieces. But it's enough. It's always enough. His lips are warm and a little dry from the evening air, and he kisses you the way he kisses you when he's happy, which is to say with his whole heart, like there's nothing else in the world worth his attention, like the presidency and the country and the fireworks are all very nice, but they are not this.
You kiss him back. Of course, you kiss him back, placing your hand over his heart.
When he pulls away, it's only an inch, his forehead resting against yours, and you can feel him smiling. You can feel the shape of it against your mouth before you see it, and your own smile is bursting for him, too.
"Happy Fourth, Mrs. Rogers," he murmurs, and his voice is low and rough in that way that it has no business being right at this moment.
"Happy birthday, Mr. President," you whisper back, and he laughs, a quiet, rumble before the two of you break apart and turn to face the small crowd with you on the roof.
And there they are—the faces you've come to know so well, the ones that make this house feel less like a museum and more like a home, or at least as close to one as you can get here. Ambassador Chen from Taiwan, laughing with the German trade minister. Sophia, sharp as ever in her midnight blue, already catching your eye with that knowing, slightly smug look she gets whenever she catches the two of you being soft with each other. Senator Nakamura, who flew in from Honolulu just for this. Colonel Rhodes, grinning like he's about to make a joke he absolutely should not make in mixed company.
You move through them like water, because you've gotten good at this—good at the handshake that lingers just long enough, the murmured thank you for coming that sounds like you mean it, because you do. You mean all of them. Steve is circulating as well, but you’re both being led by your aides toward the exit, aiming to get you into the Residence as quickly as possible because you both have packed days tomorrow (as ever).
Back inside, you kick off your heels in the elevator and breathe, sinking into Steve’s side as your small phalanx of staffers peels away, each murmuring quick good-nights and peeling off down the Residential Corridor, exhausted and slightly tipsy.
He bumps your shoulder with his, sly and crooked in a way that tells you he’s been waiting all night to be alone with you. He reaches for your heels, and you let him take them for the short walk down the hall and into your borrowed home.
The next minutes are a tangle of hands and laughter, breathless and urgent, your dress falling to the carpet with a sound like wings beating, his tie left hanging somewhere between the elevator and the bedroom. You are giddy and graceless, all eager to be together, just the two of you.
He kisses you until your knees go watery, but never letting you falter, guiding you backwards until the back of your thighs catch on the edge of the mattress. You tumble together, the bedspread starched and crisp beneath your palms and knees, and then the world narrows down to calloused hands and the hush of his laughter and the feeling, always, that you are safe. The dim lamplight gilds the curve of his shoulders, the roughness that’s come into his voice as he pulls your name from the space between your mouths. He tastes like bourbon and wild honey from the refreshments at the party, just enough to loosen the lines of his day.
You drag him closer by the lapels, hungry for the taste of him. You pull him down and roll, greedy, pinning him beneath you. His tie is gone; you’re not sure when, but you feel the press of his hands at your waist, guiding you in a slow, grinding circle that makes you gasp. You forget to breathe as you tangle your hands in his hair and let him kiss you dizzy. He’s already undone the buttons of his shirt one-handed, and you help him push it off his shoulders, so you have the skin of his arms beneath your palms. He’s golden and warm, his heart beating under your fingers like a secret. There’s a lightning-bolt thrill each time he murmurs your name. You want to bottle this, this slice of private time in a life where you so rarely get to keep anything for yourselves, and you want to uncork it every time the day-to-day feels a little too heavy.
He traces the line of your jaw, thumbing your chin up and examining you. "You've been different all day," he says, quietly, not accusing, just curious. "Not off, just…something on your mind?"
He’s not wrong. You laugh, because you can’t help it, because how could he possibly have noticed, because you’ve tried to be so careful. But of course he did. “Yes, there’s something.”
He sits up, pulls you into his lap, and you tangle your knees around his waist, greedy for the press of his body. You take a breath, not to arm yourself, but to gather him in. This is a moment you’ve waited for all day, and it’s a moment you know the two of you will remember for the rest of your lives.
“It’s Independence Day and your birthday, and so, so much of today was about everyone else, but I wanted to save one thing for just us.” You run your hands up his chest, and you can feel the way his muscles tense, just a little, the way he always does when he senses something is about to change. His hands go still at your waist. He looks at you the way he looked at you on your wedding day—that same unguarded, ungoverned look, the one that has no presidential composure in it whatsoever.
You swallow, suddenly giddy with nerves, but you try to keep your voice steady as you tell him, “We’re going to have a baby.”
For a moment he’s silent, holding you so tightly you are certain he’s the only thing keeping you from flying off this bed and straight through the window into the dark and dazzling sky now that your stomach is completely aflutter with butterflies - your whole chest really. Steve opens his mouth, then closes it, startled as you’ve ever seen him, caught utterly off guard, and the surge of joy in his eyes is so bright you almost have to look away.
He laughs, choked and astonished, and cups your face with both hands, searching you for the truth even as he repeats your words back to you, as if you’ve cast an unbreakable spell. “We’re—are you—are you sure?” he whispers, and you nod, and in less than a heartbeat he is kissing you everywhere—your forehead, your cheeks, your jaw, the tip of your nose, your lips, your collarbone, drawing your fingers to his lips.
“I wasn’t sure at first. The first test I took was negative. But then I took four more—yesterday being the most recent—and all the rest have been positive. I’ll need to have an official one from our medical team, but this is how normal people try to figure it out, and I wanted to at least start that way.”
“Say it again,” he whispers, and there’s something raw and vulnerable in it that makes your own eyes sting.
You say it again, just for him, and its warmer and easier the second time. “We’re going to have a baby.”
He tugs you close, a long, slow drag of his palms up your spine, and his mouth finds you again, velvet and open and as gentle as if you’re already breakable. You can feel the words he isn’t saying in every touch, every line of his body, every hush of breath against your lips. The rest of the world can wait awhile longer. The future, the headlines, the meetings and luncheons and the never-ending security briefings—they’re so far away. Tonight, it’s just the two of you.
You’re still in his lap and you want to stay there, anchored by his arms, held in place by the gravity of him. Just Steve, the curve of his neck under your hands, the soft light making gold of his hair and blue fire of his eyes and the clean, clean taste of his mouth.
He slides his palms up your thighs, slow and reverent. You feel the calluses catch on the delicate skin behind your knees, then up the slopes of your thighs. Your whole body is tuned to the gentle sweep of his hands, the warmth of his breath against the hollow of your throat.
Steve shifts you in his lap, sliding his cock into your warm and waiting cunt, and your legs find their place around him, heel pressed to the hard muscle of his lower back, hips flush.
You rock together, slow and steady, as if this new knowledge has rewired the both of you, as if every part of Steve that has ever belonged to you is suddenly magnified, gifted back to you in triplicate. He moves inside you as if your bodies are completing unfinished sentences.
You clutch his shoulders and ride him, slow and deep and close, the sounds of your bodies punctuating the quiet as you move together, breath and heartbeat and the little desperate noises you can never hold back from him. His hands travel the length of your back, every unhurried pass softening the landscape of you. The window is open just a crack and summer air pulses in, humid and electric, thick with city sounds and the far-off echo of festivities still unfolding for a thousand strangers. But here, in this room, everything is slow, thick, sweet, nothing but devotion.
He groans, burying his face in your shoulder, and you feel the shape of his smile against your skin, the press of his teeth where he bites back a more urgent moan. You want to laugh, to cry, to collapse and never move again. He moves his hands to your hips, slowing you even more, keeping you close while his mouth traces up along your jaw, kissing the corner of your mouth, your ear.
“I love you,” he says, a promise and a benediction. “I love you so much.”
You clutch him even closer, saying as much back, pouring it into his big heart, and time doubles back on itself, collecting all the nights that led you here: sprawled on a mattress in a St. Louis walk-up, or in Colorado Springs when you were snowed in during the state’s Clean Energy initiative tour, and even sometimes in the backseat of an electric SUV of a Secret Service motor pool. You could have lived a thousand lives and never guessed at this particular happiness, this improbable ending: you and Steve, knotted together in the gleam of a presidential bedroom, a future unspooling inside you, somehow as terrifying and bright as fireworks.
You spend the rest of the night lying together on the sheets, his arm curled around your waist, your hands splayed together with each other over your stomach; his full chest pressed tight to your back, the long, slow breathing of him on a slow, rising tide of emotion you aren’t sure you understand, or ever want to. There’s a secret, quiet sense of being at the exact center of the world that’s only the two of you and the baby on the way. At least for a while.
You drift in and out of sleep, and each time you wake, Steve’s hand is where it left off, thumb brushing circles low on your belly, as if by touch alone he could will the newness of what you told him into the marrow of himself.
As dawn slips in, painting the suite with the faintest gold, you shift slightly, and Steve murmurs, “You awake?” against your neck.
“Mm. Barely.”
He nuzzles in deeper, his beard tickling your neck, and you squirm and turn around to face him. “Did you even sleep?” you ask.
He shakes his head. “Not really,” he admits, voice gone hoarse and quiet. “Kept worrying I’d wake up and it wouldn’t be real. You’re here, though.”
“Mhmm, you’re stuck with me.”
