did u pray 2day??

“Isn’t he wonderful.” Aerion says holding the scaly thing in his arms, scratching the top of its head. Stormfrye laying next to you both, just watching. “His name is brighflame.”

“He’s… small.” Are the words you settle on, not sure what to say as you got told he had a large vicious dragon that could rival Vermithor. “Has he grown since hatching?”

“Of course, he’s just had a growth spurt actually he’s grown an inch over the past 4 moons.” Aerion brags smiling as stormfrye nudges him with her large snout, wanting to look at the little dragon.

“Oh, that’s nice.” You say trying to hide a laugh when the little dragon sneezes fire shooting out of its snout. Areion not even caring his sleeve is now singed.

“Shall we go to bed then?” Aerion says still smiling as you scratch Stormfrye thinking your the best wife he could ever ask for. “Brightflame needs a bedtime story or he won’t sleep through the night.”

-

“He sleeps in your chambers?” You ask the servants having been dismissed after getting you ready for bed. You removing your jewellery yourself while Aerion gets undressed behind the privacy screen. Brightflame curling up in the fireplace to sleep.

“Our chambers.” Aerion corrects coming out from behind the diver naked, seemingly not caring when you choke in shock and quickly look at the ceiling. “And yes of course, I do feel bad for Stormfrye doesn’t she get lonely all on her own at bed time?”

“No, if she does she just calls for me.” You say getting under the covers, trying not to watch as Aerion joins you. “She used to sleep outside my window.”

“We can move out chambers so she can sleep outside our window.” He offers moving over in bed to cuddle you. “I’ll talk to father about it.”

“You don’t need to.” You say grateful he can’t see how flustered you are, rolling onto your side so you’re not facing him. “Good night.”

“Good night my dragoness.” He said kissing the back of your neck before he starts to spoon you. Him falling asleep almost instantly.

-

“Aerion what are you doing?” You ask a few weeks later seeing your husband pack up some of his things, servants doing the same to yours.

“Our new chambers are ready.” He says picking up some of brightflames toys off the floor and putting them into a box.

“What?” You ask confused moving out of the way, so some of the servants can leave with you and your husband’s things.

“Our new chambers.” He repeats, giving you a massive smile. “They’re next to the new dragon pits so stormfrye doesn’t get lonely. I’ve also made a little dragon flap in the wall so Brightflame can sleep with her if he’d like.”

“Oh, that’s sweet of you.” You say finding your husband odd but sweet in his own weird way. You’ve noticed over the past few weeks of marriage he’s been doing all he can to make you happy, it’s working.

“I know.” He says kissing your cheek before leaving the chambers holding a box of dragon toys.

-

“Where’s brighflame?” Aerion asks half asleep stumbling out of bed, naked obliviously, wrapping his arms around your waist while you stand on the balcony he had made looking into the dragon pit.

“Cuddling stormfrye.” You say a smile on your face, leaning into your husband’s arms you both watching Brightflame sleep on Stormfreyes stomach the girl sleeping on her back. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He asks nuzzling his face into your neck wanting to go back to sleep but not being able to sleep without you.

“Being you.” You say turning around in his arms so you can kiss him. “I love you.”

There was only silence that seemed to gather in the corners whenever the two of you were forced into the same space.

It was an arranged match, a political knot tied by hands other than your own.

To him, you were a grievance. An inconvenient obligation dressed in fine silk.

At the long candlelit tables of the Great Hall, he practiced a cruel kind of erasure. He would sit beside you and look entirely past you, engaging in chatter with nearby lords, his face sneering into permanent boredom the moment your eyes happened to meet.

If he had to speak to you, his voice carried a mocking edge specifically designed to see if he could make you shrink.

But you refused to give him the satisfaction.

You met his arrogance with untouchable detachment that bordered on utter disdain. Where he was volatile, you were a wall of ice.

You answered his biting remarks with indifference that cut far deeper than any screamed insult ever could. You learnt the exact rhythm of his moods, and you learned how to navigate them without ever letting your composure slip.

You lived entirely separate lives under the same roof. If he came into a room, you eventually found a reason to leave it. If you were seated together at court, you looked straight ahead, ignoring the dark weight of his gaze.

You drew just enough blood with your silence to keep him at bay, and he did the same.

It was a marriage built on a foundation of mutual resentment.

You hated the capricious nature of the prince, and he despised your ever strong resilience.

The shift in dynamic happened in the middle of the night during the dead of winter, driven by the horror of Aerion’s own mind.

Targaryens were plagued by blood, fire, and strange dreams. You knew that.

But this was your first time ever witnessing such a thing.

You were pulled from a light sleep by the sound of his breathing. It was frantic, much like someone drowning in a body of water.

When you looked across the expanse of the bed, you saw him. The fire in the hearth had died down to embers, and in the dim light, Aerion looked completely caught in the bars of a nightmare.

His silver hair was damp, clinging to his forehead, and his jaw was clamped so tight you could hear the grinding of his teeth. You looked down at his fingers that were buried deep into the mattress, pulling hard at the fabric.

As the dream finally released its grip, his eyes snapped open. He sat up abruptly, his chest heaving as he stared into the dark room, his gaze wild and confused.

He was suffering under the weight of his own disorientation, his pride violently warring with the panic in his veins.

He had expected you to say something. Perhaps something sharp or clever. He braced for you to look at him with disgust, to see the feared prince reduced to a trembling wreck in the dark.

You didn’t say a word.

You rose from your side of the bed quietly, your movements slow and deliberate so as not to startle the man beside you.

Walking over to the washbasin, you poured a cup of cool water and brought it back to the bedside.

Without forcing yourself into his space, you sat at the foot of the mattress and held the cup out to him. When he just stared at it with defensive eyes, you reached out and wrapped your hand around his, guiding it to take the cup.

Your touch was steady. Unshakable. You didn’t look at him with pity, nor did you look at him with fear. You remained there in the dark, an anchor while the remnants of his nightmare slowly evaporated into the room.

Aerion drank the water in desperate gulps, his eyes never leaving your face. He was entirely bewildered by you.

The fact that you had witnessed the absolute ruin of his composure and chose to shield it, rather than weaponize it, completely fractured his understanding of you.

It was the second time in his life he had ever felt that helpless, but it was the first time anyone had ever stood in the dark to keep him from falling apart.

After that night, the silence between you changed. It was no longer the distant quiet of two strangers sharing a cage.

A man like him did not know how to handle soft emotions. He knew how to conquer, how to hurt, how to demand submission, but he did not know how to exist alongside someone who held his trembling hands without judgement.

For weeks, he watched you with intensity, waiting for you to use his vulnerability against him. But you never did. You treated him with the same steady presence as you did before.

Once he realized his secrets were safe with you, the wall of indifference dissolved entirely.

The bewilderment warped into fierce infatuation, he became soft by his profound love for you.

The court noticed the shift almost immediately. Aerion, who used to treat your presence like an insult, suddenly became impossibly bearable without you by his side.

During long tedious feasts, he would outright ignore the high born lords trying to win his favour, turning his chair slightly just to watch you eat.

He developed a habit of resting his hand flat against the small of your back, a possessive, grounding touch that stayed there for hours.

If anyone dared speak to you with even a hint of condescension, Aerion’s gaze would sharpen into something so violently cold the offender would pale and excuse themselves within seconds.

But away from the prying eyes of the Red Keep, when the moon hung high, was where the true depth of his devotion lived.

Where it was once a freezing meaningless room, it was now a sanctuary.

Aerion began bringing his duties into your space. He would sit by the hearth late into the night, reviewing maps of the realm or cleaning his sword, extremely content so long as you were in the room.

You had both been so good at hurting each other with words that when you finally turned that wit outward, it introduced something precious.

You would sit up by the window, sharing a single goblet of wine as you both quietly tore apart the nerves of the people you had dealt with that day.

For a man who had spent his entire life surrounded by sycophants and enemies, having a wife who understood his mind was intoxicating.

Sometimes, when you could see the familiar tension creeping back into his jaw, you didn’t even have to speak. You would simply reach out and trace his skin idly.

He would lean his head on your shoulder, shuddering a sigh of pure relief. He would wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest, burying his face in the crook of your neck as though he was breathing in safety itself.

“You have ruined me, wife,” he had murmured one night, his fingers tangled in your hair. “The gods help anyone who tries to take you from me. I would burn the city to ash before I let them look at you.”

You had smiled, pressing a soft kiss to either side of his temples, fully believing that a man like Aerion had finally found his anchor.

You had given him your trust, believing that the fragile love you had built out of the ruins of your hatred was unbreakable.

You had never felt safer. And that was your greatest mistake.

The illusion of safety shattered when the Hall was packed with half the nobility of the realm.

You were seated beside Aerion at the high table, his hand resting warm on the small of your back, just as it always did.

But across the table, a wealthy lord from the Westerlands had spent the evening drinking too much and looking too long. It was a lingering stare that crawled over your skin, heavy with filthy intent.

You tried to ignore it, but you felt the exact second Aerion’s hand went rigid on your spine.

He rose from his chair, and before you managed to catch his sleeve, he closed the distance with the drunken lord who was still sitting down.

With swift brutality, he dragged the man from his seat and slammed him onto the stone floor. The chatter died in an instant as Aerion began breaking the man’s limbs. In a feral, possessive rage, the sickening crack of bones echoed through the hall, choking gasps as Aerion snapped his right arm, then his left, then the rest.

When the doors of your shared chambers finally slammed shut behind the two of you, the air in the room was boiling.

Aerion was pacing, wiping the lord’s blood from his hands with a piece of silk, his chest pounding. He looked at you, fully expecting you to submit to his protection, expecting you to validate the monstrous thing he had just done in your name.

But you were shaking, your face a mixture of sheer horror and confusion.

