Don't Change The Channel - Chapter 2: Channel Surfing
✦Read on a03! - Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist - Chapter One✦
✦pairing: Dean Winchester x female!reader✦
✦summary: You and Dean play the game.✦
✦warnings/tags: friends to lovers, changing channels, canon divergence, angst, fluff, pining, action, no use of y/n or reader description✦
✦author's note: i had. so much fun with this. Enjoy!✦
Something is whirring near your ear.
It’s mechanical, almost like the sound of a hairdryer, or washing machine. There’s a cloth gag in your mouth, something covering your eyes, and binds on your hands and feet. You fumble with your hands, testing the strength of the restraining, and wince as the rope burns your skin.
Whoever’s got you here means business. And the whirring sound is growing louder.
If Dean’s here, there’s no sign of him. No shout of your name or muffled noise from somewhere in the room, proving that he’s here as well. When you pull at your legs, they’re bound just as well as your hands. Normally your best bet would be the blindfold, but no matter how you roll your head or squirm, the chair barely shifts and the gag in your mouth gets in the way of anything productive.
You drop your head, letting out a heavy sigh through your nose.
Bearings.
The best thing to do is get your bearings.
There’s the whirring sound, that’s still pretty loud, but seems to have settled. Something smells like it’s burning, and when you take a deep breath, you gag on the smell of oil, gasoline, and something rotten that stings.
Dean smells like oil sometimes. After he’s finished working on Baby, he’ll walk through the bunker covered in grease and pulling his shirt up to wipe his face.
You’ve spent more days than you want to admit, sitting on the couch in the hope that you’ll catch him when he’s done. You’ll peer over a book, biting the inside of your mouth as you stare at his stomach. It’s a small, embarrassingly sacred thing to you. You’ve seen Dean almost completely naked before—from sharing motel rooms, and the one time almost all his clothing got burned off—but that was different. That had an element of work lying under it, the comfort of being near a friend or the danger of the job making you more worried about Dean than his body.
This is just you.
Ogling your best friend like a creep, memorizing the panes of his stomach because they’re so Dean, and everything about him is important to you. You’ll grip your book like a tether to reality. Your thighs will press together under the blanket. Some times a small sound will escape you, and Dean will look to you with raised brows.
“You good?”
“Mhm.” You never trust yourself to speak. He never pushes you to.
“Sammy and I are goin’ out later.” He’ll offer sometimes, after a moment of examining your flushed face. “You wanna come shake off some fever with us?”
He’ll give you a winning smile, and you’ll mumble a no and look back to your book.
If you’re unlucky, your head will be cruel. Will circle around the idea of some random woman sinking her nails into him, getting the silent intimacy and comfort and heat all at once. Getting the only part of Dean you’re not allowed to have, the part that he gives so willingly to every one else. You’ll think about her ogling him, and Dean grinning like he’s won the lottery when she coos his name. Him grabbing her knee and dragging it apart, or rubbing a big hand on her thigh.
Tying her up like you’re tied up now. But instead of you, very uselessly just daydreaming while the whirring continues, she gets Dean all over her. Gets to feel his abs under her hands, rather than just a dreamlike, hazy picture of them that you frame on all your thoughts.
He’s not fully defined, but built under thick muscle and a surprisingly healthy body, for how he treats himself. You know how he feels wrapped around you from hugs.
You swallow, because you also remember them pressed against you during the kiss.
You kissed Dean.
In Gabriel’s weird, cryptic game, but you kissed him all the same. It might have rewritten something deep in the core of your body. You might not ever be able to kiss anyone else again.
A problem for later. When you’re not tied to a chair.
There’s the whirring. The bad smells. The ropes and gag and blindfold.
The room is cold. You can feel something like a draft, coming from behind you. A chilling air that makes your hair stand on end, but also a heat. It burns near your ankles, and on the back of your hands.
That must be coming from below you.
You test the chair again, wobbling it side to side. It doesn’t budge much, but there’s a scraping sound, and when you get the frame to bump your ankles, it’s cold. Probably metal.
You’re tied to a metal chair, somewhere that’s both hot and cold, with mechanics and a rotting smell. So far, the game has been a romcon and a late night talk show. Sam and Dean have told you about when Gabriel pulled this on them before, and it was all about playing your part.
The simple guess for what the game would be is a reprise. Playing your part in the show, in real life, whatever the moral Gabriel had in mind was. But he ended up switching over to Sam and Dean’s side, helping them not play their role. And you’re not an archangel vessel, you’re just an unlucky girl who got saved, taught herself how to hunt, then ignored everyone’s warnings about the Winchesters and became their friend.
There’s no role for you here. No curse or destiny to break from, or mold into. So whatever Gabriel’s move is, it can’t be that.
Besides, you can’t imagine a roll for you that requires you being tied to a fucking chair.
You twist again. You won’t just wait here, to see what happens. If Dean’s not here, he might be tied up in a different room, or in some whole other setting all together. Maybe you have to go find him. Maybe that’s the test.
You thrash a little, straining your fingers to try and get a grip on the ropes. You ignore the burn, as you twist your wrist, and try to better angle your body by slumping in the chair. You get a grip, on a frayed bit of the bind. If you just pull-
A hand—not Dean’s, you’d know that anywhere—grabs your chin.
The whirring sound stopped.
You freeze, and someone tsks from above your head.
“Really, darling.” An accented, cold voice drawls. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
You don’t answer. It doesn’t seem smart to, until you know more.
“You must’ve known I’d catch you. That now that I’ve got you, I’m never letting you go.” The voice laughs, and it skitters over your bones. “You’re never leaving this room, darling. You should start to accept that.”
There’s brush of dry, almost scaly skin over your lips. You try not to flinch, but you can’t help it. It’s vile. Even the breath smells like a carcas.
“You’re mine now.” The voice sneers, the hand traveling slowly up your face. “That infernal Winchester won’t be able to take you away from me. And one day, we’ll kill him together, and you won’t even remember those tricks he played on your pretty little brain.”
The hand grabs your blindfold, and drags it down.
The man in front of you looks like a carcas. His skin is sagging off his face, his skin pale and so cracked you can see it, his eyes black pits like a shark. When he smiles, his teeth are pointed.
He’s like a cartoon of a villain, but… real.
“Speak.” He orders, as if talking to a dog, and rips the gag out of your mouth.
“Winchester?” You breathe out, trying to get at least a little information off of the zombie-man.
His eyes flash with a deep hatred, his hand tensing on your jaw. It’s not like Dean held your jaw earlier. It’s cold, controlling, cruel.
“That foul rat.” The man spits, and you wince as it lands on your face. “Always foiling my plans, getting in the way of my right to rule this earth. Everything he does, just to spite me. Then, in the last straw, he steals you from under my nose, and makes you think that he’s in some sort of love? Ha!”
The man laughs, and a weight presses over your chest.
“Dean’s… What?”
“Dean.” The man spits. “You call him Dean now, as if you didn’t once want his demise as much as I. Call him Dean as if he cares for you, when he’s probably already forgotten you exist. Fallen into some whorebed, while I keep you safe like the prize you are. All mine.”
He squeezes your jaw again, and you take a shallow breath through your nose. Everything smells so bad, but your heart is in your ears.
Dean cares for you. You know he does. But that’s not the same as love.
He wouldn’t forget you exist. He wouldn’t.
But the image of him, tangled up with some random girl, it’s branded into your head from years of torturing yourself. You can almost see it, when you close your eyes.
Not the time. You rip the thought away—and it lingers, but it always does that—and force yourself to look the man in the eyes.
“I once wanted Dean’s demise?” He even talks like a cartoon villain. “Dean- He’s my best friend-“
“And more than that now, I’m sure.” The man spits, ingoring your question. “I can smell him all over you. Smell how he’s tainted you, my sweet darling.”
He says your name, and your jaw drops.
“That’s- I’ve never been your- That-“
“Oh, don’t pretend like you can’t remember.” The man coos, tracing your lips.
You curl them, trying to move away, and his eyes flash with anger.
“Stay still.” He sneers, yanking your head forward. “You’re mine, you do as I tell you. I will break you again, you little bitch, and there’s no one coming to save you.”
Almost on perfect cue, something bangs in the distance. The man shoots up, moving behind your chair and stuffing the gag back into your mouth. His hands land on your shoulders, gripping tight as a large, black metal door bangs to the ground.
Dean walks out from the dust, wearing a neat, black tux and aiming his gun at the man.
His eyes dart to you, for a fraction of a second, and you can see his throat bob.
You glance down. You’re wearing a lot less than you thought you were. A small, silk dress that rides up your thighs, making you look like some kind of damsel-
Oh.
That’s what this is.
Dean—in his full Bond style gear, his expression and tone cool but his eyes gleaming with fury—glowers at the man, the safety of his gun clicking through the room.
“Walk away, Sharkface. This is between you and me.”
The man—Sharkface, a pretty fair villain name—laughs, squeezing his hands on your shoulders.
“Wrong, Winchester. You are the one in our home, trying to take what isn’t yours-“
“She isn’t anybody’s.” Dean snaps, taking another step forward. “She chose me, Sharkface. I’d say it wasn’t personal, but-“ He clicks his tongue. “I know what you did to her. You’re lucky I don’t put a bullet in your skull right now.”
“You’re lucky I don’t paralyze you,” Sharkface hisses. “And use your body as a coathanger for daring to steal what is mine-“
“Paralyze me with the gas?” Dean smirks. “I disarmed it. Face it, Sharkface. It’s over. No where for you to run, no men left to defend you. Give me the girl, and I’ll even give you the chance to run.”
Your eyes widen, and Sharkface laughs again.
“Oh, Mr. Winchester, we both know you wouldn’t offer such a thing if the whore,” his hand moves to your throat, and Dean’s jaw clenches. “Didn’t warp your brain with her tricks. Maybe she’s been working with me the whole time, and I have you trapped right where I want you.”
Dean snorts. “You tell good jokes, Sharkface. But I know my girl.” He raises the gun higher, eyes narrowing. A vein, tics in his brow. “Last chance.”
“Hm. It seems to be.” Sharkface hums, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. “But not for me, Mr. Winchester. Because if I can’t have her…” He squeezes your throat, lowering down to speak near your ear. “No one can.”
That whirring sound starts up again, and you twist over your shoulder to see it.
The floor opening behind you, revealing a bubbling pit of acid. Sharkface laughs as Dean roars your name.
There’s a shot, and Sharkface falls to the ground. Dean sprints forwards, but it’s too late.
Whatever mechanism that Sharkface had been working on starts to pull on the chair, dragging you over the edge.
The last thing you see before you fall is Dean’s pure, open fear. The last thing you hear is his voice breaking as you fall over the edge.
You hit the acid, a light flashes, and the whirring stops.
There’s a crowd, laughing in the background.
Alive and joyful, with people milling around, sharing drinks, and laughing over the music.
You’re standing in the center of the room, trying to get your footing. You’re in some kind of bar, lit with warmth and smelling like marshmallows and fruit instead of liquor, and when you examine your body, there’s no sign of the acid that you’d just been shoved into.
The binds and dress are gone as well. You’re just wearing jeans and tee-shirt, holding a drink in one hand and your phone in the other.
You go to check it, and see if there’s anything from Dean, but someone tackles you first.
“Shit-“
You stumble back from the force of it, but barely get to lose your balance before you’re being steadied. Dean squeezes you tight, one hand cradling the back of your head and the other pinning you to his chest. His breathing is heavy in your ear, fingers digging into your body, his face pressed against your head.
“Dean?” You ask softly, and he doesn’t answer. Just hold you tighter. “Dean, are you-“
“Don’t.” He mutters, and you blink.
His voice sounds broken. Strained.
Slowly, your arms glide up. You hug him back, and he almost slumps over your body. His breathing slows, but his grip doesn’t loosen. He’s swaying you back and forth a little.
When you pull back slowly, he allows it, but keeps a hand resting on your waist. Stares at it, his face shadowed and heavy with something you don’t really understand.
His eyes are red.
“Dean...” You whisper, reaching up to cup his face. He grunts, leaning into the touch, eyes locked onto yours.
Your heart skips, when he grabs your wrist. His thumb draws a small circle as he stares at you, breathing heavy through his nose, the fog behind his eyes starting to clear.
“Didn’t hurt, right?” He rasps, and you blink.
“Didn’t- You mean the acid?”
He nods, just a tight, curt motion, and you shake your head.
“No. I- I’m okay.” You offer him a weak smile. “It wasn’t real, Dean. I’m okay.”
His jaw clenches, his grip on your wrist tightening. “I know that. I just-“ His mouth twitches. He lets go of your wrist. “Never mind. We should keep going.”
It doesn’t feel like you should keep going. You’d never heard Dean’s voice so raw. Seen his eyes so wide. “Dean-“
“I’m fine.” He snaps your name, and you swallow. “This ones a sitcom, cameras are that way.”
He jerks his head, and sure enough there are cameras pointed at you and Dean, with a faceless, frozen crowd behind them.
“That’s… So creepy.”
Dean chuckles, tone dry. “You got no idea. This shit is going to get worse before it gets better. C’mon.” Something dark flashes over his face, and his eyes dart back to yours for only a split second. He crosses his arms over his chest, glaring back to where the crowd is waiting, and takes a heavy breath.
You want to reach out, touch his arm, try and pull him out from whatever’s loud in his head. You do it for each other all the time. When he has a nightmare, you’ll sit with him in the Dean cave—thighs pressed together, just to remind him that you’re there—and when you don’t think you can be alone, he’ll take you out in the Impala to get fast food, and eat it with you in the parking lot.
But this isn’t a fleeting bad dream, or sinking feeling in your ribs that you need to be pulled out of. Dean isn’t looking at you anymore. You’re already deep enough in Gabriel’s game, you don’t need Dean being pissed at you to make it worse.
“Just keep playing?” You ask softly as you follow him forwards.
“Yep.” he grunts. “Just keep playing the damn game.”
The lights are harsh, as you step onto the stage. Dean says something that makes the crowd laugh, grinning with a dead look in his eyes, then raises his brows at you in expectation.
You find the cue cards. Read the bad jokes written in big black sharpie, and try not to flinch when the crowd cackles.
Dean gives you a small nod of approval, and you stand a little taller.
But his eyes. They’re still hollow.
The scene plays on. He’s telling jokes, you’re rolling your eyes and laughing at his antics.
“You know I love a good meal, sweetheart,” he says with a wink, and the audience ooooos.
“Dean!” You swat at him, still laughing like you can’t feel your heartbeat, and Dean cowers.
“Hey! Not everything I say is flirting-“
“But that was.” You snap, following to cue cards, and Dean snorts.
“No, that was me saying ow.”
The audience howls. You don’t think it was all that funny.
“Why was does it bother you anyway? When I flirt with you?” Dean says his line, and something in the air shifts. The lighting, the crowd noise, all of it.
You frown, but say your line. “You don’t flirt with me.”
Dean takes a large step forwards. “Yes, I do.”
There it is. The change.
It’s between you, as the whole world narrows down. The audience is still there, holding their breathes and whispering excitedly, but everything else is just you and Dean.
“No.” You whisper, and your voice sounds far away. “You don’t. Not for real.”
“For real? You think I’m not for real?” Through his bad acting, you can hear Dean’s voice rise in a slight panic.
You just shake your head.
“What do you think it means?” He drawls, backing you against the bar. “When I get your coffee. Or buy you food at midnight, or take- Off my shirt just to see you looking.” Dean stumbles slightly, his brows knitting as he pushes through the line. “When I give you my jacket, and- Follow you everywhere like a damn dog?”
You don’t look at the card. “I- I don’t know.”
“Do you-“ His voice cracks. “Need me to show you?”
You open your mouth, eyes flicking off the stage. To the man holding the card, giving you an expression that tells you to hurry it the hell up.
“Yes.” You whisper, and Dean moves before the word is even fully out of your mouth.
Kisses you fast, with some odd combination of restraint and fervor in his body. His hands grab at your body, roaming and pulling you closer. They drag on your jeans, as he picks you up and drops you on the counter. Grab your waist like he’s worried you’ll dissolve under his touch.
But his mouth. It’s controlled, pressing against yours and moving to look like a kiss, but with none of the hunger from earlier. The audience claps and cheers, and when he pulls back, he wipes his mouth and smirks.
And his words are flat. Empty.
“There. Showed you.”
The audience screams in delight. Dean lets go of your waist, and takes a large step back.
You move to grab him. Catch his arm, and demand to know what the hell is going on.
But the lights flash, and the audience fades into nothing.
There’s a crowd again. This one is smaller, more persisce.
People moving around behind cameras, and two other woman that are whispering to each other, shooting you a glare every few moments.
Your dresses fancy again. In a long evening gown, a mic pinned to one of the straps. The other women are dressed the same, but everyone else—the crew, running around and shouting orders about places—is wearing black, fitted with headsets and sneakers.
There’s one man with gelled hair, who’s reading off a clipboard and checking his suit. He’s standing right in front of the camera, and when one of the crew members count him down, he throws on a winning smile and says something to the camera that you can’t hear.
Another crew member herds the two women to stand next to you. They giggle to each other, still glaring at you, and you keep your chin raised. You don’t know what this is yet.
They still don’t get to see you break.
“Hey.” One of the women hisses, as the suit man keeps talking to the camera. “You’re not going to win.”
You frown. “What?”
“He’s not going to pick you.” The other girl sneers. “You might think you have a connection, but we? We’ve got fireworks with him. You’re just like his sister.”
You lean back, the words landing sharper than you want them to. You just keep the sting off your features, raising yoru brows as if you’re simply bored.
“Okay.”
The first woman narrows her eyes. “Okay? That’s it? I kissed him, Tatiana went on the getaway trip with him-“
“I asked him not to bring me on that.” You shrug, your voice sounding faraway. “And we’ve kissed too.”
The second woman—Tatiana—narrows her eyes. “No you haven’t. We would’ve seen the footage-“
“It was in private.”
“Nothing we do is in private-“
“This was. Dean-“ You swallow, a strange lump forming in your throat. “He wanted it to mean something, with us. The rest was just for… The cameras.”
The first woman rolls her eyes. “Please, sweetie, our kiss wasn’t for the cameras-“
“It was to him. He- He didn’t feel anything deeper.” You frown, wrapping your arms around your body. “For me he…. He takes it slow.”
Tatiana scoffs. “And what, you’re just happy waiting for him. A man that fine, and you’re not locking him down?”
“Yeah, sweetheart.” Dean fucking materializes behind you, and you almost jump out of your skin.
“Fucking- Christ-“
“Nope. Just me.” He winks, and the first woman clears her throat.
“Hi, Dean-“
“Shut It, Kelsey.” His eyes never leave yours. “Let the lady answer the questions.”
“The… question?” Your face is on fire. Dean’s smirk just grows.
“Yep. You fine not locking me down, princess? Just waiting?”
His tone is a mocking tease, eyes glimmering, and you bite the inside of your cheek until you taste blood.
The lines. He’s only following the lines.
But your lines, popping into your head from nowhere.
They feel too real.
“I’d wait for you forever.” You whisper. “Even if you never showed up, I- I’d keep waiting.”
Dean raises his brows, something deeper flashing through his eyes. “And if I chose one of them?” He nods to Tatiana and Kelsey, and you swallow.
“You’d destroy me.”
“And?” His voice is rougher than a moment ago. You can feel your heart on your tongue.
“I’d keep waiting.”
Dean’s throat bobs. His eyes dart down to your lips, his tongue tracing his own as he crosses his arms.
“Good thing I’ve got no plans to leave you stranded then,” he mutters, looking back up. “Isn’t it?”
You open your mouth, but can’t find your words. Your line is supposed to be well, would you wait for me, but you can’t remember how to speak. You don’t want to know the answer, even if it isn’t real. Don’t want to hear him say that—even in this fake world, fake life, fake everything—he’d toss you aside for one of the girls glaring daggers at your back, if he didn’t think you wanted him.
Dean frowns, real concern flashing over his face. He takes a small step forward.
One of the crew members grabs his arm, and drags him away with a shout of places. His eyes don’t leave yours. The cameras roll, and everyone floats through the scene—your voice distant, barely sounding like your own as you give one final plea for him to choose you—and Dean’s attention never leaves you.
He hands you the flower. Chooses you.
But only in this fake world.
Only when the script tells him he can’t want anyone else.
He kisses you, and it’s softer than all the ones before. Delicate and cautious, his hands cradling you face and his mouth gentle over yours. The crew calls cut, and he doesn’t pull away immediaty.
You have to draw back yourself. Staring down at his shoes, trying to fight the loud, angry voice in your head.
Dean mutters your name, tone lined with a concern.
“I’m fine.” You mutter, and he tips your face up to meet his.
His expression is concerned as well. You feel sick.
“You don’t look fine.”
You shrug, not trusting yourself to speak, and Dean’s nostrils flare.
He opens his mouth again, but he’s too slow.
He’s still cradling your face, when the lights flash, and the sound of the crowd fades away.
The city is loud, below you. Loud and alive, buzzing with horns and gunshots and screams.
You stand on a rooftop, wearing a thin red outfit and heeled boots.
“Look who came when called.” Dean drawls from behind you, and you turn.
Play the game.
He’s wearing a thick, green suit. Carrying a shield and smirking. It still doesn’t meet his eyes, but if anything, it’s a better show than you could possibly put on.
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“You did. Then you ran off without saying goodbye.”
“I try not to make a habit of friends, in our line of work.” You don’t know where you’re getting the lines. It’s easier not to think about it.
Dean chuckles. “Not work if you don’t get paid, sweetheart.”
“I get paid in gratitude.” You snap, and his eyes narrow.
“You think I’m grateful, for how you just took on all those- Corn goblins-“ Dean pauses with a frown, but keeps going. “Without any help?”
You shrug. “I didn’t need help.”
“You could’ve gotten hurt.”
“What do you care, if I do?”
Dean takes a step forward. “We’re friends.”
“I don’t do friends.”
“Well, tell me what that makes us, then.” Dean takes another step forward, crowding every inch of your space. “‘Cause we’re something, sweetheart, aren’t we?” He scans over your face, and that’s just Dean.
No attempt to play the roll. Just him.
Saying that like it matters.
“What do you think we are?” Your voice is too soft. “Because if we’re something, it’s not whatever you get with your groupies?”
“Jealous?” Dean drawls, not even attempting a smirk.
Your voice cracks. “You have no idea.”
This time, you grab Dean. Pull him down into a harsher, fuller kiss that last time. It’s selfish.
You want as much of him as he’s willing to offer.
It’s a lot. He melts over you, giving in so fast. Swaying you back and forth like when he was panicking, but now with something tender behind it.
You don’t want this one to end. You wrap your arms around Dean’s neck and cling to him, in the hope that it won’t.
But the lights flash, and the noise of the city fades.
The forest is dark, and filled with cracking branches in the howling wind.
Dean shouts your name, as you stumble and fall. Drags you away from the zombies nipping at your heels and carries you through the freezing river, leaving the dead-eyed people snarling and snapping at the shore.
“This one’s intense.” He mutters under his breath.
You’d huddled in a cave, because that’s what you were supposed to do. Dean made a fire, snapping the branches with a scowl, and shooting you a look you don’t think you’re supposed to see every few seconds.
There had been that open, shattered panic on his face again, as he’d saved you from the zombies. He’s swung his spiked bat with a lot more force than was needed, for how fast these things went down. Carried you like you were actually injured, and set you down so carefully he might think you’re made of glass.
You don’t talk much, as you wait for this one to find its big moment. Dean feeds the fire. You huddle, your clothing wet and chilling.
There aren’t supposed to be real effects, but you feel faint. Your teeth are chattering, and no matter how small you curl into yourself, you can’t seem to get warm.
“You okay?” Dean says your name, and you nod weakly. “Hey, words-“
“Cold.” You force out, black lining at your vision. “‘m cold, Dean-“
“Son of a bitch, hold on-“
You hear him shedding his jacket, and manage to look up, only to be met with his abs.
You’d flush if your blood wasn’t freezing to your veins. “Dean?”
“Sorry, sweetheart.” He mutters, tossing his shirt across the cave. “Not taking chances.”
You don’t get to ask what that means, before Dean’s grabbing at your body. Peeling off your shoes, jacket, socks, shirt. He pauses when his hands find your bra, and his throat bobs when you whisper a soft permission.
He covers you with a blanket, eyes fixed firmly over your head, and cradles your shivering body against his chest.
“I’m gonna kill that fuckin’ imp.” He mutters, hands rubbing on your arms, and you laugh weakly.
“It’ll be a fun story to tell Sam, though. He probably thinks we got lost going to the store.”
Dean’s lips twitch. “He’s got so little damn faith in us. We get lost in the store one time-“
“You got lost. I just didn’t give up on you.”
“Hey, you got lost looking for me-“
“You were wandering, and it was an Ikea-“
“There are arrows on the floor, sweetheart.”
“So how’d you get lost in one?”
Dean snorts, shooting you an amused look.
It’s the first real smile you’ve seen from him in a while. It feels good.
“Fair enough.” He murmurs, brushing some hair from your eyes. “Better?”
“Yeah.” You whisper, suddenly deeply aware of how your face is pressed to his bare chest. “Better.”
Dean nods, but doesn’t pull away. That shadow is over his face again, his fingers lingering on your cold skin.
You grab his hand, and squeeze it softly.
You want to tell him that you’re here. It will take a lot more than some annoying archangel’s games to drag you away from him, and even then you’re not going away without a fight.
But that’s too real.
So you just whisper.
“Dean. I’m okay. Promise.”
His throat bobs. A vein pulses in his brow. But he nods slowly, dragging his thumb over your cheekbone.
Lightly. Reverently.
The noise of the forest fades and the light flashes.
But this time, you feel Dean’s touch long after it’s gone.
Waves crash through the air, the ocean’s soft hum filling the breeze.
You can smell the salt of the water, feel the sand under your feet. Goosebumps cover your skin from the chill, and you wrap your arms around your stomach.
When you look up and down the beach, it’s shockingly empty. The sky is a clear blue, the water itself warm as it rolls up the shore, but it’s only you and a few other women on the long, clean strip of sand.
Dean’s nowhere to be found.
You raise a hand to cover your eyes, squinting past the sun for any sign of him down the beach, but it’s truly empty. The phantom of his last, soft touch still lingers on your cheek. You reach up to brush it, maybe rub it further into your skin, and glance out into the water.
It’s clear. Shimmering in the daylight.
If you had to guess, you’re either in the Mediterranean or Caribbean. Maybe Hawaii.
Somewhere that the big, marble building behind you makes sense, along with the over expensive sandals and gold jewelry on your wrist.
Maybe you’re in a commercial. And you’re about to look into the air with a smile, telling the audience that there’s nothing better than an escape to paradise.
That still doesn’t explain where Dean is.
One of the other women calls your name, and you turn to find Her grinning at you, holding the massive sun hat on her head.
“This is making you feel better, isn’t it?” She giggles, and you frown.
“No. Not- Really.” You glance over your shoulder, to the resort. Still no Dean. “I don’t think anything is going to make me feel better.”
“Oh, come on!” Another girl laughs, spinning in the water. “You can’t spend the whole trip moping about a boy. He’s not even that cute.”
“Yes, he is.” You snap, then blink at yourself.
You don’t know they’re talking about Dean. They probably are, but-
The venom in your voice wasn’t just for playing the game.
“He’s sweet, too.” You mutter, unable to stop yourself. “He’s a good guy, and- I’m not moping-“
“Yes, you are.” The third girl rolls her eyes. “We came here to escape college, to have fun on spring break, and all you can do is look at your phone and hope Dean will apologize to you. He won’t. He’s a man, he probably doesn’t think he did anything wrong.”
“I- I don’t-“ You hug yourself tighter, glancing over to the second girl, still spinning in the water. “He didn’t-“
“He slept with that whore.” The first girl sneers, hands on her hips. “Then turned around and told you he loves you?” She scoffs. “Yeah. Right. He was probably just trying to get in your pants too.”
Your stomach turns. “That’s- He wouldn’t do that-“
The second girl gives you a flat look. “Yeah, he would. He takes you for granted, he thinks that just because you’re friends he’s allowed to tell you all about his conquests and treat you like you’re just his friend. You were there for him with Lisa and Cassie, you do everything for him, and it takes him thinking that you’re transferring to come clean about his feelings?” She shakes her head. “He’s pathetic. He still had the hickeys from Anna-“
“He’s not pathetic.” You snap, and there’s the venom again.
You don’t really fucking love this one, whatever it is.
“Dean- He’s got a lot going on-“
“What, because of his Dad.” The second girl huffs. “We’ve all got shit, that’s not excuse for how he treated you.”
You frown, letting out a slow, heavy breath. This isn’t a real argument. It’s part of the game.
“I’m going back to my room.” You mutter, turning away, and the girls shout your name, but you don’t stop walking.
Whatever this one is, you don’t like it. Don’t like thinking about Dean with hickeys covering his neck, because the only small grace he’s offered you in real life was that he never showed the evidence. He goes out with Sam, and doesn’t come back until morning. His jacket will be pulled around his body, his eyes not meeting yours. His hair at a few odd angels but obviously smoothed before he walked through the door.
The worst you’ve suffered is once on a hunt, when you walked in on him.
Tangled up with some girl, naked and grinning at her, looking at you like he’d seen a ghost or fucking bridge troll when he realized you were there.
You’d been frozen in place until he rasped your name, your heart doing something more than breaking.
Breaking had always been a clean, painful split down the center, that you’d known would mend itself over time.
This had been heavy. Burning. This had been sinking into your ribs like a depression, poisoning your stomach and burning your skin with hot, impossible shame and disgust.
Breaking meant something was over.
This had just set Dean further into you, and told you what you’d already known.
There was nothing he could do, that would make you stop wanting him. He make you watch while he fucked another girl, and you’d only blink away the tears and try to pretend you weren’t ripping yourself apart from the inside.
Because Dean would never do that. When you’d walked in, after he’d said your name, you’d stuttered an apology and run outside. Thrown up in a bush, and hidden by the ice machine, hoping he’d at least come and get you when it was done. It had been cold, so cold, freezing your heart in your throat and making your nose run as you forced yourself not to cry. Sam had walked in on Dean having sex before. It hadn’t been an attack on you.
You were just no different than Sam.
You don’t know if Dean would’ve followed Sam outside, though. Stumbled down the sidewalk with his pants barely buttoned, his jacket in his arms, completely ignoring the pissed off girl marching away and shooting you glares.
She didn’t need to be mad at you. She’s the one who got everything you want, everything you dream about. You were the one crying on the curb.
Dean had covered you in his jacket, and sat next to you in silence. Asked if everything was okay.
You’d nodded. Muttered a lame excuse about not feeling well, and apologizing for interrupting. You’d just needed to use the bathroom.
Dean has swallowed, and helped you up. His girl hadn’t come back. When the morning came, he didn’t look you in the eyes for a week.
He must’ve been mad, that you’d interrupted his night. Maybe angry, that you’d seen him like that when he so obviously didn’t want you to.
That’s when you stopped going out to bars with them. And you’ve danced so carefully, around seeing Dean with the women he chases. Thinking about it is just the ghost that haunts your longer nights, when you feel smaller and unwanted.
Seeing it makes you want to rip your heart out of your chest, just so it can stop fucking hurting.
So you really don’t know what this show is, but you wish Dean would show up so you could leave. Whatever lesson Gabriel’s trying to teach, it’s just making everything hurt.
Your phone rings, the moment you get back to your room. Dean’s name flashing over the screen.
You pick up, and he says your name, voice tense.
“Where the hell are you, I’ve called five times and you didn’t-“
“I was at the beach.” You mutter, dropping on the edge of the mattress and staring at your nails. “Didn’t have my phone. I think we’re in some kind of drama show-“
“Yeah, no shit. I’ve spent the whole day at some fancy college campus with people telling me that I needed to man up and apologize before I lost you.” He sighs dramatically. “Why the hell am I always the one cheating? I don’t fuckin’ do that shit, or-“ He pauses. “Guess I did once. In highschool. But I was a stupid kid, and- I never did it again. I wouldn’t.”
It sounds like he’s talking to himself. You just hum, staring down at your nails. Dean says your name, his voice low and cautious.
“You know I wouldn’t do that, right?”
“Yeah. I do.” You believe him. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s not like there’s anyone for him to cheat on. Not in the real world. “Do you know your lines?”
“Uh- Yeah.” He coughs. “I’m supposed to ask you to come back. It meant nothin’. You mean something. And I- I never meant to hurt you. Didn’t think you’d care, ‘cause you were leaving. Didn’t think about what I said. Just wanted you to know.”
It sounds like it’s paining him to speak. He says the lines so damn flat, it makes your gut sink. He doesn’t mean it.
He could never mean it. He doesn’t know how this hurts you, can’t see how you’re fighting back the sting of tears, sinking your nails into your palm for some small reprieve.
“You chose a bad time to tell me.” You mutter. You’re just following the lines. “I don’t even know if I should believe you.”
You laugh weakly. “Anything? What if I told you to jump off a cliff?”
“I run to the closest one.”
That makes you pause. He sounds…. Serious.
“What if I asked you to bring me a diamond?”
“I got money.”
“I’d prefer a house.”
“I know how to build.”
You swallow. The lines feel strangely far away. “What I said I wouldn’t sleep with you for a year?”
“I’ve got magazines and a hand, sweetheart.” He drawls, and you pull your knees to your chest.
“And if I said you couldn’t do that either?”
“I’d live.” He’s silent for a moment, his voice dropping lower. “It would be worth it. For you.”
Too real. That sounds too fucking real.
“What if I told you to eat shit?”
“I’m near a bathroom.”
You laugh softly. “That’s gross, Dean.”
“Yeah. But I’d do it.” His voice doesn’t waver.
He’s not that good an actor.
“What if I told you to beg?” You whisper, and Dean sighs.
“What do you think I’m doin’ right now, sweetheart?”
You bite the inside of your mouth, and there’s that shift in the air. You wrap an arm around your stomach, Dean’s breath steady through the phone speaker, and this is just the game.
It doesn’t feel like the game. It feels tangible. You can almost taste it, sense it shivering over your skin, as if Dean’s there. Rubbing your spine before wrapping you in warmth, and promising to take care of you even as it ruins his fun.
You hope he’ll be able to look at you after, this time.
If it feels as real for him.
You need it to be as real for him.
“Dean?” You mumble, and he grunts. “Do you… Know what you did? In this one?”
“Yeah.” His voice is oddly heavy. “Few of Gabriel’s fake-people told me. Know it wasn’t techianlly that cheating thing, but-“
He cuts himself off, and you drag every bit of willpower you have up to your mouth. Forcing the words to come out.
“You said you don’t do that. In real life.”
“I don’t-“
“You sleep with people all the time.”
“But- That’s not-“ He stops himself again. You wait, rubbing your hand on your thigh.
He might curse you out. Might tell you to fuck off, because you don’t understand and have no right to care, and you shouldn’t have said anything at all-
“It never means shit.” Dean’s low, gravelly voice cuts through your thoughts. The whole world narrows down, until it’s just his voice in the phone. “And- Sam does it too. Hell, you do it-“
“No.” You can’t stop the words from slipping out. “I don’t.”
He snorts. “C’mon, I’ve seen you at bars-“
“Dean.” You say softly, and he falls silent. “I don’t.”
He’s silent for long. Too long.
Then he mutters, “You don’t go out with us anymore.”
You sigh. “I know.”
“Why?”
You swallow, looking up at the ceiling. “Do you want to know?”
“Yeah. I- Yeah, I do.” He lets out a heavy breath through the phone. “Please.”