You kiss his brow and let your hand run through the gold of his hair, musing at what a child of his might look like. You picture the bright blue of his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw, and, despite yourself, the impossible hope that the world you’re building together will be even marginally kind to someone so new and small.
Steve pulls you into his chest, folding your whole body into his, and you melt.
"When I woke up in this century," he begins, his voice low and intimate, "I thought I'd lost my chance at this kind of happiness. I resigned myself to being a man out of time, always looking back at what might have been." His thumb traces gentle over your stomach, soft whispers of his hope.
“I felt untethered, but you are the anchor my soul needed.”
Your throat aches, and you’re not sure what to say because your heart is so full. As much as he’s clear about his devotion to you, it’s reciprocated note for note from your heart. Everything you two have built—the relationship, the purpose, the passion, the drive, the community of people around you—moved your post-blip return from average to a life of vibrancy you also thought you’d never find again.
“I only ever told Bucky I was considering it, but since we figured out time travel to bring everyone back, there was a time I weighed going back to the forties or fifties, but now I thank everything in my bones that I didn’t. I would have missed so much. Even the hard parts, even the hurt, I’d choose all of it to find us.”
It’s a strange, buoyant sadness that washes through you, an ache for the lives you both were supposed to have and the astonishing joy of the one you’re building now, brick by brick, night by night, and dream by dream.
You thread your hand through his, squeezing, letting the gravity of his words swirl through your psyche. “Good, because there’s no one else I would ever want to do this with—not just this,” you gesture to the presidential trappings you live in, “but this,” and you let your hands rest together, gentle on your belly, both of you quietly marveling at the shift in your world.
“I’ll never be able to say it enough, but I love you, Steve. Always.”
Instead of more words, he says it back with another searing kiss.
Once dawn has broken and the two of you are side by side in the bathroom, brushing your teeth, moving through your morning routines, Steve frowns, and you catch the knit of his brow in the mirror.
“What’s that consternation for all of a sudden?”
“How did you get not just one, but multiple pregnancy tests smuggled in without a soul finding out?”
You grin. “Sophia.”
Steve scoffs and shakes his head, his scowl turning sarcastic. “She’s supposed to be my personal secretary.”
“And she staffed me on the campaign first,” you remind him. “I’m convinced she only accepted your offer so she could keep you in line and spy on you for me.”
“She doesn’t even pretend to have plausible deniability,” he mutters, rinsing his mouth. “Busted me on a whole security briefing last week when she caught me stashing Reese’s in my desk. I’m the President—” he says this with faux outrage, like he still doesn’t quite believe it, “yet she controls the candy flow and now, apparently, the pharmacy.”
You spit your own minty mouthful. “A First Lady’s job is never done, and I can’t help it if I’ve got the best co-conspirator.” The two of you share a look in the mirror—a look that says God, what have we gotten into—and then there is a knock at the bedroom door, sharp and brisk.
Steve’s head drops with a groan. “Five minutes,” you call, and trade glance with your husband, resignation and amusement in equal measure.
It’s Jake calling into the master suite, “Sir, the British Prime Minister’s advance team just arrived and we have a briefing with the Joint Chiefs at 09:15 but we will need to move your security detail to accommodate the updated press pool, and—”
“Roger that,” Steve calls back.
You holler “Thanks, Jake,” into the hallway, and before you can even turn back to Steve and finish rinsing your mouth, he’s close behind you, arms caging you between the counter and his chest, both of you reflected twice in the gilded mirror.
His chin hooks your shoulder, his lips finding the sensitive skin just below your ear, and you nearly drop your the hairbrush you’ve reached for into the sink. “Come here,” he says, as if you aren’t bodily pressed against him, as if he could ever actually want you closer.
You smile at him in the mirror because you can’t not, and the whole reflection is so absurdly domestic—yesterday’s confetti still in your hair, his shirt unbuttoned just below the collar, the two of you framed by White House marble and gilt. “We are going to be late for your entire country,” you warn, but you let him wrap you up anyway.
“Let them wait,” he says, but he steps aside after a final, scandalous little nuzzle, letting you go. He’s a man who never shirks responsibility, and you know that to be true in every part of his life. You can’t wait to explore a new chapter with him.
I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM! So soft and so fluffy here, but I still love this AU so much. 🥹 ❤️🤍💙
↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest
I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!
I’ll be taking a short hiatus. There’s a lot going on in my personal life and I need to focus on that for the time being. But I’ll still be around reading and lurking so feel free to send asks or whatever!
Jack had never taught someone how to swim, much less a headstrong, stubborn little girl, but after some initial fear kept Marigold from entering the deep end of the pool - which they combated by Jack promising to hold her, which ended up with them cuddling in the water for the better part of an hour. Marigold had her little arms wrapped around his neck, and her legs curled around his waist while he held her, and Jack was in no hurry to end their cuddle.
Masterlist | previous chapter| next chapter
Words: 4,8k
Content: Older Man/Younger Woman, Slow Burn, Eventually Sexually Explicit Content, Grief, Loss, PTSD, Yearning, Jack Abbot would be a great girl dad and you can't change my mind
No use of y/n!
Read on Ao3 or below the cut:
A/N: Hi, hello, it's been a hot minute. I've been distracted, busy and also hit a block which really sucked :/ I hope you guys are still here! I have to confess it's been a bit discouraging to see the number of reblogs and likes dwindle more and more with every new chapter I post :/ I hate how my brain latches onto stats sometimes, but I'm only human and no artist likes feeling like their art isn't being seen :/
Well, anyway, I bring some more vacation!jack for y'all!!
You let your head drop back against the wall, chest heaving with every laboured breath you forced into your lungs, you were sure had long since turned to ash under the heat of Jack’s frantic touches.
He dug his fingers into your hips hard enough to leave bruises and dragged you closer to the edge of the dresser, closer to him. He buried himself in you with sharp, quick thrusts that drove you to the edge of madness while sending thrills of raw, primal pleasure through your entire system.
Unlike you, he was fully dressed, standing above you in one of his stupid, eye cancer-inducing, brightly patterned swim trunks and tight black shirts you’d been clawing at with increasing desperation for the past thirty minutes.
If Jack weren’t so ridiculously hot, even in those stupid swim trunks, you’d have some serious concerns regarding your sanity for letting yourself get railed by someone wearing them.
Your head was swarming, stuffed full of dizzying bliss that left you a drooling, moaning mess.
You hadn’t realised how much you’d missed this. Not just the sex - though, obviously the sex, you weren’t even in your thirties yet, and most of your early twenties were spent studying, so really this was the time for lots and lots of mind-numbingly good sex - but also just the feeling of a warm body pressed against you, another heartbeat syncing with yours, the intimacy and connection. How the whole world around you turned quiet as it was pushed to the background, to the very back of your head and the person your heart beat faster for, stepped into the foreground with commanding, unapologetic urgency.
You ran your hands through Jack’s hair, obsessed with the way his soft curls felt beneath the pads of your fingers, and down his neck, where you dragged your nails softly along his skin, making him shiver. You dragged them down his back, shamelessly feeling up his hard muscles and gave his tight butt a squeeze that earned you a raised brow you barely even registered in your current addled state.
Another advantage of fucking older men you’d never tire of (beside the emotional maturity, lack of enthusiasm for partying, and knowing what they wanted in life), not only had they had time to learn how to use their dick, the stamina they had-
Jack dropped his head to your chest, mouthing at your collarbones and chest. You squealed when he suddenly picked you up without warning. Strong arms encompassing your naked body with nothing short of greedy urgency, he carried you over to the bed to drop you onto the mattress. You wrapped your legs around his waist the second he joined you, just for his hands to find the backs of your knees and all but fold you in half.
He pounded into you even harder, even less composed and coordinated than before, shamelessly chasing his pleasure in you. He buried his face against your neck, inhaling the scent of your soap and shampoo and body lotion merging there after your very extensive ‘everything shower’, as you had called it. Jack was obsessed with your scent. He was obsessed with the way your body fit against his, as if you had always been meant to be here, folded beneath him, clutching his cock like a vice, squeezing him so hard he was seeing stars.
Jack panted against your neck. His residual limb was killing him after days of walking on it and chasing after Marigold with barely any breaks in the Florida heat. His joints were protesting. His knees hurt. His back ached from the hours of sitting at the conference, the long drive and the unfamiliar bed.
None of it mattered.
Not when he was drowning in you, in the sensation of your body beneath his hands, of your sweet, sweet noises in his ear, and the pleasure you chased through his body.
You clawed at his back through his shirt, moaning and squirming beneath him like a woman possessed. Your cunt fluttered around him, dragging raw, needy groans from Jack’s throat. He let go of your legs to smooth his hands down the backs of your thighs, grope your ass, feel up your sides and squeeze your breasts. He wanted to feel all of you all at once. He wanted you to curl around him like a snake about to devour its prey. He’d live inside you if only you’d let him.
You weaved your fingers through his curls and tugged on his hair, head lifting off the pillow to drag your lips across his throat. His breath stuttered in his throat when he felt your teeth grazing his adam’s apple.
“You fuck me so well.” You moaned against his skin. Your praise made his insides squirm and flutter. He wanted nothing more than to show you how well he could fuck you, how well he could take care of you - you and Marigold.