“You are insane,” you breathed, the words tearing from your throat as you backed away from him. “You broke him. You mutilated a man in front of the entire court over a look! There was no honour in that, Aerion!”

Aerion stopped pacing, his expression shifting to a defensive sneer. “He looked at what belongs to me as if he had a right to touch it,” he hissed, his pride flaring like a wounded animal. “I am a Targaryen prince. I do not tolerate vermin coveting my wife. I did it for you.”

“Do not lay your sickness at my feet!” you yelled, tears of raw fury spilling over your lashes. The image of the man’s shattered bones was burned into your mind, tearing through every ounce of peace you thought you had built with him.

“You didn’t do it for me. You did it because you are cruel. Because you love the blood.”

“I love you,” he barked back, stepping toward you, his eyes flashing with toxic pain. “I gave you everything. I let you see me. And now you look at me as if I am a monster?”

“Because you are!” you spat, the words flying out before you could stop them, cutting straight into the deepest insecurity he carried.

The room went silent.

The frantic heat vanished from Aerion’s face, leaving him hollow.

You had just used the very intimacy he surrendered to you to execute him.

He didn’t yell. His blood stained hands dropped to his sides, looking at you as if you had just ripped his heart through his chest.

You watched as the arrogant mask snapped violently back into place over his eyes, but beneath it, the catastrophic break was unmistakable.

Then, without a single word, he turned on his heel and walked out of the chambers, the doors latching shut with a final thud.

The echo of the heavy slamming door seemed to vibrate long after he was gone.

For a long time, you simply stood by your vanity, your hands trembling so vigorously you had to grip the table to keep your balance.

You closed your eyes, pressing a hand to your temple to steady yourself as a sudden wave of dizziness made the room tilt.

It wasn’t just the aftermath of the argument. It was a familiar fatigue that had been hovering at the edge of your senses for weeks, a persistent nausea you had tried to brush off as stress.

Standing there in the quiet, the pieces suddenly fell into place with terrifying clarity.

The missed courses. The heightened sensitivity to the smell of his leather and wine. The strange warmth blooming deep within your lower stomach.

You were carrying his child.

The realization hit you, completely driving the remaining anger away from your lungs. The bitter words you had just spat at him vanished, utterly consumed by a rush of overwhelming euphoria.

A baby. His babe.

The child he had subtly hinted at, the one you had both secretly begun to hope for.

Suddenly, the horrific scene, the broken limbs, the vicious screaming match—it all felt so small. So terribly foolish.

You looked at the door, your heart hammering against your ribs with the urge to swallow your pride.

You wanted him to walk back through that door, to look into his tormented eyes, take his blood stained hands in yours, and apologize. You wanted to tell him that he wasn’t a monster, because the two of you had just made something so pure.

You sat by the fire, cradling the fragile secret while waiting for the handles to turn.

Instead, the doors flew open.

It was your handmaiden.

She stumbled into the chambers, out of breath, her skirts caked in thick mud from the lower city.

“What is it?” you asked, the soft lingering trace of your smile fading as a cold dread began to prickle at your neck. “Did he ride out? Is my husband hurt?”

“My lady…” the girl choked out, as she buried her face in her hands. “I was down in the lower city. In Flea Bottom. I went to deliver herbs to my sister, and I.. I saw him.”

The coldness spread from your neck, sinking straight into your chest. “He is drinking, no doubt. He has a terrible temper, but it passes–”

“No, my lady, no,” the maid lifted her face, eyes wide with pity. “He was in a tavern, yes. Right in front of the street. The doors were thrown wide open. He was… he was with the common women. Low born girls draped across his lap.”

You froze. The air in your lungs went solid.

“You are mistaken,” you whispered, a sharp laugh escaped your lips, devoid of any mirth.

You tightened your fingers into the fabrics of your skirt, your mind fiercely rejecting the words. “He is a Targaryen, he is furious with me, but he would not do that. Not to me.”

“He wasn’t hiding in the dark, my lady. He wanted everyone to see.”

The denial snapped.

The whiplash of going from joy to the lowest, most degrading depth of betrayal shattered something vital inside your chest. The apology you had been preparing turned into ash in your throat.

Your body went still, freezing as reality washed over you.

Aerion hadn’t made a reckless mistake, he had gone out of his way to weaponize his own body, to drag the intimacy you had bled for through the filth of Flea Bottom out of spiteful vengeance.

He wanted to break you. To destroy the one thing he worshiped, completely unaware that he had just permanently incinerated his own future.

Your hand remained pressed against your stomach as the handmaiden gave you privacy. It remained not out of comfort, but in an instinctive motion to shield the innocent life inside you from the suffocating reality of the father it had just inherited.

And then, the numbness cracked.

A breathless sob ripped from your chest, so sudden and painful it doubled you over. You collapsed forward, burying your face in your hands as the tears came rushing out.

You sobbed for the hard won love that had just been ruined in the dirt. You sobbed for the child growing inside you, a life that would now be born into a broken, unfixable home.

You wept until your throat was raw, completely alone in the wreckage of your marriage.

The dawn that crept through the high windows did not bring light.

You sat exactly where the handmaiden left you, your eyes fixed on the door.

The warmth had completely vanished from your body. You were a ghost occupying a shell that used to belong to a woman who loved a prince.

When the iron latch finally clicked, the sound didn’t make your heart leap. It felt like the final stone being placed on a tomb.

The doors swung open, and Aerion stepped into the chamber.

He was disheveled. His fine doublet was stained, his silver hair uncombed, and he carried the stench of cheap tavern wine, along with the heavy, sickening perfume of the women he was with.

He had spent the night dragging himself through the dirt, driven by a desire to punish you for the words you had hurled at him.

He walked into the room, his chin tilted high. He expected a confrontation. For things to be thrown at him, for you to scream at him, to rage against the humiliation he had intentionally inflicted upon you.

He wanted to break you, because if you broke, it meant he had won.

“Are you quite finished with your theatrics, wife?” he asked, his voice deliberately casual as he closed the doors behind him.

He didn’t look at you directly, walking instead toward the washbasin. “Or do you intend to lecture me further on my shortcomings?”

You said nothing.

The absence of a reply made him pause. Aerion turned slowly, the smugness faltering as he finally looked at you.

You were staring right through him.

It wasn’t the fiery anger from the night before, nor was it the challenge you used to give him during the start of your marriage.

Your eyes were dead, flat, and colourless.

Aerion’s brow furrowed, unease piercing through his drunken self. “If you have something to say about where I spent my evening, say it.” His voice dropped the playful edge, turning defensive.

“I have nothing to say to you, Aerion,” you said.

Your voice was perfectly level. Low. Devoid of any emotion.

He expected you to know what he did—he had ensured your handmaiden saw him.

“You dare look at me like that?” he hissed, taking another step forward, “after what you called me? You pushed me out of this room. You brought this upon yourself.”

“I do not care where you go, nor whose lap you occupy,” you murmured, gaze never shifting to meet his eyes. You smoothed the fabric of your skirts. “You are the Prince. You may wallow in whatever filth pleases you. It is no concern of mine.”

“Stop it,” he snapped, the first crack of genuine panic showing in his voice. He reached out, his hand wrapping tightly around your wrist to force you to look at him.

The moment his skin touched yours, a shudder ran through you. At last, you lifted your eyes to his.

Aerion froze.

He looked into your eyes and found absolutely nothing waiting for him. The sanctuary you had built together, the soft glances, the quiet nights where he had laid his head in your lap.

You had entirely extracted yourself from him. He had gone out to break your pride, and instead, he had permanently killed the only thing that kept him open.

Subconsciously, your free hand drifted down to your stomach. A quiet attempt to shield the tiny babe.

But Aerion noticed everything about you.

Even through the haze of the alcohol, his gaze dropped to your hand. His brow furrowing as a question sparked in his mind.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

He stepped closer, his boots dragging on the stone, his grip tightening on your wrist. “Why are you holding yourself like that? Are you ill?”

Your lifeless eyes met his frantic ones. But as you stared at the state of him—smelling the wretched proof of what he had done—the wall you had forced over yourself cracked.

A hot, bitter tear spilled over, slowly falling down your cheek. Your chest hitched, and a small, broken sob escaped your throat.

“No,” you whispered, your voice shaky as another sob caught in your chest. You didn’t pull away from his grip. His hands, the same hands that touched various women just hours ago.

You let your tears fall openly now, mourning the beautiful future that had just been stolen from you. “I am not ill.”

“Then why–”

“Because while you were down in the filth of Flea Bottom, finding a way to break my pride, I was sitting by the fire realizing our argument didn’t matter,” you forced the words past your trembling lips, a weeping laugh escaping.

“I was waiting for you to come home so I could apologize. Because of this, Aerion,” you looked down to your stomach, “we created this together.

Aerion was unmoving, the catastrophic weight of your words and the sight of your tears crashing into his mind.

Hearing you sob, seeing the absolute grief on your face at the exact moment you revealed the child he had secretly hoped for was real. It destroyed him.

He looked from your tear stained face down to your stomach, his hand trembling so violently that his grip on you slipped. He stumbled backward, his face going completely white.

“No,” he breathed, terror bleeding into his voice as he shook his head. “No. You… you are saying this to punish me. You are lying.”

“I have no desire to lie to you,” you wiped a stray tear from your cheek, your other arm remaining protective over your womb. “You have managed to ruin us all on your own.”

Revulsion hit him hard. He had gone out to win a petty, spiteful war of ego, and in turn he had defiled the sanctity of his marriage the moment it became extremely sacred.

“Wife…” he choked out, his own eyes filling with frantic tears. His hand reached out blindly, desperately, begging for forgiveness he knew he hadn’t earned. “My love, please–let me–”

“Do not touch me,” you shook your head, shielding your stomach from him.

Before the final, bitter whisper of your voice could fully even settle in, you gathered your skirts, turned your back on his outstretched hands, and walked out, just as he did.