“I- Dean, you don’t-“
“I do.” His voice grows firmer. “And if it’s- I’m not-“ He groans, and you can picture him pinching his brow. “Listen, I’m not-“
“Dean-“
“I’d do anything.” He rasps, and your heart flips. “For real. I- Just tell me, sweetheart. I’ll do whatever you want.”
He means it.
That’s not his line. Not the game.
It’s just Dean, and he means it.
And you’re not sure what to do with that at all.
“Can I-“ You lick your lips, speaking slowly, carefully. You don’t want this moment to break. “Can I ask you to come here?”
“Yeah. ‘Course, I- I don’t know where the hell you are, but I’ll work it out, I guess-“
“Dean.” You whisper. “Can you come here.”
He’s silent again.
When he speaks, his voice is a rough rasp.
“I’ll go anywhere.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Your voice is soft, almost drowned out by the sound of the ocean out your window. “Good.”
Dean doesn’t get to answer, before the light flashes, and the ocean fades away.
✦Chapter Three✦
✦End note: I love tv so much this chapter is very important to me i hope you liked it thank you.✦
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✦divider by @/kitsunecafe
Summary: You and Bob have been trying for a baby for five years.
Warnings: Infertility. Mentions of trying to conceive. Hurt/comfort. Emotional hurt/comfort. Eventual fluff. POV switching. Mentions of periods. Pregnancy. Nausea. Eventual childbirth. Newborns. Bob Floyd is a warning. Crying. This story isn’t beta’d. Whatever else I failed to mention
Author’s Note: I don’t own Top Gun Maverick in any capacity. The franchise and its characters belong to their rightful owners. Similarly, I don’t own any of the gifs or pictures I use for my fics. All I own are the fic ideas.
Word Count: 12,530
Poll | Masterlist
You wanted to say it came out of nowhere, the nausea. The way it crept up on you without warning, coiling tight in your stomach until every breath felt sour. It lingered there, restless, toeing the line between needing to vomit and sinking into that deep, hollow sickness that refused to break.
You’d spent most of the morning curled beneath the covers, heavy and bloated—whether from the nausea itself or something else, you couldn’t tell. Your limbs ached with exhaustion, yet no matter how tightly you shut your eyes, sleep never came.
Bob had suggested you call out of work, his brow furrowed in quiet worry, convinced you’d caught some sort of bug. But you knew better. You were certain it was your period looming on the horizon, Mother Nature’s cruel habit of wringing you out long before the bleeding even began.
And still, the thought made your stomach turn in a different way. Because every month carried the same cruel rhythm—it all carried the sharp sting of what hadn’t happened, of what maybe would never happen.
You remembered Bob’s hand on yours weeks ago, thumb brushing over your knuckles, the two of you waiting on another pregnancy test, as he said, almost too quietly, “Maybe this time will be different.”
And you’d nodded, even though you both knew how it usually ended.
It wasn’t dramatic, not the way heartbreak was in novels. It was quieter, meaner. A dull, relentless ache that sank deeper than the nausea ever could.
You and Bob had been so excited to start a family. The idea of children—his warm blue eyes and your smile, his gentle laugh passed down into a smaller body you both could love and hold—it had been everything. A picture you carried together, fragile but glowing, like sunlight you thought you could reach if you just stretched a little farther.
And then the first test came back negative.
So you kept trying.
But every test after that was negative too.
At first, there had been hope. Late nights with whispered plans about names, about what kind of parent you’d each be, about the walls you’d paint and the holidays you’d share. But slowly, month after month, the laughter faded into silence. The trying turned mechanical, nothing like the love it had started with. Schedules pinned to calendars. Alarms set on phones. Intimacy dissolving into routine, heartbreak settling in where joy used to be.
Negative. Over and over again. For five long years.
Doctor’s visits brought no real answers—just cold exam rooms, hollow reassurances, and vague words like “possible fertility issues.” They left you with nothing but pamphlets you couldn’t bear to read and the sting of tears you tried to hide in the car ride home.
And in the quiet, the doubts grew louder. The doubt that maybe your bodies weren’t enough. The doubt that maybe you weren’t meant to be parents. The doubt that maybe, no matter how much love you had to give, there would never be anyone to receive it.
So you both stopped talking about the nursery that was never built. The baby names became ghosts you didn’t dare speak aloud anymore. What was once a shared dream now felt like a funeral you attended together every month, mourning a family that only ever lived in your hearts.
And the worst part—the part that hurt in places you couldn’t name—was how natural it started to feel to let the dream go.
You could still remember the exact moment the dream began to unravel.
You remembered one appointment in particular, the way the doctor’s words had blurred into a haze of medical jargon and polite half-answers. “Some couples just have a harder time…sometimes there isn’t a clear reason…”
Bob had sat stiffly beside you in the too-bright exam room, his hand warm against your knee, his thumb rubbing circles as though he could will those words into something different. You hadn’t said much then. Neither of you had.
It wasn’t until you got home, when the silence of your bedroom pressed against you so heavily, that you cracked.
“I don’t understand,” you whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed with the latest pamphlet crumpled in your hand. “We’re doing everything right. We’ve done everything they’ve recommended. Why isn’t it working?”
Bob lowered himself beside you, his voice breaking before he even said it. “I don’t know.” He buried his face in his hands, elbows digging into his knees. “I don’t know, and I hate that I can’t fix it for you.”
You stared at the ground. “Maybe it’s me,” you said quietly. “Maybe I’m the reason we can’t—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, sharper than usual. His eyes were red when he looked at you. “Don’t blame yourself. Please.”
But his voice cracked on that last word, and it told you what you already knew: he was blaming himself too.
You leaned into him, his arms pulling you close, the two of you folding into each other’s grief. The silence stretched, broken only by the sound of his unsteady breathing, by the ache that pressed in from every direction.
“I wanted this so badly,” you admitted, your words muffled against his shoulder. “I wanted us to have this.”
His hand pressed to the back of your head, fingers trembling. “Me too,” he whispered.
That memory had stayed with you, as raw as the nausea curling in your stomach now, a reminder that sometimes the cruelest ache wasn’t in your body at all—it was in the hope you’d buried, but never really stopped mourning.
Unfortunately, you didn’t throw up that morning. Instead, you lay there with the nausea curling like smoke in your gut, a constant reminder that your body had already decided its course. And you refused to get out of bed.
You knew how this story ended. It always ended the same. With another wave of cramps, another calendar page crossed off, another reminder that your hope had been foolish to begin with.
Because why get your hopes up when you already know the answer?
It wasn’t just the sickness that kept you there—it was the heaviness in your chest, the quiet grief that pressed harder than any fever. You thought of the years you’d spent trying, the late nights whispering to Bob about what could be, the empty nursery you never painted. All of it lingered like ghosts at the edges of the room, shadows of a future that never came.
And lying there, staring at the ceiling with your hands curled protectively over a stomach that had betrayed you yet again, you felt the cruelest part of all: it was starting to feel easier to surrender than to keep believing.
* * *
“You feeling okay?” Phoenix’s voice pulled you out of your head. Day three of bloating and nausea, and the fatigue was starting to wear you thin. You’ve yet to vomit. Still. Much to your annoyance.
You tried for a smile, but it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I’m fine,” you answered quietly. “Just a little tired.”
“You’ve been nursing that Sprite since you got here.” Phoenix leaned back in her chair, taking a slow sip of her drink. Her eyes narrowed with quiet concern. “You sure everything’s okay?”
You nodded automatically, even though the weight in your chest said otherwise. Your gaze drifted toward Bob, who had gone to grab another soda. He’d kissed the top of your head on his way over, a small gesture of comfort that always lingered longer than it looked. In the background, you could hear Hangman and Rooster bickering at the pool table, Coyote and Fanboy laughing at their antics. The noise made the bar feel alive, though you couldn’t quite shake the dull ache pressing inside you.
Natasha hummed under her breath. She studied you for a long moment, really looking past the smile you’d forced on. You looked tired. Worn down. And she noticed that Bob did, too—both of you fraying at the edges in ways most people would miss. She knew about the struggle, the years of trying. She knew it hadn’t been kind to you. And it broke her heart, seeing her friends suffer silently in a room so loud.
“You wanna get out of here?” she asked suddenly.
You blinked at her. “What?”
There was a glint in Phoenix’s eyes as she smiled. “Let’s have a girl’s night.”
You arched a brow. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”
“It’s never late for a girl’s night.”
Bob returned just then, sliding into the seat beside you. Natasha reached out and smacked his forearm playfully. He gave her a questioning look, brows raised.
“I’m stealing your wife for the night,” she declared.
“That sounds hot,” Jake drawled from across the room, waggling his brows at you.
Without missing a beat, you flipped him off, which only made the others laugh.
Turning back to Bob, you gave a small, uncertain smile. “I don’t think I have much of a choice. Is that okay?”
“You don’t need my permission.” His lips curved into something gentle, the kind of look that was meant for you and you alone. He leaned in, kissing you softly, murmuring against your mouth, “Be safe.”
You barely heard Jake and Bradshaw gagging in exaggerated disgust somewhere in the background.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” you asked quietly, almost needing the reassurance.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bob promised, pressing his forehead lightly against yours before letting you go.
And for just a moment, you felt the heaviness in your chest ease—because even in all the grief and exhaustion, there was still this: people who loved you enough to carry pieces of the weight when you couldn’t anymore.
Natasha looped her arm through yours the second you stood, steering you toward the door before Jake could get another word in. Outside, the night air was cool against your overheated skin, quiet in a way the bar could never be.
Her car smelled faintly of leather and her perfume, steady and grounding as she pulled out of the lot. She glanced at you, one hand loose on the wheel, the other reaching over to nudge your knee gently.
“Trash food run?” she asked with a small grin.
You huffed out a laugh, weak but real. “You know me too well.”
You’d never turn down trash food.
Fifteen minutes later, the two of you sat parked outside a corner store, a plastic bag between you filled with chips, candy, and soda. The heater hummed, windows fogging as you ripped open a bag of chips and sighed.
“This is so stupid,” you muttered, the words spilling before you could stop them. “All of it.”
She didn’t interrupt, didn’t offer empty reassurances. She just listened, the crinkle of a candy wrapper the only sound between you.
“We’ve been trying for so long, and it’s always the same,” you went on, staring at the chip in your hand without really seeing it. “Negative test, after negative test.” Your throat tightened, tears pricking, but you forced them down. “And I hate that I want it so badly. I hate that every time I feel sick, or late, or just different, my heart jumps before it gets crushed all over again.”
Natasha’s hand brushed over yours, steady. “Hey. Don’t do that to yourself.”
Your jaw clenched.
She studied you closely, more than you realized, her gaze thoughtful. “You’ve been pale since you got to the bar,” she said carefully. “And you barely touched your soda at Hard Deck. And you never order soda. Now, you’re eating crap food with me. Three days of nausea, bloating, exhaustion…” She hesitated, her tone gentle. “You know those can be signs, right?”
You blinked at her, caught between scoffing and listening.
Finally, she exhaled, slow and steady. “You ever think it might be worth checking? Just in case?”
Your frown deepened. “You mean…?”
Her eyes flicked briefly to the glowing lights of the store you’d just raided. “Buying a test. Not to get your hopes up, but…” Her lips pressed together before curving into the faintest smile. “Sometimes answers aren’t as far away as they feel.”
The words hit harder than you wanted them to. Part of you wanted to laugh it off, to remind her how many times you’d already been down that road. But another part—the fragile, traitorous part—felt that tiny flicker of hope again, the one you’d tried so hard to bury.
And it terrified you.
You didn’t remember agreeing, only that your legs carried you inside the store with Natasha at your side. The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed above, the shelves too bright, too ordinary for the storm pressing inside your chest.
The aisle was colder than it had any right to be. Your steps slowed when you reached it, eyes locking on the familiar boxes lined neatly in a row. You froze.
Your throat went dry. The weight of every failed test hit you at once—the nights of crying silently into your pillow so Bob wouldn’t hear, the mornings where hope had shattered before the sun was even up.
Your hands stayed clenched at your sides. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t reach.
Natasha’s voice was low, steady, like she knew the ground beneath you was shaking. “You don’t have to do this tonight,” she murmured. “You don’t have to do this at all. But if you want to…I’m here.”
You swallowed hard, blinking fast, your eyes stinging. Part of you wanted to bolt. Part of you wanted to collapse. And part of you—small, trembling, dangerous—wanted to reach out, just once more, and see.
Your hand lifted before you could stop it, fingers brushing against a box. Even the cardboard felt heavier than it should have, as though it carried every hope and heartbreak you’d ever known.
You clutched it to your chest like a secret, like something fragile that might break before you even left the store.
And Natasha said nothing, just stood close enough that you could feel her steady presence, anchoring you while your world quietly threatened to come undone.
“You think it’s a good idea?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s whatever you decide,” Natasha replied gently. “I’m with you regardless.”
You wavered. Uncertainty curled around you like a blanket, sinking deep within you until it twisted into fear, settling heavily in your bones and making your nausea stir all over again. You’d stopped taking pregnancy tests weeks ago. There hadn’t seemed to be a point.
But now…now there was this tiny seed of maybe. Natasha had put it there with nothing more than a quiet suggestion and a look that said she supported you, even in your weariness.
Maybe this was the moment.
Maybe, if you braced yourself and took one final test, you’d get your answer. The answer a bigger, louder part of you already knew in your bones, the one you’d steeled yourself against for years.
But still—there was that smaller, stubborn part, whispering the question you hated to ask but couldn’t smother completely.
What if?
The thought hurt as much as it flickered, sharp in your chest like a bruise pressed too hard. Not quite hope. Not yet. But close enough to make your hands tremble around the box you held.
Carrying that damned box to the counter felt like wading through molasses. Every step dragged, your breath too loud in your own ears, your chest tight with the weight of it. By the time you reached the register, your legs felt as heavy as stone.
The cashier scanned the box without comment. You fumbled for your card, as though the whole world knew what you were hoping for, what you were mourning. When the bag slid across the counter, you took it with trembling fingers, clutching it to your chest like a secret.
Outside, the night air bit at your skin, sharp and grounding. Natasha walked beside you in silence until you reached her car. Just before you slid inside, her hand settled gently on your shoulder—steady, solid, unspoken reassurance.
“Let’s head to my place,” she said softly. “Movies, junk food, whatever you want. I don’t care.”
You tried for a smile, but it wavered, fragile and thin, barely holding itself together. “Okay,” you whispered, the word shaking at the edges.
It wasn’t relief, not yet. But it was enough to let you breathe.
* * *
Back at the Hard Deck, Bob tried to laugh at Jake’s dumb joke, but it came out thin, more breath than sound. He nursed his soda the way you’d nursed your Sprite earlier, thumb rubbing at the condensation until the glass turned slick. Every so often, his gaze drifted toward the door, half-hoping to see you and Natasha walk back in. You didn’t.
He told himself this was good—that you needed a night out, that Natasha would keep an eye on you. Still, the knot in his chest tightened. He hated being away when you weren’t okay. Hated knowing there was nothing he could do to ease the heaviness you carried.
“Hey,” Rooster slid into the booth across from him, brows pulling together. “You alright?”
Bob adjusted his glasses, stalling. “Yeah. Fine.”
Rooster gave him a long look—the kind that read I don’t believe you. The chatter of the bar dulled around them, clinking glasses and laughter fading beneath the weight of silence.
“Natasha took her out for a reason,” Rooster said softly. “Which means she’s worried.”
Bob swallowed hard. His fingers tightened around the glass. The truth slipped out before he could stop it. “We’ve been trying…for years. To start a family.” His voice cracked on the last word. “Every test, every month—it’s just disappointment. Over and over again.”
Rooster’s face softened. “That’s brutal, man.”
Bob nodded once, throat burning. “It’s worse for her. I see what it does to her, how she blames herself even when it isn’t her fault. Every time she cries, I—” His voice broke again, and he had to look away, blinking hard. “I don’t know how to take that pain from her.”
Silence stretched, heavy but not uncomfortable. Finally, Bob exhaled and leaned back, his voice quieter now. “I love her, you know? Kids or no kids, I don’t care. She’s my family. She’s it for me. If it’s just us, then that’s still more than enough. Yeah, having kids would be amazing, but…I want her to be happy. And she doesn’t always believe that, but it’s the truth.”
Rooster studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly. “She’s lucky, you know. To have someone who sees her like that.”
Bob managed a small smile. “I’m the lucky one.”
But as the laughter rose again from Jake and Fanboy across the bar, Bob sat with the ache of it, wishing more than anything that you could feel what he knew to his core: that no negative test, no empty nursery, no unfulfilled dream could ever make him love you any less.
* * *
By the time you and Natasha pulled into her driveway, you were wrung out—emotionally hollowed, as if the entire night had scraped something raw inside of you. You shuffled behind her as she unlocked and opened the front door.
“I’d ask to use your shower, but I don’t have a change of clothes,” you muttered, your voice frayed at the edges. A weak attempt at humor, one you barely believed yourself.
Phoenix only shrugged, casual as ever. “You can borrow some of mine. Do whatever you’d like.”
Her kindness settled heavily, pressing against the ache in your chest. You mumbled a quiet “thanks” and slipped down the hallway, the small cardboard box still clenched tight in your hand. The edges dug into your palm, a reminder of what waited inside.
Natasha’s closet smelled faintly of detergent. You sifted through her folded shirts and soft sleep pants, the fabric cool beneath your fingers. For the first time all night, your body stilled, relaxing for just a moment.
You found a pair of old sweatpants and an oversized Naval Academy t-shirt. Pulling them against your chest, you paused, staring at the box, placed carefully on the nightstand where you’d set it down.
That little seed Natasha had planted earlier—the what if—stirred again, fragile and terrifying. You tried to smother it, the way you always did. Hope had always been crueler than despair. But tonight, it lingered, whispering in the silence of her room.
Your hand hovered near the box. Maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t another dead end. Maybe your nausea wasn’t just another cruel reminder of what your body refused to give you. Maybe, this time, the story could end differently.
The thought was terrifying. But for the first time in months, it didn’t feel impossible.
You stared at the box so long you swore the silence in the room shifted, pressing in around you. Your hands shook as you tore the cardboard open, the sound of ripping paper deafening in the stillness.
The test felt impossibly small in your palm. Ridiculous, really—that something this fragile could carry the weight of five years of heartbreak. That it could hold the answer to a dream you’d nearly buried.
Your body moved before you could think, going to the bathroom and locking the door behind yourself.
You told yourself not to think. Not to hope. Just do it. Get it over with. Before you lost your nerve.
Minutes stretched, elastic and unbearable, as you set the test down on the counter and paced the bathroom floor in Natasha’s borrowed clothes, shower long forgotten. Your hands kept raking through your hair, over your face, like you could claw the panic out of yourself.
And then—you saw it.
Your breath hitched. You blinked once, twice, thinking maybe your exhaustion was playing tricks on you. But no. The lines were there. Bold, unshakable, impossible to deny.
Positive.
A sound tore from your chest, raw and broken—half sob, half laugh. The kind of sound you’d buried for so long you’d forgotten what it felt like. Tears blurred your vision instantly, spilling hot and unchecked down your cheeks. You clutched the test like it was life itself, like it might vanish if you let go.
All at once, years of negative results, of sterile doctor’s offices, of whispered apologies and quiet tears—all of it crashed through you. The grief, the emptiness, the nights of praying to no one at all. And underneath it—burning brighter than the hurt—was joy. Pure, searing joy, so sharp it almost hurt.
Your knees buckled, and you sank onto the cool tile floor, pressing the test to your chest. You couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop laughing through the sobs. Happiness clawed its way through every crack that despair had carved into you, spilling over until you felt like you might burst.
The dream you thought you’d lost, the family you thought you’d mourned—it was here. Real. Growing inside of you.
For the first time in years, hope didn’t feel cruel. It felt alive.
Your sobs echoed off the bathroom walls, raw and uncontained, filling the small space until it felt like they might drown you. The test trembled in your hand as you clutched it to your chest, your tears dripping onto the tile below. It was too much, too big—five years of heartbreak, of emptiness, of whispered goodbyes to dreams you thought would never come true—and now this. This tiny, miraculous wordless answer in your hands.
Positive.
You pressed your hand to your mouth, trying to stifle the sounds that kept tearing out of you, but they wouldn’t stop. The laughter, the sobbing—it all blurred together until your chest ached and your body shook with it.
There was a soft knock at the door.
“Hey,” Natasha’s voice came, gentle and careful, “you okay in there?”
You tried to answer, but your throat closed around the words. Another sob slipped out instead. The doorknob rattled, and then Natasha eased the door open, her eyes immediately finding you on the floor.
Her voice cracked as she said your name, all softness and worry as she crossed the room in two strides. She crouched beside you, her hand coming to rest against your trembling back. And then she saw it—the test clutched tight in your hand, the faint but undeniable line. Two lines.
Her breath caught. For a second, neither of you moved.
Then Natasha’s eyes welled, and she pulled you into her arms without a word. You collapsed against her, the test still clutched between you, as she held you tight. Your tears soaked her shirt, and still she didn’t let go, her hand smoothing over your back.
“It’s real,” you choked out against her shoulder, the words shaking. “Nat, it’s really—”
“I know,” she whispered, her own voice thick. “I see it. It’s real.”
The two of you stayed like that, clinging to each other in the small bathroom, the moment impossibly big and fragile all at once. For the first time in years, your grief didn’t feel endless. It felt like it had broken open—making room for something new, something luminous.
Hope.
Your tears came in waves, rising and falling until you could barely catch your breath. Natasha stayed with you on the cool bathroom tile, her arm anchored around your shoulders, her thumb brushing absently against your arm.
But even as you clung to her, clutching the test in your hand, a sick tremor of doubt began worming its way in.
“What if it’s wrong?” you whispered, your voice cracking over the words. Your fingers loosened, then tightened again around the little stick, as though it might dissolve if you let go. “What if it’s a—a false positive?”
Natasha pulled back just enough to look at you, her gaze steady, kind. “Then you’ll take another one. That’s why you bought the box, right?”
The thought almost knocked the breath from you. The box. More than one test.
Your chest tightened, and new tears gathered in your eyes. “I can’t—” Your voice cracked, raw and trembling. “I can’t go through that heartbreak again, Nat. Not if it’s another no.”
“You don’t have to do it alone. Whatever it says, I’m here.” Her voice was strong, certain in a way you hadn’t been for years.
You nodded, shaky and small, and she helped you to your feet. Your legs felt like they might give out beneath you as you reached for another test, your hands trembling so hard the box nearly slipped. Natasha gave you a single nod before stepping out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
When you finished, you placed the test on the counter and washed your hands. You opened the door. Natasha waited on the other side, she didn’t speak, just stood steady at the bathroom’s entrance while you waited all over again.
The minutes stretched, unbearable. You couldn’t bring yourself to look.
Natasha did. And when her breath caught, when her hand tightened around yours, you knew.
Positive. Again.
The sob that tore from you this time was different. Still jagged, still messy, but lighter. It broke into laughter halfway through, your tears spilling harder as you pressed both tests to your chest. “Oh my God,” you whispered, your whole body shaking with it. “Oh my God”
She wrapped her arms around you again, pulling you close, her own tears shining.
For the first time in years, you actually felt…relief.
* * *
You sat cross-legged on the floor of Natasha’s bed, the two tests still resting on the counter in Natasha’s bathroom. Your hands twisted nervously in your lap, your tears finally ebbing into small, shaky breaths.
Natasha sat opposite you, leaning on one elbow, her eyes gentle but watchful. She hadn’t pushed, hadn’t said much beyond a quiet reminder: It’s real. This time it’s real.
But the silence pressed heavier now, weighted with the question you’d been too afraid to form.
“How…how do I tell him?” The words were so quiet they nearly vanished between you. You lifted your eyes to hers, fear and wonder mingling together. “After everything we’ve been through…after all those times it wasn’t—” Your voice broke, and you shook your head, blinking fast. “What if he doesn’t believe me? What if it doesn’t last?”
Natasha leaned closer, her voice soft but sure. “He’ll believe you. And no matter what happens, you know Bob. He’s going to love you through it. He always has.”
You pressed the heels of your palms against your eyes, as if to hold back another rush of tears. “I don’t want to break his heart again. I don’t want him to see this and…” Your breath hitched. “And lose it.”
Natasha reached out, resting her hand over yours. “Or maybe,” she said gently, “you let him carry this joy with you.”
The words sank in slowly, like light filtering through cracks in a wall.
You nodded, tentative but real. Your gaze flicked to the bedroom, where your phone lay on the nightstand. Your chest tightened, an ache of love so fierce it almost hurt.
“I should call him,” you whispered. The thought was terrifying and electrifying all at once.
Natasha smiled. “I think you should.”
Your legs shook as you stood. As you picked up your phone, your thumb hovering over his name. The weight of five years pressed on you—five years of negatives, of tears in the dark, of clinging to each other when hope had felt like cruelty. And now this.
“I don’t even know what to say,” you admitted, voice trembling.
“Just say what you feel. Hell, tell him to come over if you need to. He’s been waiting for this as long as you have.”
Your chest heaved as you drew in a breath, your finger finally tapping his name, then selecting the call icon. The ringing filled your ears, and when his voice came through—warm, gentle, familiar—you nearly dissolved all over again.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Bob said. “You okay?”
And just like that, you knew: no matter how messy, no matter how terrifying, he deserved to hear the truth tonight.
“Could you…” Your voice wobbled. “Could you come to Natasha’s? Please?”
There was no hesitation in his answer. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”
The minutes stretched unbearably long until headlights finally swept across the window. You’d worn a path into the carpet, pacing, wringing your hands. Natasha stayed close, saying nothing, but her quiet presence was enough to keep you from unraveling completely.
When the knock came, your breath stuttered. Natasha went to the door, exchanging a few soft words with Bob before guiding him toward the bedroom.
And there he was.
He looked tired, concerned, his brows knit together as his eyes flicked from Natasha to you. “What’s going on?”
Natasha gave you a comforting smile before slipping out, leaving the two of you alone.
You stood frozen, clutching the box in your hands, pulse hammering in your ears. Bob’s gaze softened instantly when he saw your tears. He crossed to you in a few strides, his hands warm and gentle as they came to rest on your arms.
“Sweetheart…what’s wrong?”
Your throat felt tight, words threatening to break apart before they ever left your lips. You forced them out, shaky and trembling. “Bob…I took a test.”
He stilled, his eyes searching yours.
You swallowed hard, tears spilling again as you lifted the stick from your palm, showing him the faint pink lines. “Two, actually. They’re both positive.”
For a beat, silence. Then the air rushed out of him like a prayer. His eyes widened, wet instantly, his lips parting as though he couldn’t quite believe it. “Positive?” he whispered.
You nodded, sobbing.
And then his arms were around you, crushing you against him as his own tears broke free. He kissed your hair, your cheeks, your trembling lips, his hands shaking as they held you.
“Sweetheart,” he breathed, his voice breaking. “We’re gonna have a baby.”
The words undid you both. You clung to him, sobbing into his chest, but for the first time in years your tears weren’t just grief—they were joy, hope, relief. Bob kissed your temple over and over, murmuring against your skin, “I love you. No matter what happens, I love you. But God, I think this is real. I think this is finally real.”
And when you finally pulled back to look at him, his smile through his tears was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.
Bob leaned down and kissed you. It was soft and unhurried, carrying every ounce of emotion that words could never capture. His hands framed your face as though you were something fragile and precious, his thumbs brushing away the tears that still streaked your cheeks.
Your palms pressed against his chest, grounding yourself in the steady thrum of his heartbeat. He was solid, warm—your anchor in a storm you’d both been lost in for far too long.
When he finally drew back, he kept his forehead resting against yours, his breath unsteady. His eyes shimmered, rimmed red, cheeks damp with his own tears. For a long moment, he simply held your face in his hands, as though memorizing you all over again, before they slid gently down to your hips.
Then one hand lifted, hesitated, and came to rest lightly against your stomach. The touch was reverent, trembling, and his voice broke as he whispered, “I can’t believe this is real.” More tears slipped free, but his smile curved through them. “I love you. More than anything.”
Emotion surged in your chest, fierce and overwhelming. You covered his hand with yours, holding it there over the life you might finally be creating together. “I love you, Bob,” you whispered back, your voice thick with tears but steady with truth. “Always.”
The two of you stayed like that—foreheads pressed together, hands joined at your stomach, tears mingling with soft kisses— wrapped in a fragile, radiant hope you hadn’t dared to believe in for years. And for the first time, it felt like maybe the dream wasn’t slipping away. Maybe, just maybe, it was finally beginning.
The aftermath of that night became one of your most cherished memories. Bob had pulled Natasha into a heartfelt hug, thanking her over and over for being there—for being the friend you both desperately needed.
“I’m gonna steal my wife back,” he’d said with a grin so radiant it lit his whole face.
“Let me change out—” you began, glancing down at the borrowed clothes.
Phoenix waved you off, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “Wash it and give it back the next time I see you.”
“Are you sure?” you asked softly.
She nodded without hesitation. “We’ll have a girl’s night another time.”
The hug you shared with her before leaving was long and tearful, a promise of gratitude unspoken but understood. By the time you and Bob walked out hand-in-hand, you felt lighter, as though some invisible weight had finally been lifted from your shoulders.
During the drive home, Bob never let go of you. His hand rested warmly on your thigh, his thumb tracing gentle circles against your skin. Every so often, he glanced at you with an expression so tender, so reverent, it made your chest ache in the best way.
That night, curled beneath the covers of your shared bed, Bob held you as though you were the most precious thing in the world. One arm stayed snug around your waist, his fingers idly skimming the side of your stomach, as if he couldn’t quite help it. His other hand would tip your chin up from the safe hollow of his neck now and again, pulling you into kisses that were deep, slow, and devastatingly sweet. The kind of kisses that stole your breath, left your skin tingling, and made the rest of the world fall away until there was only him.
By morning, though, reality returned with a vengeance. The nausea struck suddenly, sharp and overwhelming, twisting your gut as bile clawed its way up your throat. You grimaced, nose scrunching at the sensation. Bob was spooned up against your back, arm draped over your stomach, warm and steady, oblivious for the moment as you tried to breathe through the wave.
The nausea rose fast, forcing you to swallow hard as your stomach turned violently. You shifted against the sheets, trying to ease the pressure, but it was useless.
Bob stirred behind you, instinctively tightening his arm around your waist. His voice was still thick with sleep when he murmured, “Sweetheart? You okay?”
You shook your head quickly, a hand flying to your mouth as another wave surged.
That was all it took. Bob was sitting up in an instant, already reaching for the trash can by the nightstand and setting it beside you. One hand stayed on your back, rubbing slow circles as you leaned over it, trembling with the force of your retching.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his tone steady even as worry flickered in his eyes. He gathered your hair gently in his other hand, keeping it out of your face, his touch so careful, so full of love it made your throat burn for reasons that had nothing to do with nausea.
When the worst of it passed, Bob was up and moving, fetching you a glass of water. He crouched at your side as you rinsed your mouth, his thumb brushing the corner of your lips like he couldn’t stand the thought of you being uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” you muttered weakly, leaning back into the pillows, embarrassed by the mess of it all.
“Hey, no.” His voice was firm, but gentle. He climbed back into bed beside you, pulling you against his chest again. “Don’t ever apologize. Not to me. Not for this.” He pressed a kiss into your temple, his hand finding its way once more to rest over your stomach. The gesture was unthinking, instinctual.
You covered his hand with yours, your heart thundering. The faintest smile touched your lips despite the queasiness lingering in your gut.
Bob’s breath hitched, but he kissed your hair and held you tighter, as though he knew exactly what that tiny smile meant.
* * *
Bob didn’t mean to drift off beside you, but with the weight of your body tucked so perfectly into his and the steady rhythm of your breaths against his chest, sleep found him easily. When he stirred next, the soft glow of sunlight filtered through the curtains. You were still curled against him, your lips parted in quiet sleep, one hand loosely gripping the fabric of his shirt like you hadn’t wanted to let him go.
He lay there for a while, just looking at you. Memorizing the calmness of your face, the way the lines of worry seemed softened in sleep. His heart gave that familiar ache, the kind that came with loving you so much it almost hurt. He pressed a feather-light kiss to your hair before slipping out of bed.
Bob moved around the kitchen quietly, careful not to wake you, his every action deliberate. He pulled out eggs, toast, fruit—simple things, but things he knew you liked when your stomach felt unsteady. The smell of breakfast slowly filled the air, and he found himself humming under his breath, the sound carrying an almost buoyant note of hope.
You woke to the sound of plates clinking and the faint sizzle from the stove. The other side of the bed was empty, but still warm. Stretching carefully, you followed the smell to the kitchen, where Bob was just setting two plates on the table.
“Hey,” he said softly, his whole face lighting up when he saw you. “I was hoping you’d wake up in time to eat with me.”
Your chest tightened at the sight of him—his hair still tousled from sleep, cheeks a little pink from the stove. The image was so domestic, so him, it nearly undid you.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” you murmured, sinking into the chair he pulled out for you.
“I wanted to.” He pressed a quick kiss to your temple before sitting beside you. “Figured you could use something gentle on your stomach.”
The food was simple, but it felt like the best meal you’d had in years, because he’d made it. Halfway through, you caught him watching you more than eating, his thumb rubbing slow circles on the edge of your hand where it rested on the table.
“You know…” you began carefully, voice low, “we should probably…make an appointment. Just to be sure.”
Bob’s fork stilled, his eyes flicking up to meet yours. There was no hesitation in his nod, no fear—just quiet steadiness and that deep well of love you’d always leaned on. “Yeah,” he agreed softly. “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll call. Together.”
Something about the way he said it—together—made tears sting your eyes all over again. He reached across the table, brushing the back of your hand with his thumb, and gave you that small, crooked smile that always undid you.
“I love you,” he whispered, like a promise, like a vow.
And in that simple morning, with warm food, tender touches, and sunlight spilling across the table, it felt like hope was finally sitting with you both.
When the last bites were gone, Bob insisted on clearing the table. You stood to gather your plate, but he gently plucked it from your hands with a small shake of his head.
“I’ve got it,” he said, already turning toward the sink.
“You don’t have to do everything,” you murmured, lingering a step behind him.
He shot you that patient look—the one that was soft but impossible to argue with. “Let me take care of this. You just… breathe.” His hand brushed your arm before he turned back to the running water.
You hovered with a dish towel in hand, determined to at least dry, but he eased it out of your grip and leaned down to press a quick kiss to your temple. “Go on,” he urged gently. “Make the appointment. I’ll be right here.”
The words sent a ripple of nerves through you. The appointment. Two simple words that carried the weight of every negative test, every late-night cry, every time you’d convinced yourself to stop hoping.
Still, you nodded and slipped back into the bedroom, phone clutched tight in your hand. The bed was still warm from where you’d curled against Bob earlier, the scent of him clinging to the sheets. It should have comforted you, but your heart thudded unevenly as you stared down at the glowing screen.
What if they told you the tests were wrong? What if this was another cruel trick? Your chest ached at the thought.
From down the hall, you could hear the soft clatter of dishes and the quiet hum of Bob’s voice—low and steady, a sound you’d loved for years. It grounded you, reminded you that no matter what the voice on the other end of the line said, you weren’t alone in this.
Swallowing hard, you pressed call.
The ring seemed to stretch on forever before a cheerful receptionist picked up. “Good morning, Dr. Hayes’ office. How can I help you?”
Your throat went dry. “Hi,” you managed, your voice wobbling. “I…I need to schedule an appointment. I think—” You faltered, the words sticking like honey in your chest. “I think I might be pregnant.”
The receptionist’s tone softened immediately, kind in a way that almost undid you. “Of course. Congratulations. Let’s get you scheduled, okay?”
As she read off available dates, you picked one and scribbled it onto the notepad by your bed, your hand trembling. Every word felt surreal, like you were listening to someone else’s life instead of your own.