Every time you let him pay for lunch or dinner, he preened like a goddamn bird whose mating dance found approval among the female birds.
You nipped his jaw and pressed a fleeting kiss to the corner of his mouth. Jack chased after you, catching your lips in a greedy, wild kiss. He panted into your mouth and bit your lips. Teeth clicked together, and too much saliva was exchanged - not that either of you cared.
Jack felt you tighten around him. He kept pounding into you, forcing his cock past the resistance your cunt put up on the final sprint towards the edge of ecstasy. He pushed you closer, and closer-
-just to stop right before you came.
You groaned, a sound somewhere between annoyance and pure devastation at your ruined orgasm.
Jack nipped your throat and slid down your body, planting greedy, open-mouthed kisses along your sweaty skin on his way. You squirmed beneath him, but Jack simply held you down. Large hands spread across your hips and belly, fingers splayed, pushing you down into the mattress.
He was still too careful for your taste, though.
The thought was pushed to the very back of your mind when he dropped his head between your thighs and lapped at your sopping, puffy folds. You knew he was watching you, felt his hazel eyes stare at you, burning into you, but you couldn’t look down. The sight of him between your legs, stubble glistening with your arousal, grey curls pressing against the inside of your thighs, had already burnt itself into your brain and - you were sure of it - caused permanent brain damage. Because how else could you explain the getting railed by someone wearing those swim trunks-situation?
“Ah- fuck, Jack- Jack-” You tugged on his curls and lifted your hips off the bed to grind against his face. Tendrils of buzzing, devastating pleasure melted down the inside of your thighs and made your muscles quiver.
You had lost count of how many times Jack had already pushed you to the edge of orgasm, just to deny you release at the last second. You had half a mind to flip him around and sit on his face until he finished the damn job (or suffocated, not that he’d object), but, however torturous, the pleasure he brought you was far too sweet to miss out on.
You pulled his head up and sat up with him, all but crawling into his lap while you wrapped your arms around his body. You sank down on his cock, biting back a trembling moan at the stretch of him. Your cunt fluttered as it eagerly welcomed him back, relieved to finally not be empty anymore.
“You’re such a fucking tease.” You huffed against his mouth and bit at his lip for good measure before sealing them with a messy, needy kiss. Jack’s hand settled at the small of your back, guiding the deep, rolling motions of your hips as you chased your pleasure. His other hand cupped the back of your nape, thumb stroking slowly and gently across sweat-soaked skin.
“I like how bratty and forceful you get when I annoy you.” He chuckled.
You pushed against his shoulders. Jack toppled over backwards, graciously allowing you to push him into the mattress. The bed creaked under the impact. “I’m not bratty.”
“Sure.”
You shut him up by lifting your hips, just to let them slam back down, taking his cock to the hilt. You set a brutal pace, riding Jack as if your life depended on it until his eyes fell shut and lips parted, a string of breathy, needy grunts tumbling from them.
“Fuck, baby- ah-” Jack’s grip on your waist tightened. “Gotta slow down or I will- ah- will come-”
A wicked grin spread across your lips. You planted your palms against the mattress on either side of Jack’s head and tilted your head condescendingly. “Is that so, mh? Nah, I think you can handle it, soldier.”
The soft groan bubbling up in the back of Jack’s throat was nothing short of fucking addicting. The bed creaked dangerously every time you rocked back against him, wood aching, headboard slamming against the wall. You were pretty sure you were in for a noise complaint, but you didn’t care. There was nothing you could care less about right now and nothing that took greater precedence that this - the hard, rigid line of Jack’s cock sliding against your throbbing walls, the fucked-out expression of pure, tantalising bliss on Jack’s face, the feeling of Jack’s hard chest against your palms, his heartbeat hammering beneath your fingertips.
Jack gasped for air and screwed his eyes shut. He bucked up against you, meeting your every thrust, sinking into your with lewd, wet squelches before his pelvis slammed against your core and just before he tipped over into that brief moment of mindlessly, aimlessly fucking into you to find his release - you slipped off him.
Jack let out an agonised, frustrated groan, but you just grinned at him.
“And she says she’s not a brat.” He huffed.
“You did that to me like five times!”
“Six.” Jack grunted and tackled you into the mattress. “And I loved every. single. one. of. them.” He smashed his lips against your cheek in hard appropriations of kisses between the words, as though to emphasise his point further. You squealed and tried to shove him off.
You pushed against the stupid swim trunks, but those fuckers didn’t budge.
“Fuck me.” You panted against his lips and pawed at his shirt without rhyme or reason.
“I was trying, sweetheart.”
“No, not like that.” You pulled his shirt off him and chucked it onto the bed before descending on his pale, freckled skin. The poor guy already had a sunburn on his neck from the hot Florida weather. Gingers and the sun just didn’t mix.
“Yeah? What do you want, darlin’?” Jack’s fingers ran through your hair while you peppered kisses over his collarbone and down his pec, lapping at freckles and sucking his skin between your teeth, leaving your marks all over him like a cat in heat marking her territory.
“Want you to fuck me.” You groaned against his neck. Your fingers wrapped around his cock. You felt your own arousal, musky stickiness smeared across his hot, velvety skin, as you pumped him in languid, lazy passes. You ran your thumb over his tip and smirked at the stuttering moan slipping from his lips. “Want you to really fuck me, Jack.”
“Yeah?” His voice was a breathy wisp of his usual self-assured, confident cadence. The sexy rasp curling around his every word had tripled.
“Yeah.” You whispered against the corner of his mouth. “Want to be a drooling, fucked-out mess for you, Jack.”
“Fucking hell.”
“I’m a big girl.” You purred. “You can be rough. I can handle it, baby.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that.” Jack’s eyes snapped open. A predatory edge slid into his smirk. Your insides twisted. An excited, prickling rush chased along your spine and unfurled beneath your skin. You found yourself knocked to your back the next moment. Jack grabbed your hips roughly and flipped you over as if you were nothing more than a ragdoll. He pulled you back, making you stick out your ass for him. Before you could get up, Jack’s hand settled at your nape, big and heavy, and silently bid you to stay down. You squeezed your eyes shut, a shameless moan tumbling from your lips, and shook your hips for Jack, urging him on.
He did not leave you wanting for long.
He filled you in quick, hard thrusts that knocked the air from your lungs and made you moan into the mattress. Your cunt clenched down around him, hard. It almost made Jack come. He had to force himself to focus on the tattoos stretching across your back. He traced black ink lines with his eyes and tried desperately not to think about how you were strangling his cock, how beautiful you looked with your hair scattered over the pillows, how your black nails grasped helplessly at the sheets, and those sounds you made- for him, no less.
Never, when Jack first met you months ago, would he have thought you’d end up here. Never would he have thought, dared to think, you’d somehow deem him good enough to even grant him a second look.
Jack draped himself over you. You loved the way his weight settled on your back, how he pinned you down while pounding into you, his breath brushing against your cheek, his groans and grunts loud in your ear-
“Fuck- fuck- Jack-”
“You’re so good- so fucking good for me-” Jack buried his face against your neck. He was panting, covered in sweat and completely out of breath, but nothing could have stopped him from wrecking your cunt in that moment. He groaned your name in your ear, a ceaseless string of it, a sound so utterly delectable it had you falling apart around his cock while stars danced at the edge of your vision.
Jack followed shortly after. He forced his cock to the hilt into you, his tip kissing your cervix as he grunted and ground his hips against your ass, filling you with spurts of hot cum, savouring the feeling of you as long as he could endure.
He finally rolled off you, hissing through his teeth, when the feeling of you wrapped around him, and the pain of his prosthesis got too much. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, still trying to catch his breath, while you were already pressing yourself into his side.
You painted trails between the freckles on his chest, throwing in needless swirls and circles just because you could, just to see his muscles jump beneath his skin.
Jack wrapped his arm around you, hand settling heavily in the dip of your waist, and pressed a kiss against the crown of your head.
“That was… fucking amazing.” You murmured after a while. Jack merely hummed above you. “Forgot how much I missed getting absolutely railed.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm… Silas wasn’t into it. It was just sweet vanilla sex with him. Not that that’s bad. I wouldn’t have married him if that hadn’t been enough for me, but… I don’t know. Probably don’t make any sense.” You rubbed a hand over your face and hesitated. “Urgh, I’m sorry. Should probably not bring my dead husband up after sex.”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
You glanced up. Jack smiled.
“He’s a part of you. He always will be. I- I like that you don’t feel like you have to hide that… makes me- it makes me feel like I don’t have to hide Nicole.”
“You don’t.” You whispered. “Ever.”
“I like that you create space for her, you know? Robby doesn’t talk about her anymore, and I get why. I couldn’t, for a long time, but… man, it feels like the world has forgotten her.”
“I don’t want Marigold to ever feel that way.” The confession felt heavy, much too heavy to be spoken aloud while the scent of sex still hung in the air and you felt Jack’s cum leaking from your abused cunt, but at the same time, talking with Jack felt so light, so easy, and it was addicting.
“Mhm.” Jack kissed the top of your head again. “Don’t ever feel like you can’t talk about him, please, Boots.” He got up after what felt like an endless moment of deep eye contact in that way of his that was somehow both endearing and unnerving, to fetch a washcloth for you from the bathroom.