By the time the doors shut, you moved through the corridors, vanishing into the shadows of a castle that would offer him no answers.

Aerion remained in that room for hours, paralyzed by the cause of his own ruin, until the remaining alcohol eventually dragged him into a heavy sleep.

When he jerked awake, it was nighttime.

There was no morning light to ease anything. Aerion sat up, his breath catching painfully in his throat as the memories of your tears resurfaced.

“Wife,” he croaked, his voice a raw, desperate whisper in the dark. His hands searched the other side of the bed, fingers searching for the warmth of your skin.

Panic, sharp and ugly, drove the remaining stupor from his veins. He scrambled to his feet, nearly tipping over his own discarded boots as he frantically threw the doors to the dressing rooms, searching the moonlit shadows.

The chamber was empty.

His personal belongings were still there, exactly where he had left them. Yet everything else—every single piece of you, was completely gone.

The wardrobe stood open, stripped of your silks and soft velvet gowns. The vanity table, where he used to lounge and watch you for hours, was bare. There were no oils, no golden hairpins, no lingering scent of your perfume.

You had taken your presence, your warmth, and the unborn child, and you had carried them all away where he could never follow.

He was entirely alone in the darkness of his own design.

Then, as his eyes swept over the empty marble of the vanity, a single ray of moonlight caught a tiny flash of silver.

Aerion approached the table slowly, his chest heaving as he reached out. Resting alone on the cold stone was a single, simple ring.

It wasn’t the Targaryen band he had forced onto your finger on your wedding day.

It was a cheap, slightly tarnished silver band.

He remembered the exact afternoon he had given it to you.

It had been weeks ago, during one of those rare, quiet days when the two of you had sneaked away from the guards to walk through the lower courtyards.

A common street merchant had been selling worthless trinkets for copper, and Aerion, in a rare fit of playful mood, had bought the ring on a whim.

He had laughed, slipping the cheap metal onto your finger, boasting that even the filth of the lower city looked royal so long as it touched your skin.

You had smiled at him then, a genuine, radiant smile that had made him feel enamoured.

You had kept it and worn it every day since, it was a private token of the gentle love that had grown between the two of you.

And now, it was the only thing you had left behind.

Aerion picked up the tiny band, the metal cold against his skin, devoid of any of your warmth.

It was the ultimate, mocking symbol of the happiness he had willingly slaughtered over something so small.

A broken sound tore from his chest, a sound stripped of all cruelty, and all arrogance. He dropped to his knees, pressing the cheap silver ring onto his lips as the tears streamed.

Just the day before, he was entirely unaware that the moment he succeeded in breaking your spirit, his own mind would shatter completely.

Being the normal one of your family was boring.

Not just because you were constantly ignored either. But, because there was hardly any excitement in your life. Besides school and what few hobbies you had that didn’t burn you out.

Most of your time was spent doom scrolling or imagining life outside of the manor. You’d long since given up on trying to get your family’s attention. Trying a few ridiculous and embarrassing things over the years. None that you’d care to mention, but things that certainly haunted your ass at night.

It was unfortunate that despite your normalcy you were a bit… impulsive.

It wasn’t really something you’d grown out of either. But, you had learned enough times how to not publicly embarrass yourself anymore. Or, at least learned to embrace it.

Which is why when you discovered that Tim had the audacity to tear into your imported tea that you’d been looking forward to, you decided to be petty.

Yes, you were rich and Bruce literally threw money at you like magic powder to make you disappear . But, you’d at least been on the internet long enough to have it berated into the value of things.

Plus, Tim was a bitch. And, Damian wasn’t much better.

Little shit got another pet that had been hogging up your space. You had your ONE space in the garden and that little motherfucker needed a new spot for Jerry the turkey’s new turkey wife, Susan. Fuck those turkeys. And, fuck Damian.

Now, it wasn’t like you could physically retaliate against the two of them. Damian had assassin training and Tim could find blackmail on anyone. Even if your shame and dignity were practically nonexistent at this point, you still wanted to live and not have your friends be disappeared.

So, your impulsive little twisted mind got the bright idea to write fanfiction. About them. Shipping their vigilante identities.

Was it wrong? Yes. Was it also hilarious and spiteful? Also, yes.

Look, RIP your digital footprint. But, you knew Tim would either get bored and track it one day or something. And, you were gonna leave him a nice little dingleberry on that internet footpath for him to discover. And, knowing him, he would read it just to make sure you blow the family’s cover.

After hitting fifteen thousand flowery slowish burn, enemies to lovers, words written out of spite all while cackling and pounding way too many energy drinks, you decided to post your masterpiece. (No smut though. You had some morals.)

Only for your world to topple due to your curiosity.

You knew people wrote this stuff about Gotham’s favorite and famous angsty eldritch abominations. Sometimes shipping them with famous people, the rouges, each other, even people’s civilian selfs.

But, why, on this blessed earth did the top liked fanfics in this wretched universe you lived in involve you?!

And, you’re didn’t mean like OCs that reminded you of yourself. They were tagging your full government name shipping you with nearly EVERYONE you fucking knew who wore tight Kevlar suits, kicked ass, and ignored your existence.

There was full on smut of your ass getting devoured by your adoptive siblings. You read it. It was horrifyingly well done.

You may have collapsed on the floor in a screaming heap of emotions. Screaming into the rug. But, not too loudly. You did not want Alfred coming to check on you. You would have no explanation to give him.

After, maybe ten minutes of screaming and another thirty to dissociate, you finally pulled yourself back up to look at the computer. The evidence.

With the face of war veteran all you could ask was, “Who wrote this?”

A/N: This is just a crack idea I had while I’m combating my writers block. Apologies for the delay in everything, my kids are also exhausting me this summer.

A/N: Will I continue this? Probably, but I got too many WIPs at the moment. It’ll be when motivation strikes of after I finish my other things!

GRIEF MAKES THE WORLD LOOK DIFFERENT.

the city has been loud your entire life, but ever since your parents died, it feels muted in strange places and deafening in others. the quiet parts hit hardest. the little moments where you forget for half a second and then remember all over again, the kind of remembering that isn’t a thought but a physical sensation, like a punch behind the ribs.

none of this was supposed to be yours.

their storage vault, the one bruce unlocked for you with the kind of calm that made you want to break something, smells like cold air, graphite, and steel. it’s carved deep beneath an old building that hasn’t seen sunlight in decades. the lights flicker in a way that suggests they were installed before you were born. it’s not a place designed for grief, it’s a place built for purpose. precision. continuation.

your parents’ suits hang on reinforced mounts, suspended just above eye level like they’re watching you judge whether you’re capable of this. your mother used to joke that the suits looked better in motion; standing still made everything seem too dramatic. you never understood what she meant until now, the way the armor casts double shadows, the way it mirrors shapes that are no longer there. you stare at them too long because it feels like the only thing left to do.

bruce had told you that all assets were transferred to your name. equipment, tech, safehouses, unfinished case files, half-deciphered intel. a legacy that was never meant to feel like an inheritance but does now, painfully.

you didn’t even know some of this existed.

you didn’t want to know.

they trained you, yes. they taught you how to throw a punch, how to read a situation, how to outrun consequences. but they also told you, repeatedly, that you could choose differently. that their path wasn’t meant to be hereditary. that the blood they spilled didn’t need to belong to anyone else in the family. you used to cling to that promise. now you hold their mask in your hands, and it feels like a broken version of a future someone else should’ve had.

everyone keeps telling you they died heroes, as if that’s supposed to dull anything. as if noble deaths hurt less. as if the city mourns them the way you do. the city moves on. the city always moves on. but you’re still standing here, breathing in recycled air and trying to figure out what part of your life is supposed to continue. your parents never believed in destiny. they believed in choice. in stubbornness. in doing the right thing because no one else would. and now, ironically, you are the one no one else is left to turn to.

the storage unit is colder than it should be. you’ve spent so many hours here lately you could map the room blindfolded. the crates of gear you haven’t opened yet, the leftover tech your parent never got to update, the suits displayed as if they’ll step back into it any minute. you shouldn’t still come here every morning. you know that. the batcave is bigger, safer, better equipped. but this place is theirs, and somehow staring at the suit in this cramped little box hurts less than seeing it under the manor’s bright clinical lights.

your phone vibrates. training cycle begins in 30 minutes. you don’t need the reminder; you’ve been counting the minutes anyway. the dread has been with you since you woke up, since your feet automatically carried you back to this unit, since you realized another morning means another sparring session with the demon brat incarnate.

you dread it.

you dread him.

damian.

the name alone is enough to sour your mood. you feel it immediately, your shoulders tightening, your jaw locking, your pace quickening in some futile hope that if you get there early enough you can ask bruce to pair you with literally anyone else. you know that won’t happen. damian wayne is unbearable. there’s no polite version of that. no “he has his moments” or “he means well” because he really, genuinely doesn’t. he’s a black hole of superiority, dragged around by entitlement so deeply rooted it might as well be genetic. he walks like the world is his inheritance and everyone else is trespassing.

he is arrogant in a way only someone who has never been allowed to fail can be. sharp-tongued, sharper-eyed, constantly calculating and constantly disappointed in everyone around him. including you. especially you. spoiled isn’t even the right word. damian is something harder, a prince raised in a fortress and told the world outside is beneath him. he carries himself like any deviation from his expectations is a personal insult, and he treats you like you breathe incorrectly.

and the worst part? the truly unfair part?

he’s good.

not “for his age” good. not “bruce trained me” good. he’s the kind of good that makes your blood heat because you hate giving him that win. when he fights you, it feels personal even when he swears it isn’t. there’s an intensity in him that borders on cruel, like he’s always trying to prove something, always needing to be sharper, faster, better. especially compared to you. of course bruce keeps pairing you together.