When the call ended, you sat there for a long moment, the phone still pressed to your ear, tears blurring your vision. It was real now. There was a date, a time. Someone other than you and Bob knew.
You wiped at your eyes, shaky but smiling, and let yourself sink back into the pillows. From the kitchen, you could hear Bob still humming softly to himself, completely unaware that everything you’d both been waiting for just became a little more real.
Taking a second to steady yourself, you padded back into the kitchen. Bob was still at the sink, sleeves pushed up as he scrubbed at the stubborn pan he’d used for eggs. You didn’t say anything right away—just slipped your arms around his waist and pressed yourself against his back, your forehead tucked neatly between his shoulder blades. His warmth was grounding.
You let out a shaky breath.
“Everything go okay?” he asked after a moment, his voice gentle, like he already knew the answer.
You nodded against him.
Bob hummed softly, content, still rinsing suds from the pan.
“How are you so amazing?” you whispered before you could stop yourself.
His hands stilled in the water, the faint splash going silent. “What do you mean?” he asked, cautious, almost uncertain.
You pressed your cheek to his back, the steady beat of his heart beneath your ear. “I mean you’re everything someone could possibly want in a husband,” you murmured, the words trembling out of you. “You’re steady and kind and patient. You hold me together when I’m falling apart. Everything about you is just…perfect.”
He let out a breath, quiet, almost like it broke him a little. He turned then, twisting in your arms, the pan clattered back into the sink. Water dripped from his hands, but he didn’t care. He cupped your face, searching your eyes with his own—blue and earnest, lined with love and something that looked achingly close to disbelief.
“I’m not perfect,” he said softly, shaking his head. “But I love you more than anything. And if all I ever get to do is spend my life loving you—that’s enough for me.”
The weight of his words undid you. Tears stung your eyes, spilling hot and fast, but they didn’t feel like the heavy tears you’d cried in the past. They felt lighter. Hopeful. Bob kissed them away, his lips brushing your cheeks, your temples, your mouth—whispering I’ve got you with every touch.
* * *
The days leading up to the appointment passed both painfully slow and too fast. You and Bob tucked the secret between you, guarding it fiercely, afraid that speaking it too loudly might make it vanish.
Morning sickness hit like a storm. Some days it was a queasy unease that lingered from dawn to dusk. Other days, you barely made it to the bathroom before retching. Bob was always there, kneeling behind you, one hand rubbing slow circles over your back, the other holding your hair away from your face. He’d whisper encouragements in that calm drawl of his, voice unwavering even when your whole body shook.
When it was over, he’d press a cool cloth to your forehead, carry you back to bed, and hold you until the trembling passed.
You noticed the way his hand would rest—almost unconsciously—on your stomach whenever you curled into him. Protective. Reverent. As if he couldn’t quite believe something so precious could be growing there.
The two of you became conspirators in silence. At the Hard Deck, you sipped ginger ale and offered small excuses. At family dinners with the squad, Bob hovered just a little closer than usual, always attentive, but never enough to raise suspicion. It was your secret, and keeping it felt both terrifying and sacred.
Every tick of the calendar brought you closer to the appointment. Every bout of nausea, every wave of exhaustion reminded you that something was shifting inside you. But until the doctor confirmed it, neither of you dared say the word out loud.
At night, Bob would kiss you slow, his lips lingering like he was memorizing you in this moment—just the two of you, on the cusp of something bigger. And in the dark, with his hand pressed to your stomach and his heartbeat steady beneath your cheek, you let yourself believe that maybe…finally…this was real.
By the time the day of the appointment finally came, it felt like you had been holding your breath for weeks. Every morning of nausea, every bone-deep wave of exhaustion, every whispered exchange with Bob in the quiet of your home—it had all built to this moment.
The waiting room was too bright, too still. You sat with your hands folded tightly in your lap, knuckles white, your leg bouncing restlessly. The sterile smell of antiseptic made your stomach roll, but you tried to steady yourself, breathing through the nausea. Beside you, Bob’s hand wrapped around yours, thumb tracing that slow, steady rhythm you’d come to rely on.
“You okay?” he murmured, leaning close so only you could hear.
You gave him the smallest nod. “Just…scared.”
His fingers squeezed yours. “I’m right here,” he whispered. “We’re in this together.”
It was enough to keep you upright when the nurse finally called your name.
The exam room felt colder than it should have. You perched nervously on the edge of the table, paper crinkling beneath you, while Bob settled into the chair at your side. He kept hold of your hand even then, his other resting firmly on your thigh, grounding you.
The doctor entered, kind and reassuring, explaining every step as she readied the ultrasound machine. You nodded, trying to keep your breathing even, but your heart hammered in your chest so loudly it felt like the room might hear it.
When the gel was spread across your stomach, you flinched at the coolness. Bob rubbed your knuckles with his thumb, whispering, “You’re okay, sweetheart,” though his own voice wavered with nerves.
And then—
The room shifted. The grainy screen flickered to life, static at first, until the wand pressed and adjusted, and suddenly—there it was. A small flicker, pulsing steadily, rhythmically. The sound followed a moment later: a fast, strong heartbeat that filled the room like thunder.
Your breath caught. Tears welled instantly, blurring your vision. You gripped Bob’s hand so tightly your nails dug into his skin, but he didn’t flinch. He was crying, too, silent tears streaming down his cheeks as his other hand flew up to his mouth like he needed to hold himself together.
“That’s your baby,” the doctor said softly, adjusting the angle so the tiny form on the screen became clearer.
You broke. A sob tore from your chest, but it wasn’t grief this time—it was relief, joy, disbelief all tangled together until it felt like you might shatter under the weight of it. Bob kissed your hand, his lips trembling under the weight of his emotions.
“Baby…” his voice cracked, trembling, “that’s ours. That’s our baby.”
You nodded, unable to speak, clutching at him, like he was the only thing keeping you from floating away.
The doctor gave you space, printing a small black-and-white image before excusing herself for a moment. You hardly noticed. You and Bob clung to each other, staring at the screen as if looking away might make it vanish.
Bob’s hand finally, reverently, settled against your stomach, warm and protective, like it had so many nights before. Only now—now it meant something tangible. “I love you,” he whispered, voice thick and raw. “Both of you.”
Through your tears, you smiled, cupping his face. “I love you, too.”
And for the first time in so long, the weight you’d been carrying eased. For the first time, you weren’t just hoping or imagining. You were seeing. Hearing. Believing.
* * *
The days after the appointment unfolded gently, like pages turning in a book you’d waited your whole life to read. Life went on as it always did—Bob still had flights, you still had your routines—but there was an undercurrent now, a quiet glow beneath the surface that colored everything. Every glance, every touch, seemed to hum with unspoken meaning. It was a secret you shared with him alone, one that wrapped itself around you both like the softest blanket.
Your body, though, reminded you at every turn that things were changing. Your chest had grown steadily tender, a dull ache that made even pulling a shirt over your head an effort. Sometimes you winced without meaning to, pressing a palm against yourself, and Bob would notice instantly. Concern flickered across his face, even when you told him it was normal. He never argued, only leaned down to brush a featherlight kiss against your hairline.
Smells grew sharper. The rich aroma of coffee, once your comfort in the morning, now sent your stomach rolling. Bob didn’t hesitate. He started drinking tea instead. He never mentioned it to you, never made it a spectacle, but it nearly undid you every time. In its place, he kept ginger tea stocked in the cupboard, lemons on the counter, and crackers on the nightstand—just in case. Just for you.
After the appointment, the shift between you both was subtle but profound. Seeing that first image—tiny, grainy, yet undeniable—rooted the truth in a way words never could. Something you both had longed for, dreamed of, and grieved in silence when it didn’t come, was finally here.
Life at home slowed around that knowledge. You found yourself moving more carefully, your hand brushing over your stomach when you sat down or stood up, even though there wasn’t anything visible yet. And Bob—he noticed that too. He’d catch your hand mid-motion, lace your fingers with his, and smile as though there was nothing more sacred than that simple gesture.
Evenings shifted too. Dinner had become trial and error. Foods you once loved suddenly seemed unbearable, their smells turning your stomach before the plate was even set down. Bob never sighed in frustration, never teased. Instead, he’d quietly push the plate aside and improvise something new—scrambled eggs, buttered toast, a smoothie—with a calm efficiency that made you want to cry. “We’ll find what works,” he’d assure you, sliding the simpler meal across the table with that small smile of his. And somehow, it always did.
In quieter hours, he grew softer still. His hand sought yours almost constantly, as if to reassure himself you were there, as if by holding on he could tether the two of you—and the baby—to something solid. He spoke to you differently, too. Not louder or slower, but gentler. Like his words themselves could wrap around you and shield you from everything that might hurt. Sometimes, when he thought you weren’t listening, he even spoke to your stomach, low and quiet, as though he already knew the baby could hear him. You never interrupted. You just let the sound of his voice wash over you, smiling into the pillow where he couldn’t see.
Time passed in small vignettes. One morning, you gagged brushing your teeth, frustration prickling at the corners of your eyes. Bob appeared in the doorway, sleep still heavy on him, and rubbed your back until the wave passed. Another afternoon, he folded laundry while you lay curled on the bed, slipping a soft kiss to your lips and stomach every time he passed by with a stack of clothes. At night, he tucked you into bed with a mug of tea, even if you were too queasy to drink it, just to let you know it was there if you wanted it.
Appointments became a comforting routine. Bob kept every image of the baby—slipped into his wallet, displayed at home, tucked into his locker at the base. Each time he looked at them, a wave of tenderness washed over him. Even the tiniest changes made his chest swell with awe and quiet joy. Watching the life inside you grow, however slowly, filled him with a warmth that seemed to settle in his bones, a constant reminder of the miracle you were sharing together.
Slowly, the days stacked into weeks. The nausea remained, unpredictable but bearable, tempered by Bob’s quiet diligence. Your chest grew fuller, tender still, your body shifting in subtle ways you couldn’t ignore. Some evenings, you caught sight of yourself in the mirror, fingertips brushing curiously against your reflection, half in awe, half in disbelief. Bob would notice the look in your eyes, step up behind you, and wrap his arms around your waist. His chin rested on your shoulder, his voice warm in your ear: “Beautiful.” He always said it like a prayer, like a promise.
And still, the two of you kept it close, choosing to wait before sharing the news. There was a softness in that choice, a quiet reverence. For now, it was just yours. A secret kept safe between steady hands and whispered reassurances.
The secret bound you together in a new way. The world outside still carried on—work, friends, the noise of daily life—but beneath it all you and Bob held something just for yourselves. Every shared glance felt charged with it, every brush of his thumb across your hand or the curve of your stomach whispered, we know something no one else does. It was yours, precious and untouchable.
And though your body was already reminding you of the difficult parts—the nausea, the tenderness, the exhaustion—you found you wouldn’t trade a single piece of it. Not when Bob was there, steady and unwavering, treating every moment, even the hard ones, as though they were holy.
For the first time in a very long time, the future felt less like a question and more like a promise.
* * *
The decision came late one night, the two of you tangled together in bed. Bob’s arm was draped securely around your middle, his thumb brushing absent-minded circles over the curve of your stomach, which had grown more noticeable over the past weeks. There was a soft, round bump now, just enough to be felt beneath his hand, and it made the life inside you feel startlingly real. You rested against him, listening to the steady rise and fall of his chest, the quiet of the night wrapping around you both.
“Do you think we should tell them?” you asked quietly, your voice carrying the tiniest tremor of both excitement and uncertainty. “I think it’s time. It…feels right. It’s been twelve weeks.”
Them. The Daggers.
Bob’s eyes softened, crinkling at the corners with a smile that made your chest ache. “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” he admitted, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. Then, with the kind of steady gentleness that always anchored you, he pressed his lips to your hair.
The two of you stayed in bed for a moment longer, the room quiet except for the steady rhythm of your shared breath. He leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to your neck. “You’re glowing,” he murmured. “And this little bump…it’s perfect. Beautiful. Just like you.”
You laughed softly, the sound trembling with emotion. “We’ve kept this secret for long enough,” you said, hand resting over his as it rested on the bump. “It’s time to let them in.”
That evening, the two of you gathered with Phoenix and the rest of Bob’s closest friends. Natasha had a knowing look in her eyes, subtle but there. The laughter and chatter surrounded you, but your attention stayed on each other, your hands never parting, the subtle swell of your stomach a quiet pulse beneath the fabric of your sweater.
Bob cleared his throat, catching everyone’s attention. “We’ve got some news,” he said, voice steady but full of warmth. You felt a shiver of anticipation run through you as all eyes turned toward the two of you.
You placed a hand over your bump, letting it rest there naturally. “We’re pregnant,” you announced, voice catching with happiness.
For a heartbeat, there was stunned silence. Then laughter and cheer erupted, friends crowding around you, voices bright with excitement. Phoenix enveloped you in a hug first, Natasha beaming over your shoulder at Bob, and you felt Bob’s hand press against yours, grounding you amidst the joyous chaos.
Tears sprang unbidden to your eyes—not from fear this time, but from the overwhelming sweetness of sharing your secret, of finally letting the people you loved see the life that had been growing quietly in your belly. Bob leaned down, brushing his lips to yours, whispering, “I love you.”
You rested your head against his shoulder, letting the warmth of the moment sink deep into your bones. The bump beneath his hand seemed to pulse in time with your heart, a tangible reminder of everything you had waited for, everything you had held onto. And for the first time in a long time, the world felt expansive, bright, and full of gentle, glowy happiness—just as it should be.
* * *
Weeks passed almost imperceptibly, each one leaving its gentle mark. Your bump grew steadily, rounder, more undeniable, a soft reminder of the tiny life inside you. Some mornings, the weight of it made you pause in front of the mirror, pressing a hand over the curve and marveling at the way your body was transforming. Bob never missed a beat—his eyes always lingered a second longer, full of awe, as if he could see the life inside you just by looking.
Your mornings became a dance of small adjustments: easing out of bed, letting Bob slide his hand under your arm to steady you, smiling weakly as the nausea hit in sudden waves. He held you close when it was overwhelming, pressing a soft kiss to your temple, murmuring that it would pass, that you were incredible. Every little change—your fuller chest, the subtle swell of your stomach, the way your body shifted with the growing baby—felt sacred when you shared it with him.
And then, one quiet afternoon, it happened. You and Bob were wandering the aisles of a small market, baskets in hand, laughter spilling between you over some trivial joke. You paused near the produce section, hand resting on the curve of your stomach, when the sensation struck—like a delicate tap, almost imperceptible at first.
“Did you feel that?” you whispered, eyes wide, looking down at your bump.
Bob’s eyebrows rose, his hand instantly covering yours. “Feel what?”
You grabbed his other free hand, pressing both against your stomach, where you’d felt it. Another little kick, more deliberate this time, pressed against his palm. Your breath caught. “The baby!” you exclaimed softly, a mix of disbelief and joy trembling in your voice.
Bob’s face lit up, a wide, uncontainable grin spreading across his features, hands still cradling your stomach. “Oh my God…” he whispered, voice thick with awe. “I feel it too. I feel it!”
The two of you stood there for a long moment, in the middle of the produce aisle, laughing softly. You could feel him shaking just slightly from the intensity of it, and you reached up to pull his face toward yours, letting your foreheads meet. His lips brushed yours before planting an impossibly soft kiss to your lips.
Another tiny kick, almost as if the baby wanted to punctuate the moment, and you both laughed through the tears. In that simple, fleeting instant, the world narrowed to just the two of you and the life growing quietly beneath your hands. It was awe-inspiring, humbling, and pure happiness all at once.
Bob’s hand stayed on the small of your back the rest of the shopping trip, his thumb tracing slow, careful circles. You leaned into him whenever your legs ached, his warmth a tether as the excitement settled into a deep, contented glow. Every glance at each other held a shared reverence, a soft, wordless promise: this little life, your life together, would always be cherished.
* * *
Every time he saw you, Bob felt a quiet, swelling awe and love he couldn’t put into words. The bump had grown steadily over the past weeks, small at first, then impossible to ignore. His hands seemed to find their way there instinctively, resting lightly over the curve of your stomach as if just touching it could somehow protect the life inside.
He marveled at the subtle changes—the way you moved, careful and deliberate, the gentle shift in your posture when you were tired or queasy. The mornings when nausea made you pause mid-step, he was always there, sliding an arm around your waist, leaning his forehead against yours, whispering, “I’ve got you. We’ve got this.”
Every tiny movement of the baby sent a thrill through him. The first kick was unforgettable—his hand pressed against your stomach, and felt it too. A kick, delicate but undeniable. His heart had leapt, and he’d laughed through tears. The way your face had lit up, the awe and joy mirrored in his own reflection—he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
At home, he found himself pausing during the simplest routines. Folding laundry, he’d brush his fingers across the swell of your belly as he carried a basket by. Cooking, he’d apologize and lean over and press a gentle kiss to your cheek when you winced at the smell of something overpowering. Every little ache, every subtle growth, became a reminder that the two of them were building something extraordinary together.
He loved watching you rest, the way you’d curl into the couch or the bed, bump exposed, hand lightly over it. He’d kneel in front of you, hand over yours as he imagined the tiny life inside learning the sound of his voice, the rhythm of his heartbeat. Sometimes he even whispered to the baby, soft and low, promising protection, promising love.
And in every glance he stole when you weren’t looking, in every tender touch he offered, Bob felt the weight of it: a mixture of awe, gratitude, and a love so deep it made him breathless. This little life, growing day by day, was a miracle, and it was theirs. Just theirs.
* * *
As time went on, you became acutely aware of just how much your body had changed. Your bump had grown noticeably larger now, the third trimester arriving faster than you could believe. The weight of your belly settled heavily on your hips and lower back, an ache that no amount of shifting or stretching seemed to relieve. Your feet were swollen and sore, even on days you’d barely left the couch. Sweat would gather in strange places, hormones made emotions feel like tidal waves, and the smallest frustrations—spilled juice, a wrinkled shirt, a misplaced item—could make you tear up unexpectedly.
And when it happened, when you let it out on Bob, guilt always followed close behind. You hated that your exhaustion and discomfort sometimes spilled over onto him. But he never made you feel bad for it. When the tears came, he held you close, pressing his forehead to yours, murmuring, “I’m not upset. I’m right here. Always.”
The baby had grown impossibly active. You discovered quickly that they seemed to have the worst sense of timing—kicks and twists came when you were trying to sleep, when you were reaching for something on the counter, when you were trying and failing to pick up a dropped item. But the instant you relaxed, the moment you weren’t actively doing something important, the baby was as quiet as a mouse, almost as if they knew you needed a break.
Everything was a challenge now. Bending over to put on shoes was nearly impossible without help, so Bob had become your constant assistant, sliding them onto your feet, adjusting laces, making gentle jokes to make you laugh. You were constantly visiting the bathroom, and your appetite changed from minute to minute—hungry one moment, nauseated the next, reaching for snacks you hadn’t even considered ten minutes earlier.
The self-consciousness crept in sometimes. You hated the way your body felt foreign, swollen and heavy in ways you couldn’t hide. You frowned in the mirror at the stretch marks forming across your belly, sighed at the fatigue in your face, and worried that Bob would see you differently. But every time you looked up, he was there—eyes soft, full of love, hand resting protectively on your bump.
“You’re beautiful,” he’d say, voice quiet and reverent, thumb brushing slow circles over the curve of your stomach. “I love every part of you. Every ache, every kick, every sleepless night—it’s all ours.”
One afternoon, as you were sitting on the sofa, Bob was sitting beside you, holding a cup of tea as he watched the TV. You felt the baby shift under his hand and laughed through a groan.
“They’re relentless today,” you murmured.
Bob grinned. “Just making sure you’re paying attention,” he teased, voice soft. “Honestly, I love it. It’s…amazing to feel them moving like this.”
You gave a soft smile before you placed a hand over his, drinking in the comfort his presence gave you. But that familiar wave of self-consciousness washed over you. “It is incredible,” you agreed. “But sometimes I feel…awkward. Big, clumsy, gross even.”
He gently removed his hand from your stomach and tilted your chin up, eyes warm and steady. “You’re not gross. You’re glowing. You’re carrying our baby. And I love you—every part of you, every change, every curve. Even the clumsy moments.”
You let out a laugh, soft and shaky, then grew quiet. “Have you thought at all about names?” you asked after a moment. “I know we don’t know the gender, but…” Your voice trailed off as you looked at Bob.
His eyes lit up, a spark of excitement cutting through the fatigue that hung over both of you. “All the time,” he admitted. “I’ve been keeping a running list in my head.”
You smiled, brushing a hand over his arm. “Really? I’ve been trying not to get too attached to any, but…sometimes a name just sticks.”
He chuckled. “I know. I’ve been doing the same thing. Some just feel right, you know? Some I like, some I don’t. But when we find the one, we’ll know it.”
You shifted slightly on the sofa, letting your bump settle comfortably against his side, and he rested his hand there again. “I can’t wait to meet them,” he said softly, voice full of awe. “To see them, to hold them, to watch them grow. Whoever they are, whatever we name them…I just know they’ll be amazing because they have you in them.”
A warm ache spread throughout your chest, a mixture of love, pride, and the softest happiness. “They’re going to have the best dad,” you whispered, eyes closing as his thumb continued its gentle, soothing circles.
“And the best mom,” he replied immediately, pressing a kiss to your temple. The baby shifted again, and you laughed through a groan. “Yeah,” he said, grinning down at you. “We’re all in this together.”
And somehow, even in the middle of discomfort, exhaustion, and self-doubt, those words carried you. His presence, unwavering and tender, made everything feel lighter, the daily struggles a little more bearable.
The baby kicked again, sharply this time, and you laughed through a groan. Bob pressed a gentle kiss to your temple, murmuring, “I feel it too. We’re in this together.”
In that moment, despite everything—the swelling, the aches, even the never-ending bathroom trips—you felt the warmth of your little family holding steady around you. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t always graceful. But it was yours, and it was real.
* * *
It started in the middle of the night, with a sudden gush that left you gasping, your heart pounding. You’d been experiencing some irregular contractions in the time leading up to your due date. You kept notes, kept Bob updated, but this—
A contraction hit you, a strong one. Bob’s eyes went wide as you clutched his arm. “My water…Bob, it’s—”
“I’ve got you,” he said instantly, voice calm but firm. He slid his hand into yours, squeezing it gently before jumping out of bed. “We’re okay. Just breathe. We’ve got this.”
He helped you up, grabbing your hospital bag as he walked you to the car.
The ride to the hospital was a blur of traffic lights and whispered instructions from him. Each contraction hit like a wave crashing over you, leaving you breathless and trembling. Bob kept one hand on your knee, the other gripping the steering wheel, murmuring soft encouragements.
“You’re amazing,” he said, as if saying it enough would make the pain bearable. “I know it hurts. I know. But you’re so strong. Look at me—breathe with me, okay?”
By the time you arrived, Bob checked you in and a nurse helped you into a wheelchair. “We’re going to get you settled right away,” she said, voice warm but authoritative. “We’ll monitor both you and the baby. Deep breaths—you’re doing so well.”
In your labor room, monitors were attached to your stomach track the baby’s heart rate and your contractions. “Everything looks good so far,” the nurse said, checking the screen. “Contractions are coming on strong. We’ll get you comfortable and monitor your progress. We can also discuss pain management—an epidural might help with the intensity.”
Bob’s hand never left yours, his thumb brushing slow, soothing circles. “Whatever you need,” he murmured. “I’m right here.”
You nodded fervently.
The epidural was administered, and relief spread through your body, dulling the sharp edges of pain. Bob held your hand through the next several contractions, squeezing gently.
“You’re doing so well,” he said softly. “Every contraction—you’re so strong. I love you.”
A doctor entered, checking your vitals. “Blood pressure is stable, oxygen levels are good. Baby’s heart rate is strong,” she noted, smiling reassuringly. “We’ll keep monitoring everything closely.”
Bob leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Maybe some water.”
* * *
Hours passed. You’d lost track of the time after a while. Nurses continued checking on you and the baby, giving updates as needed. Bob stayed with you the whole time.
As the pushing stage approached, the medical team guided you. “One more big push,” the doctor instructed. “Baby’s heart rate is perfect. You can do it!”
“I can’t…” you whimpered between contractions, body trembling.
“Yes, you can,” Bob insisted, voice firm but tender. “Look at me. We’re in this together.”
With a final push, a cry filled the room, high and perfect.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor announced with a warm smile. “Congratulations.”
Bob was given the opportunity to cut the cord, with glassy eyes and trembling hands. The newborn was gently placed on your chest. Her face was bright red as she continued to cry. Tears streamed down your face.
The baby squirmed, tiny fingers curling against your chest. “Look at her,” Bob murmured, awed. “Our little miracle. You did this. You’re incredible.”
His fingers gently brushed against her cheek. Bob looked at you, a few stray tears falling down his face. He leaned over and kissed you so softly, you thought you’d imagined it. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” you whispered, voice raw with emotion.
Bob chuckled softly, lips brushing yours. “I love you both. So much.”
In that moment, the aches, the anticipation, the sleepless nights—all of it melted away. Surrounded by the soft hum of monitors, the quiet reassurances of nurses, and the steady presence of Bob at your side, you felt the world narrow to just the three of you. It was chaotic, intense, exhausting—but it was perfect, and it was yours.
Note: Reader is a minor but has no indicated specific age. (Read responsibly y’all, if yk you’re going to read smthn which involves someone young please do yourself a favor and be respectful.)
So uhm, after 7(?) months of not writing and uploading here, I'm glad to say that I'm back... for now at least. Here's a slight angst fic as an apology for being offline for half a year :D Hope you love it ᡣ𐭩
Martin was everyone’s dream boyfriend. Sweet, patient, loving—a gentleman wrapped in one perfect package.
The only downside? You weren’t his first love.
Sure, you were his first girlfriend, but his first love? was producing music.
You’d seen him overwork himself countless times. Every day, he locked himself in the studio, chasing lyrics and beats until exhaustion consumed him. It didn’t matter where he was—the couch, his desk, even his bed—his mind never stopped working.
Sometimes at night, you stayed beside him, watching in silence, hoping he would rest just once or even spend time with you. But with his debut approaching, rest was impossible.
Some days he called, only to apologize and hang up. Other days, he didn’t call or text at all.
You understood him of course. Being an idol yourself, you knew the pressure that builds up inside you. Claws your mind and drowns you in and endless thoughts of self-sabotages
So you stayed quiet, tried supporting him from the side, always reminding him he was enough and how everything will be alright.
But tonight was different.
For an entire week, he hadn’t called. He hadn’t replied. Your endless messages—reminders to eat, to rest, to breathe—were all left on sent. Calls were left unanswered.
This time, you couldn’t just sit back.
So you dialed another number instead. James'.
“Hello?” James' voice echoed.
“Hi James, uh… listen. I just want to ask how Martin’s doing.” Your breath hitched.
A silence stretched too long.
“…Honestly, he hasn’t been doing well. He keeps coming home late, exhausted. We remind him to take it easy, but…” James exhaled. “…he keeps shutting us out. He keeps saying he’s fine. But we know he isn’t.”
Your heart clenched. He was suffering. And you hadn’t been able to reach and help him.
“Do you mind if I come over to the dorm?” You say, urgency in your voice.
“Yeah. I’ll bring you up.”
You grabbed nothing and rushed out the door without thinking.
The dorm felt heavy the moment you stepped inside. His members sat quietly in the living room, halfheartedly eating dinner.
"Hey," They greeted. But even their smiles were tired.
“Are you guys okay?” you asked softly.
“Don’t worry about us,” Juhoon replied with a faint smile. “Go to him.”
You nodded, walking toward Martin’s room. Knocking gently, you pushed the door open.
The room was dark. The only light source was coming from the computer that Martin stared at. His room was a disaster. Crumpled paper with drafted lyrics, instruments, clothes. You shook your head in disbelief and concern.
He sat at his desk, headphones on either ear, his body moving with the beat as if every fiber of him existed only for the rhythm.
“Martin,” you called.
“Go away. I’m busy.” His voice was flat, tired.
“Martin, we need to talk.” You stepped closer, firmer this time.
“I said I’m busy.”
“Mar—”
He ripped his headphones off, his voice cracking with anger. “What can’t you understand about ‘I’m busy’?!”
He spun around, and your breath caught. His face was pale, shadows dark under his eyes. His expression was sharp with frustration, but the moment his gaze landed on you, it faltered.
“Shit," he whispered, sitting back down on the chair.
You swallowed, your chest tight. A wave of silence followed. His mouth trembled to open, trying to think of words—trying to think of how to explain the situation you see before you.
But you decided to speak up first.
“Do you even realize how worried I’ve been?" You snapped.
"A week, Martin. A whole week of nothing from you. I exist, you know.” Your knuckles turned white gripping tightly on your phone. Kind of regretting you let last words slip your tongue.
He looked away, fingers tightening on his headphones. “I… I didn’t mean to…” His words stumbled, tripping over themselves.
“I just—I needed to focus and I didn’t want to drag you into this mess.” He glances to his computer.
“Drag me into this?” Your voice trembled, the frustration finally slipping out.
“I’m already in this, Martin. I’m your girlfriend, not some stranger waiting at the sidelines. Do you know how it feels to keep trying to reach for you when you won’t even notice me?” You choked.
His jaw clenched, and for a moment he looked like he might snap again. He looked angry. Because he was. Not at you, he was angry at himself. Was he this oblivious to the situation?
The atmosphere grew heavier and when you felt like he was about to shout again, he pressed his palms to his face, shoulders shaking. Tears slipped through.
“I thought… if I just worked harder, if I gave it everything… maybe I’d be enough.” His voice cracked, raw and fragile. “But I’m tired. And I didn’t want you to see me like this.” His whole body threatened to give up from the fatigue.
Your heart ached at the confession. You stepped closer, kneeling beside him.
Slowly, you pulled his hands away from his face. His eyes were bloodshot, tears pooling though he tried to blink them away.
“You don’t have to hide from me,” you whispered. “I don’t want the perfect producer or the perfect idol. I just want you. Even if you’re tired. Even if you’re falling apart.”
Martin’s lips parted, but no words came. He just stared at you, eyes glistening with guilt, pain, and something softer.
Finally, he breathed out, “…I’m sorry.”
Your chest tightened at the sight of him—this boy who always tried to hold everything together, now crumbling right in front of you.
"...I'm sorry if I didn't text you, I didn't call." More tears fell. "I never wanted to hurt you. I—"
You reached out and gently cupped his face to stop him, your thumb brushing against the damp corner of his eye.
“Martin,” you whispered, your voice steady even though your heart was trembling, “you don’t have to carry this alone. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Not with me.”
He let out a shaky breath, leaning into your touch like he’d been waiting for it all along. His shoulders sagged, the fight in him slipping away.
“I thought… I thought if I let myself rest, if I let myself lean on anyone, I’d fall behind,” he admitted, voice hoarse.
“But I can’t even stand straight anymore.”
You pulled him into your arms, wrapping him tightly against your chest. He buried his face in your shoulder, his body trembling with exhaustion, frustration, and relief all at once.
“You won’t fall behind,” you murmured against his hair. “You’ll just burn out if you keep this up. And I can’t… I can’t stand watching you hurt yourself like this.”
For the first time in days, Martin allowed himself to be still. His breathing steadied as he held onto you, almost desperately, as if afraid you’d vanish if he let go.
“Stay,” he whispered, muffled against you. “Please… just stay tonight.”
You smiled softly, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “I was never planning on leaving.”
Martin’s arms tightened around you. His breathing was still uneven, but it was softer now, the anger and sharp edges in him melting into quiet vulnerability.
You stroked his back gently, whispering, “Come on, you need to lie down.”
“I can’t,” he mumbled, shaking his head weakly. “There’s still so much to do. Our debut is a week away—”
“Martin,” you interrupted firmly, leaning back just enough to look into his tired eyes. “Please. Just rest. For me.”
His lips parted, ready to argue, but the exhaustion in his gaze betrayed him.
You took his hand, guiding him toward the bed. He followed without resistance this time, as if he’d finally run out of strength to fight himself.
He sat down heavily, and once you tugged the blanket over him, you brushed back the messy strands of hair that clung to his forehead.
His eyes fluttered shut at your touch, and for the first time in weeks, he let himself breathe.
You lay down beside him, not to sleep but to keep him anchored. His arm instinctively found its way around your waist, holding you close like you were the only thing keeping him together.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice so faint you barely heard it.
You kissed his temple softly. “Never. I’m right here.”
Slowly, his breathing evened out, his body finally surrendering to the rest he’d been denying himself.
You watched his lashes tremble before settling, his grip on you loosening only slightly as sleep claimed him.
And in the quiet of that room, with his heart finally calm against yours, you promised yourself you’d be his safe place—no matter how heavy the world became for him.
Note: Pls tell me you cried... just kidding. Did you though? Anyways I will try and write again and I will open requests again, yippee!! Since I am currently reading Iron Flame and writing my own romantasy novel I wanted to get back into writing for other stuff too. I am also happy to say that I think my writing improved a bit over the span of those offline months... Anyways if you do have any requests that you'd want me to make don't be shy and type away ⋆˙⟡♡
Night had finally fallen over the estate, though the storm outside showed no signs of letting up. The rain was heavy, slamming against the glass panes of Kurt’s bedroom windows almost violently, drowning out the usual quiet sounds of the mansion.
You stood by the glass, the heavy velvet curtain pulled back just a fraction. You couldn't help yourself. Your fingers tightly gripped the fabric as your eyes desperately scanned what little area of the grounds you could see. Every time lightning fractured the dark sky, illuminating the sprawling gardens in a harsh, ghostly white, your chest tightened. Your breath hitched, your mind terrifying you with the thought that you would see a figure out there in the storm. Standing. Watching. Waiting.
"Liebling?"
Kurt’s voice broke through the silence, startling you violently out of your thoughts.
Your hands flew to your mouth as you let out a small, breathless yelp. You turned around, your heart hammering against your ribs. "Kurt," you huffed, forcing an embarrassed, shaky laugh as you tried to calm your racing pulse. "You scared me."
Kurt walked over to you, his expression softening with deep, aching empathy. He reached out, his three-fingered hands warm and reassuring as he gently guided you away from the window, dropping the curtain back into place to block out the storm.
"Enough of that, Schatz," he murmured gently, a tender, comforting smile tugging at his lips. "You are safe here. The grid is active, and Logan is downstairs. No one is outside."
He guided you across the room to the edge of his bed, where a small plastic bag was resting. With a soft, lingering kiss to your temple that made your eyes flutter shut, he picked up the bag and handed it to you.
"Storm offered you some clothes for tonight," Kurt said, his voice dropping to a soothing, velvety register. He gestured toward a doorway across the room. "My bathroom is right there. Take all the time you need."
Your face instantly burned, a fierce, sudden blush flaring across your cheeks as you looked at the door left slightly ajar, revealing a clean, private bathroom inside. The reality of the situation—sleeping in Kurt’s room, wearing borrowed pajamas, the sheer intimacy of it all—suddenly crashed over you, competing with the residual fear of the stalker.
You nodded quickly, unable to find your words through the sudden lump in your throat. Clutched tightly to your chest, you hurried across the room and slipped inside the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.
Your heart pounded wildly as you leaned your back against the door, the heat in your cheeks refusing to fade. You took a moment to breathe in the scent of Kurt's soap and the quiet safety of the room before opening the bag. Inside was an oversized, incredibly soft cotton shirt from Storm—simple, comforting, and warm. Though you noticed no pants were provided. When you assessed yourself in the mirror, it hung to your mid-thighs so you doubted you needed them.
You quickly changed out of your rain-chilled clothes. When you finally looked in the mirror, you saw yourself: a doctor who had spent the last twenty-four hours surviving a psychological nightmare, now drowned in oversized clothes, looking small but safe.