You watched Jack settle into his wheelchair - a lightweight, foldable one he purchased for when they were staying with Nicole’s family and thus hadn’t seen much use in a long time - his prosthesis abandoned beside the bed after a moment of hesitation.
“That doesn’t look good.” You watched the skin stretched across his stump.
“Don’t be my doctor.” Jack muttered, heat creeping up his neck.
“I’m not.” You hummed and reached for Jack’s shirts, which you had all but ripped off him to slip on as you sat up. Jack shot you a raised brow before reaching for another shirt from a chair in the corner for him to put on instead. “I’m being the concerned girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend, huh? I thought I got my piece of paper back with maybe ticked off.”
“Maybe that changed.”
Jack’s grin only grew.
“Does this have something to do with my dick?”
“It is a nice dick.”
“Yeah, I know.”
You threw a pillow at him (he dodged with ease) and tried not to smile, because frankly, he was being too stupid and childish to deserve you laughing at his corny comments, and he was still wearing those stupid swim trunks, but you couldn’t help it. Your whole body was still buzzing from all the pleasure he wrought out of you, and your stomach was doing flips and somersaults again while a horde of butterflies on bath salts were running amok inside you.
The concerned expression stayed in your eyes despite the smile. Jack’s posture softened.
“I’ll stay off the leg. I reckon with the weather and all the sweatin’ it would only get worse if I didn’t.”
“Maybe fewer shopping trips with Marigold would be beneficial too.”
Jack emitted a dramatic gasp. “Don’t let her hear that you want to take her Jack shopping trip from her, Boots!”
“You’re spoiling her rotten.”
“It was a lobster dress, Boots! With a matching lobster bag. She had to have that. It passed the twirling test! It was a twirly lobster dress with a matching bag! I don’t make the rules. Frankly, the fact that you don’t see how that was a vital purchase is concerning to me.”
“And you got her that lobster claw clip too.” You hummed.
“Yeah, obviously.”
You laugh and shake your head. “Well, have fun at the pool. Hug my Marigold from me.”
“Will do.” Jack spun around in his wheelchair and tipped it backwards, balancing it there in the air with the ease of a man who would not let anyone tell him there were things he could no longer do because he lost his leg. “Don’t go drivin’ yourself crazy, darlin’. You’ve got this.”
You tried for an assured smile but didn’t quite manage. Jack knew how nervous you were about your presentation, even without you saying it. He tipped forward, letting the front wheels of his wheelchair touch down on the ground again and rolled towards you. You bent down to meet him halfway, pressing your lips against him.
“You’ll rock their world, I know it.”
“I’m talking about modified emergency protocols for urban hospitals to keep up with the demand of increasing mass casualty incident numbers, Jack.”
“Riveting shit.” He hummed. “Can’t wait to hear it.”
“You’re an idiot!” You called after him.
Jack turned in the doorway. “Your idiot.” He shot you a wide grin and gone was he. Your hand found the dog tags around your neck. You felt the warm metal beneath your fingertips. Metal tags bearing your husband’s essential information, resting against the fabric of another man’s shirt.
You didn’t feel guilty.
You knew you had no reason to. You weren’t doing anything wrong or being unfaithful. You knew Silas would want you to have all the happiness you’ve been feeling recently. He’d want Marigold to have a father figure in her life.
Your eyes fell on the nightstand, and the inconspicuous black ring lying there…
Jack’s ring.
While you were holed up in the hotel room to practise for your presentation, Jack had promised to make sure you’d have the time and, more importantly, the quiet to actually work.
He picked up Marigold from the kids' club, who promptly decided her legs no longer worked and sat on his lap while he rolled them down the hallway and towards the elevator. She swung her legs while she gave him a detailed report about the past six hours. Apparently, they made seashell picture frames out of popsicle sticks, but ‘they are still sticky, Jack.’
Jack had never taught someone how to swim, much less a headstrong, stubborn little girl, but after some initial fear kept Marigold from entering the deep end of the pool - which they combated by Jack promising to hold her, which ended up with them cuddling in the water for the better part of an hour. Marigold had her little arms wrapped around his neck, and her legs curled around his waist while he held her, and Jack was in no hurry to end their cuddle. The water was a welcome respite for his poor, ageing joints, and it took some of the mental strain of constantly shifting his weight to make sure he kept his balance.
Marigold played with the chain of his dog tags and the curls at the back of his neck absentmindedly while she talked. Jack told her about how he used to surf and some fun - and G-rated - stories from his youth, and simply savoured her company, and the time spent with her.
Out of nowhere, Marigold pressed her palms against his cheeks and brought her face to his, close enough that the tips of their noses touched.
“I love you, Jack.” She told him in the most serious tone she could muster.
“Love ya, too, kiddo.” He nuzzled her nose with his. “And if you want to show mommy how good a swimmer you are when she joins us, we should actually start practising!”
“Yes!”
Jack watched Marigold cling to the side of the pool and kick her legs, struggling to remember she had to breathe also. She kept holding her breath while she focused on her legs. He called her his little froggy, which made her laugh and relax. It took some time, and lots of encouragement, and another cuddle break after the first attempt of actually swimming failed, and Marigold got frightened while flailing her arms around like mad, only causing water to splash around and into her face, but eventually she managed to swim from the edge of the pool to where Jack stood a few steps away from it. She collapsed into his arms and let him praise and encourage her before she made the journey back to the edge. He increased the distance whenever she managed to swim to him without major struggle.
By the time you made your way down to the pool, Marigold had managed a whole lap across the pool and was taking a well-deserved break, bundled up in a towel, lying on top of Jack while she fed herself and him goldfish crackers.
“And? How are my little water rats?”
“I’m not a water rat!” Marigold protested, but sat up to let you kiss her and hug you. “I’m a mermaid! Jack is a shark.”
“Ah. And what am I?”
Marigold scrunched her face up in intense contemplation. “You are a sea bunny.”
“A sea bunny?” You raised a brow. “I’m sorry, but how is Jack a shark and I’m a sea bunny?”
“I love sea bunnies.” Marigold said matter-of-factly. “And I love you. And I love sharks a little less than sea bunnies. Also, that boy over there was staring at Jack’s leg - very rudely! - so I said a shark ate it while he was surfing, and that was funny.”
“She has impeccable logic, doesn’t she?” Jack grinned.
“If anything, Jack is a goldfish.” You huffed and squeezed yourself onto the lounger next to Jack, who gladly made space for you. Marigold sat on his hip and plucked goldfish from his chest that had spilled from the packaging.
“You two had a good afternoon?”
“Mhm.” Jack put his arm around your shoulders. You dropped your head against his shoulder, nuzzling into him. “And you? Made some progress?”
“Nope. The presentation is a mess. I am a mess. I feel sick. I hate Gloria. I hate public speaking and people and the public and did I mention I hate Gloria?”
“It’s always worth repeating.” He intercepted a goldfish from Marigold’s hand and threw it in the air just to catch it with his mouth. Marigold clapped. “You’ve got this, Boots.”
You merely groaned. Marigold seemed to have understood Jack’s little trick as an invitation to throw goldfish at him. He had to squint to not get cheese dust into his eyes while tiny cracker projectiles collided with his cheek and jaw.
“No wasting food, Marigold.”
“I’m not wasting them! Jack is because he doesn’t catch them!”
You smirked at Jack. “Don’t waste food, Jack.”
“Haha!” He deadpanned, then grabbed Marigold. He picked her up and turned her around, making her hang upside down before throwing her over his shoulder and slipping off the lounger to scoot towards the pool. Marigold squealed and laughed.
“Time to show mommy what you learnt!” And with those words, he dropped Marigold into the pool.
Your heart sank into your pants. You were out of the lounger and halfway towards the pool when Marigold emerged again, still laughing. She splashed water at Jack and dove to the side when he dropped into the pool in front of her.
The tension in your shoulders didn’t ease.
You could never stomach watching people roughhouse with Marigold. Whether it was Silas or Tim didn’t matter. It always made you feel queasy and chased a thousand images of injuries through your head.
Marigold had none of those concerns.
Where you’d sent Jack off to spend a day at the pool with your daughter, who couldn’t swim, you now witnessed Marigold's newfound confidence and agility in the water. She evaded Jack and giggled while paddling through the water, her little neck craned to keep her head above water and breathing heavily through the exertion.
You took off your sundress and sat down on the edge of the pool with your feet in the water. Jack came over to you. Marigold was draped across his back with her arms flung around his neck to take a break.
His eyes roamed over your body immediately. Namely, the cute rockabilly bikini, black with little cherries printed onto the fabric, you donned. The top was tied at the front with a bow, and the bottoms had cute frills at the edges.
“You’re gonna give a man a heart attack, Boots.”
“Yeah?” A blush spread across your cheeks.
“What does that mean?” Marigold chirped beside Jack.
“That mommy is looking very hot.”
“Huh? Mommy is in a bikini. I don’t think she’s feeling hot right now, Jack. And the water is pretty cool.”
You bit back a chuckle and swiped the wet hair out of Marigold’s face, cradling her cheeks in your hands before kissing her forehead. “You’re right. The water is very refreshing.”