you exhale slowly, press your thumb against the message to dismiss it, and glance at your watch. if you leave now, you can get to the manor ahead of everyone else. being early gives you time to brace yourself, to shrug off grief and put on whatever version of yourself can withstand damian’s perpetual disapproval. you grab your bag, pull the metal door shut, and lock the padlock with a soft click. outside, the morning is still gray, the sky washed out and half-asleep. the city traffic hasn’t peaked yet. you keep your hood up.

you make it to the outskirts of the manor grounds with time to spare. the iron gates loom ahead, old enough to creak but still strong enough to give off that Wayne aura of we have money and secrets. the access scanner blinks once in recognition and unlatches the gate. the walkway up to the house is quiet, all manicured lawn and morning dew and the far-off rustle of wings. the manor itself looks almost peaceful from here, like nothing inside it could possibly be chaotic or loud or irritating.

a lie. obviously.

you steel yourself before stepping in. early is good. early means that hopefully you won’t walk into damian’s glare the second you arrive. early means you can stretch, breathe, maybe even convince yourself today won’t devolve into insults, scowls, and wanting to push him into a wall and also possibly strangle him.

or both. definitely both.

you swipe into the elevator, hit the sequence bruce programmed, and watch the floor drop away beneath your feet as the platform descends into shadow. the cave lights hum awake. water drips from stalactites. you step off, rolling your shoulders once, already planning the quiet you’ll get before anyone else arrives — a few minutes of peace, of solitude, of breathing room—

but no.

of course not. there he is.

damian stands in the center of the training mats like a statue carved out of irritation. already changed, already warmed up, already swinging a bo staff through the air with that crisp, too-perfect precision that makes you want to fling something heavy at his head. he doesn’t even look surprised to see you. just… mildly offended by your presence. his eyes track you the way a cat tracks a fly it isn’t sure is worth killing yet. then he speaks, voice flat, cool, the verbal equivalent of an eye-roll: “you’re late.”

you stop walking, blink once, and stare at him. “i’m early,” you say, very clearly, because you checked the time twice on the way here.

damian finally lowers his staff. not out of respect — no, never — but merely to cross his arms with maximum judgment. “early,” he repeats, like the word itself has personally insulted him. “you are precisely thirty four minutes and nineteen seconds later than the time i arrived. therefore, you are late.”

you suck in a sharp breath. “that’s not how that works.”

damian tilts his head, mouth twitching in something dangerously close to a smirk, the kind that says he knows exactly how annoying he is and simply accepts it as part of his nature. “that is exactly how it works. punctuality is measured by standards, not feelings. if i am present, and you arrive after me, you are—”

“don’t say it.”

“—late.”

you resist the urge to throw your bag at him.

he watches you like a hawk watches prey struggling with a trap. his gaze drops briefly, to your stance, your posture, how tired you look, how stiff your shoulders are, and then flicks away again like none of it matters. like he’s already cataloged you and moved on. you hate that he’s always here early. you hate that you’ve almost never once walked in without finding him already sweating, already glowering, already working three times harder than anyone asked him to.

you hate that it makes you feel behind.

he turns away first, which infuriates you more, as if you’re not worth continued attention. “you should stretch,” he says, dismissive, arrogant as ever. “you’re sluggish in the mornings.” damian glances back just long enough to add, “try not to fall behind today.”

training hasn’t even started and you already want to strangle him. you inhale through your nose, he kind of breath meant to keep you from launching yourself at a smug, infuriating, morally superior gremlin of a boy. it doesn’t help. at all. but you refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing you rise to it this early in the morning, so instead of snapping back, you drop your bag a little harder than necessary, kneel, and start stretching, pretending not to notice the way damian keeps glancing over in those sharp, evaluating passes, tracking you like part of his warm-up routine is assessing your weaknesses. you refuse to give him anything. not a flinch. not a sound.

you move through your stretches methodically, shoulders, arms, back, legs, and by the time you finish, your annoyance has settled into something sharp and clean. you stand. damian meets your eyes for exactly one second, nods once, the barest acknowledgment that you are, in fact, ready, and then the two of you slip wordlessly into your usual rhythm. warm-up drills. strikes. footwork. flow sequences.

the only sound between you is impact, gloves hitting pads, feet sliding across mats, the faint grunt of effort when he pushes harder than necessary (which he always does). you match him blow for blow. if he’s escalating, you escalate. if he’s testing you, you test him back. you don’t know how long you’ve been at it when you hear footsteps on the metal stairs.

damian is the first to break stance, head snapping up, expression twisting with immediate displeasure, as if the intrusion itself is personally offensive. tim appears first, holding a coffee the size of his head, hair a disaster, sweater hanging off one shoulder like he got dressed at a red light. he blinks at the two of you brawling at sunrise. “oh,” he says. “you guys are already trying to kill each other. nice. love the consistency.”

right behind him, cass moves with grace, eyes scanning the mat, giving you both a subtle nod that somehow manages to feel more respectful than anything damian’s ever given anyone. steph clomps down next, ponytail bouncing, still chewing half a granola bar. “morning! you two look like a divorce waiting to happen.”

damian glares at her like she personally offended a dozen generations of al ghuls.

duke trails last, hoodie pulled over his head, yawning. “didn’t know sparring started early.”

“it didn’t,” tim says, sipping his coffee. “they just hate each other.”

steph gestures at you. “no, they don’t. they hate everyone else. each other is foreplay.”

damian inhales sharply, scandalized, turning a lethal death-glare on her. you pretend you’re not on the verge of combusting. cass hides her smile behind her hand. before you can even decide whether to walk away or throw something at damian’s head, the temperature in the room shifts. it always does when he arrives, bruce steps out of the shadowed doorway with that unnerving, near-silent glide he’s perfected over decades. he surveys the group with an expression that barely qualifies as a nod. “morning.”

you straighten instinctively. damian does too, but with the insolent ease of someone who thinks he’s the favorite son, the heir apparent. somehow he can stand at attention while still looking like he’s tolerating everyone else’s existence.

bruce gives the usual rundown: drills first, then sparring rotations, then assessments. your muscles burn through the first round of drills, kicks, strikes, bursts of footwork across the mat, but the sting is almost grounding. easier than dealing with the person two paces ahead of you who insists on being perfect and loud about it. you’ve never understood what exactly you did to earn his contempt.

and of course, when bruce calls out the sparring pairs, he doesn’t even have to say the names. you already know you’ll get partnered up. damian doesn’t even look irritated, he just tilts his chin the slightest degree, that arrogant flicker of superiority. you swallow the spike of annoyance climbing your spine.

cass gives you a sympathetic look. tim quietly mutters “godspeed.” steph pretends to hide behind duke. bruce pretends not to see any of it. damian steps onto the mat, rolling his wrists, already in perfect form.

you follow, heart thudding, not with fear, but with frustration. sparring with damian is like sparring with a blade that resents being touched. he doesn’t go easy. he doesn’t slow down. he doesn’t adjust. he just cuts. the second bruce signals for you to begin, damian moves, slicing across the mat like the fight is already his. he doesn’t warm up, he doesn’t test distance, he just attacks.

his first kick nearly clips your ribs; you block too high, stumble back half a step. you bite down the instinct to snap at him. focus. you counter with a punch, clean, aimed for his shoulder; he avoids it without even looking, twisting out of reach and sweeping at your legs. you jump it, barely. he’s already coming in again. it’s impossible—

how the hell are you supposed to beat someone who was raised as a child assassin, who trained under people who don’t believe in rest or mercy, who has been fighting his whole life?

you’re good. you know you’re good. but damian is something else entirely.

the fight goes on like that, your lungs burning, your arms throbbing, damian not even winded. every time you get close, he pivots. every time you try something new, he shuts it down like he predicted it minutes ago. “you’re telegraphing,” he says at one point, dodging your strike. “and your footing is sloppy.”

you glare, breathless. “thanks, coach.”

he ignores the sarcasm completely and goes for your knees. you block late, and pain sparks up your leg. he sees it. he absolutely sees it, and yet he keeps coming. your frustration curdles into something hotter. the kind of anger that sits burning in your chest. unfair, you think. unfair that he gets to hate you for existing, unfair that he gets to win, unfair that bruce keeps pairing you with him like you’re supposed to just learn to survive him.

you go in again, one last strike, one last try, but damian is already there, sweeping your leg and hooking the back of your ankle with brutal, ruthless efficiency. your balance goes. you hit the mat hard. something cracks, sharp pain blooming up your arm as your elbow smashes against the ground wrong. the air sucks out of your lungs. you don’t scream, but you freeze, shock pinning you still. you only register the taste of copper a second later. blood sliding from somewhere near your eyebrow down your cheek. damian stands over you, bo staff poised at your throat, the picture of victory.

and something in you, something that has been caged inside of you for months since you’ve started training with them, finally snaps. not into grief. into rage. it rises fast, not at the pain, not even at the humiliation, but at what it represents. his contempt. his certainty you don’t belong. that you’re an inherited symbol, not a threat. that you didn’t earn this life. that you can’t live up to what your parents were, because you weren’t raised in a league, trained from childhood, sculpted into a weapon on purpose.

you think of your parents, the way they moved through the world like it could be better if someone just tried, and you think of damian, born into war, and how he looks at you as if you are soft. lesser. temporary.

your jaw clenches, and you move. you surge up off the mat so fast that damian barely has time to retract his staff. your fist meets his guard with a crack that rings through your bones. the pain in your arm screams, but anger burns hotter, drowning it out. damian’s eyes widen, barely, but enough. then you strike again, faster, heavier, not waiting for bruce’s command, not giving damian a breath, a second, an inch. you hit him like you’re trying to punch through every doubt, every comparison, every expectation. your blade flashes next, close enough that the edge slices a thread off the hem of his sleeve. he shifts back, blocking with the staff, but the rhythm he always controls isn’t his anymore. you don’t let him adjust. you won’t.

you go at him again. punch, kick, strike, blade, another punch. damian meets every attack but only just. he’s fast—always faster—but you don’t give him the one thing he usually owns: time.

he parries your sword and you’re already slamming your shoulder into his chest. he deflects your fist and your leg snaps up into a sharp kick. he twists to avoid a slash, and you’re following. relentlessly. “enough,” damian snaps once, breath clipped, rattled.