You unlocked the door and stepped back out into Kurt's bedroom.
The room was bathed in a warm, amber glow. Kurt had turned off the harsh overhead lights, leaving only a small, dim lamp on his bedside table. He had changed into a pair of simple black sweatpants, his dark blue fur catching the soft light. He was sitting cross-legged on the mattress, his tail swishing in slow, hypnotic arcs behind him.
When he looked up and saw you, his yellow eyes softened completely, shining with an adoration that made your stomach do a wonderful, dizzying flip.
"Come here," he whispered, patting the space on the mattress right beside him.
You walked across the room, the oversized shirt brushing against your thighs, and climbed onto the bed. The moment you sat down, the mattress dipping under your weight, the fierce tension that had held your spine straight all day finally dissolved.
Kurt didn't hesitate. He shifted closer, opening his arms, and you slid right into his embrace. You curled your legs against his side, burying your face into the crook of his neck. His arms wrapped around you securely, his hand resting on the back of your head, while his thick, velvet tail coiled gently around your ankle, anchoring you to him in the dark.
For a long time, neither of you spoke. There was only the rhythmic, heavy thud of the rain against the glass and the steady, comforting beat of Kurt’s heart beneath your cheek.
"I am so sorry, Schatz," Kurt whispered into your hair, his voice a low, aching rumble. "I promised you that the mansion would be a sanctuary. I wanted your grand opening to be perfect. Instead, you are terrified in your own home."
You tightened your grip on his shoulders, shaking your head against his skin. "It’s not your fault, Kurt. It's just..." You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat tight and painful. "When I saw that package... when I read those words... it didn't just scare me because of the stalker. It brought everything back."
Kurt went completely still, his hand gently stroking your hair, silently urging you to continue.
"I was small again," you whispered, the confession tearing out of you, raw and honest. "I was that little girl hiding under her bed. I could smell the cheap whiskey soaking into the rotted wooden floorboards. I could hear the drunken screaming, the glass smashing against the walls... that helpless, suffocating feeling that no matter where I hid, the monster was going to find me." A hot tear finally spilled over your eyelashes, dampening his shirt. "I thought I outran those awful memories. But tonight, they came right back."
Kurt’s grip tightened, pulling you so close there was no space left between you. He pressed a fervent, lingering kiss to the top of your head, his own breathing hitched with an intense, protective sorrow.
"You did outrun them," Kurt assured fiercely, his voice thick with emotion. "You survived it all. You became a savior to people who have no one else. But you do not have to be that lonely little girl under the bed anymore. I know what it is like to be hunted, to look in the mirror and think you are the monster everyone says you are. When I was in the circus, they locked me in a cage. They threw stones. They made me feel like I belonged in the dark."
He gently pulled back just enough to look down at you, his large, three-fingered hand reaching up to cradle your cheek. His thumb tenderly wiped away the stray tear. His yellow eyes glowed in the amber light, burning with a devotion so pure it took your breath away.
"But you are not in the dark anymore, and neither am I," Kurt murmured, his gaze locking onto yours. "If the monsters come to smash the glass, they have to go through me first. I will be your shield, meine Liebe. I will keep the night away from you."
You looked up at him—at his beautiful, blue-furred face, his pointed ears, his sharp fangs, and the gentle, fierce soul that lived behind his eyes. The memory of him earlier that afternoon, making little Zoe laugh with his circus tricks, flashed through your mind. You thought of how he had spent the entire day acting like a shield just to keep you safe, not out of obligation, but out of pure, unadulterated devotion.
The feeling that had hit you like a lightning strike in the clinic returned, filling your chest until it felt like it would burst. The room was safe. The rain was heavy. And you couldn't keep the truth locked behind your teeth for another second.
"Kurt," you breathed, your voice trembling, but entirely sure.
"Yes, Schatz?"
"I love you."
The words hung in the warm, amber space between you.
Kurt froze. His yellow eyes widened, his breath catching sharply in his throat. For a fraction of a second, he looked completely stunned, as if he couldn't fully process that someone like you could say those words to someone like him. Then, his face softened into the most breathtaking, radiant smile you had ever seen. A soft, breathless laugh escaped his lips, and his tail flicked with a sudden, joyous energy behind him.
"Du... you love me?" he whispered, his voice cracking with a beautiful, raw vulnerability.
"I do," you sighed, a genuine smile finally breaking through your fear, your cheeks warming with a happy blush. "I realized it today when you were helping Zoe. You make everyone feel safe, Kurt. You make me feel safe. I love everything about you."
Kurt didn't answer with words. Instead, he leaned down and captured your lips in a deep, desperate, and fiercely tender kiss. It was completely different from the playful, passionate kisses you had shared before. This was a promise. His hands cradled your face, holding you like you were the most precious thing in the entire universe, pouring every ounce of his gratitude, his relief, and his own unspoken adoration into the kiss.
His tongue moved with yours, a slippery dance that made your body heat and tingle in all the right places.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, both of your breaths mingling in the quiet room.
"Ich liebe dich auch," Kurt whispered against your lips, his voice thick with tears of happiness. "I love you so completely. And I swear to you, no matter who is in the shadows... they will never take this away from us."
You closed your eyes, wrapping your arms securely around his neck as he pulled you back down against his chest. The storm outside was still raging, and the mystery of the blood-red rose was still waiting for you tomorrow. But right here, tangled in Storm's oversized shirt and held in the arms of the man who loved you, the little girl under the bed was finally gone. You were safe.
Kurt captured your lips once again, one hand resting at the base of your neck while the other rested at your lower back before completely pulling you onto his lap with ease. His tongue swiped at your bottom lip, asking without words. You opened your mouth and pulled him closer, your body growing hot as he twirled his tongue with yours. You moved one hand to his jaw while your other hand slid down his chest, teasing his fur as you reached the darker tufts of fur on his stomach.
Kurt pulled back with a gasp. “Nein, Leibling. You do not have to force yourself, today has been emotionally taxing.”
You shook your head, breathless and burning. “I want to,” you sighed as you grabbed his hand that was resting on your back to hold it to your lips. “I need it. Kurt, I have been burning for you for some time now.” His yellow eyes widened at your blushing declaration, moving your hips to press against him, trying to ease the pulsing need in your cunt. “I’ll stop i-if you don’t want to.” You opened your mouth, swirling your tongue around one of his fingers
Suddenly, you were on your back with Kurt above you, your legs resting on either side of his hips. He was upright, both hands pressing into your plush thighs and a groan escaped him. “Ich habe lange genug gewartet, um dich auf meiner Zunge zu schmecken.” Before you could ask what he said, Kurt began to pull your shirt up until it bunched to your neck. “Hold it with your teeth,” he ordered, gently pushing the hem of your shirt behind your teeth. Your body burned hotter and your cunt quivered wet at his dominant tone.
Your tits were exposed to the cool air, pebbling your nipples taut as he reached for one to rub a firm nipple in tingling circles. Your moan was muffled by the shirt lodged in your mouth and somehow that made you wetter.
His hands began to roam, tracing invisible patterns along your breasts, abdomen and navel, goosebumps gracing your skin even though it felt as if you were burning. After a few moments of his fingers leaving a masterpiece over your skin, his hands rested firmly on your hips, giving you a squeeze. Your eyes met his, an intense glowing yellow. His chest heaved as he panted. “I hope you don’t mind, Leibe, that I say grace.”
Kurt lifted one of your legs slowly, kissing your calf muscle down to the back of your knee. “Alle guten Gaben,” he licked a long trail from your knee to your mid-thigh, your desperate moan filled the room, “alles, was wir haben,” he moved his body further down the bed as he wrapped his tail around your other thigh, “kommt, o Gott, von Dir,” he spread your legs further apart before taking your panties, sliding them off you, “dafür danken wir.” Once your panties were off you, he gave you a wicked grin, staring into your eyes as he delicately placed your panties down his pants, right where his hardened cock lay. As your chest heaved, he roughly used his hands and tail to spread your legs apart, your cunt wet and waiting. “Amen.”
You didn’t get a chance to take a breath before his mouth was on your cunt, twirling his tongue around your clit, changing from soft to hard pressure in random intervals, the only sound in the room was the lewd slurping of Kurt’s tongue and your muffled moans being absorbed by the bunched shirt in your mouth. You bucked your hips at every press on your clit and on every jolt through your body.
Your hands grabbed at the comforter underneath you as electricity seemed to zip up your spine, a delightful pressure building in your stomach as you tried moving your hips away.
When you moved your hips further than Kurt wanted them to, he pulled you back fiercely, a low hiss and growl escaping him as the onslaught on your cunt and clit continued. “Mmmf!” A muffled cry escaped you as you felt a nimble digit circling your entrance. You didn’t know how much more you could take, you were already so close.
Kurt gently rubbed around your hole, gathering enough slick to soak two of his fingers just as the build up finally snapped. You clenched your teeth and your eyes rolled back as your clit pulsed through your orgasm. You didn’t have time to come down from your high as Kurt thrust two fingers inside you, curling them in a come hither motion again and again until they hit that gummy spot inside and you couldn’t hold it anymore.
Your hips were moving involuntarily as the build up began to swirl again. You were practically screaming as his tongue worked your clit and his fingers hit your sensitive spot.
You saw light as you came again—hard—coating Kurt’s face and fingers in your delicious juices which left you utterly breathless.
For a moment all that could be heard in the amber lit room was your gasps. You felt movement on the bed but you couldn’t muster the energy to open your eyes. Not yet. You could feel your body twitching as your senses were finally calming down, a pleasurable ache settling in your cunt.
You opened your eyes eventually when you felt Kurt crawling back on the bed, a fluffy towel in hand. He began to gently wipe you down, taking away the remnants of your sticky state. After a while, once he was satisfied, he threw the towel unceremoniously on the floor before tucking you both under the covers and bringing you close against his chest. He rested your head underneath one of his arms and the pillow before pulling the cover to your chin.
You wanted to protest. Ask him about his needs but the exhaustion was taking you. Your limbs became heavy as he placed a loving kiss to your forehead. He mumbled something in German before you finally allowed sleep to take you, snuggling closer into his chest, relishing the feeling of his hands rubbing circles on your back and his tail still wrapped firmly, protectively, around your thigh.
A/N: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hyperventilated so much during the first draft of this omg
My two best friends were blessed with a live reading as I edited and edited! Thank you to my two girls for being the best beta readers ever xx I hope ya'll like it, please let me know what you think!
Summary: You didn’t sign up for a brainwashed death cult. But here you are—collared, bruised, and pretending not to know your own husband.
The escape plan? Still cooking.
But life has other ideas. Like watching everything you love go up in smoke. And then, when all hope’s gone, a miracle with a familiar face walks into your gun sight.
Problem is… you’re both one second from falling apart. Oh and you have a daughter waiting for you back home.
⚠️ Content Warnings: Graphic violence and murder / Captivity and psychological torture / Dissociation, trauma responses, emotional numbness / False death / burned body imagery / Religious cult themes / Grief, survivor’s guilt, PTSD themes / Explicit sexual content (PIV, double creampie, desperate/reunion sex/ Dacryphilia? Praise kink?) / Sexual content while grieving / Strong language / profanity.
Author's note: Seriously, if you can't handle angst, don't read this — it's pretty intense. I'm still a bit unsure about fitting so much into one part. I fear that that may have stripped it of all the tension, cliffhangers, and blah blah, but let me know what you all think. This is roughly 10% fluff, 50% angst, and 40% smut. And honestly, I'm quite proud of the smut I wrote, hehehe. I promised smut in the last part, and I am a woman of my word (I'm ovulating, so that's why it's filthy). BUT THIS IS SO LONG, WTF — every post I make gets longer than the last. Also, the rage I’m harbouring right now is unhealthy. I stayed up all night writing this, and it didn't save, so I had to use an old draft. Real ones would have seen the og post being posted at an unduly hour and deleted right after cause it was the wrong version. Anyway, this will never be as good as the original one I had, but whatever. I think I’ve just been trying to perfect this so much that I’ve grown tired of the story. I tried my best to make itly thorough, but I cba doing 5 or 6 part series, so deal with it. Anyway, erm, enjoy. 🔫 Good luck reading this, honestly, but if you do manage to get through it, please let me know what you think! If you want a part 3 or maybe I should just stick to one-shots, lol. rushed, be real
The sky was beginning to soften at the edges, that pale pink glow creeping over the tops of the houses like an afterthought. Alexandria was quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t feel like peace. It felt like absence.
Carol had barely slept. She’d tried—curled up on the couch with a half-read book in one hand and Dani’s head pressed against her chest—but every creak in the house made her sit upright. Every gust of wind that whispered against the windows made her turn her head. They were supposed to be back by nightfall.
They weren’t.
She told herself a hundred reasons why. A blocked path. A long shot. An overnight holdout. Nothing she hadn’t done herself. But as the night stretched longer, those excuses stopped fitting right.
The sun was just beginning to rise when the barking started.
Frantic, erratic barking.
Carol was already on her feet by the time she registered the sound. She crossed to the front window first, peeking through the curtains, her hand resting instinctively near the blade at her hip. Behind her, Dani still slept on the couch, curled on her side with one arm flung over her stuffed giraffe.
Carol hesitated, casting a glance back at the girl. Quietly, she moved to her side, brushing a few strands of hair from Dani’s face. The child didn’t stir.
Then the barking came again—sharper now, urgent.
Carol straightened, her pulse catching. She moved to the door.
Then she saw him—Dog—barreling through the gate, his paws kicking up dust, his fur slick with sweat and burrs. He didn’t stop for anything. Not the gate, not the guard. He bee-lined for the house like he had something to say and no way to say it.
Carol’s blood went cold.
“Shit.”
The door creaked open behind her.
“Is it them?” Dani’s voice, soft and raspy, still half-asleep. She stood in the hallway, holding her little giraffe toy by the neck, her hair mussed and face creased from the pillow.
Carol turned, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s Dog, sweetheart. He came home.”
Dani blinked up at her, confusion flickering in her features.
“But—where’s Mama?”
Dog let out a sharp bark then, circling back toward the gate as if expecting someone else to follow. When no one did, he whined—just once—and laid down at Dani’s feet, panting hard.
The moment stretched too long.
Dani’s little voice cracked.
“Where’s Daddy?”
Carol crouched slowly, gathering the girl into her arms. Dani didn’t cry. Not yet. But her lip wobbled, and her little fists clenched in Carol’s shirt like she already knew. Carol closed her eyes against the rising sun and whispered into Dani’s hair.
“We’re gonna find them, sweetie. I promise.”
------
The clang of the iron doors echoed louder than it should have. Morning haze burned off above, revealing a sunken courtyard lined in metal and concrete—an arena. It was crude but intentional, like a forgotten parking lot retrofitted into a coliseum. Creed soldiers stood posted on ledges above, rifles in hand, their blank stares as chilling as the frost in the air.
You and Daryl were led in side by side, wrists still raw from rope burns, flanked by two guards whose silence felt more threatening than any shout. Marshal waited at the far end, leaning against a pillar like he owned the damn sky. “Welcome to the next phase of your integration,” he said with a smirk. “Time to see what you’re really made of.”
Daryl’s eyes scanned over the crpowd and landed back on Marshal; “the hell does that mean?”
Marshal didn’t flinch. He only smiled—a small, patient expression that suggested he’d been waiting for Daryl to ask.
“What it means,” he said, tone steady and deliberate as his eyes flicked from Daryl to you, “is that we’re gonna see whether the two of you are built for survival, or just lucked your way this far.”
Daryl’s posture shifted—shoulders drawn tight, chin lifted ever so slightly. He didn’t blink. Didn’t speak.
“You both say you’re not part of any community,” Marshal continued, stepping in closer, voice still calm but now laced with something colder, meaner. “You say you’ve got no ties, no attachments, no liabilities. Well, we’re about to test that. See how deep that independence really goes.”
He made a vague gesture to the empty space in the center of the pit, and only then did you notice the chalk ring, faint but deliberate, drawn onto the dusty floor. A makeshift arena.
“Rules are simple,” Marshal said, glancing back at the onlookers gathering behind the barricades. “You step into the ring. You fight. No weapons. No kills. Just enough to show us you can survive without sentiment.”
His eyes landed squarely on you. “Win, and you prove you’re valuable to The Creed.”
Then to Daryl, his smirk returning. “Lose… and you prove you’re not.”
Daryl took a step forward, his voice dropping low with that same dry, dangerous rasp that never needed to be raised to hit like a bullet. “You want us to fight each other?”
Marshal didn’t answer at first. He let the silence stretch, enjoying the crackling tension like a man toasting marshmallows over an open fire. Then, with an infuriating shrug: “You said you’re strangers. Shouldn’t matter.”
You exhaled slowly, eyes sweeping the chalk ring, then up to Daryl.
He looked like he was staring down a bull, not his goddamn wife.
Daryl’s boots scraped against the dirt as he stepped into the ring with the stiffness of a man preparing for an execution—his own, not yours. His body moved like it didn’t want to, like every muscle was strung tight and on the verge of snapping. You tilted your head, watching him with a slow grin, even as your stomach coiled into knots.
You lowered your voice to a whisper only he could hear. “C’mon, Dixon. You’ve been waitin’ to knock me on my ass for years. Now, sack up and hit your wife already!”
His glare cut sideways. “Ain’t funny woman.”
“No,” you muttered back, cracking your knuckles, “but if you don’t swing at me in the next thirty seconds, this whole charade is gonna fall through.”
Around you, the crowd pressed in like vultures, a mess of hushed chants and boots grinding on dirt. Marshal stood still at the edge of the ring, arms crossed, unimpressed. His eyes were sharp, hungry for weakness, waiting for blood.
“Hit me,” you hissed. “Make it look good.”
Daryl looked like he wanted to argue—of course, he did—but then his jaw twitched and his shoulders rolled back, and suddenly he was moving. You ducked the first lunge, then let him catch you on the second, his grip firm but careful as he shoved you backward just hard enough to send you sprawling with a theatrical grunt.
You landed on your back, winded only by the sheer performance of it, then popped up fast and grinned like the world’s cockiest fox. “That’s the spirit, baby.”
He shook his head once, biting back a smirk.
You circled him again, letting your feet slide through the dust as you closed the distance. Then—without warning—you leapt forward and tackled him.
The crowd gasped. So did Daryl.
He landed hard, and you were on top before he could blink, straddling him with your knees locked against his sides. One hand went for his throat—not to crush, just enough to push his head back into the dirt, your body draped low enough that your lips brushed his ear as you murmured, hot and slow, “Ooh, gettin’ déjà vu, baby.”
His breath hitched. You felt it more than you heard it.
You leaned in closer, still whispering, still completely out of pocket. “Y’know, if this is what it takes to spice things up, we should fight in front of a cult more often.”
All joking aside, the last thing you two needed was for things to ‘spice up’ in the bedroom. Daryl’s eyes flashed, and in one fluid motion, he flipped the two of you over. It wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t even dominant. It was like his body did it on instinct, like the muscle memory of being with you overrode every ounce of caution.
He straddled you now, both of you panting, faces close, his giant hand going to your throat to give the illusion he was choking you now. Now you were the one getting Deja vu - for one suspended second, the world dropped away.
His palm hovered at your throat, barely brushing it, thumb ghosting the pulse there—not enough to leave a mark, not even close, but enough to look convincing to the frothing crowd around you.
Then he murmured low, voice rough and electric: “Keep talkin’, woman, and we’re gonna give the whole Creed a show.”
You snorted under your breath, “thought that was the plan.” You reached up and grabbed his wrist, eyes wild with mock fury, and hissed, “Well, this is familiar.”
His whole body tensed.
“You tryna get me killed?” he rasped low through clenched teeth, voice almost drowned out by the chant rising from the circle around you—“Fight, fight, fight!”—as boots stomped rhythmically against the dirt.
You batted your lashes, whispered, “You love it.”
Then you kneed him in the side—not hard, not enough to do damage, just enough to get him to roll. You broke apart in a scramble of limbs, dirt smearing across your cheek as you rolled to your feet, breathing hard, brushing your hair from your face in a single, showy sweep.
Daryl was up just as fast, crouched low, boots spread, that predator stance of his back in full force. His eyes flicked to you, then around the ring, then back again.
He wasn’t enjoying this. But to his credit, he was playing along.
You gave him a cocky wink and charged again, this time twisting mid-run so he couldn’t catch you outright. You ducked beneath his arms, spun behind him, and hoisted yourself up using his shoulders. Your legs swung around to lock around his neck. The momentum of your movements and your added weight brought him crumbling down to the ground, your iron grip not faltering.
The crowd hollered like it was a strip show. Your thighs were still locked around his neck, not crushing at all. Daryl would happily fall asleep like this if it weren’t for the angry mob surrounding the two of you. You grinned down at him, all sugar and sin. “That reminds me, actually,” you purred, angling your hips for dramatic flair. “—you still owe me for that bet yesterday, Dixon. And I’m thinkin’ this counts as double interest. I’m thinking maybe me on top and then-”
You didn’t get to finish the sentence.
Daryl’s hands shot up and dug mercilessly into your ribs—that precise spot he knew that gets you every time..
“Daryl!” you screeched, your legs faltering as your grip broke under the betrayal. That asshole was tickling you. You twisted, half laughing, half furious, trying to wriggle free, but he rolled with you, fluid as a predator, and the next thing you knew, Daryl was straddling you again, his face flushed, his breath warm and smug on your cheek.
“You fight dirty,” you gasped, still squirming.
He leaned down, pinning your wrists to the earth. “Learned from the best.”
The crowd roared its approval behind him—none the wiser to the fact that your brutal, breathless brawl had just taken a sharp detour into foreplay.
You were still breathless beneath him when his eyes flicked toward the growing crowd—some of them cheering, some confused, and one or two looking suspiciously too entertained. Marshal’s expression was unreadable, but his arms were crossed, and that never meant anything good.
Daryl must’ve felt the change in the air too, because the next thing you knew, he was gripping your waist and lifting you clean off the ground.
Your yelp turned into a squeal of half-genuine panic as he hauled you upright, holding you like a goddamn ragdoll in some bastardised wrestling move you were almost sure he learned from watching you and Judith play WWE.
Your legs kicked slightly in protest, your hands scrabbling for purchase on his shoulders, and your voice came out a little more shrill than intended;“Don’t drop me, Dixon. Not in front of my fans!”
Then you flipped backwards off him, hitting the ground in a clean roll that had half the crowd gasping and the other half cheering like they’d just watched a WWE pay-per-view. You let the momentum carry you into a crouch, then sprang up with a fake jab that Daryl dodged with practised ease, his eyes tracking you the way a storm watches a matchstick flame.
“Sell it,” you hissed when your face passed his. “Hit me like you mean it, or I will break your nose. For real.”
He growled low. “Ain’t hittin’ you.”
“Then throw me again, you stubborn bastard.”
He did. He swooped you up and dropped you dramatically—but with enough control that you hit the ground in a well-rehearsed tumble, landing on your side with a grunt that made it look real. He crouched beside you instantly, all faux menace and steady hands.
You stayed down for a beat—long enough to convince the watchers you were down for good—then moved.
Not fast. Explosive.
Your legs hooked behind his knees, yanked hard, and Daryl hit the dirt with a grunt of surprise, his fall cushioned only slightly by instinct.
The crowd reacted immediately—cheers, hollers, a few startled laughs—and you were already scrambling over him, straddling his chest before he could fully register what just happened. You raised your elbow in the air, giving Daryl the signal—a silent cue only the two of you would catch—and started ‘punching’ him with exaggerated flair. He played along, grunting like you were knocking the sense out of him, head snapping to the side each time your fist made theatrical contact.
Each blow was sold like a soap opera brawl, complete with breathy snarls and eye rolls, until the crowd started eating it up. Somewhere near the front, someone shouted, “Finish him!” and you gave a little wink like you might.
“C’mon, baby,” you muttered under your breath between ‘hits,’ keeping your expression fierce for the audience but your voice low just for him. “Gimme some sound effects or they're gonna think you're a bottom.”
He groaned dramatically in reply—part pain, part exasperation. “Remind me never to piss you off for real.”
You raised a brow. “You say that every time.”
Then you threw another punch, complete with an over-the-top snarl, and this time he flopped sideways, one arm sprawled out like you’d just KO’d him in a Vegas ring.
You leaned back, arms raised in mock victory like a bloodthirsty crowd champion. The Creed audience roared.
Then, just to seal the deal, you grabbed his shirt, hauled him up halfway—then headbutted him.
Not hard. Just enough to send him reeling backward in shock, the motion letting you roll smoothly off him like you’d planned it all along.
The Creed crowd loved it. They erupted, hooting and clapping, some banging fists against whatever passed for a makeshift wall. A few even started chanting something unintelligible, just thrilled by the show of violence.
Marshal didn’t look thrilled.
You circled Daryl as he sat up slowly, rubbing his temple and blinking like someone had just unplugged him from a simulation.
“That one was for the hickey you gave me right before council meeting last week, asshole.” you said sweetly, brushing fake dust off your pants.
“Cmon Dixon get up,” you barked, pacing like a feral thing now. “I swear to God, if I have to carry this whole scene myself, I want a cut of the ticket sales.”
He struck first—predictable. A sharp, looping jab aimed to rattle, not bruise. You ducked with a twist of your neck, caught his wrist mid-swing, and used his own weight to spin him in place, your boot skidding in the dust as you leveraged his momentum and shoved him shoulder-first into the ground.
But he rolled with it, literally, came up on one knee already moving, and this time it was you dodging a backhand that would’ve blacked your eye. He didn’t hesitate—not because he meant it, but because the crowd didn’t know he didn’t.
You kicked high. He caught it mid-air. Smirked. What an asshole.
You bent with the held leg and launched your other foot at his chest. He stumbled—more from surprise than force—and you dropped into a crouch, one hand finding the dirt. He didn't waste any time and lunged again.
You met him halfway—no wasted motion, no theatrics. Just two bodies colliding with the precision of old instincts. You traded blows: elbow to ribs, forearm to throat, the twist of his fingers catching your braid before you slammed your palm into his stomach and flipped him clean over your shoulder.
He hit the ground hard. You followed, straddling him yet again, making sure to keep him pinned to the ground.
And then—your faces aligned. Close. Breath mingling. His mouth twitched.
“Think Marshal’s buyin’ it?”
“Think I’m gonna lose my damn mind,” he muttered, gritting his teeth as his hands gripped your thighs too tight to be innocent.
You sat up on him, pinning his shoulders with your knees, then pretended to throw a punch—only to pause mid-air and flash a sickly sweet smile down at him.
“Smile for the crowd, baby.”
The crowd was howling now. Half of them were ready to crown you queen of this dirt-pit, the other half probably needed a cold shower. It didn’t matter. You were selling it.
And then came the whisper: “Ready to end it?”
Daryl gave you the faintest nod.
You feinted a punch to his side—he read it, blocked—and that’s exactly what you wanted. You twisted your arm in his grip, used the torque to propel your body up, and flipped yourself over his shoulder in a tight, ruthless arc. His grip slipped. His balance shattered. He staggered back, just for a breath—and that’s all you needed.
You ran straight for him.
A short sprint. Three steps. You jumped.
Your boot planted on his thigh, then his shoulder, and in a blur of motion you vaulted off him—body spinning in the air, twisting behind him like a goddamn storm—and brought him down with a brutal scissor-kick to the back of the neck.
He hit the ground hard. Wind knocked out. Face-down in the dust.
And before the crowd could blink, you were on him—foot planted between his shoulder blades, hand gripping his wrist, pulling his arm behind his back in a vicious, joint-lock hold. You leaned low, whispering just for him.
"You good? Ready for the big finale yet?"
His breathe studdered from beneath you; "thought that was the finale-"
The crowd was eating it up now, hollering, whooping, even laughing in scattered bursts. But Marshal didn’t look amused. His jaw was tight, his arms still folded.
That moment of connection flickered between you and Daryl—something hot and dangerous beneath the surface—and just as quickly, you broke it. You rolled, forcing him off, staggering to your feet with a limp you barely sold.
“Round two?” you rasped, catching your breath.
Daryl grunted, getting to his feet with a glare that was more fond than furious. “You’re an asshole.”
“You married me,” you said sweetly. “Suck it up.”
From the edge of the crowd, Marshal’s voice sliced through the tension like a blade.
“Enough.”
Marshal’s voice split the air like a bullet, slicing clean through the chaos with the kind of finality that didn’t invite argument. The shift was instant. The onlookers, once rowdy and riled with bloodlust, fell into a jarring silence—uneasy, expectant. Like they’d just sensed a storm rolling in.
You froze mid-step, chest rising with sharp, shallow breaths, hands still half-raised in your theatrical stance. Across from you, Daryl was already watching Marshal like a hound scenting something foul, his posture rigid, fists clenched tight at his sides.
Marshal stepped into the ring slowly, arms folded, his boots dragging dust over the edge of the chalk line like he was crossing into holy ground. He didn’t look amused. Didn’t look impressed. He looked tired of the performance.
“That was cute,” he said, his voice low and stripped of inflection. “Entertaining, even. But this ain’t a circus.”
He nodded toward the edge of the crowd, toward one of the waiting soldiers.
“We need soldiers.”
Then, eyes fixed on Daryl, he added: “You’ve been benched.”
Daryl blinked once, slow. “The fuck does that mean?”
Marshal’s mouth twitched—not a smile, not quite. “Means you're out. She needs a real fight - with someone who can actually keep up.”
You didn’t see the snap. You felt it.
Daryl stepped forward fast, body tight as wire, his voice a rasp of fury that cut clean through the space between you. “Fuck that.”
The crowd shifted like a tide turning—weapons twitched, fingers hovered near triggers, boots repositioned subtly for tension.
Marshal didn’t even blink. “Stand down,” he said, calm as poison. “Unless you wanna be executed for insubordination.”
Daryl didn’t move at first. His shoulders rose and fell with shallow, furious breath. His eyes never left Marshal’s.
That’s when you stepped in—just your eyes, one sharp look. Enough.
It didn’t say please. It said: Don’t you fucking dare. You’ll get us both killed.
His jaw clenched. You could practically hear the bones grind. But he stepped back—barely. One foot, then the other, like he had to pry himself away from the fight inch by inch.
You didn’t thank him. There wasn’t time.
You turned back toward the center as the new opponent stepped into the ring. One of Marshal’s men—a tall, wiry bastard with a sunken mouth and cracked knuckles. No theatrics. No grin. Just the cold, blank expression of someone who liked to hurt and had been given permission to do so.
He circled you like a vulture, eyes narrowed, head tilted slightly, studying the angle of your stance the way a butcher sizes up a carcass before the cut. You didn’t smile. You didn’t wink. No playful mask this time. You just rolled your neck until it cracked like splitting wood, dropped your weight low into your hips, and squared your shoulders as if made of stone.
Marshal gave the nod.
He didn’t wait. He didn’t feint. He lunged like he meant to kill.
His fist tore through the air with the speed of a blade. You dodged—barely—the wind of it rushing past your temple, but the elbow followed fast, and that one landed with surgical precision, driving up beneath your ribs so hard your vision flashed white at the edges. You didn’t fall. You couldn’t. You swallowed the pain like gravel in your throat, gritted your teeth, and met him halfway with a sweep of your leg that caught his ankle and knocked him off-balance. But he was fast—too fast—and his recovery was brutal. A sharp kick drove into your thigh, the kind that bypassed muscle and hit deep in the bone.
Daryl flinched on the sidelines, his fists clenched so tightly the veins bulged white along his arms. You didn’t dare look at him. Couldn’t afford to. One glance would undo the dam inside you, and right now, rage was the only thing keeping you standing.
You drove your fist into the man’s side, followed with a right hook. He stumbled but didn’t drop. He came at you again, heavier this time, his full weight behind each strike. You blocked with your forearms, tried to deflect what you couldn’t match, but the next hit came low and fast—his shoulder ramming into your chest like a battering ram—and it sent you sprawling.
You hit the dirt hard—hard enough that the breath tore out of you and something inside your shoulder screamed. His full weight had slammed you down, and your left arm was twisted awkwardly beneath your body, caught between bone and earth.
The pain hit instantly, flooding your entire side like molten lava.
A sharp, wet pop echoed beneath your skin—ugly, unnatural. Your shoulder socket tore free on impact, the joint wrenching loose with the kind of blinding agony that didn’t wait for movement. It was dislocated - there was no doubt about it. You felt it. You heard it.
Your scream didn’t make it past your teeth. You bit down so hard you felt the skin split in your mouth, tasted copper, refused to let anything escape.
Across the pit, Daryl moved—just half a step, just a flicker—but it was a full-body jolt, like watching a dam crack under pressure. His mouth opened, words shoved through clenched teeth. “Call it,” he barked. “That’s enough.”
Marshal didn’t even glance at him. Didn’t blink. Just kept his eyes on you like he was watching a fire that hadn’t quite burned out yet.
You forced yourself to your feet with one arm, the other limp and heavy at your side, and you saw it—Daryl saw it—the shift in your body, the unnatural sag of your shoulder, the way your dominant side refused to lift. His lips parted again like he was about to shout something worse, something final, but your eyes caught his.
Don’t.
Your opponent didn’t wait for the pain to settle. He grabbed your wrist—your good one thank god—and yanked. You pivoted with the force, used his own momentum to slam your foot into his stomach, hard enough to make him buckle. Then you spun low, your good elbow jamming into his back with a crunch that reverberated through your bones. He snarled, twisted—grabbed a handful of your hair and yanked your head back with a vicious jerk.
That was his mistake.
You drove your skull backward, slammed it into his face, and the sound it made—the crunch of cartilage, the sudden rush of wet breath—wasn’t just satisfying, it was necessary. His nose exploded under the impact, blood streaking down over his lip.
You didn’t pause. Couldn’t. You dropped into a half-crouch and launched yourself up off your planted hand, flipped mid-air like muscle memory had kicked in before your brain could stop it, ankles locking around his neck in a move stolen straight from a dirtier, hungrier kind. He had no time to react. Your weight pulled him off his feet, and both of you hit the ground hard, limbs tangled, his body slamming into the dirt beneath yours.
But this time you didn’t straddle him for show.
This was for survival.
Your knees pinned his shoulders. You reared back, drove your foot into his outer thigh once, twice—three times. You felt the tissue twitch under the impact, felt his leg jerk in response. He twisted, tried to buck you off, but you rode it out, kept your weight low, your good hand curled into a fist ready to drive into his temple if you were given the chance.
You couldn’t kill him.
But God, you wanted to.
You rocked your weight forward and pivoted, stepping back just long enough to wind up and bring your heel down hard on his knee with a crack that sounded like dry wood snapping in a bonfire. The scream that followed wasn’t human. He writhed beneath you, hand clawing at the dirt, but it was too late. That leg was gone. Karma's a bitch I guess.
The crowd recoiled. Gasps. Silence. One or two even clapped.
You stood tall, chest heaving, blood pounding in your ears, your arm hanging limp and useless at your side while your good hand curled into a trembling fist. You stared down at the man—sobbing, wheezing, gripping what used to be his knee—and felt no pity. No triumph. Only the endless, gnawing ache of restraint.
Because you could have ended him. Easily. You’d wanted to. But you didn't - that was your mercy.
Silence. No cheers. No chants. No roaring applause. Just stillness—unnatural and smothering, like the crowd itself had inhaled and forgotten how to let go. Dust settled in the space between heartbeats. Your chest heaved, your arm hung dead at your side, and across the pit, Daryl stood frozen, shoulders coiled tight as wire, one hand half-lifted like he might’ve moved to catch you if he could.
