summary: fet can’t explain what he saw. quinlan x f!reader. she/her pronouns.
cw: fet-centric, she/her pronouns, fluff.
word count: 357.
Fet looked up one day, after coming back from hunting munchers and gathering supplies, and saw Quinlan coming back to camp after three months’ disappearance. That wasn’t the interesting part, though—the interesting part was that he had returned with a female companion.
Everyone was surprised, but after a few days of her settling in, hunting deer and doves and gathering firewood, it was assumed she had tagged along to be part of a larger camp.
Fet, though, having spent the most time with the Wormless Wonder during those hard months of searching for an elusive nuke and avoiding the Master’s henchman, still had a funny feeling about their relationship.
This funny feeling was confirmed one day when he saw her trip over a hidden root and Quinlan grasped her waist to steady her.
Dutch had told him to get over it.
“She was falling,” Dutch had said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Have you ever seen him help anyone?” he argued back.
“Yes, Fet, he helped us with the Master for one.” She rolled her eyes. “And he moved the laundry baskets to the river for Lily yesterday. It doesn’t mean anything; you would’ve said something if he had let her fall on her ass.”
All valid points.
But Dutch hadn’t seen it.
Fet had tried to argue, but he knew that feeling and instincts weren’t enough when one was discussing the possible heart of a Dhampir. Quinlan didn’t normally touch others—except to threaten eating them or wringing their necks—but when [Name] had tripped and Quinlan’s hands had reached out, he had looked—gentle. Even after she was stable, a hand, pale and large and hesitant, still hovered against the base of her back.
How was Fet supposed to explain that to Dutch? How could he properly describe how ethereal and picturesque they looked in the glow of the dimming day? How serene, as though they weren’t on their way to kill munchers lingering in the area?
How could he explain that, when he had glanced backward, he had caught the quick smile on Quinlan’s face, bright against the fading light, even as they split?
You watched Fet make one last attempt to appeal to their humanity.
“Look, friend, we have one enemy: them — the munchers. We’re on the same side; we should be helping each other out.”
Any optimism disappeared from him, though, as the man in front of him, his red beard dirty with gray snow and food bits, turned away to leer at Charlotte.
“You have pretty eyes,” he said, but his gaze was at her breasts.
Another man with short prickles of hair on his chin stepped forward from off to the side, gazing at you in the same way. You clenched your fists, feeling a chill even through your clothes, but kept your hands still. You wanted nothing more than to slice their stomach jagged, because anyone who took advantage of other people in these circumstances deserved to watch their intestines spill out their torso, but you knew they had hasty fingers on the triggers.
“Don’t do it, man,” Fet warned.
In response, the bearded man pressed a knife to Fet’s neck. His friends stepped toward the three of you, holding up their guns.
The one that had been eyeing you stepped closer. With the end of his gun, he pressed it against your cheek, forcing you to turn your head to the side; you resisted the urge to spit at him. He eyed your dainty, gold earrings, worthless in this day but gifted to you from your passing mom, the faded scar on the side of your jaw, the smoothness of your neck disappearing underneath the scarf and heavy jacket. He licked his lips, grinning.
Fet let out a bark of laughter suddenly, interrupting your glare and the man’s leering. The bearded man raised the knife to Fet’s face in warning, but his eyes were defiantly bright and amused, flickering to the one in front of you.
“Oh, no, no, no, her?” He laughed again, though no one else shared his mirth. “Don’t do it, my friend. I’m telling you: you’re making a big mistake.”
The man in front of you sneered at Fet. “Mistake? And what the fuck are you gonna do about it?” To emphasize his point, his free hand roughly gripped your face, tilting it every which way as if he were examining product; then, he pressed his thumb against your bottom lip, the rest of his fingers stretched out toward the strands of your hair. You grunted, trying to pull away, but he helped your face tightly, finger right against your teeth — “Ah, ah, don’t you move, sweetheart.” He brought the gun back to your cheek.
“Me? Nothin’,” Fet answered. “I don’t need to do nothin’.”
You bit down sharply on his thumb in his distraction, but his response was immediately, swinging the back of the gun against your face. You saw stars on your way down, feeling the skin against your jaw and lip split.
“You bitch,” he hissed, getting on top of you and pinning your hips down with his weight. “I’m gonna have fun with you —”
“Listen! Listen,” Fet interrupted quickly. “You guys ever heard of the story of The Beauty and the Beast?”