“no,” you spit back, punching harder.

a hit breaks through, your elbow to his ribs, and he grunts, doubling half a step. you don’t stop. not even then. anger drives you. your parents steady you. damian’s doubt fuels you. every expectation presses into your knuckles.

finally, one mistake, one slip of footing, and damian goes down on his back, hitting the mat with a thud. he tries to roll, already bracing to counter, but you’re faster, and you plant your foot firmly on his chest, pinning him down.

the cave goes silent.

damian is beneath you, panting hard, chest rising in sharp, uneven pulls. sweat slicks across his skin, turning the warm brown tone of it into something luminescent under the cave lights. loose strands of hair fall over his forehead, messy, sticking to the curve of his cheek. his jaw is tight, furious, but his eyes… his eyes are something else entirely.

wide. startled. dark with heat and something like reluctant awe. he’s looking up at you like he can’t reconcile the version of you he’s built in his head with the one standing over him now, foot pressed to his sternum, breathing hard, blood sliding down your face like a war mark you earned.

for a second, just a second, damian actually looks flushed. not embarrassed. not humiliated. flushed.

his gaze trails the line of blood at your temple, the rise and fall of your chest, the grip you still have on your sword. and something softens, barely, but it’s there. admiration. or something even more dangerous. then, instantly, he shutters it. wipes the expression clean. molds his face back into its usual carved arrogance. but he can’t hide the way he’s still breathing too hard, or the way his pulse jumps visibly at his throat.

you stand over him, chest burning, anger still pulsing through you, hot and alive and undeniable. for the first time since you stepped into the cave, damian isn’t looking down at you.

he’s looking up.

the next few days pass like you’re moving through water that’s resisting you at every turn. you throw yourself into training. not normal training. punishing training.

you’re in the cave before sunrise, long before even damian filters in. you hit the bags until your knuckles ache deep into the bone. you run drills until your vision blurs. you practice footwork until the mat feels like it’s tilting beneath you. every hour you carve out of the day becomes a place to bleed frustration into movement. it’s easier than thinking. easier than remembering the way damian looked lying beneath you. easier than remembering the flicker of—whatever that was—in his eyes.

and you ignore him.

very deliberately.

very thoroughly.

he walks into the cave during breakfast hour? you pivot away. he enters the training mat? you tighten your jaw, focus on the target dummy, and act like he’s made of air. he stands close enough that you can feel the shift in temperature from his body heat? you move five steps to the left without acknowledging him. you don’t give him even a nod.

and damian, naturally, does not take it well.

damian wayne is infuriating. arrogant. he speaks like everything he says is an objective truth and everything you say is an inconvenience. every time you think about the way he looked at you right before he knocked you on the mat and made you bleed, something twists in your chest. you want to punch him. you want to yell at him. you want to demand why he hates you so viciously when you never asked for any of this. but mostly, what destroys you, is the frustration. the way he makes you feel like you’re always one step too slow, one swing too reckless, one mistake too obvious.

you’d never admit it aloud, but sometimes your chest gets so tight with how he gets under your skin that you have to step into the hallway and breathe through it before you start to tear up. if damian wants to act like you’re some sort of cosmic inconvenience—fine. it’s not like you want to be friends with someone like that anyway.

on the fourth morning after that day, you’re stretching, wrapping your hands, trying to focus on anything other than the tightness behind your ribs when you hear the elevator. of course it’s him.

damian’s footsteps hit the stone with their usual measured pace, irritated at the concept of existing near you. you don’t even wait for him to speak. you grab your bag, sling it over your shoulder, and head straight for the elevator.

“where are you going?” he snaps.

you keep walking.

his voice sharpens. “I am speaking to you.”

you don’t turn, not even half an inch. you hit the elevator button harder than necessary. the doors slide shut on his glare.

you head two floors up to the manor proper, heartbeat still too fast. you need a buffer, someone who is not damian, someone who won’t make you want to scream or break something or accidentally cry. tim is the most neutral option.

you knock on his door.

a muffled, exhausted: “…yeah?”

you slip in. tim is at his desk, hoodie on, hair sticking up like static, surrounded by three monitors and a half-eaten granola bar. he blinks at you like he genuinely isn’t sure if you’re a hallucination. “can i train with you today?” you ask.

tim pauses. stares. looks over his shoulder as if checking whether damian is standing behind you with a sword to your back. “I’m sorry,” he says slowly, rubbing his face, “did I die in my sleep?”

you sigh. “please.”

tim leans back in his chair, rolling slowly toward you like a confused, sleep-deprived cat. “why me? i should be the last-choice option. like, I’m the ‘everyone else is busy or unconscious’ pick.”

you drop your bag on the floor and mutter, “i don’t want to train with damian.”

tim makes a soft noise, somewhere between a hum and a concerned question. “that bad?”

“he hates me,” you say, and it comes out more exhausted than intended. “he’s always… extra harsh with me. like he goes out of his way to piss me off. or embarrass me. or get under my skin. and I just—” your voice cracks despite your best effort. “—i don’t want to deal with him today.”

tim stares at you for a long moment, eyes clearer now, softening with something close to sympathy. “you know, for someone raised by assassins, he’s… weirdly terrible at hiding things.”

you frown. “hiding what?”

tim spins halfway in his chair, giving you a raised eyebrow. “he doesn’t hate you.”

you scoff immediately. “yes, he does.”

“no,” tim says with a half-laugh, “if damian hates you, you’ll know it. like, i know it seems like he hates you, but trust me, i’ve seen what it looks like when damian hates someone.” he shudders.

“tim—”

“what damian does with you,” he interrupts, pointing vaguely in your direction, “is not hate. it’s… something more irritating.”

your stomach does a stupid twist. “like what?”

tim shrugs. “i bet he likes you and doesn’t know how to show it.”

you freeze. “no. no, he doesn’t. he’s—he throws me into the floor.”

“yeah,” tim says, nodding slowly, “and he looks like he stops breathing when you ignore him.”

“he does not.”

“he does,” tim pauses. “trust me. I’ve seen the ‘why isn’t my sparring partner looking at me’ face. it’s tragic.”

“tim… i think he genuinely wants me dead.”

tim rolls his eyes. “no. please. that’s his flirting.”

“that’s NOT—”

“trust the local damian expert.” tim taps his own chest. “he acts like this when he’s conflicted.”

you sink onto the edge of his bed, head in your hands for a second. “i’m so tired, tim.”

tim’s expression softened into something you’ve only ever seen in moments where he’s too sleep-deprived to mask sincerity. “yeah, I know,” he says. “he’s… a lot.”

you let out a short, humorless exhale. “that’s one word.”

“look,” tim starts, leaning his elbows on the desk, “damian wasn’t raised with… normal emotional frameworks. or social ones. or friendship ones. or—human ones.”

you glance up at him.

tim gestures broadly. “the league isn’t exactly the place where kids learn, ‘hey, when you like someone, maybe try being gentle.’ they learn ‘if something scares you, strike first.’ ‘if you respect someone, challenge them to see if they’re worthy.’”

you frown, shoulders tight. “that’s… messed up.”

“yeah,” tim says. “and that’s damian’s baseline. that’s where he started. so when he doesn’t know what to do with someone,” he motions toward you again. “he defaults to the only tools he was ever given.”

you stare down at your hands. “you’re saying he’s being awful because he… doesn’t know better?”

“no. i’m saying he’s being awful because it’s the only way he knows how to handle caring about someone. damian’s whole life, affection was… conditional. if he liked someone, it was dangerous. if he got attached, it made him vulnerable. he trained himself to cut the feeling off before it roots. when he does the push-you-away, insult-you, out-perform-you thing? that’s him trying to keep the feeling small. and you make him feel big things. you must. i’ve never seen him get this worked up over someone.”

your pulse picks up, something complicated, uncomfortable, strangely warm and guilty all at once. “i never—” you start, voice thin. “i never thought about it like that.”

“no one does,” tim says softly. “it’s easier to just say ‘damian’s a jerk.’ and he is. he is. but the jerk part is the smoke, not the fire.”

you huff. “he makes me want to cry or commit a felony, tim.”

“yeah, that’s basically what dating him will feel like,” he deadpans.

“we’re not—!”

“uh-huh.”

you groan into your hands.

“okay,” tim says, resigned, rubbing a hand over his face. “fine. if you don’t believe me, yes, you can train with me today. we’ll see how he reacts. it’ll either prove my point or at least annoy him, and he does deserve a little annoyance after sweeping your legs like you’re a training dummy.”

you hesitate… then nod. “yeah. okay. i don’t want to deal with the attitude. and… i don’t want to cry in the stupid bathroom again.”

tim’s face softens. “hey. that’s not on you. damian’s never learned how to… want things without resenting that he wants them. it’s like—” he waves a hand vaguely, “like giving a feral cat a bowl of warm milk. it hisses at you and knocks it off the counter, but eventually if you keep feeding it, it still comes back.”

you blink. “…i’m the warm milk?”

“unfortunately, yes.” he pats your knee with dramatic sympathy. “congrats.”

tim stands with a groan. “alright. give me a minute to get dressed. then we go down.”

“and you really think he’s gonna… what, throw a fit?”

“he won’t throw anything. he’ll just stand there and seethe like someone critiqued his sword grip. trust me. i’ve been annoying damian for years.”

you almost laugh. “fine. okay. we’ll do your plan. not—” you point at him, “because of the plan. because I actually want to train with someone normal.”