Marshal didn’t speak right away. He let the silence ferment, let it sting. His boots crunched slowly across the chalk ring, measured, unhurried, each step deliberate enough to curdle the air. Then, with a faint, deliberate click of tongue against teeth, he offered a slow round of applause. Not dramatic. Not mocking. Just three sharp, echoing claps, spaced apart like rifle shots.
“Well,” he said at last, voice easy and quiet, like he was remarking on the weather. “Wasn’t how I saw that going.”
You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. The fire in your shoulder had gone from burning to throbbing, every thud in your chest sending a pulse of white-hot pain down your side. You felt like you were going to pass out if you moved wrong. If you breathed wrong.
Daryl’s hand clenched into a fist, then relaxed again—barely. His stance had shifted. He wasn’t just watching you now; he was watching Marshal, watching every soldier on the ledge, watching the curve of a rifle barrel as though one might twitch the wrong way at any moment.
Marshal tilted his head, just slightly, toward the man groaning in the dirt behind you. “Shame about the leg,” he muttered, almost to himself.
Then he drew his pistol.
The gunshot cracked through the air so suddenly, so violently close, that you didn’t hear it as much as feel it—like the sound tore through your ribs and rattled loose something in your spine. For a half-second, you were certain it was meant for you. Or maybe Daryl. Maybe both of you. Your breath caught somewhere high in your throat, chest seizing as every nerve braced for impact.
You flinched hard, your body twisting on instinct, and your left arm—the one already half-dead from the dislocation—jerked with the motion. Agony exploded through your side like shrapnel, so sharp and bright it turned your vision white. You bit back a scream, but Daryl’s sharp inhale carried across the ring like a warning bell, ragged and raw enough to cut glass.
Your knees buckled slightly, though you caught yourself before you hit the ground. For a moment, everything was too still. Too quiet. Your ears rang. Your heart thundered. And then your gaze fell to the dirt just feet in front of you—where the man you’d just fought now lay sprawled, motionless, a dark hole torn clean through the side of his head. Blood spread fast beneath him, seeping into the dry dust in rivulets that caught the firelight and made them shine like rubies.
Marshal holstered the pistol without fanfare. “Wounded is weakness,” he said simply. “Weakness corrupts.”
Your legs nearly buckled again, not from the throb in your shoulder or the lingering ache in your spine, but from something colder—something that wrapped around your ribs like a vice and refused to let go, because the truth of what had just happened was settling in, and it wasn’t shock or horror that filled your chest, but something far more damning.
You had killed him.
Inadvertently so, but it didn't change the brutal fact that it had been him or you, and you weren’t ready to be the one left bleeding in the dirt.
He was a Creed loyalist. You were a mother. A wife.
And in that split-second where the gun cracked through the air like thunder, your mind hadn’t registered fear for him, or sorrow for what you’d done—it had simply braced itself for the recoil that never came, for the pain that never followed, for the death that had passed you by.
You stared at the body crumpled in the sand, at the unnatural stillness of it, the blood that painted the earth like it had always belonged there, and what haunted you most wasn’t the sound of the shot or the look in his eyes—it was the sick, echoing awareness that you didn’t feel hollow.
You didn’t feel anything—no horror, no relief—just the slow, creeping realization that if it came down to it again, if it wer him or you, you wouldn’t hesitate. You wouldn’t flinch. You’d let it happen. Maybe even make it happen. ; because you had a daughter who still needed her mother alive, and a husband who fought tooth and nail for his wife. And that truth settled over your skin like ash—quiet, heavy, and irreversible.
The pit was still silent. You weren’t sure if anyone dared breathe.
Marshal's gaze returned to you.
It wasn’t a leer. Wasn’t kind. Just slow. Calculating. His eyes swept your frame like he was scanning for rot—one shoulder slumped too low, one hand curled and unmoving, blood at the corner of your mouth from where you’d bitten it to keep from screaming.
“Any injuries?” he asked, tone casual.
Your heart seized. The pain made it hard to think, hard to breathe, but you knew the answer had to be immediate.
“No,” you said too fast, eyes dropping to the ground, shame and fear twisting your voice into something thinner than it should’ve been. “No. I’m fine.”
Marshal watched you too long. Not suspicious—just curious. Like he was cataloguing you. Taking stock of what you’d held back. Then his head tipped slightly, just enough to signal his next move.
“You two. Report to the Commander,” he said, his voice slicing clean across the pit, cold and administrative now. “He’ll want to see you.”
Daryl’s body tensed beside you, still wired like a sprung trap, but he nodded once. Sharp. Controlled. You could feel the fire building in his bones. Not because of the command, but because of the fact that your arm was hanging loose at your side and your poker face was uncanny.
As the guards stepped forward to begin herding the crowd back, you let your eyes drift toward the smoke trail of Marshal’s pistol and then to the far end of the ring—where a group of lower-ranked soldiers stood clustered in loose formation, eyes flicking between the corpse, Marshal, and the two of you. One of them looked away when your eyes met. Another stepped aside, just slightly, like making room for you to pass. No one was watching too closely anymore.
You sipped to the edge of the gathering just as Daryl turned to follow one of the guards up toward the next gate, never once glancing your way, even though you knew—you knew—his eyes were screaming beneath the stillness.
You ducked around the side of a crumbling support wall, slipping through a narrow break in the concrete where the scaffolding hadn’t been finished. Your boots skidded briefly on loose gravel. You bit your lip hard, tears stabbing behind your eyes as the motion jarred your shoulder, but you didn’t stop.
No one called after you. No one shouted. If someone noticed, they said nothing.
You had 5 minutes, maybe less.
Enough time to get somewhere dark, somewhere hidden, somewhere you could scream into your arm without bringing the whole goddamn Creed down on your head.
You moved deeper into the scaffolding, away from the noise, slipping between beams and bent steel until the arena sounds faded into something thinner—just the wind brushing through the open concrete and your own shaky breaths trailing behind.
It wasn’t far, but it felt like another planet. Quiet. Empty. A half-built service hall, roofless, shadows crawling long across the dust. You found a corner where the walls curved in on themselves, and you sank there, back pressed against the cold steel, boots scuffing the dirt as you slid down to the floor.
You hadn’t realized how hard you were shaking until you stopped moving.
Your arm was screaming now, not just pain but heat—throbbing, swollen, wrong. You could feel the joint hanging half-loose, the weight of your own arm pulling against the socket like a torture device. The adrenaline had worn off, and now your body was just a cage of nerves and fire.
You took a deep breath. Braced your heel. Gripped your wrist with your good hand.
And pulled.
The scream punched out of you before you could swallow it down. Short. Raw. Half-choked. It echoed against the hollow scaffolding like a flare, and your vision went white for a second, head spinning with nausea and heat.
Panic bloomed sharp in your chest.
You’d just made a sound. Too loud. Too much. Too exposed.
You scrambled back, heartbeat pounding, breath caught in your throat as footsteps crunched fast across gravel. Heavy boots. No time to hide. No time to fake it.
You pressed yourself tighter to the wall, back teeth clenched, heart climbing higher up your throat—until the figure rounded the bend.
And it was Daryl.
You sagged.
Just a little. Just enough for the fear to break and relief to roll in like a tide. Your whole body slumped toward him, breath catching on something ragged.
“Shh. Just me,” he said finally, voice low and soft, rough with unshed fury and held-back comfort.
You gave a small, broken laugh that tasted like tears.
He reached for you—so gently, like his hands didn’t quite believe they were allowed to touch you. When you didn’t flinch, he pressed his fingers to the edge of your shoulder, light as a feather. His jaw clenched.
“Shit, baby,” he murmured.
You nodded, swallowing hard.
“Were you tryin' ta fix' that on your own?” he muttered, voice fraying at the edges as his eyes swept over your face, then your posture, taking in the tension, the sweat, the way your lip was nearly bitten through. “Jesus, you coulda made it worse—why the hell didn’t you wait for me?”
You couldn’t look at him. Not right away. Not when your body was still fighting not to scream.
“I didn’t want them to see,” you managed, the words small, ragged, sharp-edged with pain and something like shame. “You saw what happened to that guy back there. All cause of his leg-" The pain was so overbearing it was heard to get out a full sentence, not without pausing to take a shallow breath. "Fuck, I definitely made it worse."
Daryl let out a slow, quiet exhale, and then his eyes met yours again—steady, grounding, blue like dusk. His hand brushed against your waist, tentative.
“Gotta take a closer look, alright?” he motioned at your shirt, silently asking if he could take the thing off of you.
You didn’t hesitate. You nodded.
You trusted him more than you trusted the ground under your feet.- why he still was nervous about asing to take your shirt off was beyond you.
He moved closer, his hands going to the flannel shirt they’d thrown at you that morning. It was two sizes too big, probably belonged to someone long dead, and stiff with dirt and dried sweat. He undid the buttons with slow, careful fingers, peeling it away from your skin to get a better look at the damage beneath.
His breath hitched. The joint was swollen to hell. The skin already bruised, tinged ugly with purple and red.
“Fucker got ya good, baby,” he whispered, so low you barely caught it.
You just leaned your forehead against his chest, letting the smell of him wrap around you—blood, dirt, smoke, and Daryl.
His arms were already enveloping your frame in preperation. One hand braced against your ribs, the other settling over your bruised skin..
“Alright,” he muttered, voice like gravel but softer than you’d ever heard it. “I need ya relaxed, okay? Just breathe. Ain’t gonna lie, this’s gonna suck. But after, it’ll be a lot better.”
"That's what she said," You chuckled.
He froze.
Just for a second.
Then his brow ticked, his jaw twitched, and he gave you a look so flat, so utterly unimpressed, it might’ve knocked the pain right out of your body if looks could cauterize.
“Really?” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face like he regretted every life decision that led him to this moment. “You got one shoulder hangin’ by a thread, and that’s what you open your damn mouth for?”
But there was a flicker behind the irritation, something small and warm. The barest quirk at the edge of his mouth that betrayed him completely.
He shook his head, more fond than annoyed now, and positioned himself at your side again.
“Fine. You wanna joke through this, go on. Whatever floats yur boat.”
Your smirk faltered just a little.
He leaned closer.
“Deep breath, baby.”
You nodded again, squeezing your eyes shut, trusting him in a way that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with the way his hands held you like you were breakable, even when you’d just broken someone else’s leg.
“Alright, on three. One. Two—”
A white-hot bolt of pain tore through your shoulder before he could even say three. You cried out, breath caught halfway between a scream and a sob, but the pain stopped almost as soon as it came, replaced by a deep, nauseating throb—and a sudden, shocking relief.
It was back in.
You collapsed against him, arm limp but whole again, sweat beading on your brow. Daryl pulled you into his lap like it was second nature, one arm wrapping around your back, the other cradling your head like he needed the contact just as much as you did. He didn’t say much, just cooed you, small mumbles like ‘you’re alright,’ repeating it over and over until it would hopefully become true. He held you. Rocked you. Pressed his face into your hair and let the silence stretch between you like a blanket.
His fingers moved in slow, steady circles across your spine. He didn’t pull away, didn’t break character, didn’t speak any of the thousand things you could feel hammering behind his ribs.
He just stayed. Because sometimes that was the only thing left to give.
And you took it, without question, curling into him like a heartbeat—quiet, wrecked, and tethered to the only safe thing you had left in this godforsaken place.
You just let him hold you, your body curled into his like muscle memory, every tremor in your limbs answered by the steady rock of his hand over your thigh, his thumb brushing soft patterns through the dirt-smudged fabric. His other hand moved in slow circles through your hair, catching every knot and strand with the same reverence he might give a prayer.
But eventually, you felt your voice claw its way up.
It came out broken. Nasal. Thick with exhaustion. Your face was buried in his chest, cheek sticky with sweat and tears, and still you said it, soft and raw like confession.
“…It’s gonna get a whole lot worse than this, isn’t it?”
Daryl didn’t answer at first.
He just kept stroking your thigh, hand tightening slightly like he could hold the pain in place, contain it in the spaces between your skin and his palm. His fingers threaded through your hair again, a little slower now, dragging the weight of the moment down with them.
Then, voice low, gravelled at the edges, more breath than sound: “Yep.”
Your hand drifted, almost without thought, to your ring finger—a reflex you’d picked up when things got dark, when you needed the comfort of copper pressed against your skin like a vow you could still touch. But your fingers met only bare flesh, and the absence struck with the sharp, sick shock of dislocation—like your shoulder popping loose all over again, but this time deeper.
Daryl noticed it too.
“Hey,” he said softly, catching your hand in his calloused grip. His thumb brushed over your knuckles, slow and steady. “It’s just a ring, alright? Don’t matter.”
You looked up at him, your throat tight, tears stinging hot at the corners of your eyes. “No, it’s not,” you said, your voice raw and a little cracked. “It wasn't just a ring and you know it.”
He took your hand gently, rough fingers curling around yours like a promise he didn’t know how else to keep. Then, without a word, he lifted it to his lips and kissed the place where your ring used to be.
“No, it don’t matter,” he murmured, voice thick, his breath warm against your skin. “I’m yours. Always been. Always will. Don’t need no jewellery tellin’ ya that.”
You looked up at him, eyes glassy, lashes trembling with the weight of everything you couldn’t say. It wasn’t that you didn’t believe him—you did. You just missed the ring. Missed what it stood for. The copper band he’d forged by hand. The night he gave it to you, asking you to be his even when the world had gone to hell. And now… it was like it never happened.
“Fine. I’ll getcha another one. I'll make ya... a hundred more rings,” he said quietly, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Each one better than the last.”
That managed to crack a smile—small, but real. The kind that pulls from someplace deeper than your pain.
“I love you,” you whispered, the words barely more than breath.
He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at you for a long second, like he was memorizing the shape of your face, the curve of your lips, the sound of your voice when it said those words and meant them.
Then he leaned in, slow and steady, his mouth brushing yours in a kiss that was less about passion and more about grounding—about staying human.
“Love ya too,” he whispered against your lips.
And even as the ache in your shoulder pulsed like a living thing, even as dread curled low in your stomach for whatever came next, you knew it was true. Maybe you didn't need your ring after all.
_____________
They led you through the winding gut of the compound in silence—stone and metal corridors that stank of wet iron and dust, like a slaughterhouse that’d been hosed down too many times and never properly dried. The guards flanking you didn’t say a word.
Daryl kept close. You could feel him even when you couldn’t look at him—every footstep in rhythm, every muscle in him strung like wire, ready to snap. His hands were balled into fists, jaw twitching, eyes everywhere. Watching every shadow like he expected it to reach out and swallow you whole.
You didn’t speak either. You didn’t need to. The ring finger of your left hand brushed his once, just briefly, the faintest nudge between curled knuckles. He didn’t look at you, but you saw his thumb twitch.
Ahead, a pair of steel doors groaned open. Marshal stood by the threshold, that cracked smirk stitched into his face like bad taxidermy. “Commander’s waiting,” he said. “Let’s not keep him.”
That didn’t sit right. Nothing here ever did, but this felt off. There was no reason for the Commander in all his infinite glory to see you. Not unless you’d either proven yourself… or failed.
You stepped through together.
The room beyond was a brutalist chapel—high ceilings, exposed steel beams, one stained-glass window that’d clearly been stolen from a church long collapsed. Makeshift pews lined the walls, but no one sat. No one spoke.
The Commander stood at the far end, hands clasped behind his back like a preacher. His hair was white—not grey, white—and buzzed down to the skin. His face looked carved from stone, weathered and scarred, but his posture was graceful. Eerily so. Marshal took his place beside him, his mouth bent in the kind of sneer usually reserved for livestock that refused to die quickly.
The Commander smiled. “Welcome.”
Daryl shifted forward a fraction, his body angling just enough to place himself slightly in front of you, protective instinct flaring sharp and silent beneath the surface.
You let your eyes sweep the space again before flicking your gaze back to the Commander, your expression unreadable.
“What is this?” you asked, voice light but laced with bite. “We here for Sunday school or something?”
The Commander’s laugh came easy—too easy. Warm, affable, almost disarming in its sincerity. But it died before it reached his eyes, the sound fading fast into something hollow. Something practiced.
The Commander’s smile barely moved his mouth, a thin line carved with deliberate intent as his gaze swept the room, pausing on each of you with the unnerving stillness of a man who already knew how the next chapter would end.
“This is where the cleansing begins,” he said, the words soft enough to mimic welcome but spoken with the precision of a knife unsheathing. “Don’t worry—we won’t make you sing.”
The quiet that followed was absolute, the kind that coated the inside of your ears like wax, the kind that arrived before pain.
And then it began.
You didn’t see them coming—not at first, not fully—just a flicker in your peripheral vision, the suggestion of motion too fast, too fluid. Two guards emerged from the shadows like teeth from a closed jaw, hands already reaching, already locking in. You barely had time to turn before they were on you, palms pressing hard to the pressure points beneath your arms, nerves struck with deliberate accuracy. Your body spasmed with instinct, not decision, your breath caught mid-inhale as you opened your mouth to shout—
—but another hand was already there, clamping tight over your face, muffling the cry into a useless vibration against their palm.
Daryl’s reaction was immediate.
You felt it before you saw it—the air change, shift, twist. He was across the room in a blink, already moving with that lethal sort of purpose that made everyone else seem slow by comparison, his body weight tipping forward like he was ready to go through bone if that’s what it took.
Your name left his throat like it was being torn out.
He reached for you at the same moment Marshal stepped in.
The club caught Daryl mid-lunge, smashing across his ribs with a thud that sucked the sound out of the space, his body twisting under the impact but not falling. Not yet. He staggered, caught himself, went for them again.
You weren’t passive—not for a second. You twisted, thrashed, drove the back of your head into someone’s nose with a crunch that made your eyes water. One of them cursed, but the grip didn’t break. You tried to wrench free, tried to swing your boot, but they were ready—this wasn’t the first time they’d done this, and your resistance had already been factored in.
Your eyes locked with Daryl’s just as he flung one of the guards off him with a roar that was barely human.
You reached for each other.
Your fingertips brushed.
And then it happened.
A sound split the moment open—sharp, cracking, awful. Pain exploded through your skull, white and absolute.
Your legs went out beneath you.
The world spun. Your stomach flipped once, hard, as the floor rushed up with sickening speed, and for the briefest second, you couldn’t tell which way was up or whether you were even still breathing. The scent of blood and oil and scorched candle wax filled your nose, thick and iron-heavy, as your face hit the concrete.
Daryl saw it all.
And in that instant, something in him snapped.
No words now, only raw fury— Daryl charged forward again, not caring if he bled, not caring if he lived, just needing to reach you. Another blow came, this one to his thigh, staggering him, followed by another to his neck. He kept moving. They swarmed him—two, three, four bodies at once—and still he fought, clawing forward with the kind of desperation that made men legends or corpses.
Then came the strike to the head.
It landed with a sickening thud.
He collapsed without sound.
His last thought was your name, slurred and broken in his mouth.
The final thing either of you saw before the world fell away was the Commander—arms behind his back, posture serene, eyes locked on the two of you as though he’d just clipped the wings off a pair of butterflies and was waiting to see how long they twitched.
____
Pain came first.
It bloomed behind his eyes like a bruise turned inside out, then crawled down his spine, slow and electric, until every nerve felt like a wire left out in a storm.
His skull throbbed. His mouth tasted like rust.
And something heavy was pressing against his chest—like the air itself had thickened, curling around his ribs and refusing to let go.
When Daryl opened his eyes, the world tilted sideways.
The light was low, flickering. Torchlight, maybe. Shadows danced high on cement walls, smearing like oil against cracked plaster. He was on the floor, slumped on his side, hands bound behind him with something rough—coarse rope, already biting into his wrists.
He tried to move. The pain in his ribs answered first. Then his head.
He winced. Gritted his teeth. Memory staggered back into place like a drunk man through a broken door.
You. Your scream. The guards. The Commander. Your body crumpling.
He jerked upright—or tried to. The bindings held. His muscles screamed.
His gaze snapped up, darting around the dim chamber. There was movement ahead. Figures. An open space beyond the iron bars of the room he’d been dumped in—more like a cage, really, though it looked like a repurposed basement. Through the bars, he could see a crowd gathered in front of something… a pit?
No. A fire.
His gut twisted.
Then he saw you.
Time didn’t stop. That would’ve been a mercy.
Instead, it kept moving, slow and brutal, stretching seconds into something foreign as you were dragged forward, knees scraping the dirt, hair tangled around your face, lips parted but silent. You were barely recognisable, head hung low, your body completely limp. You didn’t cry out. Not once. And that should’ve comforted him—should’ve given him something to hold onto. But it didn’t.
Because your silence was the worst part.
Even now, at the end of the world, you were trying to stay strong for him.
He called your name. Didn’t realize he’d done it until someone elbowed him in the gut to shut him up. He tried to fight—jerked against the restraints digging into his wrists—but they kept him pinned like a dog at a slaughterhouse, forced to watch as the Commander stepped forward and spoke the sentence like it was routine.
“No,” he rasped.
No one heard him. He tried to stand again. The rope bit deeper. He staggered, fell hard on one knee, then pushed up anyway, shoulder against the bars, eyes wide and locked.
The Commander stood near the fire, calm and unmoved, hands folded behind his back. One of the figures spoke to him—too quiet to make out—but the reply was crystal clear.
“She was wounded. Weak. It would’ve spread.”
Then the Commander raised his knife.
You didn’t make a sound when they pulled your head back.
Didn’t flinch when the blade touched your throat.
Daryl’s blood ran cold.
“Don’t—” he growled, but his voice cracked, weak with panic and breathless fury. “NO—!”
But it was already done.
In one brutal motion, he sliced your throat, the life spilling from you instantly.
Your body spasmed once, a sharp, instinctive jolt like the soul trying to claw its way back in—but it was too late. Your eyes never left his. Not even as the blood poured from your throat in thick, wet streams, staining your chest, your collar, your life, until it was all he could see. Your knees gave beneath you, trembling, caving, but somehow you didn’t fall right away. You stood there swaying like something still trying to understand what had happened. And then your lips moved—barely—shaping a word without breath. His name. Just his name. The last thing left in you.
And then it was over.
They didn’t let you fall gently.
They seized your body like it was already trash, like it had never been anything sacred, and dragged it across the dirt with no reverence, no pause, no care. And when they cast you into the fire, it wasn’t a ceremony—it was disposal. Like you weren’t someone’s wife. Like you weren’t a mother with a child waiting for you. Like you hadn’t been the one to teach him what love meant.
Daryl didn’t scream.
He roared.
He slammed his shoulder against the bars, again and again, animal and feral, vision blurred from more than pain. It didn’t matter that they beat him again. Didn’t matter that they kicked him down, or that they laughed, or that someone muttered “shoulda killed ‘im too.”
He didn’t stop until he had nothing left.
The flames licked higher, and the stink of burning flesh filled the air.
He watched your body—the one he knew better than his own, the one he’d memorized in pieces: the freckle below your ribs, the old scar on your thigh from before the world ended, the stretch marks across your stomach from carrying the life you made together. The body that curled against him on cold nights and leaned into him when words failed, the body that had carried his daughter into this broken world, arms that held her, lips that kissed the top of her head with the kind of quiet reverence he’d only ever seen in prayer—that body. Yours.
He watched it burn.
The fire didn’t hesitate. It crawled across your clothes like hunger, devouring everything in its path—your legs, your stomach, your chest—until it reached your outstretched hand. The same hand that had stroked his hair. The hand that had wiped his blood from his brow. The hand that wore his ring like it was welded to your skin until it was ripped from you by them.
The pit. The fire. Your body.
The last time he’d seen you, you were reaching for him.
And now…
You were gone.
It didn’t register at first.
His brain couldn’t catch up.
He didn’t feel the burn of the ropes. Didn’t hear the crackle of flames. Didn’t even realise he was screaming until his throat gave out and he collapsed, chest heaving, stomach twisting, retching dry onto the dirt because there was nothing left in him but the scream.
They killed you.
They fucking killed you.
And he wasn’t there to stop it.
He wasn’t holding you.
He wasn’t telling you it’d be okay.
He was just watching.
The world narrowed to smoke and ash, and the echo of your name carved out of him like bone. He felt like someone had plunged into his chest and ripped out his heart. And worst of all, they made sure he was still breathing to bear the pain of it.
You were everything. His anchor. His voice of reason. His reason, period. You were the only future he let himself want.
Now you were gone.
And the world had the audacity to keep turning.
They took your ring. Then your life. Then your body. All in one day. And he let it happen. Let them strip you of everything that made you his. And now there was nothing left. No trace. No proof except for that steady, monstrous ache behind his ribs from your death. The kind that didn’t explode. The kind that stayed. The kind that settled into his bones and promised to never let go.
It hurt in a way he didn’t have words for.
It was heartbreak. Pure and unrelenting. Not sharp, but total. Like the color had been stripped from the world, and all that was left was this—this awful, frozen moment where love died in front of him, and he just had to watch.
The only thing left of you now is Dani.
She still had your eyes.
She’d ask where you went. What happened.
And he’d have to look at her and lie.
And he couldn’t bear the thought—Dani looking at him with those wide, searching eyes, and realising he wasn’t the one she needed. Because he wasn’t you. There was no way for him to go on.
Unless he made them pay.
Unless he made every last one of them remember what they did when they dared to put a knife to your throat.
He would bide his time. Wear the mask. Keep his head down like they wanted. Pretend he was broken.
But he wasn’t.
Not really.
He’d just been reborn into something worse.
Because they killed the woman he loved right in front of him.
And now he had nothing left to lose.
“You are free,” the Commander said, like it meant something. The crowd cheered. Daryl barely heard it over the roaring in his ears. He could’ve thrown up. Could’ve killed them all. All he saw was red.
_______
You came to like something had been torn out of you in the dark. It wasn’t the pain that woke you, though there was no shortage of it—the sharp flare in your shoulder socket, the hot ache in your neck where your muscles had seized, the hammering pulse behind your eyes that throbbed in rhythm with the low, electric hum of artificial light. You were kneeling on something cold, unforgiving and slick, and the first thing you felt beyond pain was the way your knees had begun to go numb from pressure. Your wrists were tied behind your back, raw with dried blood, the bindings too tight to be anything but deliberate. So basically the norm for you.
But none of that mattered.
Not when you raised your head and saw him.
Daryl was in front of you—on his knees, hands bound, mouth bloodied, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of whatever hell had come before this. He looked broken in a way you’d never seen before, like his bones didn’t quite know how to hold him up anymore. He wasn’t looking at you. His chin hung low, and though his chest still rose with breath, you could see how shallow it was, like every inhale had to fight its way through something invisible.
And Marshal stood beside him.
The sight of that man lit a fire in your ribs so suddenly that you nearly vomited from the bile it brought with it. You lurched forward, or tried to, but your body wouldn’t move fast enough, wouldn’t obey the simple instruction to reach him, touch him, do something.
“Welcome back,” Marshal murmured without turning, his voice unhurried, like he’d been waiting for you. There was a smile on his face, but it wasn’t warm, wasn’t even smug—it was too calm for that, too pleased with himself, like he was watching a snake shed its skin. “Perfect timing.”
Your breath hitched hard in your chest, every draw of air too sharp, too fast, like it was cutting something on the way in. You tried to speak, to call his name, but your mouth was too dry, your tongue swollen with dread, and the only thing that came out was a rasp of sound that tasted like copper and dust and fear.
Then the Commander stepped forward, the rustle of his coat the only thing you heard over the ringing in your ears. His face bore that same expression he always wore—the one that made your stomach curdle—composed and measured, like a man about to deliver a eulogy for someone he never cared about. He didn’t look at Daryl. He looked at you.
“You told us you didn’t know him,” he said, his voice unshaken, smooth like worn marble. “But when we faked your death, he screamed for you. Weeped like a baby.”
The air left your lungs in a single cold rush, and the world stopped spinning for one breathless second. Your gaze snapped to Daryl. Really looked. And that’s when something inside you buckled. His lip was torn, his temple bruised, and his collar was wet with blood you weren’t sure was even his anymore. But his shoulders trembled. He hadn’t broken.
Not yet.
You shook your head. Not in denial—just to get words out, anything, anything at all. “Don’t—please—”
But it didn’t matter. Marshal crouched beside him, slow and steady, like it was routine, and grabbed a fistful of Daryl’s hair, forcing his head upright so you could see his swollen face. You saw his eyes. Glazed, but still there. Still fighting. Still breathing.
“He didn’t take the lesson,” Marshal said, as though you weren’t already collapsing beneath the weight of what you knew was coming, “so now you will.”
The Commander tilted his head slightly from where he was standing in the background, his expression unchanged, like he was waiting for a dog to finally heel. “That lie cost you,” he murmured. “But today… we’ll free you from it.”
The gun appeared like a magic trick—no grand reveal, no announcement. Just there in the Commander’s hand, passed from Marshal like a holy relic. There was no ceremony in the way he raised it. No speech. No cruelty, even. Only the quiet efficiency of a man carrying out a decision he considered final.
The barrel touched Daryl’s temple.
And the shot rang out.
You didn’t scream right away. The noise you made was trapped behind your ribs, crushed into your lungs by the weight of the moment. But when it came, it erupted from you like something ripped open from the inside—a cry so guttural, so raw, it felt like it might pull the last of your voice straight from your throat and leave you nothing but ash.
You threw yourself forward with everything you had, ignoring the pain that screamed through your shoulder, the pop of your joints, the stab of something tearing—but it was too late. Daryl’s body had already gone limp, folding sideways into the dirt with an awful, boneless grace. There was no twitch, no sound. Just silence.
You couldn’t stop the sob that broke next. It tore out of you like something dying. Your voice was raw now, splintered with panic and disbelief, the way it had sounded only once before—when you gave birth and thought you might not survive it.
“Please,” you sobbed, struggling like a wild thing. “Baby, look at me—you can’t leave me —”
You couldnt breathe. You kept telling yourself to wake the fuck up. Wake up from this nightmare, next to daryl in your bed. You'd curl tightly into him, take in his musk, he'd stroke your hair while you traced his imperfections on his skin like they were the very opposite of that.
Marshal had walked towards you and held your chin, tilting your head to look up at him through our red glassy eyes. But when he looked at you now, something had shifted. There was no amusement left. No satisfaction. Only a quiet, unsettling stillness.
“You’re free now,” he said with absolution. “That connection made you weak. It made you lie. But now there’s nothing left to tie you down.”
Tears blurred your vision, burned hot and blinding, streaking over your cheeks in stinging silence. You weren’t sobbing anymore. Your mouth was open, but no sound came out. It was as though your voice had died with him. Your body trembled, but you didn’t collapse. Not yet. Not until Marshal leaned forward and, with something close to care, cut the restraints at your wrists himself.
You didn’t catch yourself when you fell. Your arms flopped forward, numb and useless, your knees hitting the stone with a hollow sound that echoed off the walls. You didn’t look at him. You didn’t look at anything. Not even the fire, still burning just feet away, casting long orange light across the floor where Daryl had fallen.
You stared at the space he had left behind.
And whatever was left of you cracked.
Not with rage. Not with grief. Not even with despair.
With silence.
The silence that followed was worse. It wasn’t the calm kind. It was thick and suffocating, like someone had poured concrete over your chest and expected you to keep breathing through it. Your ears rang from the gunshot, your vision swam at the edges, but none of that mattered—not really. Nothing did, except the image burned into the backs of your eyes: Daryl collapsing in front of you, body limp, blood warm and spilling across the concrete, and then nothing. No movement. No sound. No breath.
You didn’t cry again, not after the first ragged sob slipped out of you and died somewhere between the ropes binding your wrists and the dirt floor beneath your knees. The sound had come unbidden, raw and strangled, but even as it broke free, it felt distant, like it didn’t belong to you anymore—like it belonged to someone else entirely, someone softer, someone who hadn’t just watched her entire world bleed out on the floor.
You breathed, but only because you had to. Inhale. Exhale. Slow. Mechanical. The kind of breath that didn’t mean life so much as continuation. You weren’t a woman anymore, not exactly. You weren’t a widow, not yet. You weren’t even a soldier. You were just breath and bones and grit. Just the pieces that remained.
It was disorienting in a way that felt almost obscene—how had you ever existed without him before? Whatever version of yourself had managed to live in a world where Daryl wasn’t within arm’s reach, breathing the same air, was a stranger now. A ghost. And the thought of finding your way back to that kind of existence, of surviving in that silence again, felt not only impossible but wrong.
The numbness was total. Not soft, not merciful—but loud. Deafening in its hollowness. It rang through your skull like a pressure wave, muffling every other sense beneath it. Pain should’ve been there, should’ve been screaming—your shoulder was still ruined, your knees pressed hard into unyielding concrete, your head throbbing from whatever blow had half-felled you—but none of it seemed to land. None of it registered.
There was only the absence. Only the jagged outline of where he used to be. And in that emptiness, something settled.
Not rage. Not grief. Not yet. Those things required more of you than you had left. What settled was purpose.
Because no matter what they thought they’d taken from you, no matter how certain they were that you’d break just like the others had, your daughter was still alive. You couldn't let her become an orphan. Dani was waiting for you, and she didn’t know her father was dead. She didn’t know that you were too.
And you were the only one left who could keep that from becoming permanent.
You didn’t notice Marshal until he crouched beside you again, his shadow crawling across the stone in tandem with your hollow stare. His voice was low, almost reverent, as though he feared disrupting the stillness that had wrapped itself around you.
“I knew it the second I saw you,” Marshal said, his voice low, almost reverent, as though addressing something sacred rather than broken. “Back in those woods. You had it—that thing most don’t. Pain doesn’t ruin you. It reshapes you.”
His words drifted through the silence like smoke, curling around the edges of your awareness, but you didn’t respond. You weren’t even sure you were still breathing. You were there, yes, in body—but your mind was standing at the edge of some quiet abyss, watching itself from far away.
“I told the Commander we needed someone like that,” he went on, unhurried, as though this was all unfolding according to some script only he had read. “A firestarter. Not just someone who survives the burn, but someone who walks through it and comes out clean on the other side.”
Slowly, you raised your gaze, just enough to meet his. The movement wasn’t defiant. It wasn’t emotional. It was mechanical, like some buried instinct had twitched to life out of necessity. Whatever he saw in your expression—vacancy, obedience, surrender—was enough to satisfy him.
Your silence sealed the illusion.
Marshal stood, brushing invisible dust from his knee as though this moment wasn’t stitched with the last of your humanity. He turned to someone just out of sight, his voice as steady as ever. “Clean her up. Feed her. She’s earned it.”
You didn’t watch him walk away.
When the hands came, you didn’t flinch. You barely noticed them. You didn’t speak. You didn’t even blink. You let them take your weight, lift you from the blood-slick floor, guide your body like it wasn’t your own. Whatever they’d done—whatever they’d taken—had hollowed you out so thoroughly, you barely noticed the warmth of their grip or the sound of the fire crackling behind you. It all felt far away, like a story you were being told about someone else.
But somewhere, buried deep beneath the numbness, something shifted. Not rage. Not revenge. That was all smoke now. What remained was quieter. Heavier. It settled into the space your grief had hollowed out and anchored itself like a root cracking through stone.
It wasn’t for them.
It wasn’t even for him.
It was for her.
For Dani.
Because she was all that was left of him. Because she didn’t know what had been taken from her yet. Because you had promised her you’d come back, and promises made to children had weight. Had teeth.
And if that meant tearing yourself in two—if it meant burying every scream and smile and soft thing inside you—then so be it.
Because one day, somehow, you’d find your way back to her.
And on that day, no one—not Marshal, not the Commander, not even the fire—would be able to stop you.
——
Turns out that taking your husband’s death in stride made for a hell of a promotion.
Grief would’ve gotten you kitchen duty, maybe a cot in the barracks if you’d played your cards right. Hysterics? A bullet. But silence? Composure? The ability to let a man bleed out at your feet and not flinch when the fire took him?