“What about me?” Jack pouted and peered up at you through his lashes, sticking out his chin a little as he scooted up to stand between your legs. You rolled your eyes, but cradled his head the same way to kiss his forehead. Jack tipped his head back when you pulled away to catch your lips in a quick kiss.
You noticed the lack of a ring on his finger when he settled his hands on your thighs. The thin band of paler skin sat in stark contrast to the rest of his hand.
“You coming?”
“Yeah. Give me a moment to get used to the water. I’ll be right there.”
Jack nodded and waded through the water towards the shallower end to deposit Marigold on her two feet again. You watched him interlace his fingers and bent down so she could set her foot against them. He pushed her up and catapulted her into the deep water. She screamed and giggled and sank in a splash of water. You winced, but watching Jack observe her with eagle eyes and all the focus of a combat medic who was used to being responsible for many lives while under active fire eased some of your motherly anxiety.
You kicked your feet and watched Jack and Marigold splash around. Your thumb found your ring finger, pressed against the metal wrapped around it.
You slipped it off your finger and onto the ring holder necklace around your finger before letting yourself drop into the water and joining your daughter and boyfriend.
Next Chapter
A/N 2: I hope you aren't tired of vacation!jack yet. I think there's one more chapter with him before we head back to Pittsburgh :D
tag list: (Feel free to let me know if you want to be added or removed): @mimithanerd, @cassierins, @elenamoncadaibarra, @arigoldsblog, @fatecantstopme, @doveduh, @baileythepenguin, @dizzybee03, @sadsydneystuff-blog, @moonlitblossomsofthesun @itsmycorneroftheinternet, @generation-zero, @natashamea18 @mirandarockin, @love-me-91393, @avengersbabe13, @justdamnpeachy, @rubywingsracing, @moonyinthestars, @lunadi1una, @catmg, @diasnohibng, @crazyunsexycool, @2-frogs-in-a-puddle, @reliefplease, @swiishy, @moonlight52moonlight, @iridescentanachronism, @marleyindapitt, @eugene-emt-roe, @kbakery, @celleryxo, @thesoundresoundsecho, @givemethemaknaes16, @rycbar--4321, @lalaren, @amelieeesky, @karleyyyjaeee, @mcr-pr-fob, @wcibn, @stillhere197, @abbotsyogamat, @chxrrybomb22, @proserpi, @sarcasm-and-stiles, @the-newest-vegetarian, @seitmai, @laurenyas, @coffeeblackandcomfortablynumb, @theradkid, @adriburgs26, @marimarinlve, @v1enna-wr1tes, @peachyfckingkeen, @g0dsfav0riteprincess @redhooduwu,@alayla2 @darknessofhell666-blog-blog @valentinevampp @vicky066 @delic8pov @cutiesinthecosmos @glamorizethechaos @vane-camarillo @nyxmoretti @aoi-warrior @straykids1011 @realwhoreforfictionalmen @thehockeynerd30 @imaginexred @ficcyyfics
Warning: mentions of death, implied child abuse, slow burns, idiots in love- if i forgot something please let me know.
Word count: 2.8k
A/N: AAAHHHHH!!!!! so here is chapter one to this new series. It really wasn’t my intention to start this series yet but when inspiration hits you just gotta go with it. Permanent and series tag list open
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 1,937
Summary: You couldn’t admit that you wanted to make Steve’s birthday special, so instead, you had to put a very you spin on it.
Warnings: A/B/O AU. Explicit language. Mild sexual content. Alpha!Steve. Sassy omega!Reader. Established relationship. Omegaverse dynamic and details (like scenting, mating glands, etc.). Fluff. Feels. Being emotionally constipated. Slight dirty talk.
A/N: Surprise, my lovelies! I’m so happy to join in on @witchywithwhiskey ‘s birthday event for Steeb 🥹 Thank you for hosting and helping me choose which Steve to write, Molly! I hope you enjoy this ❤️
Pound Town Masterlist
Steve turned away from the coffee machine, jumping a little as he found you standing a few feet away, on the other side of the marble kitchen isle, staring at him in a way that was accusatory.
“Who’s sneaking up on who now?” he laughed, his smile faltering as your eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you have something you’d like to tell me, Hercules?” you challenged, your look haughty and knowing and annoyed.
“Um.” Steve frowned in confusion, his eyes glinting with concern as they flickered between yours.
After a moment, you saw something in his gaze shift, his jaw setting slightly as this look of now-or-never sort of determination glimmered in his eyes, making a surge of panic swell within you.
Because oh my god, that wasn’t what you meant!
So before Steve could open his mouth and say something you were not yet ready to hear, you beat him to it, tossing a piece of opened mail on the counter.
Steve blinked down at it, frowning once more as he glanced between you and the paper before him. “...my driver’s license renewal card?”
You huffed, leaning closer and stabbing your finger at the date of birth printed on the card stock. “Your birthday is in a few weeks! And you haven’t mentioned it at all!”
“Oh.” Steve’s big, broad shoulders lifted as he gave you a sheepish look, a rosy flush staining his cheeks and working its way to the tips of his ears. “I just… didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”
“Well what if I want to?” you glared at him. “You were just going to rob me of the full birthday experience?” You made something close to jazz hands that had Steve choking down a laugh because you did seem genuinely irritated by this. “That’s so selfish of you, Hercules,” you finished with a huff, crossing your arms for good measure.
Even though he was able to suppress his laughter, Steve wasn’t able to do the same with his smile. He grinned big, blue eyes twinkling with a very fond sort of mirth as he rounded the counter and pulled you into his arms.
“You’re right, omega, I’m the worst.”
“Truly!” you nodded in agreement, your own lips twitching as Steve interlocked his hands at the small of your back and kissed your cheek.
“Next year, I’ll be sure to set monthly reminders for you about my birthday so it’s always top of mind,” Steve murmured, kissing your other cheek. “It won’t be obnoxious at all.”
You nearly giggled, but were able to maintain your stink eye as you gave him an unimpressed look. “You better,” you hmphed, realizing your mistake a second after you spoke.
That you didn’t object to the fact that you would still be here–with Steve–a year from now.
You hadn’t really thought much about the future since you were a young omega, still brimming with hope and not yet beat down by the state of the world.
But now… after months of being in Steve’s orbit, of… whatever this was between you–because you still weren’t ready to admit that you were together–the thought of this whole thing not being temporary, of it being your future, of Steve being your future…
Well, it was an idea that you didn’t hate.
You could tell by the warmth and softness in Steve’s gaze that he was thinking along the same lines as you, but again, you just couldn’t with what ifs, and big feelings, and more.
Not yet.
“So,” you cleared your throat, pretending to fiddle with the collar of Steve’s t-shirt so you could escape his intese gaze for a moment. “What would the perfect birthday look like to you?”
Steve was quiet for a moment, for more than a moment, and you felt a swirl of anxiety in your stomach, worried that you had upset him by side-stepping the almost emotional landmine.
But when you peeked up at him, Steve’s gaze was just as warm and soft as a moment ago, and he was giving you a small, boyish smile as he replied, “I think I have an idea that we’ll both enjoy.”
A few weeks later, on Steve’s birthday, his idea came to fruition, and for the first time in a very long time–maybe ever–you really were getting the full birthday experience, even if it wasn’t your birthday.
But that didn’t make it any less perfect.
Because Steve had driven you upstate to a small lake house in the middle of the woods.
You couldn’t remember the last time you had been out of the city, and it truly felt like a slice of heaven to be surrounded by nature and quiet and have Steve all to yourself on his special day.
His special day was just part of the week-long vacation he had surprised you with, and he really had planned it all so perfectly. The fridge and pantry were stocked with your favorite prepped foods and takeout, so neither of you would need to cook. And he had gotten a cute little birthday cake, along with lots of other treats, from his favorite bakery.
And now, you were both enjoying the gorgeous tranquility around you, as you and Steve sat on the dock out back of the house, watching the sun set over the lake.
You gave a quiet sigh of contentment as you sank back in the circle of Steve’s arms, allowing your head to fall to the side as his nose skimmed up the side of your throat as he took his time scenting you.
It was actually the first time you two had ever done this–scenting outside of sex–and you didn’t hate it. You were kind of obsessed with it to be honest.
In fact, you had never been so squirmy in your life, your mind pleasantly hazy and quiet for once as you gave a soft chirp when Steve pressed a kiss to your unmarked mating gland.
“You smell so good, omega,” he murmured against your skin, inhaling deeply and purring with satisfaction as he basked in your scent. “You always do.”
Your inner omega chirped up a storm, loving Steve’s attention and admiration as you turned your face so you could nuzzle his nose with yours.
Steve kissed you gently, his eyes so soft and happy as he told you, “This really is the perfect birthday.” His lips touched yours again, lingering this time before he pulled away and breathed, “Thank you, omega. I mean it.”
As he often was, Steve was so earnest in his words and feelings, but something about the sheer affection for you that was coloring his alpha scent had you feeling shy, and a little cranky to be honest.
Because you were still getting used to how much Steve made you feel and want, even after knowing him for months. But you shoved down the minor flare of irritation that you knew was a defense mechanism, because you would not be bitchy with Steve on his birthday.