“mm-hm,” tim hums, already walking toward his closet. “keep telling yourself that.”

you wait for tim in the hall.

when he finally cracks his door open he jerks his chin. “c’mon. let’s go ruin someone’s morning.”

this time, you enter the training room right when the clock hits the hour. not one second earlier. heads turn when you step inside, the usual shuffle of boots on mat slowing for a beat. everyone’s already warming up: cass stretching, duke rolling out his shoulders, steph braiding her hair back. and damian. the picture of discipline. the picture of someone who expects the world to follow his timing, his pace, his order. his eyes find you the second you cross the threshold like he’s been watching the door, waiting for the exact moment you appear.

your stomach twinges—annoyance, maybe. or pride. or something else you clamp down hard on. but before he can speak or gesture or frown or do anything remotely damian-like, tim steps in beside you. casual. comfortable. like the two of you walked down together because you chose to.

damian’s expression falters. only for half a second. a millisecond, really. the narrowing of his eyes goes rigid, the line of his mouth tightens. confusion flickers across his face, the kind he never lets anyone see. you can almost hear the thought:

why are you with him?

he masks it quickly, molding his face back into something bored, unimpressed, aristocratically above caring. his chin tilts, imperious, but the damage is done. you saw the break in the armor.

you force yourself not to look at him again. instead, you move toward the mats with tim, mirroring his relaxed pace. you kneel to tie your laces, fingers steady even though you feel heat gathering at your throat. tim shoots you a sidelong glance—see?—but doesn’t say the words aloud.

damian’s attention doesn’t leave you.

you can feel it. not just watching, tracking. cataloging. analyzing the shift in your routine, your placement, your partner choice. you don’t seek his gaze, but your peripheral vision catches him anyway, expression carefully blank in a way that only highlights how not blank he is. he’s thrown off. deeply. visibly. and he hates it.

you settle into your warm-up stance, letting the distance hang like a boundary. tim rolls his neck, glancing at damian with an oh-this-is-gonna-be-fun kind of smirk.

bruce claps once, sharp. “pair up.”

tim steps forward towards you without hesitation, and damian’s whole expression fractures.

it’s subtle, if you didn’t know him, you might miss it. but you do know him, or at least you’re starting to. he looks, honest to god, like he wants to rip tim’s head off and mount it on the trophy wall. tim doesn’t notice. or he pretends not to. he just tosses you a lazy, half-smile, equal parts encouragement and chaos.

duke glances up, sees you and tim pairing off, and his eyebrows climb high. he shoots tim a look—oh, I see what’s happening—then shoots you another—damn, you’re just abandoning me like that? you can’t help the faint shrug you give him. move first, consequences later.

duke sighs dramatically, theatric betrayal dripping from every syllable when he mutters, “wow. okay. guess I’m with demonspawn today.”

damian snaps, “I heard that.”

“meant for you to hear it,” duke replies, already walking over. “don’t stab me.”

“don’t give me cause.”

steph and cass pair without a word, steph chattering, cass smiling quietly at her enthusiasm, and the room settles into its new formation. you turn to tim and it hits you how different this feels. sparring with him isn’t effortless—tim is good, annoyingly good, and precise in a way that keeps you on your toes—but it’s… kind. respectful. there’s give-and-take. room to breathe. no sharp edges meant to cut you down even when you block them. tim ducks under your swing, taps your rib with the blunt end of his staff, then backs up with a soft, “good—again.”

across the room, damian sees every second of it. he’s barely paying attention to duke—who, to his credit, is doing his absolute best to keep the session from becoming a murder attempt. damian’s strikes are clean but rushed, sharp but distracted, eyes constantly cutting back to you and tim like he’s waiting for one of you to call time-out and say the universe glitched. his stare is blistering. betrayal. irritation. confusion. something fierce lodged right behind his eyes like he hasn’t decided whether he wants to fight you or throw a tantrum or drag you back by the wrist.

he misses a parry—damian, missing a parry—and duke yelps, “bro, focus!”

“I AM FOCUSED,” damian snarls, not even looking at him.

he’s not. he’s zeroed in on you. tim taps your elbow lightly—not a “you messed up,” but a “don’t look now.” you look anyway. damian’s chest rises and falls too fast, and duke is standing there with both palms up like he’s trying to pacify a rabid, extremely judgmental raccoon. you try to go back to sparring, but your eyes keep pulling toward damian against your will, and every time you glance over, he’s already watching.

training ends with far less form than usual. steph is sweaty and laughing, cass serene, tim steady as ever. duke looks exhausted, wiping his face with his shirt like he’s survived something unspeakable.

damian? still scowling. still thundercloud-dark. still furious in that tight, brittle way that means he’s trying very, very hard not to be obvious. tim leans in as you grab your water bottle, voice pitched low. “told you so.”

you elbow him lightly, because you hate that he’s right. bruce steps forward then, silent in that way that means he’s been watching everything, and says, “damian.”

damian stiffens and he pretends he didn’t hear.

“damian.”

this time he can’t pretend. he stalks over, irritation radiating off him. bruce pulls him aside and directs him a few steps away. you can’t hear the words, but you don’t need to. bruce stands with that immovable calm only he can pull off, arms loosely crossed, expression carved from stone. the kind of look that means disappointment, not anger, far worse, at least for any of his kids.

damian’s posture goes tight. not his usual arrogant, chest-forward confidence. this is different. smaller in a way he’d never allow you to see if he could help it. chin tipped down just a fraction, arms stuck rigidly at his sides like he’s fighting the instinct to cross them. his brows pull together, a deep line forming between them. bruce speaks quietly, but every line of his body says lecture. damian refuses to look directly at him. he keeps glancing off to the side, mouth pressed thin like he’s biting back words he wants to say but knows better. you can read him: annoyed. cornered. and trying very, very hard not to be disrespectful.

bruce lifts a hand and whatever he says with it makes damian’s shoulders lock up, he shakes his head, frustrated, practically vibrating with the effort of holding himself together under his father’s scrutiny. you’ve never seen him so… contained. then he turns, too fast, too sharp, and storms out. not dramatically, but with that fury that means he’ll explode the second he’s alone.

you find him hours later in the kitchen just after sundown, standing stiffly at the counter like he’s been there and hasn’t moved in an hour. he’s just… standing there, hands braced on the counter, staring at nothing. he doesn’t acknowledge you when you come in. he doesn’t speak. just the faintest tightening of his fingers on the marble, like he can hold himself together with sheer force of will. you take a breath. be patient. tim’s voice nags in the back of your mind. he’ll never make it easy.

“…hey,” you try, keeping it gentle. “long day?”

nothing.

you take a few steps in, slower, giving him space to bark at you if he wants to. “i didn’t see you the rest of the day. thought maybe you were—”

“busy.” the word is clipped, flat, and icy enough to sting. “i was busy.”

okay. that’s… something.

“i wasn’t asking for your schedule. just… checking.”

nothing. not even a twitch. you try again. “you left pretty fast earlier. bruce looked—”

“father always looks like that.” cold, immediate. “he has perfected the expression.”

“did he… say something?”

“he lectures. that is his specialty,” he answers, still not looking at you. “discipline, focus, what is expected of me, what i failed to meet. it’s nothing new.”

the tone is so deceptively calm that it almost hides the tension buried under it. almost. you can hear the shame, anger, something like hurt, compressed into a perfect, emotionless blade. “he wasn’t mad at you. he was just worried—”

“don’t.” the word is soft but sharp. “do not attempt to explain my father to me.”

you swallow that down. he’s not trying to be cruel, he just is right now. “i’m trying to understand,” you say. “you’ve been… really shut down with me. and i want to know why.”

“i am not shut down.” he says it instantly, defensively, like the idea itself is an insult. “i simply have nothing to say.”

you study him, really look at him: the rigid posture, the unreadable face, the way he’s keeping his gaze fixed anywhere but on you. he’s angry, yes. but he’s also embarrassed. frustrated. disappointed in himself. and, if you read him correctly, hurt that you didn’t go to him today.

you take another tiny step closer. “is this about training?”

“it’s about many things,” he mutters. “none of which concern you.”

“i think they do.”

his jaw flexes. finally, finally, he looks at you, just a flicker of eye contact, before he tears his gaze away again. “father believes i allowed myself to be distracted,” he admits, voice almost too controlled. “that i let something… personal interfere with my performance.”

“was he wrong?”

damian’s nostrils flare. “i do not get ‘distracted.’ i do not falter. i do not—” he cuts himself off. “i should not have been affected.”

“but you were,” you say softly. he doesn’t deny it. he doesn’t confirm it. he just stands there, breathing tight, shoulders drawn toward his ears as if the world is trying to crush him inward. you try again. “you don’t have to shut me out.”

“then stop trying to read me. i didn’t ask for your concern.”

you let that roll off. “you’ve been upset all day. i’m not trying to fight—”

“you always try,” he snaps, too quickly. “you push. you demand answers. you demand space in places you haven’t earned.”

you flinch at that. “i’m trying to talk to you.”

“and I said stop.”

“whatever bruce said clearly upset—”

“it doesn’t matter what he said.”