Apparently, that made you leadership material.
Marshal didn’t even wait a full day. You were summoned at dawn, the knock on your door light and precise, like someone trying not to wake what was already dead. The soldier who stood there said nothing. Just turned. Walked. And like a good little recruit, you followed.
They took you to the central chamber—the same one where you’d watched the Commander strip lives down to bone with a few carefully chosen words. Now you stood beneath the same skylight, washed in grey morning light, not entirely sure where your limbs ended and the concrete began.
Marshal entered first. He looked cleaner than usual. Face freshly shaven, black shirt tucked in, like this was something sacred.
The Commander didn’t bother with ceremony. He didn’t ask if you wanted the role. He didn’t explain what it meant. He just turned to face you, eyes sweeping over your stillness like it proved something.
“You’ve adapted well,” the Commander said at last. His voice wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold either. It simply was. Final. “Marshal spoke highly of you. Your performance in the ring. Your composure since. Your clarity of purpose.”
“Others… fall apart. Wail. Break. You buried the weakness. And what remained—” he turned, finally, and looked you dead in the eye, “—was worth keeping.”
He crossed the floor, each step unhurried, until he stood before you. Taller. Older. But not frail. He looked at you the way a man might examine a blade he’d forged himself.
“I name you General.”
The words dropped like a blade against an altar. There was no ceremony. No oath. Just that sentence.
Marshal stepped forward, then, and placed something in your palm. A thin band of blackened metal with a single etched mark—a crescent, sharp as a scythe. The symbol of rank. Cold and heavy in your hand.
“Wear it on your hip,” Marshal said softly, voice close now, near your ear. “Let them know what you are.”
You didn’t flinch. You just nodded once and fastened it to your belt.
The Commander inclined his head—dismissal, not praise—and turned away again. The matter, it seemed, was closed.
Marshal lingered, though. He waited until the Commander had vanished into shadow, then walked with you out into the hall, slow and unhurried, like two old friends on a morning stroll.
“I told him,” Marshal drawled, voice echoing lazily off the corridor walls as the door closed behind you both, sealing the chamber like a tomb. “Told him you wouldn’t crack. The others thought you’d go down screaming—or not get back up at all.”
He walked beside you like nothing about this moment was strange. As if promotion through grief was the most natural thing in the world. As if the silence trailing behind your footsteps wasn’t made of bone and ash and something close to mourning.
“But not me,” he went on, with that infuriating little shrug in his voice, like everything had already been proven. “I figured you had the spine. Something in the way you moved, y’know? Like someone who’s already had the worst day of their life and just kept walking.”
You didn’t look at him. Didn’t speak. Every ounce of your energy was spent on forward motion, on placing one foot in front of the other with a precision that felt practiced and numb.
“Still not talking?” he asked, almost amused. “Yeah, I get it. Takes a minute. First time I lost someone close, I didn’t talk for three days." Just sat on a roof staring at the rain, prayin' I'd get the balls to jump."
Damn. If only he had some balls.
He tilted his head toward you, as if waiting for you to react. You didn’t.
Marshal sighed through his nose and kept pace. “So… he was your husband right? babydaddy? Both?”
The question hit harder than it had any right to. Not for the words themselves, but for how casually he said them—like he was asking what brand of boots you wore.
“Well,” he continued, unfazed, “you’re better off. That kind of thing—attachment, whatever—it just slows you down. I mean, shit, I used to have a wife. Think I even loved her once. But when she got bit, you know what I did?”
You didn’t answer.
He smiled anyway. “Sat with her ‘til it got dark, then I put a knife through her temple. Buried her in the garden, poured some moonshine, and went to sleep like I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. Woke up clean.”
Marshal gave a light laugh, like he’d just told a half-decent bar story. “Point is, we’re not made for soft shit. You cut it off before it festers. And you—” he looked at you now, a little more directly, a little more keenly “—you’ve already done the hard part. You let go. Now you get to be something better.”
He stopped walking. You stopped, too, more out of rhythm than obedience.
“I’ve got plans, General,” he said, tone dropping low, like he was inviting you into some secret. “Big ones. Creed’s gonna outgrow this place. We’ve got outposts forming, whispers from the coast. The kind of movement people write about. But movements need faces. Voices. People who don’t flinch when things get messy.”
You turned to him, at last, your expression unreadable. A mask so perfect it didn’t even feel like skin anymore.
“Just tell me where to start,” you said, your voice coarse, a faint echo of your one from before.
He grinned, like that was all he’d wanted to hear.
“Right answer.”
Marshal reached out—not possessively, not forcefully, but like someone testing the edge of a blade—and tapped your shoulder once. The bad one. You felt nothing. His smile deepened when you didn’t so much as blink.
Then he stepped back and nodded toward the corridor ahead. “C’mon. Let’s make the rest of ‘em jealous.”
____
The days blurred like smoke on water—not fast, not slow, just distorted. You hadn’t even noticed the sun rising anymore, only the weight of your boots and the sound of doors opening ahead of you before you stepped through. General. That was your name now. Not your real one. Not your given name, the one you've gone by your entire life. Not the one Daryl whispered into your shoulder in the middle of the night... Just General. A title that hung on your spine like a weapon, heavy and sharp.
In the two days since your so-called liberation, you hadn’t stopped moving. Marshal kept you close, walking the perimeter of the inner compound, inspecting patrols and supply lines, overseeing training sessions where recruits sparred with dull blades and sharp eyes. He showed you off. Paraded you like some living emblem of what it meant to survive Creed fire and come out whole.
“Eyes front,” he’d murmur as you passed the bowing acolytes. “They need to see strength, not softness.”
So you gave them strength. Barked orders. Held your chin high. Smiled only when it served you. You ate beside Marshal at every meal, and when he leaned in too close or spoke too casually—jokes about husbands, about daughters, about how pain was just love shedding its skin—you laughed like it didn’t slice straight through your gut. He didn’t mean to mock you, you didn’t think. But his words still clanged, loud and graceless.
“You never said - was he the dad? That Dixon guy?” Marshal had asked once, as you walked the south corridor. He didn’t look at you when he said it.
You had nodded. Just once. A sharp little thing, like a salute. The kind of response that meant everything and nothing.
You kept your hands steady. Your back straight. You thought of Dani... Daryl.
The same cell. Same stone. Same metal bars.
Only now, the cell across from him was empty.
It had been two nights, and Daryl still stared at that space, haunting him. The cold where you used to sit, curled and whispering hopes through the bars. The dried blood smudge near the drain. The memory of your scream.
He couldn’t sleep.
He hadn’t spoken in days.
Not because he couldn’t, but because there was no point. Most of his words had burned up in that fire anyway. What was left were grunts. Breaths. Muscle. The feel of rope biting into his palms as he dragged beams across gravel yards, sweating through his shirt until the sun dipped, and they locked him back in the cell.
He couldn’t stop looking.
At the guards. At the keys. At the gaps in their routines. At the flicker in their torchlight. At the way one of them always dropped his rifle to piss behind the south gate after final lockdown.
They thought he was broken. Good.
He was going to make them bleed for it.
____
The sun was too bright. Not warm, not kind. Just bright—the kind of blinding that turned sweat to sting and dirt to paste. Daryl’s hands, torn raw at the knuckles, worked the shovel with dull rhythm, carving through the gravel as if by compulsion. They’d set him to trenching along the perimeter fence, claiming it was for drainage, but it was busywork. Pointless. Just a leash long enough to keep him moving.
He had kept his mouth shut. There was nothing to say, to ask for. No one to answer.
The guards posted near him were two of the worst kind—bored, bitter, cruel in the casual way men were when they thought no one could touch them. They weren’t just watching him. They were waiting. It was obvious in the way they leaned against the posts, spitting seeds and elbowing each other, like the job was just a break between drinks.
“You hear what Marshal did during her intake?” one of them said, loud enough to carry, not bothering to keep the grin from his voice. “Ripped that shirt right open. Said he wanted to see if the scar was real. Said it looked like it was straight outta a horror movie.”
The other laughed—a wet, hacking thing that sounded like it came from the belly. “Man, the way she flinched? Shit, I would’ve kept goin’. Coulda had a whole show if Marshal wasn’t so damn stingy.”
Daryl didn’t move. His fingers curled tighter around the shovel handle, knuckles going bone-white under the grime.
“Real tragic, ain’t it?” the first continued. “ Mama had so much feist. Waste of a good piece of ass, if you ask me.”
The second guard whistled low. “Think she begged first? Screamed? I’d put money on it. Looked like a screamer.”
The shovel slipped from Daryl’s hands and hit the dirt with a dull thud, a quiet sound that somehow felt louder than it should have. He didn’t move at first. Just stood there—spine straight, chest rising slow and deep like something trying not to snap in half. His fingers curled once at his sides, twitching like the tension needed somewhere to go.
The two guards were still laughing. Still running their mouths.
Daryl turned.
No words. No sound. No warning.
He moved fast—faster than either of them had time to register. The first guard barely blinked before the edge of the shovel split across his jaw, the impact cracking like a gunshot. Bone shattered. Teeth flew. He dropped to one knee with a garbled scream before Daryl wrenched the shovel back and swung again—this time blunt-end first—right into his temple.
The second guard stumbled backward, drawing his weapon with a curse, but Daryl was already on him, driving forward with the force of a battering ram. He tackled him to the ground, knees slamming hard into the man’s ribs, one hand wrenching the gun from his grip while the other grabbed a fistful of his collar and slammed the back of his skull against the gravel once, twice—three times—until the resistance gave way and blood began pooling fast.
The first guard tried to crawl, face a ruined mess of pulp and bone, but Daryl turned on him with nothing left to hold back. He grabbed him by the belt and yanked him back like he weighed nothing.
He brought the shovel down like it was an axe—once to the spine, then again. And again. There was no grace in it. No clean kill. Just a raw, animal kind of violence—ugly and necessary.
His breath tore ragged through his chest as he stood over the wreckage. Both bodies stilled. One gurgled once and went quiet. The other twitched, then didn’t.
The other workers had gone silent. For a moment, the whole yard held its breath, as if the world itself recognised that something old and sacred had been unleashed.
Daryl stood over the bodies, panting, fists dripping, chest heaving with something that had no name.
And then he ran.
Through the gate. Into the trees.
No hesitation. No plan. Only instinct.
He didn’t know where he was going. But he knew he'd be back.
To make them all pay.
____
You were tightening the strap across your thigh when Marshal barged in without ceremony, his breath fogging in the colder air of the chamber. His eyes were alight with adrenaline, that twisted edge of anticipation he wore whenever something went wrong in just the right way.
“Two of ours are down,” he said, voice clipped but eager. “One’s missing. Blood on the gravel, bodies were found at the north wall. Tracks heading into the trees.”
You didn’t freeze. You didn’t blink. You simply straightened, fastened the last strap, and reached for the sheath at your hip.
“How long?” you asked.
“Not long. Less than an hour. It was fast. Efficient. Looked more like an animal than a man, but—” he tilted his head, eyes dragging down your arm like he expected praise, “—I know work when I see it. This was deliberate.”
You nodded once and stepped past him, boots already moving toward the outer corridor before he finished speaking. He kept pace beside you, hands folded behind his back like the whole thing was an experiment you were walking into. A test. A stage.
“You want to lead the hunt?” he asked, casual. Almost amused.
“I’m already doing it.”
You crossed into the yard where the air smelled like blood and burnt oil, your eyes sweeping over the cluster of armed men standing in loose formation near the gate. They were waiting. Watching. Some with curiosity, some with tension.
All of them obeyed when you raised your voice—low, calm, authoritative.
“North perimeter’s compromised. We have two confirmed dead, one unaccounted for, and tracks headed into the pines. I want six units. Three per group. Sector assignments will be rotated every hour. You see something, you don’t shout—you signal. You don’t engage unless I say. You follow orders. Or you join the ones who bled out.”
No one questioned you. Not even Marshal. He smiled slightly as you issued your orders like you’d been doing it your whole life, as if command had grown from your skin like armour. There was no tremor in your voice. No crack in your tone.
There was a slight hum in your skull. The one that came when the world tilted a little too sharply, like it always did when someone said the word escape. There was even a tinge of jealousy in your chest. Then it was replaced by pity. Because you knew they would be dragged back.
You didn’t let yourself wonder who it had been. Didn’t dwell on the bloody bodies or the missing name. Workers tried and failed all the time. You’d seen it before. You’d clean it up again. Still, something about Marshal’s expression gave you pause.
“What?” you asked, glancing at him.
He shrugged, but it was a smug gesture. Light. Easy. “Nothing. You wear the title well, General.”
You didn’t answer. Just looked back to the gate.
The hunt was already underway.
-----
The forest felt endless.
He didn’t know how long he’d been running. The canopy above him blurred into streaks of dark green and dying light, the air thick with humidity and his own ragged breath. His legs burned. His ribs ached. His boots pounded the earth like a drumbeat begging to slow, but he wouldn’t let them. He couldn’t.
Branches scraped his arms, thorns dragged like claws against his jeans, but none of it registered. Not compared to what he’d left behind. He didn’t know if he was more ashamed of the rage or the fact it had taken him that long to let it boil over. He was finally out - but it was without you.
Two of them hadn’t walked away from it. That was all he knew.
The forest began to thin. He slowed just enough to keep his breathing even. He hadn’t run this far to collapse. He swiped at his face and didn’t stop moving.
It was the shape of something manmade that pulled him forward—a faint glint of rust through the trees, the broken silhouette of a long-abandoned gas station nestled in overgrowth. Half-collapsed, half-swallowed by ivy, the old building slumped against the edge of the road like a dying animal. Its sign had long since shattered. Only rusted poles remained where the name might have been. Weeds grew through the cracks in the concrete, and a single pump leaned at an angle like it had been punched sideways and never stood again. But it was something. Shelter. Cover. Supplies.
He paused at the edge of the clearing, one hand pressed against a tree, catching his breath, eyes scanning for movement. Nothing. Only the soft rustle of branches and the occasional distant groan of the dead.
That's when he saw two walkers lurching near the back of the station, slow and disoriented. He crouched, crept forward, and took them out quick. Clean. Blade to the base of the skull. He dragged their corpses into the woods, leaving them in a way that looked like a scuffle had happened. A trail. One they’d follow. Let them run in the wrong direction.
Then he doubled back and slipped through the busted rear entrance, heart thudding hard beneath the damp fabric of his shirt.
Inside, it was still.
Dust hung thick in the shafts of light breaking through broken panes. Shelves had long since collapsed, candy wrappers and rat nests littering the floor. The air stank of mildew and old oil, but it was empty as far as people and walkers went.. He moved slow, clearing corners one at a time, bootfalls nearly silent on the stained linoleum.
He didn’t breathe easy, not really. Not until the last corner was clear. Then he sagged against the side of an empty cooler, pressing a hand to his ribs, sweat trickling down his spine. He counted each breath like it might be his last. That's when he heard something from outside.
_______
The trail didn’t fool you.
It was good—subtle in ways the average Creed lackey would never catch—but not good enough to hide what it really was. They were covering their tracks. Every broken branch had purpose. Every overturned rock, every blood-speckled leaf followed a pattern too clean, too deliberately staggered, too familiar.
Because it was yours.
A move you’d crafted seasons ago, back when survival meant something more than symbolism and pageantry. You’d taught it once—to people who mattered. People who didn’t wear uniforms or follow slogans or look at you like you were anything but someone trying to stay alive. And now it stared back at you from the earth like a signature carved into soil.
Marshal was barking orders ahead of you, his voice crisp with expectation, but not urgency. Two men down was an inconvenience, not a threat. He stood near the treeline, gesturing with one hand for his squad to follow the trail of walker corpses heading eastward, already convinced the work was nearly done.
You didn’t speak right away. Didn’t move either.
Just stood near the edge of the brush, eyes tracking the drag marks and the half-shuffled footprints, letting the recognition sink deep into your ribs like a bruise you’d forgotten how to name.
When Marshal noticed your hesitation, he stepped closer. His tone was more relaxed now—comfortable, even—as if he’d grown used to speaking to you not as his subordinate, but as his closest confidant. Or maybe just his newest trophy.
“You see something I don’t, General?” he asked, voice low, laced with a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ve been staring at dirt for the last two minutes like it's talkin' to you.”
You didn’t answer at first. You kept your gaze fixed on the ground, the muscle in your jaw ticking once as you shifted your weight forward, crouching to trace the heel-drag pattern with your fingers.
“It’s not walker blood,” you murmured, mostly to yourself. “Too bright. Too spaced.”
Marshal tilted his head, humored but mildly intrigued. “That what’s got you squinting like an old crow? We’ve already got a lead. They’re following it now.”
You stood slowly, brushing your hands off on your thighs before glancing toward the direction the others had taken.
“It’s misdirection,” you said, flatly, without drama. “Manufactured.”
Marshal frowned, but it was faint, like a crease appearing in otherwise smooth stone. “And you know this because…?”
Your eyes slid to him. “Because it’s mine.”
That gave him pause. His smirk faltered, then rebuilt itself slowly, shaped now into something more curious than mocking.
“Well, shit,” he chuckled, hands sliding into his pockets. “Didn’t know you taught tricks. Looks like someone’s been studying the old playbook.”
He glanced down the trail again, then back at you. “You think our escapee doubled back?”
“I think he’s already gone,” you said, voice smooth. “And I think if you want a chance at catching him, you let me follow the real trail while your dogs chase ghosts.”
There was a moment of silence between you then—thin, but weighted. Marshal studied your face like he was seeing something he hadn’t expected, or maybe something he’d been hoping would surface all along.
He smiled again, more relaxed this time, and gestured half-heartedly to the forest. “Alright, General. If you think there’s a better trail, take it. Just don’t get yourself lost. Hate to have to replace you after all the effort I put in.”
You nodded once. Sharp. Precise. The way he liked it.
And then you turned and vanished into the woods, one boot after the other, eyes tracking the subtle path only you would’ve noticed. It wasn’t marked with panic or haste, but strategy. Intentional obfuscation. A diversion made to buy time—and that was what made your heart start to pound.
People who used this move were dangerous. After all it was your move.
_______
The forest opened up without warning.
One second, you were tucked beneath the heavy arms of pines, the air thick with sap and old rain, and the next, the trees gave way to a patch of cleared ground—uneven, mottled with patches of gravel and moss, as if the world itself had tried to reclaim this place and only half-succeeded. In the centre stood a gas station.
You stood still for a moment, just outside the reach of the clearing, listening.
Nothing.
No birds. No footsteps. Not even wind. Just the low, hot breath of the forest pressing against your back and the distant rot of something that had died weeks ago and hadn’t yet stopped stinking.
Your hand tightened around the hilt of your knife.
The trail led here. The subtle one—the real one. The one you’d followed from a snapped vine near the creek bed, the one someone had tried too hard to make look accidental. Every turn had confirmed it. This was no rogue worker. Whoever came here knew how to cover ground. How to double back. How to make blood smear like accident and not direction.
There was something about the air that changed before you even stepped inside—a stillness too deliberate, like a breath held too long, like the world itself was waiting for something to break. You crept along the outer edge of the station, careful to keep your footfalls light, your weapon drawn but low, ready but not aggressive. The siding flaked beneath your fingertips, warm and brittle, the building groaning faintly as the wind caught under the eaves. It should have felt abandoned. It didn’t.
Your gut twisted—not with fear exactly, but with a pressure you didn’t know how to name, like your body was trying to warn you before your mind could catch up. Something was here. Someone. It wasn’t a logical feeling. There were no clear signs. Nothing disturbed. Nothing broken. But still, the closer you got, the stronger the feeling became, like gravity itself was trying to pull you inward.
By the time you stepped through the rear entrance—door creaking on its hinges but offering no resistance—you already knew you weren’t alone.
You didn’t shout. You didn’t call out commands. You just stood there for a moment, breathing through your nose, trying to place the shape of the unease that had started to bloom beneath your ribs.
The air was soured by time—thick with rust and mildew and motor oil, sharp with the scent of old blood and dust, the kind that clung to your clothes and your tongue long after you’d left. Sunlight cut through cracks in the roof, casting long, ghostly columns across the wreckage of the station’s interior. Aisles leaned at odd angles. Packaging had melted into the shelves. The silence wasn’t clean. It was full of ghosts.
You stepped forward, slow and careful, scanning between the shelves. One aisle at a time.
“This isn’t gonna end well for you,” you said, your voice cutting the silence like a blade—not shouted, not loud, but firm and cold and clear. A statement, not a threat. Not a warning - just a fact.
There was no response. Not right away. Just the sound of breath caught mid-motion. Like someone had frozen behind one of the shelves.
“Come out where I can see you,” you said, stepping deeper into the rows. Your voice didn’t shake. But it wasn’t steady, either. There was something brittle at the edges now. A warning crack before the collapse.
The sound of your voice slammed into him like a hammer to the sternum—low, steady, not shouted, but heavy with something he couldn’t name, like truth dragged raw across gravel. It was unmistakable, even wrapped in grit, even worn at the edges by survival. It was you. It was your voice, but it wasn’t soft the way he remembered, wasn’t teasing or warm or sarcastic. It was clipped and direct, sharpened down to the bone like everything else in this world, and that was what undid him.
His back pressed harder to the metal shelf behind him, and his fingers tightened around the knife in his grip, not from intent to use it but because it was the only thing tethering him to the moment. His pulse was everywhere—in his throat, behind his eyes, pounding in the tips of his fingers—and the breath he tried to take caught halfway and dissolved into nothing. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. He wasn’t sure he remembered how.
Something inside him began to crack, slow and silent like ice shifting under weight.
He hadn’t imagined it.
It wasn’t one of the dreams that taunted him in the half-sleep of a cold floor and a concrete cell. It wasn’t the whisper that followed him through every labor shift, the one that sounded like her laugh, like her sigh, like the first time she said his name in the dark. This wasn’t the echo of memory warped by grief. This was now. This was real.
And yet, he didn’t answer. Not right away. Because something primal in him still feared the truth. Still believed that turning that corner would cost him everything if he was wrong.
But then he heard her boots crunch forward—one, then another. Steady. Careful. Getting closer. The sound of her moving cut through him sharper than any blade.
His eyes flicked toward the end of the aisle, just a sliver of light between broken shelves, and for a heartbeat, he caught it—just a glimpse.
A shoulder. A lock of hair. The edge of your jaw. The line of your arm steady on your weapon.
And it hit him all over again, harder this time, like the wind knocked out of his lungs and the floor pulled out from under him all at once. His knees went weak, his grip faltered, and the breath he finally took sounded more like a sob than a sigh, though he kept it behind his teeth.
You were standing. You were walking. You were alive.
Your were real.
But you didn’t look like the woman he used to fall asleep beside, or the one who used to hum under her breath while cleaning blood off her knife. You didn’t move like someone who’d ever been held gently. Your body was all tension, your eyes cold and alert, like softness had been trained out of you one wound at a time. The version of you standing there now looked like someone who’d been surviving instead of living—like the world had stripped you down to the parts that could fight and buried the rest somewhere too deep to reach.
And yet it was still you.
“I’m not in the mood to chase,” you said, each word carved from the grit of your throat. “And I’m sure as hell not in the mood to kill someone who’s just hiding. So don’t make me.”
He didn’t know how long he stood there, half-concealed by the shadows of the aisle end, barely breathing, barely thinking—just staring, heart thundering with the impossible weight of recognition because it was you. And yet not you. And that paradox alone left his mouth dry, his pulse skittering, and his knees dangerously untrustworthy beneath him.
There was something in the way you held yourself that made the air feel thinner. You didn’t look fragile. You didn’t even look afraid. You looked sharpened—reforged in fire—and he didn’t know whether to be proud or devastated that the world had made you into this. For one breathless moment, he let himself believe that he could keep watching you like this forever, that you wouldn’t vanish again if he blinked too long. That the grief choking him since the pit had been a lie.
But then the toe of his boot knocked against a broken glass bottle, and the sharp scrape of it skittered across the linoleum like a gunshot in the dark. You reacted before the sound even finished, instincts firing faster than thought, and before he could lift a hand or even fully turn, your weapon had snapped to attention, pointed straight at him from across the aisle with lethal, unflinching precision.
He lifted both hands immediately. His knife dropped to the floor with a dull thud, his fingers opening like surrender was the only language he had left, and still, he didn’t speak. He didn’t dare. The only thing that moved was his chest, rising and falling in jagged rhythm as his eyes stayed fixed on yours, drinking you in like a man starved.
And you… you couldn’t move either.
The moment your eyes landed on him—on his face, his shoulders, the familiar set of his mouth—you stopped breathing entirely. You didn’t lower the weapon, not at first, not even when the shape of him settled into clarity. Your body held position like a dam holding back floodwater, and for a single, suspended second, all you could do was stare, too stunned to speak, too stunned to blink, too stunned to accept the thing your heart already knew.
It was him.
Alive.
Real.
And standing at the opposite end of the aisle like a ghost resurrected just for you.
You weren’t sure if the sound that came out of you was a gasp or a sob or some mangled hybrid of both, but it broke whatever spell had been holding you in place, because your fingers loosened ever so slightly on the grip, your arms trembling in their sockets, the gun still aimed but your certainty dissolving. His name rose in your chest, but it got caught behind your teeth, too thick with disbelief, too sacred to release without proof. Because if you said it, and it wasn’t really him, you wouldn’t survive it.
But he didn’t vanish.
He didn’t speak either.
He just stood there, hands still raised, eyes still locked on you like if he looked away you might disappear all over again. And that was when you finally let the weapon drop—not all the way, not at first, but just enough to acknowledge what your heart was already screaming.
You didn’t know whether to run to him or collapse where you stood.
But you knew one thing, deep and feral in your gut—this wasn’t over. It had only just begun.
Your lips parted before the sound came, breath catching halfway up your throat as if your body had to fight to let the name escape. You hadn’t said it in days. Or maybe weeks. You’d whispered it to yourself in the dark, in the cold, in the quiet between orders and silence, just to remember the shape of it—but this time, it felt like a prayer you weren’t ready to finish.
“Daryl?”
It came out cracked. A question. A confession. A hope.
And then he exhaled.
That’s all he did—just let out a breath so full of disbelief and wonder it shook loose the silence between you like the final piece of a collapsing dam. His hands, still raised in surrender, trembled once as a smile twitched—small and ruined—at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. His body said everything. The slack in his shoulders, the sting in his eyes, the way his lips moved around the unspoken words like he wasn’t sure his voice would hold.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
Not empty—but full in a way that felt overwhelming. A silence packed with heat and scent and movement and memory, like the whole room had bowed to make space for the impossible thing happening between you.
Your gun hit the floor with a thud that didn’t echo.
Your feet moved before your brain did.
One second you were standing there, arms trembling, heart breaking open like a wound that had never truly closed. The next, you were running—sprinting across the ruined tile, your boots slipping slightly on the broken glass and torn paper, not caring if you fell, not caring if you bled, just needing to reach him, to feel him, to prove he wasn’t made of smoke and memory.
Daryl closed the space between you like he’d been waiting his whole life to do it, his steps heavy and uneven, like his knees couldn’t decide if they should give out or carry him faster. His eyes never left yours, not even when you collided—so hard and fast that it knocked the breath from both of you, your chests crashing together with the force of everything you hadn’t dared feel until now.
You sobbed into his shoulder the second his arms locked around you.
There was no delay. No awkward pause. No question of whether he would catch you. Daryl wrapped you up like he’d been born to do it, his hands clawing at your back, his head burying into the curve of your neck, his arms caging you in like the world might try and steal you from him again and he wasn’t about to let that happen. You could feel the noise that came out of him, low and ragged, less a sound than a breath that caught in his throat and turned to something half-feral, half-frightened, all love.
You didn’t hold back.
Your body shook so hard you nearly dropped to your knees. Your hands gripped the fabric of his shirt like it was the only thing keeping you upright. The sobs came fast, ugly, unrelenting, like everything you’d buried just to keep breathing had finally broken the surface and refused to stop. You could smell him—blood, sweat, dirt, smoke—and it hit you like a memory so strong it felt like drowning. You pressed your face into his collarbone, breathing in deep, desperate gasps, like scent alone could prove it was him.
He lifted his head to look at you—really look at you—and the moment your eyes met, the air between you seemed to collapse. His gaze was glassy, flickering with a hundred emotions all fighting for room, the disbelief carved so deep into his expression it was as if he were afraid to blink in case you vanished. He needed to be sure, to confirm with his own eyes that this wasn’t a trick of the light or some final mercy dream sent to soften the blow of grief.
And when the truth settled—when his mind caught up with what his heart already knew—his head dropped against your shoulder, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer weight of feeling that overtook him.
You welcomed him without hesitation, your arms wrapping around him like they’d been searching for his shape this whole time. Your fingers clawed at the back of his shirt, trying to ground yourself, to remind your body that he was real, that this wasn’t a hallucination born from fatigue or hope or desperation. You sobbed, sharp and sudden, your face tilted toward him as the dam inside you finally burst.
You hadn’t let yourself feel it—not really—not until now. You’d kept the grief locked up tight, buried beneath obligation and instinct and survival, but now it was clawing its way out with a ferocity that terrified you. The pain of losing him surged through your chest like a second heartbeat, loud and uncontrollable, and now that it was out in the open, you had no idea what to do with it.
You collapsed into him, trembling, your hands fisting into the fabric at his back like you were afraid he might vanish if you didn’t hold on tight enough. Your breath hitched as you buried your face against his collar, the scent of him—earth and smoke and blood—ripping another cry from your chest. He was here. He was real. He was warm.
“I can’t believe it,” you choked out, your voice wet and raw. “You’re alive… you’re…”
His fingers curled tighter in the fabric of your jacket, knuckles white with the strain, like if he didn’t anchor himself to you, he might fall straight through the floor. His chest convulsed with a breath that never fully landed, just trembled apart in his throat, and then—like something cracked open deep inside him—he began to nod. Small at first, barely perceptible, then over and over again, his face buried in your neck, breath ragged, tears searing hot as they soaked into your skin. His whole body shook with it, not a sob exactly, but something quieter, more devastating—like surrender.
“You’re okay,” you whispered, again and again, each repetition softer than the last, unsure if you were trying to calm him or convince yourself. “You’re okay… I’m here… you’re here…”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But the way he gripped you—arms tightening like he could press you into his bones, hand cradling the back of your head with a desperation that bordered on reverence—told you everything you needed to know. He had thought he’d lost you. And now that you were back, he wasn’t going to let you slip away again. Not even for a second.
His voice cracked where it met your throat, low and hoarse like it had been dragged over gravel. “But I saw you,” he rasped, the words catching on a sob that hadn’t quite landed yet. “They—I saw you, they—”
“I know,” you breathed, the sound of it already fraying as it left your lips. “They pulled the same thing with me.”
And that was when it hit him—the sob he’d been holding back since the moment your voice first cut through the dark. It didn’t explode from him; it collapsed inward, a sharp, uneven inhale that never made it all the way out, like he was still trying to wrestle it into silence even now. But you felt it—the way it rippled through his body, not just in his shoulders but down to his bones, like something had broken open beneath the surface and he didn’t have the strength to stop it anymore. He sagged into you, not dramatically, just a fraction—but it was enough. Enough to know that whatever kept him upright until now had finally given out.
You cupped his face before he could retreat again—both hands, firm and unshaking, holding him there like you could keep him from splintering. The scratch of his stubble burned against your palms, and still, you didn’t let go. His eyes met yours—those pale, wolf-bright eyes—and they were barely holding together. No trace of the man who had walked beside you days ago. These eyes were starved. Hollowed. Torn raw at the edges from seeing too much, from believing too little. They didn’t look like eyes meant to hold joy anymore. They looked like they were built for grief.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispered, and his voice cracked on the word thought, like even saying it might kill him. “I saw it. I saw them—”
“I know,” you said again, but this time the words collapsed in your throat, your voice blown wide open with feeling. “I know, baby. I know.”
And something inside you broke, right then—something you didn’t have a name for. It cracked down your spine and shattered in your chest, left you trembling with a grief that didn’t have a place to go. There were no good words left. No logic. No plans. No promises.
So you did the only thing your body knew how to do.
You kissed him.
It didn’t feel like a kiss—it felt like impact. Like gravity reversed and slammed the two of you together with such force it shattered every lie you’d told yourselves just to stay alive. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was breathless and clumsy and soaked in panic, the kind of kiss that felt like drowning with your mouths wide open, like maybe if you didn’t inhale the other person fast enough, they might disappear again. His teeth knocked against yours in the chaos of it, his lips trembling with the sobs he couldn’t release, and your tears spilled freely, tracking down into the corners of your mouth, warm and salt-stung and unrelenting.
You felt the sound before you heard it—the low, helpless noise that scraped out of him from somewhere deep in his chest, something that sat halfway between a groan and a wounded animal’s cry. His hands were in your hair before you could register the movement, dragging you closer like proximity alone might make up for lost time, like if he could just fuse his skin to yours, nothing would ever tear you apart again. One hand fisted in the back of your jacket, the other trembling against the curve of your spine, sliding lower, frantic and reverent all at once, as if he didn’t know where to touch you first because he couldn’t stand the thought of not touching you at all.
He moved without thinking—pure instinct, pure need. Your body was suddenly pressed back against a rusted metal shelf, the cold biting through your jacket even as his mouth devoured yours, even as his breath poured into you like something sacred. His hands skimmed down your sides with a fever that felt more like prayer than lust, like he was checking to make sure you were really there, all of you, unburned and breathing. And then they found your hips, strong and decisive, and he lifted you—just like that. No hesitation, no warning, just that same animal desperation in the way his arms wrapped under your thighs and the way your legs clung to his waist like muscle memory.
You never stopped kissing. Not even for air. Not even when your back hit the floor and the stench of the gas station rushed into your lungs. You could’ve been lying in dirt or on broken glass or in the middle of a damn inferno and it still wouldn’t have mattered. The only thing that mattered was this—this unbearable closeness, this impossible proof that he was here and you were here and somehow, impossibly, you’d found each other again.
Every point of contact felt vital. His chest crushed against yours, his heartbeat thundering like a war drum under your palms. His thigh slotted between yours, grinding hard enough to draw a whimper from your lips, and still, it wasn’t close enough. Your hands roamed like you were blind, like your fingers were trying to memorize what your eyes still couldn’t believe—his shoulders, the scar at his collarbone, the line of his jaw and the curve of his skull beneath your palms.
Daryl didn’t talk, not really. Not when it counted. But right now, he was saying everything you needed to hear. Not with words—but with the way his tongue tangled with yours, the way his breath hitched when you rocked your hips up against his, the way he buried his face against your throat like he was trying to crawl inside your skin. You didn’t say anything either—not because you didn’t have words, but because language would’ve ruined it. Nothing could hold this. Not grief. Not rage. Not love. Only movement. Only heat. Only the frantic, aching choreography of two people who had forgotten how to survive without each other.
And that—that was your fluency.
This was how you spoke.
Your legs were locked around his waist like a vise, trembling with strain but refusing to let go, and your hands couldn’t stop pulling him closer, dragging at his back, his shoulders, clawing like you could anchor yourself in the curve of his spine and stay there forever. There was no space between your bodies, nothing but heat and panic and the sick, beautiful ache of reunion as he held you upright, one arm clamped tight around your lower back, the other braced against the broken floor to keep you both steady in a world that no longer was.
You couldn’t breathe right. Couldn’t think. Every nerve in your body was alive with it—this collision, this reunion, this need that felt bigger than you, bigger than both of you, like grief made manifest in the shape of desire.
And he was unraveling right there with you.