So instead, you playfully rolled your eyes, murmuring, “You’re such a sap.”
“Only for you,” Steve grinned.
Your scent spiked with your own joy–and something wanting–and he huffed a laugh.
He leaned in and kissed your mating gland, laughing again as you squealed and tried to squirm away, overwhelmed by how sensitive that part of you was, especially under Steve’s attention.
“How do you like it?” he rumbled, eyes twinkling as you huffed and twisted in his hold to glare at him.
For a moment, you just gave him the best stink eye you could muster, and then, you pounced.
Of course you knew that Steve was letting you “attack” him as he fell back against the dock and took you with him. But that didn’t make it any less silly or fun as you wrestled with him until you straddled his hips and had his hands pinned above his head, preening your victory.
“Well now that you’ve got me, what are you gonna do with me?” Steve husked, his eyes noticeably darker as you hovered over him.
For probably the millionth time, you were nearly struck dumb by how gorgeous Steve was. His skin smooth and flawless, his golden hair gleaming in the setting sun and now perfectly mussed. And his eyes–those pretty blue eyes–so expressive as he watched you, as he waited for whatever you deemed came next.
For a long, quiet moment, you just stared at each other, and then your eyes flickered down to another feature of his that you sure did love–those plump pink lips.
Those plump, pink, kissable lips.
“I have a few ideas,” you finally replied before swooping close and capturing his lips with yours.
Steve groaned into your mouth as you traded pinning his wrists for framing his face between your hands. You made your own sound of delight when you felt his touch at your hips, his fingers pressing into you, holding you tight and urging your body against his even more.
Your lips teased and tasted until both you and Steve were breathless, and when you finally pulled back enough to raggedly inhale a gulp of air, you paused for a beat, your eyes dancing as you said, “I want smores.”
“I want more too,” Steve immediately returned. His big hand cradled your cheek and tried to reel you back in for another kiss, but you pulled away.
Giggling as you sat up over him, you shook your head, lips curled into a playful smirk as you tutted, “Keep it in your pants, Hercules. I want smores. You promised we’d make them using that little fire pit on the back deck.”
For a long moment, Steve just stared up at you, uncomprehending, gaping. And it was nearly enough to make you cackle, but then he blinked owlishly, his brain rebooting, and he didn’t look disappointed at all as he said, “Oh. Right.” Instead, he gave your hips a squeeze, his grin boyish as he continued, “I’ll go set it up now.”
You couldn’t help the dreamy sigh that bubbled past your lips as Steve helped you to your feet. Because he really was so good, so perfect.
And he was all yours.
Preening for a different reason now, you looped your arm through Steve’s, pressing close to his side as you two began to slowly walk back up the dock.
You felt mischievous as you glanced over and drank in the still flushed state of Steve’s cheeks, the way his lips were still kiss swollen, too.
“After smores, then I’ll give you more,” you teased, shooting Steve a wicked grin. “You can spend the rest of my night fucking me full of your cum and keeping me on your knot, birthday boy.”
Steve tripped over his own feet, making you burst into laughter as you grabbed onto him to help steady his steps, enjoying the way his flush deepened for an entirely different reason now as he shot you a stink eye.
“You’re such a menace," he muttered, but he was already grinning again as he wrapped his arm around you and tugged you flush against him. “But you’re my menace.”
“Well happy birthday to you,” you chimed, laughing into Steve’s side as he pressed a kiss to the crown of your head.
He held you just a little bit tighter as he murmured against your hair, “You’re the best birthday present ever,” rumbling his content as you caught his hand with yours, twined your fingers together, and stayed tucked close as you cleared the dock and made your way back to the lake house.
—
Please take a moment to comment or reblog. It means a lot to hear from my readers after sharing a story that I put so much love into. Serial liking without engagement is the quickest way to kill my writing motivation, so please don’t do that. It only takes a moment to show a little love. Thank you 🙏🏻
I no longer do tag lists, but if you'd like to be notified when I post new writing, follow my side blog @sirisshamelesshoelibrary and turn on notifications to get pinged when I drop some new hoe fuel 😘
Please note that I do not give permission for my work to be translated, reposted, or published anywhere other than my Tumblr. I also do not give permission for my work to be fed into AI platforms. Reblogs are most welcome and encouraged though! ❤️
Warnings!!: slow burn, reader is an adult!!, graphic violence, mentions of blood, gore, head injury, memory loss, dissociation, physical assault, strangulation, mature themes, strong language, hurt/comfort, angst.
Summary:
(Nothing made sense anymore, and out of everything you thought could’ve deceived you in this world, it was your own memory that was the first to do so.)
A/N: Enjoy angels!
Together.
You’d deal with it together.
You all continued your journey in silence after Rick had said that. You were all exhausted, and the initial adrenaline of finding each other again had worn thin.
Lucky enough—
Rick had spotted an abandoned van on a road just outside of the forest.
You all made sure the coast was clear before you made it your place of refuge for the night.
Carl was ushered off to bed by Rick as soon as the moon settled into place; he took the back seat of the van after going back and forth about how he wasn’t a kid anymore and that he wasn’t tired.
That was a lie because he was the first to fall asleep.
Michonne started a small fire over some twigs on the asphalt; it was just you and her now. Daryl and Rick were off discussing something, probably about Terminus.
You hoped at least.
What if he said something about the kiss?
You’d never live it down.
No. You were overthinking it because Daryl wasn’t the kind of guy to kiss and tell.
You were holding the photograph of your dog Rocky in your hands. After everything, that’d been the only thing that managed to make it out intact.
You were glad.
Michonne warmed her hands up by the fire, her eyes drifting towards your face, then the photograph in your hand, then back down towards the flames.
“Did you see anyone else?” She questioned. “From our group? Or was it just you and Daryl?”
You felt the guilt crawling its way back up your throat at the mention of the others.
You still didn’t know if the children were safe after you’d left them.
You still didn’t know if anyone else was safe, and hell, were you missing them all like crazy.
You shook your head.
“No…” you sighed, folding the photograph up and placing it back into your pocket. “It was just me and Daryl.”
Michonne narrowed her eyes at you, pulling her hands away from the fire and resting them atop of her knees.
“You and Daryl, huh?”
You couldn’t tell if she was messing with you or actually being serious.
“What do you mean?” You questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Michonne smirked slightly before she shrugged.
Messing with you.
Definitely.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I just wanted to know if you two had gotten over that despising each other thing that you had going on at the prison.”
Oh so she’d noticed that?
“I never despised him.” You answered honestly.
Because that was the truth.
Maybe your initial defence mechanism after your injury was to act like you didn’t like him, but that was never what you felt deep down.
You knew that now.
Michonne pressed her lips into a thin line, definitely deciding whether she was fully convinced or not.
“How’d the two of you stay together for so long?”
This felt like an interrogation, and it was making you feel like she knew something.
Knew what you were thinking.
Feeling.
“We found this cabin,” you started, tucking your hair behind your ears. “Belonged to this guy called John.”
Michonne tilted her head, her brows furrowing.
“John?”
“Yeah,” you replied with a nod. “He was a good man, a drunk, but still…good.”
She nodded before she looked down towards the fire again, pushing her hands out over the flame again.
You watched her closely.
“I’m glad you’re here, Michonne,” you smiled. “I missed you. I missed all of you.”
She looked up, a smile appearing on her own lips.
“We missed you too.”
You were about to say something but you stopped yourself short when you heard footsteps behind you.
Rick sat by the fire, his own hands stretching out besides Michonne's, their hands just mere inches apart.
Close.
Daryl was closer, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he lit it with that same lighter that you’d returned.
He didn’t sit; he was just gazing down the long road on your right.
Your eyes flickered from the cigarette then towards the lighter as he shoved it back into the pocket of his vest.
If he had never given you that lighter in the first damn place, you wouldn’t have kissed him.
You wouldn’t be sat here right now feeling so—
Conflicted.
“We’re gonna head for Terminus t’morrow,” Rick spoke.
That dragged your attention away from Daryl.
You cleared your throat.
“Sounds good.”
Michonne narrowed her eyes on you again, then Daryl, before they flickered back towards Rick.
You’d made the staring much too obvious, and Michonne wasn’t the type of person to miss those kinds of things.
You knew that.
So how could you have let yourself slip up?
“I’m gonna—” you started, standing now rather than sitting. “I’m gonna go get some sleep.”
You left without giving the others a chance to respond, pulling the front door of the van open and slipping inside.
Carl was sound asleep; you didn’t want to wake him.
You reclined the seat back slightly as you didn’t want to get a cramp when you woke up in the morning from sleeping upright.
Sleep wasn’t easy at first due to the fact that your mind was working overtime. Always the same thoughts, the same silent questions you asked yourself that never had a direct answer.
Daryl.
Daryl.
Daryl.
Eventually, sleep overcame you—
forcing your eyelids shut under the weight of the days events—but even in sleep, nothing was ever—
Easy.
Your dreams had gone… haywire in every sense of the word.
Vivid.
Uncontrollable.
Twisted.
The world was falling apart around you, and not because of the all too familiar circumstances of the world you knew today.
It was all your fault this time.