“then why won’t you look at me?”

he freezes. and when he speaks again, his voice has changed, aimed right at the softest part of you. “you don’t belong in this life.”

you go still.

he continues. “you weren’t raised for this. you weren’t trained for it from birth, or forged by necessity. you came into this world by choice, not by blood or war. and you think a few late nights and bruises make you ready?” you stare at him. he doesn’t stop. “you’re not suited for it. you’re just some nepo vigilante. you’re not… shaped for it. you hesitate. you question. that gets people killed.”

your breath shakes, just a little. “is that really what you think of me?”

he doesn’t answer. he doesn’t have to. you blink hard, because suddenly your vision blurs at the edges. stupid. pathetic. you promised yourself you would never let him see you unravel like this, but his words hit every fault line you’ve tried to seal. you don’t belong here. you weren’t made for this. you’re not enough. echoes of fears you’ve carried since the day you put on the suit. echoes of what you sometimes wonder your parents would think if they saw you stumbling through a legacy built on grief. would they be proud? or would they see exactly what damian sees, someone trying too hard, someone always two steps behind, someone who can’t keep up?

your throat locks. your chest tightens. one more breath and you might crack in half, so you don’t say anything. you don’t trust your voice. you just turn and head for the doorway. you need to leave before the heat in your nose becomes tears. before he sees you break. before you embarrass yourself any further. your foot hits the threshold— and a hand closes around your wrist. almost… startled.

“hang on—”

his voice is strained. you freeze, staring at the floor because you can’t look at him, not right now. damian’s grip tightens, not enough to hurt, enough to say don’t go, not yet. “i…” he starts, then stops. the words jam in his throat. he’s staring at the floor between your feet, like he can’t bear to lift his eyes. “i didn’t mean to say that.”

you don’t turn back. you can’t. your wrist is still held in his hand. he tries again, quieter this time, the words sounding dragged out of him. “why did you… partner with drake?”

you blink. that’s what he’s asking? now? his shoulders are tight, ears slightly pink like he hates the question even as it escapes him. you exhale, slow and shaky, not because of him, because you’re still stung. your voice comes out sharper than you intend. “maybe i just wanted to train with someone who can actually stand being around me.”

for a second, he looks like he’s trying to speak, like something is clawing its way up his throat, but nothing comes out. then he goes still. too still. the kind of stillness that means he’s thinking so hard it might shatter him. you tug your wrist lightly. “if that’s all, i’m gonna—” you jerk your arm, breaking his hold—

“wait.”

you barely have time to register the word before he moves. it’s fast, a clean strike of motion tied to training and desperation and something he refuses to name. he catches your waist just enough to spin you, guiding you backward until your spine meets the cold edge of the kitchen counter. your breath stops. his hands plant on either side of you, caging you in without touching you, one palm braced on the countertop, the other hovering close enough that you can feel the residual heat of his skin. you look up, and there he is. damian wayne, inches from your face.

and god, up this close he’s almost unreal. the overhead light is dim, warm, turning the sharp lines of his face into something sculpted. his skin, smooth, warm-toned, unblemished, catches the light like polished bronze. no shadows under his eyes, no imperfections, his lashes are stupidly dark, stupidly long, the kind of lashes people pay for. they cast shadows across his cheekbones every time he blinks.

his hair is slightly mussed from training, still perfect, somehow, but one curl brushes his forehead. he smells like soap and whatever expensive detergent alfred uses. you’ve fought beside him dozens of times, but you’ve never seen him like this, never been close enough to catalog the exact shade of green in his eyes. it’s darker up close. deeper. flecked with gold that catches in the light. he’s tense, as if he’s wrestling with himself, wrestling with you, wrestling with the space between you that feels suddenly, impossibly charged.

you swallow. “what are you doing?”

he doesn’t answer. he just stares at you, eyes too intense, too alive, like you’ve cracked something open in him without meaning to.

“you are maddening.”

your heart jumps in your throat.

“i— what?”

his eyes flicker down to your mouth for half a second, then back to your eyes with ruthless discipline. “i cannot breathe when you are upset with me.” the confession is sharp, bitten-off. “i cannot think properly when you ignore me.” damian looks furious with himself for saying it. furious with you for making him say it. furious with whatever emotion is tearing through him with too much intensity for someone raised to kill, not feel. “i do not want you training with drake,” he adds, breath brushing your cheek, “i do not want you choosing anyone else.”

your fingers curl against the counter because you suddenly don’t know what your legs are doing. “damian…”

“you frustrate me,” he scoffs, eyes flickering between yours. “you infuriate me.” a beat. “and i cannot stay away from you.”

you don’t know if you want to shove him or pull him closer. your thoughts tangle, snarl, crash over one another in a way that makes your pulse jump unevenly. this—whatever this is—was never part of the equation. the two of you exist in a constant cold war: distance, irritation, bickering. you built your expectations around that. around him being the brat who can’t stand the sight of you. the one who corrects your form too sharply and watches your mistakes with thinly veiled disdain. not this. not him, inches away, admitting—something. something dangerous. something you don’t have the training or composure to identify.

is this a confession? is this what it looks like when damian wayne tries to say he cares? you don’t know. no one prepared you for the possibility that he might want something other than superiority and distance. your heart lurches, a painful, disbelieving twist. it makes you angry. it makes you burn. because if this is real—if this tension, this jealousy, this intensity is real—then why the hell has he been so cruel?

you think of tim earlier. his accuracy.

“he acts like this when he’s conflicted.”

“he never learned how to express anything.”

you didn’t want that to be true. you didn’t want to give damian that benefit of the doubt. it was easier to armor yourself with irritation, easier to convince yourself he hated you. that he saw you as an intruder, a burden, a pretender wearing a legacy he thought you hadn’t earned. but standing here, pressed between the counter and his braced arms, with his breath mixing with yours, tim’s words ring uncomfortably, painfully true. beneath the arrogance, the discipline, the superiority, he is terrified. he is inexperienced. he is trying so hard to act unaffected that he’s hurting everything in his path, including you.

resentment. confusion. longing. anger. all of it, stacked so thick you can barely breathe. you find your fingers curling against the counter, grounding yourself before you do something stupid like lean in. “you can’t— you don’t get to say things like that after the way you treat me.”

his eyes flicker, that dark, molten green sharpening. you see confusion flash first. then indignation. then something like guilt, so brief he tries to bury it immediately. you shove at his chest. not enough to move him, because he’s a literal wall, but enough to break the trance, to remind yourself you still have a spine. “you’ve been awful to me,” you snap. “you insult me, you belittle me, you… you act like i’m a mistake bruce brought home.”

his jaw tightens. “i have never—”

“you have,” you bite. “constantly. every time we train, every time i’m in the same room, every time you so much as look at me. and now you’re suddenly— what? jealous? possessive? whatever this is?”

he flinches, the smallest betrayal of emotion, and his fingers curl tighter against the countertop. “i did not mean—” he swallows. “i do not wish for you to feel—”

“hurt?” you finish for him, voice rising. “belittled? unwanted?”

there’s a pause, long, heavy, almost unbearable, and you realize he’s leaning in. not carelessly, not with arrogance, but with this strange, hesitant deliberation, like he’s testing the air, testing you, testing himself. his body shifts forward, closing the space between you until the edge of the counter presses against your thighs, and your arms feel trapped, pinned not harshly but insistently. his hands hover for a moment near your sides, the faintest brush of his fingers against your waist. his lips hover above yours, close enough that you can see the catch in his breath, you can feel the heat radiating off him, the sheer intensity of his stare as if he’s daring you to respond. and god, he smells impossibly clean.

then, impossibly, he closes the gap. it’s slow. nervous and commanding all at once. your breath hitches in surprise, in disbelief, in the way your body reacts before your mind even catches up. his lips are infuriatingly soft, warm, and insistent, brushing against yours with the faintest pressure before pulling back. he’s almost fragile in that hesitation, like he’s afraid if he tries too much, you’ll reject him, and he can’t bear that thought.

you don’t even think. you kiss back. your lips move against his, initially uncertain, and then with a force born of every frustration, every harsh word, every moment he’s pushed you to the edge. he tilts his head, searching for the right angle, softening where he can, hardening where he must. his arms cage you against the counter, claiming this moment with a possessiveness that leaves your pulse hammering. your hands find his chest, you notice the rise and fall of his shoulders, the way his messy dark hair brushes against his forehead, how impossibly perfect everything about him seems in this suspended, stolen second.

he pulls back just enough to breathe, just enough to let you process the fire in his eyes, and you can see it, the flush in his cheeks, the flash of vulnerability he’s desperately trying to mask behind that familiar scowl. you can’t believe, for the first time, that this—this utterly impossible, maddening, beautiful boy—is leaning into you like he wants, no, needs, you just as much as you need him.

you can’t believe what just happened. you kissed damian wayne. damian wayne. the damian wayne. the boy you’ve sparred with, argued with, wanted to strangle and run away from in equal measure. the boy who has made mornings unbearable, nights restless, your every day a calculus of irritation and fascination. and now his lips had been on yours, shy and tentative at first, almost apologetic, like he didn’t quite believe he could do it, but gentle in a way that made your chest ache. that was a good kiss. better than you imagined. infuriatingly perfect and infuriatingly shy at the same time. you pull back slightly, trying to collect yourself, and you see him do the same.

it’s almost laughable how long it took to get here. you glance up at him, and he’s staring at you too, eyes impossibly earnest, betraying every ounce of his usual composure. then, almost instinctively, you reach up, fingers threading into his hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. he catches your movement in an instant, and his hands find your waist, just enough to let you know he wants this too. your lips meet again, this time slower, hungrier. the first kiss had been tentative; this one is more insistent, deeper, exploratory, and it shocks you with how much it says without words.

he’s surprisingly capable. his technique is precise, careful, controlled, but not without feeling. he’s not the most experienced, not in the sense of someone who’s practiced this kind of intimacy, and yet every motion, every press of his lips against yours, every gentle tug of your hair, speaks to a kind of instinctive perfection that leaves you dizzy. he’s learning, adapting to you, and you feel it in the way he shifts, the way his hands move, the subtle urgency in his breath. when you finally pull back for air, cheeks flushed and chest heaving, he doesn’t let go. you can’t help a small laugh. “what was that for?” you whisper, trying to catch your breath and your thoughts at once.

he doesn’t answer immediately. instead, his lips brush yours again, soft, testing, insistent. “i… do not know.” he admits.

your chest tightens with disbelief and warmth, and you almost can’t stand it. the way he sounds, the way he looks, the way he is—perfect and infuriating and wholly him—leaves you breathless. he pulls back slightly, just enough to see your reaction, and you see that glint of mischief in his eyes return. “we should… probably sleep,” he says, voice more controlled, formal, but the flush in his cheeks betrays him.