Daryl wasn’t thinking in words anymore. He was running on instinct, acting on a hunger so deep it didn’t feel like lust—it felt like survival. His hands found your shirt and tore it open in one violent jerk, the sound of fabric splitting loud enough to make your breath stutter, and the second your skin was exposed, he was on you. Mouth hot, insistent, desperate as he kissed a line down your chest like it was a map he thought he’d never see again. His lips landed over your heart, over your ribs, over the spots he always touched, and now pressed into like they were proof that you were real, that he hadn’t imagined you back into existence.
You arched into him, hips tilting up, breath ragged as his mouth found your sternum, then lower. Of course—of course—he didn’t pass your breasts without worship, not even now, not even in the middle of a damn apocalypse resurrection. His hand palmed you roughly through your bra while his mouth trailed lower, fast and hungry and nothing like the teasing he used to do, because this wasn’t about foreplay or build-up. It was about claim. About remembering. About burying himself in you so deep he’d never have to crawl out again.
He was afraid.
You could feel it. In the way his breath hitched every time your fingers moved through his hair. In the way he touched you like you were on borrowed time. In the way his eyes flashed upward every few seconds, glassy and wide and unbelieving. He was terrified this was a hallucination. That if he didn’t fuck you hard enough, if he didn’t make you scream and cry and come undone in his arms, then you might vanish again.
But you couldn’t hold back the cry that tore out of your chest, your voice cracked and pleading as the emptiness clawed at your insides. “Daryl—”
His head snapped up, eyes locking on yours, face flushed and tearstreaked and so goddamn soft you thought you might break open from the sight of it. And when he looked at you, he didn’t see uncertainty or hesitation or fear—he saw you shaking beneath him, desperate and wrecked and alive, and it lit something inside him that had nothing to do with dominance and everything to do with belonging.
You were already lifting your torso, fumbling for his belt with clumsy, shaking fingers. It took too long. It always took too long. And when your hands slipped, when a frustrated whimper escaped your lips, he didn’t mock you like he usually would. He didn’t smirk or tease or make some offhand comment about how you couldn’t wait two fucking seconds.
He knelt there in front of you like something half-feral, trembling and breathless, and moved with that same single-minded urgency, his fingers flying to your jeans, dragging the zipper down like the delay itself was killing him.
You didn’t take your pants off. You shoved them down just far enough. You didn’t want preparation or patience. You wanted him. Now. You wanted him inside you so deep the ache wouldn’t go away for days. You wanted to feel sore. You wanted to feel branded.
His voice was hoarse and warm against your lips as you writhed beneath him, just a breath of comfort threaded through the chaos. “It’s alright, baby. I gotcha. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
It didn’t match what he was doing. His tone was tender, low, steady—but his hands were shaking as he hooked your underwear with your jeans and shoved them down in one rough motion. There was nothing slow about it. There was no grace in the way his fingers curled into your hips as he slid between your thighs, no hesitation in the way he groaned when your legs tightened again around his waist and pulled him flush against your body.
You shifted beneath him, the cracked linoleum biting into your bare ass, the brittle sting of broken glass tangled in your hair like a crown of thorns you didn’t dare acknowledge. Above you, a ragged hole in the station’s collapsed ceiling cast a shaft of silver light through the dust-choked air, illuminating your body like something divine—skin glowing pale beneath the grime, your chest rising and falling in frantic rhythm, eyes wild and wet and locked onto his like he was the last living thing on earth. And to Daryl, you were.
His breath caught in his throat. It was almost too much—seeing you like this, raw and spread out under him, haloed in dust and blood and light. You were wrecked. And holy. And his. Every part of him screamed to reach you, bury himself inside you so completely that nothing—not time, not fire, not the Creed—could ever sever what bound you together.
You tugged him closer, hips shifting, knees rising to cradle his body with your own like instinct had overridden every fear, every question, every word. The press of him against you sent a tremor through your spine, your muscles clenching in desperate anticipation, not just for pleasure but for proof. Proof that this wasn’t a hallucination. That he was here, real and solid and warm, the weight of him anchoring you back into your body after days spent floating on agony and denial.
“I need you,” you whispered, barely louder than the whisper of dust falling around you. “I need to feel you. I need to know you’re real.”
And he gave you that—without a word, without hesitation. Just a groan, low and guttural, as his hand slid beneath your thigh and hitched it high over his hip, aligning himself. His forehead dropped to your shoulder, breath scalding against your skin, the tremble in his arms betraying the fact that he was just as wrecked as you were—torn open by grief and stunned by hope.
And then, he pushed inside.
It was unbearable in its slowness, every inch a reclamation, every second a sacrament. Your body welcomed him like it had been waiting, like it had been hollowed out and shaped only to fit him. The stretch was divine, brutal in its pleasure, a burn that made your back arch and your breath catch and your fingers rake down the length of his spine because you couldn’t hold this, couldn’t stand it, couldn’t survive it unless he gave you all of it—his weight, his heat, his voice gasping brokenly against your throat.
He bottomed out with a low, breathless groan, and the moment he did, something in you shattered. You felt the tears break loose again—this time not from fear or grief or even relief, but from sheer overwhelming joy. From the way your body clenched around him in welcome. From the dizzying rush of feeling everything at once.
The sound that left your throat barely resembled anything human—it was a gasp, yes, but not one you recognised as your own. It scraped from your chest like something long buried, like a sob half-remembered from another lifetime, one where he hadn’t been ripped from your arms. You hadn’t known how hollow you’d become until the moment he filled you again, until the weight and warmth of him settled into the ache that had lived inside you since the day he was ‘shot’. Each slow roll of his hips sent another wave crashing through you—deep, thorough, grounding—and it was more than just sensation. It was reclamation. It was breath after drowning. It was colour bleeding back into a world that had long since faded grey. His mouth found yours again, and this time it wasn’t a kiss so much as a seal—a dam against the sound of your cries, which trembled high and frantic in your throat, cries not of pain or desperation but of raw, unfiltered relief. You were finally whole again, and that truth settled into your bones with every movement. After days of unbearable numbness, of walking through the world like a ghost in your own body, every nerve had been sharpened to a blade’s edge. You felt everything now—his hands, his breath, the press of his chest against yours—and It hit you all at once—a rush so heady it was almost narcotic, like pleasure waking every nerve at once after days of silence, flooding your system with heat, hunger, and the dizzying high of finally being alive in his hands again.
There was no rhythm. No restraint. Just the frenzied collision of flesh and feeling—each thrust growing rough with purpose, deep with urgency, like he was trying to brand himself inside you, like every stroke was a prayer and a promise and a plea. The heat of him filled you again and again, thick and relentless, until it felt like your body couldn’t possibly hold anything more—but you begged for it anyway, legs wrapped tight around his waist, hips lifting to meet every punishing drive of his. He didn’t ease up, didn’t slow, not when every sharp drag of his cock left you gasping like the air itself couldn’t reach your lungs unless he gave it to you.
It wasn’t about chasing pleasure. It was about surviving the ache. About staying here, in this body, in this moment, where you could still feel him—hot and hard and alive, grinding into you like he could carve your name into his bones. His breath came harsh against your mouth, mingling with yours, teeth grazing lips like he wanted to consume every sound you made. Every moan. Every desperate sob.
Your hands were everywhere—threaded in his hair, tugging hard enough to hurt, raking down the slope of his back, the curve of his spine, clawing at him like you could tear your way into his chest and never leave. You grabbed at his ass, urging him deeper, harder, faster, trying to keep him pressed so far inside there’d never be a world where he wasn’t. Your name broke on his tongue in pieces, ragged and reverent, lost between the kisses he planted against your throat, your jaw, your open, gasping mouth.
You didn’t just want him close. You wanted him fused to you. Imprinted. Etched into the wet heat of you forever.
“Yes—fuck, yes,” you gasped into his ear, the words high and ragged, cracking under the weight of everything pouring out of you at once. Your voice didn’t even sound like your own anymore—too breathless, too raw, too consumed by the white-hot bliss unraveling you from the inside out.
That did something to him.
His pace shifted, stuttered, then surged—all control lost. His hips slammed into yours with reckless abandon, faster, harder, as if the sound of your voice had lit a fuse in him he couldn’t extinguish. His whole body was shaking with the force of it, sweat slicking his skin as your bodies collided over and over in a rhythm that felt more like a goddamn resurrection than anything else.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he choked out, the words torn straight from his chest, cracked and desperate. His forehead pressed hard against yours, breath fanning hot over your face, his eyes clenched shut like the intensity of it all was just too much to bear. He drove deep, hitting that spot that made your whole body jolt and seize, again and again, until the pressure inside you coiled so tightly you thought you might break apart from the sheer pleasure of it.
Your back arched with every thrust, your body dragged upward by the force of his hips before slamming back down into the ruined floor beneath you. You didn’t care. You didn’t feel anything but him—thick, hot, buried to the hilt inside you, like he was trying to fuck you into memory, into reality, into existence.
He was gasping against your skin now, his breath pouring out in short, ragged bursts that seared across your collarbone like open flame, each one edged with something rawer than pain and more desperate than pleasure. His jaw was clenched so tightly it trembled against the curve of your throat, the sinew in his neck taut like a man trying to hold back a scream, like the sheer force of what he felt was something he had to trap behind his teeth just to keep from breaking apart entirely. His grip on your hips had turned punishing, almost brutal, his fingers digging so deep into your flesh it felt like he was trying to leave something permanent behind—not just a bruise, but a mark that said mine, still mine, always. He didn’t mean to hurt you. But he couldn’t stop. Not when the way you moved beneath him was undoing every stitch of restraint he’d tried so fucking hard to hold onto.
He looked down for just a second—just long enough to watch the place where your bodies met, slick and desperate and shuddering with every movement—and the sight alone nearly ruined him. That was you. That was him, buried inside you so deep he swore he could see himself poking from inside you and forming a bulge in your lower abdomen. Your legs locked tight around his waist, your body rising to meet his like you couldn’t bear even a moment of distance, and it shattered something in him, something hollow and hungry and feral. You looked unreal like that—eyes wet and wide, lips parted, the flush of you spreading down your chest as your back arched again beneath him. The shaft of light spilling through the hole in the ceiling cast a pale, holy glow across your skin, catching in the strands of glass tangled in your hair and turning your entire body into something celestial, like you were a vision brought back from the dead just for him to worship.
Then his hands slid up, one latching tight into yours, pinning it down hard beside your head. The other followed, his fingers threading between yours like a lifeline, like if he didn’t hold on he might float away completely. And all the while he kept fucking into you—harder, deeper—his eyes locked to your face with a terrifying sort of focus, like he was watching for signs of life, of love, of you, and couldn’t afford to miss a second of it.
You could feel him everywhere—stretching you open, filling you to the point of madness, the weight of him driving every inch of his cock so deep inside you it felt like he might split you in two. You swore you could feel it in your chest, in your spine, curling in your throat like a scream that couldn’t find a way out. Every thrust hit like a vow, like a promise sealed with skin and sweat and everything he couldn’t say out loud. Like he was stitching you back together with every goddamn movement.
And you let him. You wanted him to. Because every bruising, fevered stroke didn’t just remind you that you were alive—it reminded you that you were his.
Your whole body trembling, not just from the pressure building at your core, but from the sheer impossibility of it all—him, here, real, alive, buried so deep inside you that your bones ached with the weight of it. Every thrust pulled a new sound from your throat, not just of pleasure, but of disbelief, of shattered grief curling into relief. The rhythm of his hips drove you toward the edge, but it wasn’t just ecstasy pooling hot and full in your belly—it was everything you’d buried to survive. Every scream you’d swallowed, every night you’d imagined him dead, every second you’d rehearsed how to live without him—it all surged forward at once, crashing up through your chest like a tidal wave.
He groaned into your skin, voice cracked open with the same unbearable ache you carried, every breath he took like he was drowning in you, like he couldn’t get close enough even now, couldn’t accept there was still space between your bodies no matter how deep he pushed.
And then something inside you snapped—not pain, not even climax, but a rupture of emotion that split you down the center. The first sob hit so softly it barely registered, just a breath stuttering against his neck, but the second followed quick and sharp, your face twisting into his shoulder as the flood broke loose. You were shaking beneath him, wracked with the force of it, tears sliding hot between your temples and his skin, gasping for air like you couldn’t tell where the sorrow ended and the joy began.
Daryl didn’t notice at first that you were crying. How could he, when every inch of his body was pressed against yours like a seal, like something sacred, like if he just kept moving—kept breathing you in and pushing himself deeper into your body—the nightmare might stay buried where it belonged. His face was buried in your neck, the heat of his breath scalding your throat in short, ragged bursts as his mouth moved blindly across your skin, dropping kisses that were more devotion than desire, lips parted in a prayer he didn’t know how to speak.
His hands were everywhere, cradling your head, skimming your ribs, dragging down your back with shaking fingers that gripped like he was afraid you’d dissolve if he didn’t hold you right. You felt like a lifeline beneath him, warm and alive and wrapped so tightly around his senses that the rest of the world ceased to exist. It wasn’t until your body began to tremble in a way that didn’t match the cadence of his thrusts—not pleasure, not urgency, but something softer and more broken—that he finally felt it.
Not the tight grip of your thighs or the drag of your nails down his back—no, it was the break in your moan, the way the sound caught mid-breath like a sob in disguise. It was the way your whole body trembled, not from the pleasure winding tighter inside you, but from something else—something more profound. Lonelier.
He pulled back just enough to see you, to really see you, and what he found nearly gutted him. Tears streaking your cheeks. Not loud. Not wild. Just steady, silent drops that shimmered in the weak shaft of light cutting through the ceiling, turning your face into something ethereal and wrecked and so fucking beautiful it made his chest ache. There was glass in your hair—tiny glints of it catching the light like stars—and he couldn’t tell if the shimmer on your lips was sweat or salt or both, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that you were crying, and he hadn’t even noticed. His heart punched against his ribs, and his body stilled completely, the rhythm faltering to nothing as his hands gentled in an instant, afraid he’d gone too far, afraid he’d gone too far and hurt you.
“Hey,” he rasped, the word cracked and broken at the edges, like it had clawed its way up from a place too deep to name. “Baby—”
His voice landed against your skin like an apology he hadn’t had time to shape, but already meant with everything he had. And the moment he stopped moving—just the second his hips stilled, just the breath between one heartbeat and the next—something in you snapped. The emptiness, that terrible hollowness where his rhythm had been, flooded your chest like a tidal wave, choking off your breath, making your arms seize tighter around him like maybe if you held on hard enough the cold couldn’t reach you.
Daryl didn’t need to see the tears to know. He felt it in your body—the sudden change in tension, the way your grip shifted from want to need, the tremble that started somewhere low in your spine and worked its way up into your chest, into the way your breath caught like it had hit barbed wire on the way out. He didn’t need to look at your face. He just knew. Because this was you. His wife. The only thing in this world he could read without a single word.
Still, he lifted his head, not out of confusion but out of guilt, because he should’ve felt it sooner. He should’ve known. And the second he saw you—hair splayed out beneath you in tangled strands, cheeks streaked with silent tears that neither of you had registered until just now, your mouth parted like you were trying to breathe through the weight of a hundred lifetimes—his chest fractured wide open. Not because he didn’t understand, but because he did. Because he knew this wasn’t fear. This was grief. This was the part of you that had stayed quiet all this time, the part you hadn’t let yourself feel, not until he was finally here, not until you could fall apart safely in the arms that were supposed to have held you through all of it.
He reached for you like he couldn’t do anything else—fingers threading through your hair, brushing it gently back from your damp cheeks, his touch reverent, delicate in the way only a man who’s loved you for years can manage. His eyes scanned your face, drinking you in, not searching for an answer but for reassurance—for some way to convince himself that he hadn’t failed you entirely, that you were still letting him in. And what he saw gutted him. Not because you were hurting, but because you hadn’t told him. Because you’d carried it alone, thinking he couldn’t bear it, when all he ever wanted was to be the one who did.
“Didn’t mean to—” he started, voice wrecked and hushed against your mouth, but you cut him off with a desperate, aching noise that said don’t you dare.
You pulled him tighter before he could say anything more, your arms locking around his shoulders like a tether that would snap if you didn’t keep it taut. “Don’t stop,” you breathed, the words fragile but clear. “Please, Daryl. I need this. I need you-” you were still crying, not hysterically so but crying nonetheless. And he knew exactly why. Of course he did. You didn’t have to ask him not to leave you. He knew you would’ve stopped him if it had been too much, and you knew without question he would’ve stopped himself if he’d thought it really hurt you.
The weight of what it meant to lose him. The cold, gnawing stretch of time you’d spent pretending that hollow space inside you was survivable. The unbearable relief of having him here again, real and solid and buried so deep inside you that the line between grief and grace blurred entirely. You weren’t crying because it hurt. You were crying because it mattered—because every part of you had cracked open under the pressure of loving someone so completely that living without them had nearly killed you, and this… this was how you came back to life.
He leaned in closer instead, forehead resting against yours, hand gently brushing the hair from your face as his thumb followed the path of a tear like it was holy.
His eyes were soft and wild all at once—wide and glistening, like he was looking at the most precious thing he’d ever nearly lost. And his voice, when it came, was low and rough and reverent, shaking with awe, not pity.
“Shhh,” he cooed, barely more than a breath. “I know, baby. I know.”
And maybe you didn’t say anything back. Maybe you couldn’t. But you didn’t need to. Because the sob that ripped through you as you dragged him impossibly closer—the way you held him, gasping and trembling and utterly unguarded—was the loudest kind of yes. And that was it.
That was the moment the last piece of him shattered. The sob cracked you open, but what followed wasn’t collapse—it was hunger. Not just for his body, but for the life threaded through it. For the rhythm of his pulse beneath your palm, for the ragged breath he exhaled against your mouth, for the sweat slicking your skin where it met his, sealing you together like glue and desperation.
The tenderness in his eyes cracked into something else—something darker, deeper. His jaw clenched not with restraint now, but with the effort of not fucking you through the floor. And when you lifted your hips, grinding into him with all the need that had been choking you silent for days, he finally gave in.
He kissed you so hard it hurt, mouth crashing into yours with a force that spoke louder than any words ever could, like he thought if he kissed you hard enough, it might stitch the splinters back together, might fuse soul to soul and silence the ache. One hand cupped your face, thumb brushing away a tear he couldn’t stop, while another fell right behind your thigh, gripping hard, dragging you up and into him again, no hesitation, no pause, just the fierce, undeniable need to be inside you, to move in time with your heartbeat, to bury himself in every place you ached.
And when he thrust again—harder this time, rough and deep and aching—it wasn’t just sex. It was obliteration. It was grief and rage and love and resurrection, all tangled into the rhythm of two people who’d already lost each other once and would rather burn than let it happen again. Every thrust was a scream. Every kiss a promise. And everything else—the fire, the cult, the pain, the memory of your bodies being dragged away—burned away into nothing. Just heat. Just skin. Just the two of you, wrecking each other back to life.
He growled against your skin—not a sound of anger, but of helpless, full-bodied surrender—and pushed deeper, harder, rougher, until your body bowed beneath him and your cry echoed around the barren gas station. His hands weren’t gentle. They were frantic, anchoring your thighs apart like he couldn’t bear the idea of you ever slipping from him again. His palms slid beneath your ass, lifting you to meet him thrust for thrust, pace turning punishing, almost cruel—but never careless. Never thoughtless.
The pace grew sharper. Harsher. Like the tenderness had done its job and now there was only need, coursing through both of you like blood that had been frozen too long and finally remembered how to burn. His hands slid beneath your thighs, dragging them higher, pressing you open until your hips tilted just right, until every thrust hit the place that made your breath catch and your hands claw at his back without mercy.
You could feel it in your chest—the thunder of your heart matching the rhythm of his body driving into yours, so hard now it bordered on brutal, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t violence. It was release. It was the kind of desperation that lived in marrow, the kind that only surfaced when someone had thought they’d lost you forever and just got you back in the flesh, panting and crying beneath them like salvation.
His gaze dropped again to where your bodies met, where you took all of him again and again, where slick and need coated his length and your thighs and the floor beneath. He watched himself disappear into you, over and over, and something in his throat cracked open around a sound that wasn’t quite a groan, wasn’t quite a whimper, but something ruinous in between. His jaw clenched, but not to restrain himself—no, this time it was to hold back the tears that stung the corners of his eyes, the way his lip quivered when he looked at your face and saw nothing but home.
You tightened around him, a gasp catching in your throat, and your back arched again, like your whole body was trying to drag him deeper. He followed instinct, chest pressed flush to yours, forearms braced on either side of your head as he rolled his hips deeper, rougher, unforgiving now. He was panting into your mouth, groaning softly every time you clenched around him like your body was trying to keep him, claim him, never let him go again.
“Jesus,” he breathed, but it wasn’t a curse. It was reverence. It was awe. It was the sound of a man who had already died once and was being brought back to life by the way your hands gripped his shoulders and your heels dug into the small of his back and your cries sounded like they’d been buried for days and had finally clawed their way out.
It was obliteration in the truest sense—the complete undoing of everything that had come before. The silence. The fire. The nights spent thinking he was gone. The image of your own blood on concrete. The image of his body, still and crumpled, playing behind your eyelids like a curse.
Gone.
All of it burned away under the weight of him inside you—under the pressure of his breath ghosting over your mouth, of his fingers tangled in your hair, of his body colliding with yours in the kind of rhythm that came not from want but need. His hips snapped with purpose, not just to make you feel but to remind you that you were alive, that this was real and you were still here, and so was he, and you weren’t going to lose each other again. Not like that. Not ever.
You clung to him like he was gravity, like he was the only thing anchoring you to this plane of existence. And maybe he was. Maybe this wasn’t the world anymore—maybe it was something else, something made entirely of heat and skin and breath and sweat, something holy in its destruction.
Every thrust carved his name into your bones.
Every kiss spilled another vow you didn’t have the words to speak.
And everything else—the Creed, the fire, the bruises on your wrists, the ashes you’d swallowed trying to survive a world that wanted you gone—all of it melted into the background until there was only this. Only now. Only him, burying himself so deep inside you it felt like resurrection, like the act of being loved by him in this body, in this ruined, wounded flesh, was the only miracle you had ever believed in.
He wasn’t fucking you.
He was wrecking you back to life.
It didn’t take long—how could it, when every thrust, every breath, every word from his lips had been cracking open the shell you’d built around yourself like a second skin. The pleasure wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t even welcome at first. It surged through you with such sharp contrast to the numbness you’d carried for days that your whole body rejected it on instinct, muscles locking, shoulders bunching, jaw clenched in defiance against something that felt far too good to be real.
You grunted, half in warning, half in protest, the sound raw and confused as if your body didn’t quite know whether it was trying to escape or surrender. You squirmed beneath him, hips shifting as if to pull away, a hand pressing against his shoulder in panic, not because you didn’t want him, but because it was too much—too fast, too bright, too alive. The heat building in your belly was unbearable, a wildfire on nerves that hadn’t felt anything in too long, and the thought of letting it take you terrified you more than the emptiness ever had.
But Daryl didn’t flinch. He didn’t still or jolt or scramble to change what he was doing, didn’t retreat like he thought he’d broken you. He just stayed with you—deep and steady, deliberate and devastatingly tender, each thrust measured not for his own release but for yours, for your healing, for your ability to breathe through it without shattering into dust. His hips rocked into you like clockwork, the same kind of rhythm he’d set from the beginning, grounded and sure, like his body already knew exactly what yours needed before your mind could even catch up.
Your hand fisted in his shoulder, your mouth fell open against his cheek, and when the pressure inside you tipped too far—when it swelled too fast to contain—you broke. Not into bliss. Not into pleasure. Into panic.
“I can’t,” you sobbed, voice so high and wrecked it barely resembled yours, your legs trembling around his waist, your spine arching clean off the ground as your hands scrambled over his back like you didn’t know whether to cling to him or push him away. “I c-can’t, I can’t—Daryl, I—”
You didn’t finish the sentence. It cracked and burned in your throat, dissolved into another wave of sobbing so deep it shook your whole frame.
But he didn’t pull out. He didn’t stop.
His arm slid beneath your lower back, cradling you close, and his other hand came to your belly, wide and calloused and warm as it pressed gently down—right where the swell of him was buried inside you, right where your body clenched around him like it couldn’t bear to lose the fullness, the heat, the truth of him.
“Right here,” he whispered, not with urgency, not with lust, but with the kind of reverent softness that made your eyes squeeze shut. “You feel that, baby? That’s me. I’m right here.”
The pressure of his palm, the heat of him, the sound of his voice—it grounded you more than anything else possibly could. You whimpered, breath catching as your muscles locked again, your body trying to brace against the tidal wave building too fast to hold back.
“I don’t know how—” you choked, the words jagged, trembling. “I don’t know if I can—”
“Yes, you do, you can,” he breathed, and his lips found your cheek, your jaw, your temple, moving in time with the careful snap of his hips, deep and unrelenting, never breaking rhythm. “Let me help you, baby. Don’t fight it. Just stay with me.”
You could feel how close he was. Every muscle in his body was trembling with restraint. His jaw was clenched so tight it ticked beneath your fingertips, his breath coming in sharp, ragged bursts against your skin. But still, he didn’t rush. He didn’t give in. He held you steady while you unraveled.
“Look at me,” he whispered, and his voice cracked right down the middle, wrecked and reverent. He brushed the sweaty hair from your face with a hand that trembled more than he wanted it to. “Just let me do all the work, alright? Doin’ so good for me, all ya gotta do is let go for me baby, I’m right here.”
Your eyes fluttered open, blurred and wet and shining like glass, and the moment they locked with his, it happened.
The sob that broke out of you was pure surrender—an unfiltered, primal sound that ripped from your throat like it had been caged for days, maybe weeks. And when it finally came—when your body gave in and your climax hit—it was seismic, a rupture that began low in your gut and tore its way through every nerve ending you’d spent too long numbing. It bent you back like a bow, spine arching clean off the filthy gas station floor, mouth falling open around a cry so guttural it didn’t sound human, didn’t sound like you at all, except for the way Daryl’s name punched through it like an invocation.
Your legs locked tight around his waist, shaking uncontrollably, the tension in your thighs quivering against his ribs as if your body couldn’t tell whether it was coming apart or trying to hold onto him for dear life. Your nails dragged across his shoulders in frantic, clawing lines, your fingers curling into the ridges of muscle like you were anchoring yourself to the only solid thing left in the world. And he took it—every tremor, every sob, every ragged cry—with a steadiness that bordered on sacred. Not passive. Not detached. He was there. With you. For you. Every inch of him moving with the singular purpose of carrying you through the storm you’d been bracing against for far too long.
His hips rolled with quiet force, deep and slow and relentless, each thrust dragging a fresh cry from your throat, timed perfectly with the way his hands tightened on your hips, thumbs pressing bruises into the curve of your pelvis as if marking the moment into your flesh. His breath came in sharp, shallow bursts against your jaw, heat and want tangled with the desperate restraint in his chest, but his voice—God, his voice stayed low, rough, reverent.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his lips brushing your temple, his nose pressed to your hairline, inhaling you like a man who had been starving. “You’re alright, baby. Just let it happen. There you go.”
One hand slid up your back to cradle your spine, the other dropping low to splay across your abdomen, grounding you where your body was threatening to levitate, thumb dragging slow, soothing circles just above where he was buried inside you. Every movement was deliberate, controlled, measured out like he knew exactly how much you could take, like he could feel every shockwave crashing through your body and was trying to absorb some of the impact himself.
He watched you like he always did in these moments—not just looking, but drinking you in, memorising the way your head tipped back, the way your mouth opened on a cry that broke halfway through, the way your eyes fluttered and flooded like something holy had split you wide open. It wasn’t just the way your body gripped his or the flush that lit up your chest and throat—it was everything. The rawness. The surrender. The way your soul seemed to burn through your skin when you fell apart for him.
“Fuck, baby,” he whispered, breathless now, like the sight of you had knocked it from his lungs. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful like this. Always are.”
And still he didn’t let go, just pressed kisses to your jaw, your neck. Still, he didn’t chase his own pleasure, as much as he was dying to do so, didn’t speed up, didn’t falter. He held you steady through it, hips dragging the last waves of it from your body as your limbs trembled and your breath hitched, as if he was the only tether you had to the world and he’d sooner break than let you float away.
Your body writhed, overstimulated and undone, tears mixing with sweat as you whimpered into his neck, barely able to hold your own weight. But he held it for you—held all of it. One hand slid between your shoulder blades, keeping your chest to his like he was shielding you from gravity itself, while the other pressed low against your belly, grounding you, pinning you in place with a gentle pressure right above where he filled you with his dick.
He whispered through it, lips brushing your jaw, your ear, the hinge of your throat. His hands stayed on you—one grounding your hip, the other still gently pressing into your abdomen like an anchor.
“‘That's it,” he whispered, lips against your ear, breath warm and wrecked and trembling. “Just feel it, baby. You’re doin’ so good. I got you.”
Even as his own body trembled, even as his jaw clenched and his back arched and his breath hitched in his chest like a man barely holding back, he stayed with you. For you. Because he knew what this was. Knew this wasn’t just about getting off—it was about being held. Being found. Being alive.
You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but feel—every inch of your body lit up and trembling, a live wire sparking beneath his hands, his hips, his mouth. It was too much. Too much sensation, too much emotion, too much of him after so long without. You were raw from it, undone, and still he moved with that same aching reverence, each thrust anchoring you deeper into the moment like he knew you were slipping from the edges of it. You were tragically oblivious to another orgasm approaching you like a semi.
The orgasm that hit you didn’t just unravel you—it erased you. Your vision flared white, then dimmed, sounds muffled and distant, as if someone had dunked your head beneath warm water and held you there. The gas station vanished. The cold tile floor. The sting of your fingernails clawing down his back. All of it blurred into light and heat and the pounding of your own pulse as your body arched violently, legs locking around his waist before falling slack beneath you.
You didn’t faint, not exactly. But you went somewhere—somewhere too bright and too quiet to be real. Your arms dropped from around his neck. Your head lolled back. Your body sagged like every nerve had been cut loose at once.
And Daryl felt it instantly.
His movements faltered, breath catching in his throat as he blinked down at you, eyes wide with sudden, gut-punching concern. “Hey,” he gasped, rough and shaking as his hand cupped your cheek, thumb sweeping across your clammy skin. “Hey, baby—hey, c’mon, stay with me, just look at me. What's goin' on?”
His voice cracked around the edges like a fault line splitting wide, that old rasp wrecked with worry. He shifted instinctively, one strong arm sliding beneath your back to cradle you close, supporting your weight like your bones had melted clean away—and they had. You were limp, pliant in his hands, your chest fluttering beneath his like a bird caught in the palm of a trembling hand.
Your lips parted on a soft, breathless sigh, lashes fluttering like you were trying to open your eyes, to come back to him.
His hand didn’t stop moving. Fingers threaded through your damp hair, brushing it back from your forehead with almost reverent care. “That’s it,” he murmured, voice low and raw with emotion. “You with me? Yeah? You’re alright, baby, I gotcha. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
His voice was wrecked. Wrecked and full of awe. Because even with his heart hammering in panic, even with his arms trembling around your body, he still couldn’t stop staring—couldn’t stop drinking you in, the way your skin glowed in the fractured light pouring through the broken ceiling above. Glass glittered in your hair like stars scattered in ink, your lashes damp with tears, mouth slack and lips swollen from his.
But he still hadn’t stopped. His hips still moved, slow and deep, instinct overriding thought. Relief washed over him; You were here. With him. You’d let go. And you were beautiful in it.
Your mouth moved—soft, slack, whispering nonsense or maybe his name—and your eyes finally opened, still dazed, still lost in the haze of aftershock. He watched the awareness bloom slowly across your face like sunlight creeping over the edge of a cliff. You were breathless. Glowing. Tears streaked your cheeks, but they didn’t come from pain.
He kissed your forehead, lips warm and firm against your skin, grounding you to him. “There she is,” he whispered. “Told ya I’d get you back.”
And you didn’t say anything—not at first. You just smiled, dazed and tearstained and impossibly soft, before wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your face into the crook of his shoulder like you were trying to fuse your bodies together completely.
And all he could do was hold you, breathe you in, and keep moving—slow and steady and full of everything he hadn’t been able to say.
You barely got the words out—breathy and slurred, more sensation than speech—but they shattered something inside him all the same. “Inside,” you gasped, voice catching in your throat, your eyes locking with his like you were offering him salvation. “Please, Daryl—inside, I want it, I need—”
And that was it. That was it.
His body jerked like you’d pulled a trigger, the last thread of restraint snapping clean in two. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t ask if you were sure, didn’t second-guess—because he knew. Knew you, knew this, knew how long it had been building, how right it felt. His hips snapped forward hard, burying himself to the hilt as a guttural sound tore out of him—half-growl, half-moan, all surrender.
His brain short-circuited around the edges, every nerve ending hijacked by the heat of your body around him, the way you clung, trembling and gasping, like you needed this just as much. He chased that feeling down with everything he had, like coming inside you wasn’t just release—it was proof. It was ownership. It was home.
His body seized like something sacred had split open inside him, every muscle going taut beneath your hands, his breath catching hard in his chest as he drove himself as deep as he could go and stayed there. One last thrust, a stuttering grind of his hips that pressed you flush together, and then he was spilling into you—hot, thick, and endless—like his body had been holding back too much for too long and now it was all pouring out, every drop proof he was still here, still yours. His mouth dropped to your shoulder as a guttural moan ripped free from his throat, wrecked and helpless, the kind of sound that only came from a man giving everything. His hands were shaking where they gripped your waist, where they held you still, where they cradled the place your bodies met like he could feel the way he was filling you, the way you clenched and fluttered around him like you were trying to pull him in deeper, keep him there forever.
The room was spinning gently, like the world had tipped sideways and finally decided to stay that way. You weren’t sure if it was the high or the way your body felt so thoroughly used, so utterly wrecked in the best way imaginable—but something in your chest cracked open, and all that came out was laughter.
It started quiet—just a shaky exhale and a grin pulling at your cheeks, still flushed and wet with tears—but it grew fast, breathless and bright and disbelieving. You curled your hand over your face as the sound bubbled out of you, unstoppable, giddy, the kind of laugh that only ever comes after near-death and resurrection.
“Shit,” you wheezed, blinking through the haze, your chest rising and falling like you’d run a marathon. “I blacked out. I actually blacked out—what the hell—”
Daryl was still buried inside you, breathing just as hard, sweat-damp curls sticking to his forehead. But when he looked down and saw you—your eyes all crinkled, your mouth open in that ridiculous, beautiful laugh—something in his face softened so completely it almost broke you again.
He let out a low, breathless huff that was halfway to a chuckle. “Jesus,” he muttered, brushing your hair off your face with the back of his hand, eyes wide with mock offense and real relief. “You really had me goin’ there, woman. One second you’re clawin’ me to death, next second you go limp like a damn ragdoll. Thought I broke you.”
You snorted, still grinning like a lunatic. “You did. In the best way, though. Next time maybe ease up on the death-by-dicking. I saw heaven, hell and my Grandma.”
He let out a quiet huff, low and breathless, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, and dragged a hand across his face like he still couldn’t believe you were real—alive, warm, mouthy as ever. His fingers brushed through your hair, tucking a damp strand behind your ear with more care than you’d seen in days. “She say hi for me?” he muttered, voice rough with something too raw to name, but the corner of his mouth twitched, just barely, betraying the grin he was trying not to let slip.
You grinned, already stretching like a cat beneath him, arms sliding up to loop around his neck with the kind of lazy confidence that only came from being thoroughly worshipped. “She did, actually,” you hummed, brushing your lips against his jaw as your fingers tangled in the ends of his hair. “Said if you keep that up, she might just pull some strings to keep you around a little longer.” You felt him laugh against your throat, low and rough, and the way his body relaxed into yours made your stomach flip all over again. Then his mouth found yours, soft at first—just a kiss, just the promise of one—but it deepened quick, and suddenly you weren’t so sure this was over.