And you couldn’t do anything to stop it because you’d been bound by locked lips and frozen muscles, forced to watch the brutality unfold before you.
The screaming. The blood.
Agony.
Then a sharp sting crossed your cheek, followed by the potent metallic smell as it hit your nose. Your hand instinctively flew up to relieve the pain protruding from your face, only to be greeted by the edge of a knife.
You weren’t dreaming.
This wasn’t a dream.
Your eyes fluttered open, only to be greeted by a face mere inches from your own, a giggle escaping their lips as they pushed the knife further towards your cheekbone.
“Get off of me!” you panicked, your eyes widening.
You kicked your legs out immediately to free yourself from under the grip of whoever it was that was holding you.
The man hit the floor with a loud thud.
You stumbled to your feet to get a closer look.
A fat man.
One from Joe’s group.
Shit.
You tried to move but before you could—
A hand looped around your forearm harshly, painfully so. A gun lifted to your temple, digging into the skin by your hairline.
Your eyes widened, and your breath caught.
“Let er go!” Daryl bellowed, and it was the near desperation in his tone that made you look up at the scene before you.
They’d found you.
Joe’s group.
Rick had a gun to his head, as did Michonne.
You couldn’t even see carl, but you knew he wasn’t in any better place than the rest of you, and that made you feel sick to your stomach.
He was a child! How could anyone hurt a child?!
“No can do, Daryl,” Joe spoke smugly, eyes glued to the top of Rick’s head before they crossed towards Daryl’s eyes.
Joe sighed, pressing his lips into such a thin line that they were no longer visible.
“You see,” Joe started with a sly chuckle, digging the end of the gun further against Rick’s head. “I was gonna let the both of you go after you killed Len because…you did me a favour doing that,”
Joe’s eyes crossed towards yours.
Your blood had turned cold at that point.
You didn’t speak.
You didn’t move.
Hell, you couldn’t even think anything straight anymore.
The blood ran down your cheek thick and fast, the potent stench of pure iron leaving you half dizzy.
“But now,” Joe continued. “I spot you hangin’ around with the guy that killed Lou?”
Your eyes moved towards Rick at that.
It’d been him they’d been tracking all this time.
“We ain’t owe you no damn favours,” Daryl spat, trying to get himself free.
Rick was silent, as was Michonne.
Dead silent.
Contemplating a way out of this.
‘We’ll deal with it if they come. Together.’
You trusted that.
You trusted Rick's judgement no matter what.
So with that, you couldn’t help but let yourself speak your mind.
“I bet your son of a bitch friend Lou deserved it, just like Len.”
The words dropped from your mouth like venom—harsh and spiteful, just like you’d meant for them too.
Joe studied you for a moment, a hum falling from his lips. Then he gave the nod, and you knew all too well that you were in for it.
“Don’t ya hurt er!” Daryl bellowed, his tone laced with fury as he noticed the threat against you, then—
He tore one arm free, long enough to throw a punch.
Then another.
But—
Before he could even get to you, he was dragged back, a forceful punch hitting his stomach.
“Get off of him!” You yelled, your voice cracking slightly. You tried your hardest to free yourself from the grip of the man who had a hold of you, but—
It was no use.
His fist met your face with a sense of brutality that you’d never encountered before.
Your head hit the ground with the force of the blow.
Everything went black.
Still.
Silent.
Empty.
The darkness cracked at the corners beneath your eyelids, followed by a throbbing ache at the back of your head that etched its way closer to the wound upon your cheek.
Everything was muffled but not enough so that you couldn’t hear your name being called out.
Were you dead?
Were you dreaming?
A breath ripped from your lungs, and the first waking thought that crossed your mind was to attack.
Your fist shot out, attacking whatever was closest.
“Woah, S’me,” the voice rang out over the heavy buzzing that lingered in your ears, a hand flying out to catch your wrist. “S’me.”
It took you a moment far too long to realise who it was.
“Daryl…?” You questioned weakly, your voice barely audible.
“S’me.” He repeated again, his eyes tracking over your face like he was making sure he wasn’t imagining any of this himself.
Your brows furrowed for a moment, then—
Your arms wrapped around him tightly, your chin wresting against his shoulder. You didn’t even expect him to hug you back; you weren’t even thinking.
You just wanted to make sure he was real.
Alive.
After what felt like a decade of unrequited touch—
His arm snaked around your back. The warmth of his chest heavy against your own. His heart beating just as fast yours.
Your eyes flickered towards the ground as you still held in him your embrace, trying your hardest to think, but—
Nothing came.
Obscured.
You could see bodies lining the ground beneath you.
There was blood everywhere.
“What…happened, Daryl?” Your question came out shaky against his ear.
Daryl pulled back at that.
“Ya not remember?”
You shook your head, your eyes dragging from the floor and towards his. It was only then that you got a proper look at the damage that’d been done to him.
Bruised and bloodied.
…why?
He spoke before you could even open your mouth.
“Ya fell and hit yer head,” he said carefully.
“…how?” You frowned.
He didn’t even get a chance to explain as the sound of footsteps cut him off and answered you rather.
Rick.
You recognised him immediately. His beard was covered in blood, and his face looked slightly hollowed out.
He looked…out of it.
“…She awake?” he asked Daryl, voice rough.
“Yeah,” Daryl replied.
Rick nodded slowly, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out: a water bottle.
“Here,” Rick said, crouching slightly, angling the bottle out towards you.
“…Is that for Rocky?” You questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Daryl stiffened after the words left your mouth. His eyes shutting briefly, a hand rubbing over his forehead with a sigh.
You didn’t know why he reacted like that.
What you were saying was obvious.
Was it not?
“…What?” Rick answered, confusion dripping from his tone, his eyes crossing towards Daryl.
“My dog, Rocky…” You spoke out again, your eyes moving in between the two of them.
Nobody spoke for a minute, and that sent a sense of dread crawling up your throat, threatening to spill from your mouth.
“Ya told me about him,” Dary spoke finally.
“So you remember him?”
Daryl looked at Rick for a moment, then his gaze flickered back towards yours.
“I do.”
Rick didn’t speak—he was just listening. The bottle of water stayed firm in his clasp, still angled out towards you like he was waiting for you to take it but—
You didn’t.
“Ya showed me his picture,” Daryl continued. “Ya keep it in yer pocket folded up real careful.”
You glanced down, your hand moving towards your pocket instinctively, pulling the photo out.
“But he ain’t here,” he corrected you.
Your grip tightened on the photograph at that.
“I brought him with me,” you spoke shakily; the tone in your voice wasn’t as certain this time. “I brought him.”
Daryl shook his head once.
“Nah, you didn’t.”
A beat.
“Ya told me he died when everythin’ fell apart,” he added quietly.
Your brows knitted together, but you didn’t say anything.
“Ya hit your head,” Rick cleared his throat, finally interjecting into the conversation. “Your not thinking—”
“I know I hit my head,” you cut him off quickly. “But I know Rocky’s still here.”
A beat.
“He’s not here,” Daryl said. “S’yer head messin’ with ya.”
Your eyes flickered towards Daryl’s, your expression softening slightly as you looked at him.
Looked at the softness in his eyes.
Looked at the worry as it stayed firmly etched in his features.
It dawned upon you then that what you were saying wasn’t right, even if you believed it deep down.
“I think there’s something wrong with me.” Your voice cracked as you spoke, the tears flooding over your face now.
Rick shook his head.
“There’s nothin’ wrong with you,” Rick started, pushing the water bottle further towards you. “Just drink some water.”
A beat.
Then your hand reached out towards the bottle, taking it finally, feeling the defeat settle in your stomach.
The morning light cracked through the overcast, a pain rushing through your head that you’d never experienced before due to the exposure.
You hadn’t slept, not properly anyway—not when you still couldn’t think properly.
You could remember some things more clearly now: the prison, the others, but everything else was vague.
You knew it was all still there somewhere.
It was just lost at the minute.
“You daydreaming?” Michonne cut through your thoughts, startling you.
“Guess I was…” you responded, your voice hoarse.
You still didn’t know who’d caused it.
Michonne fell into step beside you, her shoulder bumping against yours. You were both walking dead centre of a train track. Rick was up ahead; Daryl and Carl were behind.
“Anything clearer in your head now?” She asked, her eyes glancing over towards you.
You shrugged.
“Some things,” you started. “Most of it’s still blurry.”
Michonne didn’t say anything for a moment, her eyes moving over your face.
The silence felt overbearing.
“I know it’ll come back,” she spoke finally, the tone in her voice soft and reassuring. “It’s just going to take some time.”
That was the problem.
You didn’t have time in a world like this.
You didn’t want to die not remembering half the things that got you to the point you were now.
You didn’t say anything back to her because you felt that if you did, you’d end up crying.
You didn’t want to be an emotional wreck.
Not when you were already a liability who couldn’t remember.
“Look,” Michonne started with a sigh. “We’re gonna be at Terminus soon. They’ll be able to check you and hopefully stitch that cut on your cheek,”
She took a breath.
Then she continued.
“Maybe it’ll make you feel a bit better.”
It wouldn’t.
You nodded regardless.
“Yeah…maybe.”
You walked in silence for the rest of the route that Rick was leading. You were soon off the tracks and walking through the woods. It didn’t take long to spot the outer fences guarding Terminus.