“Shut up!” he growled. He raised his gun above you, intent on knocking you out even through Fet’s speech; the rest of them closed in on your friends.
“Hey, hey, I’m just trying to warn ya — [Name] here is The Beauty, and The Beast is not something you wanna mess with.”
“What the fuck are you going on about?”
“I’m saying her monster boyfriend’s territorial.”
There was a sudden thump off to the side — a body had hit the floor in halves.
“What the fuck was that?” They looked to each other, and the one on top of you looked back to Fet.
“Don’t look at me,” Fet said, shrugging, his hands still up in the universal sign of peace. “I tried to warn you guys. Look, but don’t touch, eh?”
The blade swung so fast that it barely had time to even sing through the air. A head flew off the neck, toppling to the snow-covered ground with soft beats. Another man turned around and tried to shoot at the zooming silhouette of Quinlan, missing each one. While they were distracted, Fet grabbed the gun from the leader and smashed him in the head with the butt of the weapon. You instantly punched the one straddling you in the balls, and as he toppled over in pain, you smashed your elbow into him, snatching the gun from the floor.
When you looked up, there were only two men left, the one that had been harassing you and the de facto leader, both staring in petrified horror at Quinlan wiping his sword on one of their dead teammate’s shirts. Quinlan hadn’t bothered to rip it off the carcass; the body strained between his hold and gravity as it dangled in the air, a show to his inhuman strength.
Fet wiggled eyebrows at them. “You wanna help us now?”
Quinlan stopped in front of you. You moved your jaw, testing the damage. Your face was throbbing and you could taste the sharp copper flavor of your own blood, but nothing seemed broken.
You looked up at Quinlan. His eyes flickered to the cut on your lip and the dark, blooming spot that was probably already growing on your face.
“I’m fine,” you said. “Flesh wound.”
He stared a second longer before turning away to loom over the man on the ground.
“I’m sorry — I didn’t know — I didn’t —”
“What do you mean you didn’t know?” Fet remarked, amusement laced through his words. “Everyone heard me warnin’ ya, right? Right?”
In one smooth movement, Quinlan pierced the blade through the man’s chest, pinning him bloodily and painfully to the ground, the snow around him dirtied and stained. He choked on his blood, gazing into narrowed, cold eyes. Quinlan twisted the sword and, with a sharp crunch, the man went limp.
You didn’t feel sorry.
When Fet and Charlotte turned away to harass the remaining man, Quinlan pulled his sword out and shook it once against the snow. He didn’t wipe it off, perhaps a show of what he could do, or what he had done.
You couldn’t help the teasing smile. “Territorial, huh?”
He glanced at you as though he were debating an answer. Then, his voice low, he said, “Extremely,” and your grin grew. “Stay close,” he said.
“I’m fine,” you said, but even when you didn’t follow him, you noticed he was never far from you.
a/n: i love quinlan jfc. he’s hard to write, but this was buzzing in my head.
11/18/2022 edit: don’t mind me; just cleaning up formatting.
summary: in quiet moments, quinlan touches you gently. quinlan x gn!reader.
cw: gn!reader, no pronouns used. just some fluff.
wc: 324.
When you had first started your relationship with Quinlan, you soon realized that the distance that he showed the group did not extend to you, especially when it was only you and him in a room.
He was much touchier than you had thought.
But it wasn’t about sex or possessiveness. It wasn’t about lust or jealousy.
In those quiet moments, he never touched you with hunger, but with a curious tenderness.
Minutes after the room was empty, as if he was waiting to make sure no one would return, Quinlan would then move to be beside you, or pull you into his lap, or peer over your shoulder at whatever it was you were doing, and his hands would smooth over your shirt or your skin, memorizing dips and dives in your curves, searching for arches in your back and finding laughter in your sides.
It was intimate, but not sexual. He only wanted to know. His hands, though coarse, never gripped you in the tight and fierce way they held his sword. He always touched you softly, and sometimes a little timidly.
Perhaps he touched you in this way because he could, because someone finally wanted him to. Perhaps he was trying to learn how to touch someone gently, that there could be a way to touch someone without the need to twist their neck, that there could be a need to touch someone simply to touch, simply to feel the warmth of their stomach against the palm of an honest hand.
When he heard people come, Quinlan returned to the other side of the room. Your body buzzed from his disappearance. You wondered if his fingers vibrated in the same aching way, though it was never something you thought you had to ask. The moment everyone left again, he crossed the room to re-familiarize himself with the way your skin was always warmer with his hand on it.