The kiss hadn’t really ended. It had just slowed, softened, thinned into something weightless—like the last glow of a fire smoldering low. His hands roamed lazily over your skin, his hips shifting in the smallest, slowest rhythm, like the world outside of you didn’t exist. But your mouth kept going, even as your body melted into his, nerves still buzzing with leftover aftershock.
“I should probably be panicking,” you mumbled against his jaw, your lips brushing the stubble as you spoke. “Marshal’s gonna notice I’m gone. Someone’s bound to start asking questions. If they find my boot prints outside—”
He made a quiet sound in his throat, a distracted exhale that ghosted across your collarbone as his fingers finally found the clasp of your bra. You felt him working it one-handed, slow and clumsy in that way he always was when he was too preoccupied to focus. But you just kept spiraling
“Marshal’s probably clocked it by now,” you murmured, voice half-slurred with exhaustion and overstimulation, one hand absently trailing over Daryl’s shoulder. “Bet he’s halfway to setting the damn woods on fire lookin’ for me. Gonna be a whole thing when I show up without an escort and smelling like—”
You paused, blinking hard as Daryl’s mouth closed around your nipple.
“—like redneck,” you finished on a gasp, brows furrowing, breath catching sharply in your throat.
Daryl didn’t say anything at your jab, not with his tongue circling lazy and warm, not with the way his hands were working behind your back, clumsy in that single-minded way that meant all his brain cells had migrated south. The clasp of your bra finally gave, and you felt him exhale against your chest, low and almost reverent, like unwrapping the last damn Christmas present in the world.
“Anyway,” you managed, though your voice wobbled. “We’ll probably need to slip back soon, or else he’s gonna send a whole—oh, fuck, Daryl—send a whole damn—”
He sucked harder, just enough to make your spine twitch and your train of thought derail entirely. A soft whimper slipped out before you could catch it, and he pulled back just far enough to catch your expression with a crooked smirk tugging at his mouth.
“You finished?” he asked, voice gravel and amusement as one hand slid down to your hip, fingers splayed.
“Almost,” you muttered, chest heaving, eyes hazy but determined. “I was just sayin’ if he finds out I’m gone, he’ll—”
He dipped again without warning, tongue dragging slow over your other nipple, and your words crumbled with a breathy choke. His hands were everywhere—palming, teasing, pressing you down like he could memorize you by touch alone. Because he had.
You sucked in a shaky breath, fingers tangling in his hair. “Okay. Alright. Maybe that can wait a minute—”
“Damn right it can,” he murmured against your chest. And then, because you were still making tiny half-attempts to talk, even now, even with his mouth full of you, he pulled back just enough to give you that look—that exasperated, fond, completely ruined expression—and muttered, “Shut up, woman.”
You were still wrapped around him, your legs draped loose over his hips, your skin sticky and warm against the floor, and the air between you almost too full to breathe in. His mouth hovered at your chest, his breath hot where it fanned across damp skin, but it was the weight of him inside you that still anchored everything—that made your pulse slow down, your mind quiet, your soul crawl back into your body like it finally had a reason to stay.
Just the smallest shift of his hips, subtle and deep and slow enough to make your spine curve like a bowstring, your whole body sighing around the feeling. It wasn’t urgent this time. There was no clawing, no chaos, just the rhythm of trust, of comfort, of him easing the two of you back into motion like he didn’t want to scare the moment off.
You moved with him, your hips rising to meet each shallow thrust, the slick, slow drag of him filling you again and again like the echo of something sacred. His hands cradled your waist like you were something breakable, like he was terrified of pushing too far too fast, but he still kept going, steady and sure, his forehead dropping to your collarbone, his lips dragging blindly across your skin as he whispered something soft you couldn’t quite hear.
Your body responded before your mind did—back arching, thighs tightening around him, the stretch and pull of every movement settling low and molten in your belly. You pressed your cheek to his hair, your fingers carding gently through the strands at his nape, and for a moment, you just existed there—entwined, slow-moving, breathing each other in like the rest of the world had burned away.
He exhaled against your neck, rough and trembling. “Still with me?” he mumbled, voice hoarse, hands curling under your back as he rocked into you again, a fraction deeper this time.
You smiled, hazy and dazed and unbothered by anything but him. “Barely. But I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
And neither was he.
Not when the way you moved beneath him made his breath catch, not when your warmth pulled at him like gravity, not when the sound of your voice—wrecked and playful and still full of life—was enough to make his knees weak. His hips rolled again, just a little faster, his eyes finally lifting to catch yours.
And God, that look—you felt it more than saw it. Like you were the only thing that had ever mattered.
Neither of you had moved far—not really. Your legs were still loosely draped over his hips, heels resting against the backs of his thighs, your arms wrapped around him like you were trying to memorize the shape of him all over again. Daryl’s hands were splayed wide against your ribs, fingertips tracing absent circles just beneath your breasts, but the real connection—the one that neither of you dared speak for fear of breaking it—was deeper than that. He was still inside you, buried to the hilt, the fullness of him grounding you more completely than anything else in the world could.
And then, slowly—so slowly you almost didn’t register it at first—he started to move back and forth.
Not thrusting. Not fucking. Just a slow, rhythmic grind of his hips against yours, a smooth roll that had you sliding together like waves on a tide, every movement unhurried and devastating in its simplicity. The friction was low and steady, a deep ache blooming between your hips as your slick bodies rocked together, the drag of him thick and warm and maddening in the most patient, reverent way. It was less about building toward anything and more about staying here—right here—suspended in the aftermath, wrapped around each other like nothing else could touch you.
You mirrored him instinctively, your hips tilting up into every careful grind, your arms tightening around his back, mouth brushing along the curve of his shoulder. Your skin clung to his, sweat-slicked and flushed, every nerve ending burning in the low light. And God, it was slow—almost torturous in its tenderness, like your bodies had decided they weren’t ready to let go yet, not even an inch, not even now.
Daryl’s breath stuttered against your throat, warm and shaky and uneven. His forehead rested against yours, and he was watching you, eyes flickering from your parted lips to the way your brow pinched and then eased with every roll of his hips. You felt like a live wire beneath him, pulled so tight you might snap, but you didn’t want to stop—not when every slow grind of his body against yours felt like a prayer being answered.
He cupped the back of your neck with one calloused hand, his thumb stroking behind your ear as his other hand slipped lower, fingers curling around your thigh to coax it higher, opening you up further, pressing you closer. He wasn’t chasing anything. He was holding you in it—this sacred, suspended moment where you didn’t need to speak to understand, didn’t need to move fast to feel everything all at once.
And still, he moved—steady, slow, unwavering—his hips grinding into yours with a reverence that bordered on worship. Your foreheads touched, your breath tangled, your bodies rocked in that quiet, unbreakable rhythm, and you both knew without needing to say it: even after everything, even after the blood and fire and silence, this—this right here—was still yours.
Your hands rose to his face, fingers skimming over the bruises that marred his cheekbones, tracing the cut below his eye with a featherlight stroke. His jaw twitched under your touch, a sharp breath caught in his throat—but he didn’t pull away. He leaned into it, like he needed to feel your fingers more than he needed to breathe.
You kissed him then—not frantic, but deep and shaking, your lips dragging over his as your body rocked beneath him. He was still hard inside you, filling every inch, the stretch still sweet and hot. Every thrust sent a slow ripple through your belly, your walls clenching weakly, tender and swollen from everything you’d just given.
When your hips shifted, chasing him, your breath hitched. You weren’t done. You didn’t want it to end. Not yet. Not when the ache between your legs felt like proof you were alive. Not when the slick sound of your bodies still meeting filled the space like a heartbeat.
His hand slid up your thigh, curling around the back of your knee as he adjusted the angle, driving just a little deeper, enough to make you whimper softly against his mouth.
And when you clenched around him, head tipped back with a broken noise caught in your throat, he kissed the salt from your cheeks and kept moving—slow and deep and endless, like the only thing holding him together anymore was the way your body still wanted his.
“I can’t lose you,” he said, the words shaped more by breath than voice. “I won’t.”
Your lips parted, but nothing came. You were too full of him. Too hollowed out by everything else.
His brow furrowed as his hand cupped your jaw, holding you still like he needed you to hear it right. “I kept thinkin’… if I had to go back to her without you—” His voice broke on the word her, just barely. “If I had to look Dani in the eye and tell her her mama was gone, that I couldn’t protect you…”
He trailed off, shaking his head like the thought itself was poison.
“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t -'
You felt his words more than you heard them—each one a tremor against your skin, his chest tight beneath your palm, his voice cracked and breaking open in the dark. He wasn’t crying. Not exactly. But you could feel the weight of it, all the same. The terror he hadn’t voiced, the guilt he’d been choking on for days. It pressed into the curve of your spine like a second heartbeat, like if you didn’t speak now, he might drown in it.
So you found his face with both hands, thumbs brushing over the dirt and blood at his temples, his jaw, his stubble. You tilted his head until his eyes met yours, and even then, he tried to look away. But you wouldn’t let him.
“No,” you whispered, your voice thick but steady. “You won’t have to do that. You won’t have to say those words.”
He stared at you, jaw tight, breath uneven, like he was waiting to be told it was just a lie. Just another dream that would vanish in smoke.
But you didn’t flinch.
“Dani’s still gonna have her mama,” you said softly, but with more strength than you expected. “And her daddy. Both of us. She’s gonna see us walk through those gates, hand in hand, same as we left.”
Daryl closed his eyes. His throat worked around something unspoken, and when he opened them again, there was water gathered at the corners—blinking stubbornly against it, jaw clenched like it might hold the rest of him together.
You kissed him then. Not frantic, not hungry. Just the press of lips meant to anchor, to promise, to stay.
“And you’re not gonna lose me,” you said against his mouth. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He nodded, a silent, fractured motion, and wrapped himself around you like he didn’t quite trust the world not to take you again. And maybe you didn’t either. But that didn’t matter. Because in that moment, in the hush of the abandoned station with only the creak of the wind outside and the cooling sweat between your skin, the only thing either of you believed in was this.
You didn’t know if that was true—but it sounded like hope. And you needed something to believe in.
You moved together like nothing else existed. Not the wind battering the broken walls. Not the cult that tore you apart. Not the blood, not the smoke, not the wreckage that clung to your skin and memory like rot. Only this. Only the desperate push and pull of two bodies relearning each other by touch alone, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat.
The rhythm you found wasn’t rushed, wasn’t desperate like before—it was slow, reverent, a quiet conversation of hips and breath and the slick, aching slide of him still buried deep inside you. Each slow grind sent a ripple through your spine, a soft hum low in your belly, and you clung to him—not from fear this time, not from the ghost of grief clawing behind your ribs, but simply because you could. Because he was here and he was yours, and the weight of his body felt like home pressing into all the right places.
Your hands threaded through his hair, keeping his forehead pressed to yours, and for a long, swaying moment, it felt like the whole world was just skin and breath and the slow, coiling heat curling between your hips. He whispered something then—something low and hoarse and sweet against your mouth, something like “that’s it, baby,” and “feel so good round me,” and “mine, always,”—and it unravelled something in you that hadn’t dared come forward the first time. You felt it start in your chest, in the centre of your ribs, a warmth that spread like sunlight beneath your skin, melting every last bit of tension from your body.
You didn’t flinch from it. You didn’t fight it this time.
Instead, you let yourself fall into it—let your body arch to meet him, your breath break against his jaw, your thighs tighten around his waist as the pleasure rose steady and deep. Your orgasm bloomed slow, like a flower opening in time with his hips, and when it crested, it felt like the kind of surrender that didn’t tear, didn’t burn. Just opened. Welcomed. Wrapped around you like a blanket you’d been missing your whole life.
Your fingers dug into his shoulders as your voice broke, not loud or wild, just soft and reverent, a choked whisper of his name carried on a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. And Daryl held you through it—his hand pressed firm against your lower belly again, his other curled beneath your head, his body grinding into yours with a rhythm that said he never wanted to stop feeling you like this, never wanted to be anywhere else. He kissed you through it, mouth warm and open and grounding, whispering your name between every breathless praise.
“Atta girl,” he murmured, voice frayed and trembling, eyes locked on your face as you came undone beneath him. “Shit, baby, I’m-”
And then he stilled, breath catching sharp in his throat, hips jerking once—twice—and he buried himself as deep as he could go, letting out a sound like he’d been holding it in for years.You locked your legs around him, hips lifting instinctively to draw him as deep as he could go, needing to feel every throb, every shudder, every last drop of him fill you up. His forehead dropped to yours again, his whole body shaking against you as he spilled into you, breathless and broken and so profoundly there it made your chest ache with how much you loved him.
You both stayed like that, trembling and tangled and far too full of each other to move, the world outside forgotten. Your fingers threaded into his hair, your nails dragging down the damp line of his spine, holding him there, inside you, where he belonged. You could feel it all—his pulse through his cock, the tremor in his thighs, the helpless twitch of his muscles as he emptied himself into you again, slower this time, but no less complete.
Includes: Luffy X Traumatised/Devilfruit user Reader, Long and slow burn. Eventual fluff, angst, possibly Romance and Smut. Eventual Strawhats x Reader. Brutal and violent scenes targeted both towards and against reader. Death of close ones. Traumatic events. Character building
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Summary: From being Ace’s right hand girl, to meeting Monkey ‘D Luffy for the first time in Alabasta, Then watching everything that was once important to you vanish mercilessly infront of you. You find yourself on a strange journey you never expected standing alongside none other than Ace’s brother.
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I will let you guys know if the chapter is more of a filler and can be skipped/isn’t as important although be warned you may miss information that could still be important. This story will be long and therefore filler chapters are NECESSARY.
Chapter Summary: Training continues, your strength and confidence grows alongside your bonds with Rayleigh and Ace’s little brother. FILLER CHAPTER.
Normally, you would just listen quietly until sleep claimed him.
But tonight was different.
You felt a little less... heavy.
Like the weight that had been hanging from your shoulders for years had finally loosened its grip.
As Luffy talked and talked about his crew, you found yourself actually wanting to hear more. Something didn't make sense to you.
Why was Luffy here training with Rayleigh instead of training alongside his crew?
"Hey, Straw Hat."
The words slipped out during a brief pause in his rambling.
You rotated slightly on your rock so you were facing him.
"Where's your crew now?"
The atmosphere changed instantly.
The fire continued crackling, but the energy around Luffy shifted.
He sat up slowly, crossing his legs and lowering his head. The complete opposite of how he'd been only moments ago.
"We..." he hesitated.
"We got separated."
His hands rested in his lap. You watched his shoulders rise and fall with a long and heavy breath. Blackened messy hair blocking view of his eyes.
"When we got separated..." another pause, "that's when I heard about Ace."
Your chest tightened immediately. At the sudden mention of Ace. Feeling your hands begin to shake.
"I was alone."
His voice became quieter. Softer.
"But I still had to try..."
Another breath.
"...for Ace."
You had never seen Luffy like this. You'd only ever known the loud version, The determined version, The reckless, smiling, chaotic version.
When Ace died, you hadn't been watching Luffy Nor his reaction, You had only been watching Ace.
You quickly shook your head, forcing the memory away before it could drag you back into that day. And before all those horrible pictures flickered through your mind.
"I still don't want to believe he's gone."
The words left your mouth before you could stop them. A small sigh escaped you as you failed to swallow the memories.
"He talked about you..."
You looked over at Luffy. He was still staring down at his hands.
"...a lot."
For once, Luffy didn't interrupt.
Didn't joke.
Didn't smile.
Just listened.
But somehow that hurt you more. You felt your heart break as you watched him sitting there. Bowed head as if ashamed, crossed legged almost timid, hands slowly moved around in his lap as if he was anxiously awaiting news.
This wasn't the future King of the Pirates.
This was just a little brother who missed the comfort, the support, the love of his big brother. You couldn’t bear looking at him in this state. You stood slowly and walked over to the fire. Then sat down beside him. Close enough that he knew you were there. Not close enough to invade his space. You had no idea how to comfort people. Never had. Never one of those things that you needed, til now. But you tried anyway.
"He was really proud of you, y'know."
You said hesitantly not wanting to push boundaries. You struggled to keep your voice from cracking as you continued.
"I remember the first time he got your bounty poster."
A soft huff you often used when amused escaped you despite yourself.
"He came running across the ship and practically shoved it in my face. Kept asking me if I knew who it was."
Your smile grew slightly as to fight off the tears as you continued to recall your memory.
"Then he started screaming, 'THAT'S MY LITTLE BROTHER!'"
You paused, swallowing around the lump forming in your throat.
"He spent the next week carrying that poster around everywhere, it was at breakfast, lunch, dinner, all and any snack breaks or meetings."
Another soft huff holding back a smile on your face from the fond memory.
"He showed it to literally anyone who would listen, even those who didn’t"
Your eyes drifted toward the fire.
"He was so proud of you, Luffy."
Silence followed. Then you noticed his shoulders shaking. From the corner of your eye. You took a slight glance over to see small drops falling into his hands.
Tears.
You froze. It broke more than you expected, you had seen people cry before hell you’ve made people cry before, but this.. the never ending ball of laughter you had started to know… crying?
You still had no idea what to do. Part of you considered waking Rayleigh. But something stopped you. Instead, you carefully closed the remaining distance and placed an arm around his shoulders. Just enough so he knew he wasn't alone.
To your surprise, Luffy immediately leaned into you. Like he'd been waiting for someone to do exactly that. The tension in his body eased slightly, still shivering. You tightened your hold without thinking. Squeezing him into you more letting yourself be his anchor he so desperately craved not minding that his head rests squishing your boob slightly. You knew Luffy's mind was completely innocent in that nature.
He didn't say anything. Neither did you. It was clear what was needed. The only sound was the crackling fire and echoing crickets that filled the forest walls. After several long minutes, Luffy finally spoke.
"I couldn't save him."
His voice cracked. Your already shattered heart shattered into more pieces
"I couldn't save Ace."
You felt your chest ache. A breath becoming caught in your throat
"I couldn't save my crew either."
A sniffle.
"I was alone."
Another.
"I was lost."
You squeezed him gently in acknowledgement. You understood that feeling better than most. The silence stretched on. Eventually, the trembling within your hold stopped. Then came slower breaths. Then softer ones. Then—
A quiet snore. You looked down. Luffy had fallen asleep against you. A small smile found its way onto your face. You didn't mind. If anything, you felt strangely honoured by how much he trusted you. Though a part of you still felt guilty for bringing it all up in the first place.
Morning arrived with birdsong. Your entire body ached. You blinked awake and immediately regretted falling asleep sitting upright against a log. As you rolled your neck, memories of the night before resurfaced.
You looked down. Luffy was still asleep. Peaceful and calm, the pain you saw in his face the night before was gone. At some point during the night, he'd shifted completely.
His head now rested comfortably in your lap. You stared at him. Then sighed. You decided not to wake him. Not today. The guilt from last night still lingered. And you enjoyed his warmth as the morning was a tad cold. Instead, you looked up at the sky.
"Boring."
The word escaped under your breath. Not a single star. Just endless blue. No matter how beautiful others found it, daytime skies could never compare to the night.
After a moment of thought, you carefully lifted your hands. Making sure you made no sudden movements that could wake Luffy.
You closed your eyes. Took a deep breath. Then another. The familiar warmth returned. The gentle buzzing. The quiet crackling. When you opened your eyes, starlight danced between your fingers. You smiled softly, a small sigh of relief as you recounted the afternoon before. Slowly moving your hands through the air, you experimented with different motions and combinations.
Tiny galaxies formed. Constellations drifted through the clearing. Silver mist swirled around you. Stars shimmered and sparkled as if pieces of the night sky had been brought down to earth.
Completely lost in your own peaceful creation, you failed to notice that both Rayleigh and Luffy had woken up. Completely lost of time.
Rayleigh awoke and a pleased smile grew on his face as he stood and watched quietly.
Luffy awoke completely confused, between temporarily forgetting what happened last night and the magical view surrounding him.
His eyes darted between the stars, the sky, and you. As if trying to figure out whether it was still nighttime.
As he blinked between you the blue sky and the stars trying to force his eyes to focus and wake up. After what felt like 100 hard and pressed blinks Luffy could see clearly, his gaze falling on your face. A faint smile still lingered there.
"WOAH!"
The shout made you jump. Luffy practically launched himself out of your lap.
"SO YOU CAN SMILE?!"
The constellations immediately vanished.
"LIKE A REAL ONE?!"
You stared at him blankly. Then let out a long sigh. Luffy was definitely back to normal
————————-
you rubbed your eyes.
"There it is," you muttered.
Luffy tilted his head.
"There what is?"
"The annoying version of you."
"HEY!"
His dramatic outrage echoed through the clearing immediately. For a brief moment, everything felt normal again. You almost preferred it that way. Almost. Luffy continued staring at you with wide eyes and a cheeky grin.
"You can actually smile."
You frowned slightly.
"I've smiled before."
"No you haven't."
"I definitely have."
"Nope."
You pointed at him. Falling into his childish argument. Truthfully, you were glad that he was focusing on your smile rather than the stars that had surrounded him as sunlight provided its presence.
You gave him a cocky look crossing your arms, still acting as childish as ever.
"I smiled yesterday."
"That wasn't a smile." Luffy huffed in annoyance at you winning the argument.
"Then what was it?" You remained confident as ever.
"It was like..." Luffy scrunched up his face trying to think. "Like when somebody accidentally drops food and tries to pretend they're happy about it."
Your eye twitched. Eyebrows furrowed and mouth gaped open for less than a second as you absorbed the comment in complete and utter disbelief
‘How has this man survived to adulthood’
Was all you could think before fixing your facial expressions completely dumbfounded.
"That doesn't even make sense."
"It does in my head." Luffy stated now with his same old typical Grin on his face.
Rayleigh burst out laughing watching the childish argument unfold. You groaned quietly and dropped your face into your hands. For some reason, that only made Luffy laugh harder.
The rest of the morning passed surprisingly peacefully. Luffy returned to his training. You continued experimenting with your powers whenever Rayleigh wasn't actively trying to beat Haki into you. He had officially given you freedom to train your power and confidence with Haki. Sort of. Luffy remained banned from his devil fruit abilities while forced to focus on haki and stamina.
Days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
And somewhere along the way, things changed. Not dramatically. Not suddenly. Things you would expect as two people trained alongside each other for months on end. Just little things.
Luffy sitting beside you without asking. Like he was no longer slightly scared of you.
Handing you food before taking his own.
Saving a seat for you beside the fire. Though there was nobody else who could take it.
Falling asleep closer and closer each night as the nights got colder until one evening you looked down and realised he'd somehow ended up using your shoulder as a pillow.
It was never anything romantic—at least, not that you noticed. Luffy wasn't the type to think that way. It was simpler than that.
He treated your presence the same way he treated a warm campfire, a favourite spot on the Sunny, or a place he knew he could sleep without worry. Almost how Ace used to.
Comfortable.
Safe.
Somewhere he didn't need to keep his guard up. So if he felt tired, he'd lean against you without a second thought. If he woke up in the middle of the night, he'd somehow end up a little closer than before. And if anyone asked why, he'd probably just shrug and say, "Cause it's comfy." Somehow, that answer would be completely honest.
It was almost like he let his walls down or, maybe you had let your walls down it was unclear.
Neither of you acknowledged it.
The same way neither of you acknowledged how often he searched for you first whenever something happened. Or how often your eyes automatically found him in return.
One evening, after another exhausting day of training, you sat atop your usual rock watching the stars. The night sky stretched endlessly above you with little clouds, a perfect view of the sparkling suns millions of miles away. Quiet.
Peaceful.
Safe.
You heard footsteps approaching before Luffy suddenly dropped down beside you. Not gracefully. More like a sack of potatoes. You didn't even look at him. He was never one for grace.
"You're gonna fall off that rock one day." Luffy said as he broke the peaceful silence.
"I won't." You said in a sigh as he brought you back from the heaven your mind has gone to.
"You said that last time."
you had grown accustomed to Luffy’s responses, always expecting the childish behaviour and the constant rebuttal and confidence he spoke endlessly.
"I was pushed." You snared
"You tripped."
"Details." You said as you knew he was right for once.
Silence settled between you comfortably.
"Do you miss him?"
Your breath caught. For a moment, neither of you moved. You already knew who he meant.
Ace.
Luffy stared up at the stars. Not looking at you. Not forcing you to answer. Just asking. Clearly a question he had been pondering about for a while by the way his voice hesitated.
You took a deep breath letting the air fill your lungs and with the exhale.
"...Every day."
Your voice barely rose above a whisper not wanting it to crack. Luffy nodded slowly.
"Me too."
The answer came immediately. No hesitation. No pretending. Just truth. You swallowed hard. As you reminded yourself of the past.
"I keep thinking..." you began quietly, "if I'd been stronger..."
Luffy immediately shook his head.
"No."
The response was firm. You looked over at him. A little stunned at the sudden break of the whispering.
"No?"
"No."
His gaze remained fixed on the stars. As you continued to stare.
"If it worked like that..."
A sad smile tugged at his lips. As if he was trying to hide a deeper emotion. He was.
"...then I'd hate myself forever."
Silence followed. Because neither of you had an answer to that. The only sounds were the waves crashing against the shore far below and the wind moving through the trees.
“You’d known Ace for a while right? Like even before Alabasta?” Luffy asked, still looking into the endless above him.
You hesitated as you recalled the painful but happy memory.
“He’d used to say I was his first adventure, I guess it’s because he ran into me before anyone else”
“Kinda like me and Zoro” Luffy said softly
“Kinda” you said, putting a confused look onto luffys moonlit face.
It was on an island close to where he lived. I was inside a massive building which was roaring with flames and smoke. Apparently Ace ran in after someone mentioned there were still people trapped inside."
Your gaze turned to the endless void above you as the memory resurfaced.
"I remember feeling dizzy. The smoke was so thick I could barely breathe, barely think."
A small huff escaped you as you felt that lung stinging pain again.
"Most people were running away from the building."
You paused. Holding back a slightly amused giggle that pressured your sealed lips
"Ace wasn't."
Luffy sat quietly beside you, listening still looking up into the night sky. It didn't hurt this time, it felt different, the air surrounding him not tense and broken as the last time, instead comforting and calm.
"As soon as he heard there were people still inside, he ran straight through the front door."
Your fingers tightened slightly around the stick you were holding.
"The stupid idiot."
A tiny smile flickered across your face before disappearing again.
The crackling of the campfire filled the silence.
"I couldn’t leave although I was able.. I still had friends in there."
You paused briefly, hoping Luffy wouldn't notice your choice of words.
Friends. Not family. Friends.
"The upper floors."
You swallowed hard as the picture of the spiralling staircase encased in flames filled your mind vivid and unrelenting.
"I'd spent years looking after them."
The memory became clearer the more you spoke.
"The smoke got worse the higher I climbed. Everything burned. Walls, floors, doors. The whole building sounded like it was screaming."
You closed your eyes.
"Ace caught up to me somewhere on the stairs."
Immediately you could hear his voice again. As you replayed the scene.
'Are you insane?! The stairs are gonna collapse!'
A small smirk briefly appeared barely visible.
"He grabbed my arm and tried pulling me back down."
You looked towards Luffy before back up at the stars.
"I stared at him until he loosened his grip."
Luffy remained silent just listening to you.
"He should've known better."
You voice becoming intense but still a whisper
"Then I ran."
Your expression darkened.
"The hallway outside their room was completely covered in flames. The walls were burning. The ceiling was falling apart." You took a slow breath.
"But I couldn't stop." The memory of the key felt almost physical in your hand.
"I'd grabbed it on the way up." Your voice softened once again. "When I opened the door..."
You paused. "They were all huddled together."
Small.
Terrified.
Crying.
Still trapped.
Your chest tightened. "They thought nobody was coming." The words came out barely audible as you choked on your own words.
"I unlocked every chain as fast as I could."
You looked down back into the fire.
"They were all crying so hard they could barely stand."
A shaky breath escaped you.
"I shoved every single one of them toward the door and told them to run."
The flames crackled louder. As your stare unwillingly intensified.
Neither of you noticed the slight change in the wind, it no longer took a direction more a centre.
"They listened."
A small smile appeared.
"For once."
Luffy laughed softly as you continued.
"They got two flights down before I followed."
"Why didn't you leave with them?" Luffy asked.
You shrugged.
"There were other rooms."
Luffy groaned as if the story you told was make believe and you could just change the story.
"Of course there were."
"I wanted to make sure nobody else was trapped."
The memory became sharp again. Painfully sharp. Stare was still intensifying as it tried to burn holes into the firepit.
This time Luffy noticed the strange tensions of the surrounding area, he noticed the firepit was crackling a little too loud.
He noticed the wind pushing against him gently from all directions.
He noticed the dust and wood chips that lined the campsite flooring was moving around as if each piece was stuck in its very own tornado.
His gaze moved from the stars as he felt the adjustments in the atmosphere, now intently staring at the tree branches that stood above him. He remained quiet but indecisive as he continued to listen to your voice.
"I was only a few steps behind them when the staircase collapsed."
The words made Luffy straighten immediately, no not the words, the tone.
"The entire thing just..."
You brought your hands together.
"Crack."
A long silence followed. The atmosphere that had seemed alive merely seconds ago was dead again, the fires crackling returned to its almost silent state, the wind fell now only a gentle breeze. The dust and wood chips falling back down to the ground as if you had just told them to play dead. Luffy tensing at the odd timing.
"I don't remember falling."
Your stared eased into the fire.
"I just remember waking up underneath the rubble."
Your hand unconsciously moved toward your leg.
"My leg was trapped."
Another pause.
"And then I saw him."
Luffy's eyes widened slightly.
"Ace?"
You nodded.
"He was buried further up."
For a moment, your voice became softer.
"He wasn't moving."
The image still haunted you.
Dust. Smoke. Silence. And Ace lying completely still.
"I thought he was dead."
The confession hung heavily in the air.
"But then..."
The frown on your face rose as it returned to a straight line. Your tone changed no longer tense
"I noticed four tiny hands sticking out from under his shirt."
Luffy blinked. Then immediately burst out laughing realising his brothers stupidity and bravery.
"You've gotta be kidding."
"I wish I was."
A small smile grew, unable to hold it back due to the amusement you felt of Ace’s actions.
"He'd found two babies somewhere in the building."
You shook your head.
"Instead of leaving, he stuffed them inside his shirt and kept looking for more people."
"Sounds like Ace."
"It does."
The smile faded again.
"I dragged him the rest of the way."
Luffy stared.
"...You dragged Ace?"
"He wasn't exactly helping."
Your glance finally broke from the stars above to Luffy’s big brown eyes as he now stared directly into yours.
"My leg was broken."
Now Luffy looked horrified.
"YOUR LEG WAS BROKEN?!"
"Yes."
"And you dragged Ace?!"
"Yes."
"That's insane!"
"You would've done the same thing."
Luffy opened his mouth. Then closed it.
"...Yeah."
The two of you sat in silence for a moment.
"I got him outside just before the building collapsed."
Your gaze drifted upward toward the stars.
"I passed out almost immediately afterward."
A small laugh escaped you.
"When I woke up a few days later everyone kept calling me a hero."
Your smile became fond.
"I thought it was ridiculous."
"Why?" Luffy asked.
You looked toward him again.
"Because I wasn't the one who ran into a burning building to save people."
The fire reflected softly in your eyes.
"I just happened to save the idiot who did."
Eventually, Luffy yawned loudly.
Then flopped sideways onto the rock.
His head landed directly in your lap.
You stared down at him.
"...Seriously?"
"Comfy."
"Move."
"No."
You sighed. But you didn't push him away. And for the first time in a very long time...
The ache left by Ace's absence didn't feel quite so unbearable. It was still there. It probably always would be. But sitting beneath the stars with Ace's little brother asleep in your lap—
You thought maybe, just maybe—
You were finally starting to heal.
———————————————————————
If anyone has any tips on how skip sections of times better than how I have share 🙏🏼🙏🏼
You were now alone,at least in teory,in the old mansion. Mrs. Heelshire had shown you how to properly take care of Brah...the doll. You couldn't bring yourself to call it Brahms anymore. It made you think of your late friend too much. Oh,how you missed him...
You got used to the routine almost immediately. You always loved to have a program to follow,it's one of the things you had in common with Brahms. Even as a kid,you followed schedules with a strictness that bordered on obsessive. Your mother had tried to tell you that schedules weren't all that important,that routines weren't everything. You had looked at her as if she just grew a second head. "But how do you know what to do without a plan,a program?" You asked confused. She said something about deciding in the moment,living a little. You stopped listening a few sentences in,and started zoning out. You always did that when you didn't like what other were saying or doing. Most called it weird or disrespectful. You even got slapped once,from an old man that was telling you...you don't remember what. You only remember being slammed back into reality by a burning pain in your cheek,and zoning out again immediately after. It was a few days before Brahms' death. What was weird about that incident,was that you never saw that man again,even thought usually he and your mother met up in the morning while you and her were heading to the Heelshires' mansion,he walked the same road for a few minutes to get to his shop. The shop also closed the day after that slap. Your mother never told you why,and after Brahms' death,you didn't care to ask again.
You always felt watched here. When you were walking the halls,when you were cooking,cleaning,reading to the doll,even when you were in the bathroom,you always felt watched. By now,you figured out someone was,in fact,watching you. One day you pretended to sleep and,with an arm off the bed,you reached under it,in your suitcase,to grab the gun you had brought with you,just in case. You hid your hand under the covers and slipped it in your hoodie's internal pocket,making sure no one could see it,no matter where they were watching from. You had half an idea who it might be,but it's better to be safe than sorry.
Malcom came a few days after the Heelshires left to bring groceries and your money. He seemed surprised to see you. You're pretty sure you know why.
"Didn't expect a guy to open the door?" You said,your tone amused but your gaze the same unnervingly cold one people used to call you unsettling for. Malcom seemed a bit put off by your words. "Was it that obvious?" He asked,chuckling. "For me? Yes. Fort most people? Maybe not." You said,shrugging as you put away the bread. The room stays silent. You can tell Malcom is staring at you,waiting for an explanation. You sigh. "I used to be a close friend of Brahms back when we were kids. I was visiting when Mrs. Heelshire offered me this job,and I thought I might as well take it. I know the house better than anyone else they could have hired." You said,tone matter-of-factly. He nodded,but kept looking back at you. You knew what he wanted to ask. You waited for him to do so. He stayed silent,and so did you. A few minutes later,he left. You noticed how he shoot one last,unsure look at you. You didn't look back,not enough for him to notice anyways.
The house seemed heavier after that conversation. Things moved around that day. Not much,just enough to make someone question themself. A lamp settled on the wrong side of the desk,a chair just a bit too far from the table,a window that you swore was locked now open. You ran a finger over the metal of the gun trought the fabric of your hoodie.
You followed the schedule despite everything and went to bed at the usual hour. By now you figured that whatever or whoever was watching you wanted you to follow the rules. This reminded you of someone...Brahms...
No.
You were not going to start hoping just like that. Brahms is dead. You lost him. You spent years,decades even trying to get over it and failing. You were not going trought that heartbreak all over again,just because your brain was making up delusion. No matter how sweet those delusions might be,they aren't real. And you can't stand the thought of feeling that pain in your chest again.
That night,for the first time since your only true friend died,you cried. Quietly,in your bed,your face hidden in the pillow to muffle your sobs. And for a moment,just a fraction of a second,you thought you saw him,in a corner,watching you with those dark eyes you were never able to forget. But when you turned,no one was there.
"Oh Brahms,how I miss you." You murmur,a single sob leaving your throat before you suffocated the rest in the cuscion.