“We all spread out. Watch for a while,” Ricks spoke, eyes glancing over the four of you now rather than the fence. “See what we see and get ready.”
Michonne already started moving, Carl was following after her, and you…
You just stood there completely idle, completely unsure of what to do with yourself.
It felt like you needed someone to teach you how to function normally again.
You felt like a completely different person now than the woman you were certain that you were before.
“Ya comin’ with me?” Daryl asked, nudging your arm to snap you out of whatever you had going on in your head.
Your eyes snapped up from the ground, catching his under the flutter of your eyelashes.
You didn’t know if it was because of your recent circumstances or whether you’d always felt like this, but you felt safe with Daryl.
Safe.
You nodded once before following him.
“Daryl...?” You spoke quietly, almost as if you were convincing yourself that that was his name.
That was his name.
You knew that.
Didn’t you?
Hell, it felt like you were second-guessing everything you were more than sure of.
“Hm?” He responded, turning his head over his shoulder ever so slightly to get a glimpse of you.
You looked at him for a moment, eyes scanning over his features like you were trying to burn every detail in your mind.
You couldn’t even remember what you were going to ask.
“Nothing…” you sighed, your eyes flickering back towards the trails of orange on the ground.
Daryl stopped at that, turning towards you fully now rather.
“Ya remember John’s cabin?”
You didn’t.
“I…remember leaving the prison, and I remember…you, pulling me away,” you answered, the words catching in your throat every time you opened it. “But everything after that is…”
You swallowed.
“Gone.”
The word lingered between the both of you.
You felt like you were losing yourself.
You felt like a complete disappointment every time someone asked you something and you just couldn’t remember it.
Daryl didn’t speak.
He just looked at you with that same look that he had done when you started talking about Rocky after you’d woken up.
Then—
He pushed his hand into his vest pocket and pulled something out that caught onto the dull light that shone from in between the trees above.
You narrowed your eyes on it.
A lighter.
His?
Maybe?
“Are you gonna set me on fire with that or something?” You joked, trying your hardest to make light of the situation, but it probably just made you look completely crazy.
You couldn’t even tell by the way his face changed after that whether he was offended or amused, and that scared you because—
You could’ve sworn you remembered more about Daryl.
Daryl shook his head, pushing the lighter out towards you more.
“Nah.”
A beat.
“Take it.” He added, stepping closer to you.
You raised an eyebrow.
“What’s this for?” You questioned, your hand scooping around the lighter and taking it into your palm. The coolness of the metal felt grounding against your clammy skin.
He shrugged.
“Thought it might spark some of yer memories back.”
Your eyes darted between Daryl and the lighter as it sat perched in your hand.
This lighter must’ve meant something, but it didn’t piece together as you looked down at it.
Maybe it would at some point.
“You think it will?” You questioned, feeling a little spike of hope cross your chest.
He pressed his lips into a thin line, and it was then that you could see he was holding onto the same hope that you were.
Or was he?
“Maybe.”
You shoved the lighter into your pocket by the photograph of Rocky; the placement of it felt familiar, like you’d done it before.
Like it wasn’t the first time it’d been in there.
“Thank you…”
He just nodded at that and continued walking, making sure you were keeping up with him.
Everyone was soon over the fences round the back of Terminus after that. Rick said that he wanted to see them before they saw you all.
He didn’t trust it, and you knew that.
You all moved quietly through the warehouse. Your gun was in your hand now rather than its holster.
Funnily enough, after everything you couldn’t remember, you still sure as hell knew how to use a weapon.
You could hear a woman, her voice echoing slightly through the halls. Her voice was slightly distorted, but she was talking about Terminus and sounded like she was broadcasting.
You couldn’t exactly tell.
Then you spotted her after you rounded a corner.
“Hello.” Rick spoke abruptly, his boots pounding against the floor as he approached the desk she was sitting at.
Your eyes drifted from the woman and towards the hoard of people working on the other side of the room.
“Hello.” Rick repeated, louder this time, addressing everyone in the room.
One of the men sighed, turning towards the five of you as you stood side by side.
“Well,” the man spoke, a slightly sarcastic tone noticeable in his voice. “I guess Albert is on perimeter watch.”
You didn’t say anything, nor did the rest of them. It was so quiet, you would have been able to hear a pin drop.
The man moved closer, his footsteps echoing through the room.
“You here to rob us?”
A beat.
Your eyes flashed over the faces. Everybody looked…normal. There didn’t seem to be anything strange going on.
“No.” Rick stated finally, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth before he started moving towards the centre of the room. “We wanted to see you before you saw us.”
The man nodded.
“Makes sense,” he started before he neared the five of you himself. “Usually we do this where the tracks meet but… welcome to Terminus.”
Nobody spoke.
Then the man stepped closer again, his hands tensing slightly at his sides.
“I’m Gareth.”
A beat.
Rick nodded, then he stated all of your names one after the other.
Gareth’s eyes landed on you after your name left Rick’s mouth, his head tilting slightly.
“We can get that nasty cut on your face stitched up, but first,” he started, his eyes lingering on yours for a moment before they moved back towards Rick. “We need to see everyone’s weapons, so if you could just lay them down in front of you.”
Why did they need to see your weapons?
You looked towards Michonne slowly; she looked back, her eyes slightly narrowed.
Then, after a moment of silence, you were the first to move, laying your knife and your gun on the floor.
The others hesitated for a minute, and then they all followed.
After that, you were all being patted down by another member from their group.
Once satisfied, your weapons were handed back to you.
Easy enough.
“Hey Lia, take her to Jane so she can get that cut stitched up,” Gareth started, pointing towards you. “Alex, you take the rest of them to the front.”
Daryl shook his head, stepping forwards slightly.
“I’m goin’ w’her.”
You looked towards Daryl.
His eyes were practically burning into Gareth’s at the suggestion of you even going anywhere on your own.
“Can’t let you do that,” Gareth replied, shaking his head. “We don’t let more than one person in the infirmary at a time.”
“It’s fine, Daryl.” You spoke out finally with a sigh, pushing your gun back into its holster and your knife back into its pouch on your thigh. “I can go on my own.”
You didn’t want to argue back and forth with these guys, not when they were offering help and…
What’s the worst that could happen?
They all seemed friendly enough.
Daryl shook his head again, his eyes moving towards yours, his mouth opening as though he were going to speak, but you soon cut him off.
“I’ll be fine.”
Lia stepped forwards, a smile on her face.
“This way.”
You were soon sat in a chair, a needle and wire pushing through the torn flesh on your cheek.
“Ah,” you hissed, closing your eyes shut tightly. “Fuck.”
“This is sure a nasty cut,” Jane uttered as she pushed the needle through your face again. “How did you get it?”
That was the problem. You couldn’t remember.
“I don’t know…” you sighed, your eyes flickering towards one of the windows to your left.
Jane pushed the needle through again, dragging another curse word from your lips.
“You can’t remember?”
She almost sounded astonished with your uncertainty.
“I hit my head…” you sighed. “Well, that’s what Daryl and Rick told me.”
The needle went through your skin once more before Jane stepped back, studying you closely.
She didn’t say anything for a minute.
Then—
She stepped back and grabbed what looked like a flashlight from one of the tables behind her and shining it in your eyes immediately.
She didn’t speak for a minute.
“Looks like a concussion,” she started, crossing the light from one eye to the other.
A concussion?
This was just fucking great.
It was just one bad thing after the next at this point; how could you have let yourself get into this mess?
She stepped back, clicking the flashlight off and putting it back on the table she had originally picked it up from.
“Might also be post-traumatic amnesia.”
Post-traumatic what?
“What?” You replied abruptly, the word leaving your mouth in pure shock before you could even process it.
Jane's expression softened.
“It can be temporary, and you may start to remember things but,” she explained. "It can also be permanent and—”
The sound of gunfire cut her off.
You flinched instinctively, your hand snaking towards your gun.
“Stay here!” Jane shouted before she darted out of the room and disappeared completely.
Well, you certainly weren’t going to follow those orders.
You rose from the chair and left the room immediately, your gun now held tightly in your grip. You rounded a corner, following the noise with a new sense of urgency.
The others were out there, and you weren’t going to let a concussion stop you.
A door stood slightly ajar at the end of the hallway. Your hand slid against the gap when you reached it, pushing it open despite how heavy it was.
Your breath caught as soon as the room presented itself to you.
Bodies.
Torsos.
Limbs.
All hanging on hooks suspended from the ceiling, swaying almost imperceptibly.
“What the fuck...?” Your words came out shaky, your grip on your gun faltering slightly.
You weren’t completely incapable of realising that this was no damn sanctuary.
A noise rang out behind you.
You whipped around immediately, but it was too late.
Much too late.
An hand latched around your neck, cutting your breath off.
Your whole body went limp, your pistol slipping from your hand.
A voice rang out from what sounded like miles away—not one you’d heard before.
Unfamiliar.
“Get her in one of the train cars now!”
A/N: readers just going through it😭Daryl giving her the lighter back too😭 Guys I swear things will start to get WAY more apparent between Daryl and reader, just you wait! I hope you enjoyed, mwah
Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the Taglist!🖤