“bedtime already?”

he doesn’t answer, just gives you a brief, almost imperceptible nod, and that’s enough. you let him slip away, and you retreat to your room, closing the door softly behind you. the quiet hits like a wave, and you collapse onto your bed, heart still hammering, tingling where his hands had held you. you stare at the ceiling, the way the light catches the dust motes in the air, and you replay it, every detail, the brush of lips, every infuriating way he had pressed against you. you think about his hair falling into his eyes, his lips parting slightly, the way he smelled, the way he looked so impossibly perfect, so … damian.

you bite your lip, a shiver rolling through your chest. your mind refuses to let it go, twisting it over and over: the way he had held you close and yet seemed to want to apologize with every movement. you can’t quite believe it happened, can’t quite believe that it felt so right. just as your thoughts threaten to spiral, your phone buzzes on the nightstand. you groan, too tired, too flustered, too wrapped up in your own pulse to check it immediately, but eventually, curiosity wins.

you blink. one second later, another notification. an image. your stomach twists, both mortified and amused: a photo of you and damian kissing in the kitchen, taken from just far enough to look stealthy. damian’s arm is braced against the counter, your hands tangled in his hair, and both of your faces are flushed. you throw the phone onto the bed, groaning. “tim,” you mutter, voice half-laugh, half-exasperation. “you little creep.”

even as you say it, you can’t help smiling. tim is definitely a little weirdo. but as your eyes finally drift closed, heart still fluttering, you can’t help thinking: he was right.

he told you so.

POSTED 11/16/2025.

  ⸝⸝  masterlist  .ᐟ  𝜗𝜚

©️ latedeparture

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Everyone sits, laughing and eating around the fire. Amy and Andrea had caught a whole bunch of fish today, and the group was feasting for the first time in a while. Dale even cracked open a few beers for the adults of the group. You had gladly taken one, determined to have a good time tonight, determined to ignore the twinge of fear in your gut. You didn’t want to ruin the fun of the evening. Everyone was happy.

Well, you think to yourself. Not everyone.

A group had gone into Atlanta today, Daryl among them. He wanted to go because the new guy - Rick, Lori’s husband (which could’ve fooled you, with the way she has been acting around Shane) - had handcuffed his brother Merle to a roof and they went back to find him. You know that Daryl can handle himself - he was pretty much made for the apocalypse - but you can’t help but worry about him.

You and Daryl are unlikely friends, you know that. Before the world fell to shit, you were down in Florida, visiting friends from college. When the news broadcasts started becoming concerning, you had decided to cut your trip short and start driving back north, trying to get home to your family. But you had gotten caught in the traffic outside of Atlanta, with everyone trying to get in. You ended up stopped not far from Lori, Shane, and Carl and quickly became acquainted with them, as well as Carol and her family. You had watched the bombs get dropped on Atlanta with Lori and Shane, and since then, you were adopted into their group. It took a bit of convincing on Shane’s part - Lori had fought him very loudly about not wanting to leave you behind, since you were traveling alone - but one look at Carl clinging to your neck sealed the deal for him, and you’ve been with them ever since.

From there, your little group, including Carol and her husband and daughter, met Dale, Andrea, and Amy, and set up a small campsite not far outside of the city limits. A few days later, the Dixon brothers stumbled upon your camp. Most people were afraid of them; Merle and Daryl did not initially look like the friendly type, but their ability to hunt and provide food for the group was enough for everybody else to begin to tolerate them. 

But you did more than tolerate them. You actually began to form a bit of a friendship with the younger brother, Daryl. Merle was an ass, spitting nasty comments at everybody for any given reason, but Daryl was different. While he followed his brother almost everywhere, he was also more reserved and, once you got to know him, exceptionally kind. 

It started small, with him making sure that you had enough to eat whenever they brought back game from their hunting trips. But then it blossomed into him finding reasons to be around you; he started walking with you when you needed to go to the lake for water or to wash clothes or yourself. Eventually, it led to him inviting you to go hunting with him when Merle was still sleeping or too fucked up to go with him. You didn’t know anything about hunting, but he brought you along anyway, teaching you how to walk quietly through the woods, as to not scare any animals off, and even how to set up a few basic snares and traps. After a few trips, he gave you one of his hunting knives, showing you how to use it both for hunting and for fighting off walkers.

You later realized that Daryl actually seemed to like your company. And you were surprised to discover how much you liked his too. A deep gnawing feeling inside of you reminded you that you were as much of an outsider to the group as the Dixons were: Lori had her family, especially once Rick came back from the dead; Carol had her family, as shitty as her husband was; Andrea and Amy had each other, and Dale had them; the Morales all had each other too. So you had the Dixons, even Merle and his ridiculousness. 

You started spending more time with them. You ate your meals with them around their smaller campfire, as they were rarely invited to sit with the rest of the group. You even moved out of Dale’s RV and started sleeping in their tent, much to Merle’s chagrin. With that in mind, Daryl also insisted on you sleeping behind him, probably so that he could keep an eye on his brother. Eventually Merle began to lighten up about you being around, nicknaming you “dollface,” which was a huge upgrade from “slut,” “whore,” or “that nice piece of ass.”

So when Glenn, Andrea, Jacqui, T-Dog, and Morales came back from Atlanta with Rick instead of Merle, you were able to anticipate Daryl’s meltdown. Unfortunately, the men had found Daryl first, and an altercation occurred. When Daryl stalked off into the woods, you knew he needed space, but you followed him anyway.

“I have to go get him,” he kept saying, pacing back and forth. “I have to.”

“I know,” you had reassured him. “You will.” 

But that was hours ago, and they still weren’t back. So as much as you wanted to enjoy the fish-fry with everyone else, you worried about your friend. When the plates of food were passed around, you took extra and hid it on another plate, making sure to save some for the Dixons when they came back.

Because they will come back, you kept telling yourself. Struggling to eat with your stomach in knots, you keep to slowly sipping your beer and trying to focus on the conversation around the fire.

“We’re out of toilet paper?” Amy calls from the Rv. You laugh with the rest of the group, paying little mind to her until you hear the screaming. All of your heads snap to the young blonde, and the walker taking a bite out of her arm. 

The camp quickly erupts into chaos as walkers appear from every direction. Lori and Carol grab their kids and run for cover while the men get their weapons out. You unsheathe the hunting knife that Daryl had given you, sending up a grateful prayer to him, wherever he was. You run forward to stab the nearest walker in the head with your knife, making sure to hit the brain, just like Daryl had shown you. You yank it back out and jump backwards as a second walker lunges for you.

The air is full of gunfire as Shane unloads round after round into the oncoming walkers. All around you, people are screaming. You see multiple members of the group getting taken down by walkers, and you run away, knowing it's too late for them.

Daryl, you think into the universe, where are you?

A cold hand grabs your arm, and you turn to find a walker latched on to you. You scream, but no one’s around to help - everyone is fighting their own battles. You’re on your own. You raise your foot and kick the walker in the stomach with enough force that it has to let go of you, then you quickly ram your knife into its head before it can try again. It falls to your feet, taking your knife with it. You try to pull it out but it’s caught. You hear the groan of another walker stumbling towards you, so you try even harder to get the knife out but it won’t budge. The walker gets closer, and you’re about to give up on the knife when the walker's head explodes, blood splattering your face. 

Frozen in fear, you don’t register the face in front of yours until it yells at you.

“C’mon!” Daryl yells, looping an arm under yours and pulling you up. His strength is enough to help you pull the knife out of the dead walker’s skull, and he nearly drags you towards the RV. He shoots two more walkers along the way before the two of you are surrounded. He lets go of you, using the butt of his gun to smash in the heads of a few walkers. One goes for his back but you catch it just in time, driving your knife into its skull just before it can bite him. You stumble but Daryl catches you, pulling you the rest of the way to safety. 

When you get to the RV, Daryl pushes you behind him, putting himself between you and any other potential threats. After scanning the scene and seeing that it’s clear, he turns back to you.

“You alright?” he asks, grabbing your face. “You good?”

You nod the best you can, still recovering from the shock of it all. “Ye-yeah,” you manage to stutter out. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” he grunts out, still holding you. You place your hand over his, still cupping your face, close your eyes and take deep breaths, happy that the two of you are alive, despite the carnage that surrounds you.

You spend most of the next day helping the group dispose of the bodies, both walkers and fellow group members. Daryl uses a pickaxe to hit them in the brain so that the bodies can be burned. You follow him around, using the hunting knife to gently prevent your former friends from turning into walkers themselves.

When Daryl gets into an argument with Glenn about what to do with their bodies, you can’t help but agree with Glenn. 

“These were our friends,” you say to Daryl, when he was huffing and puffing about it afterwards.

“Not mah friends,” he spits out. “Not yers, neither.” This stings, so you look away, not wanting him to see the tears pricking your eyes. But of course, he does anyway. “‘m sorry,” he mutters, not meeting your eyes. “That was mean.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sniffling. “You’re not wrong.” Then you glare at him. “But they were still people. Our people.” He looks up at you. “So we bury them, okay?”

“Fine,” he mutters. He may not agree with you, but he works with you anyway, helping to move the bodies to the graves that Jim had ominously dug the day before.

When Jim is discovered to have been bitten, Daryl immediately moves in front of you, using his body as a shield to keep you safe. He pushes you back before moving in to lift Jim’s shirt and reveal the bite to the group. You slowly move to where Lori and Carol stand with the kids, ready to grab one of them and run if it comes down to it. Thankfully, it doesn’t.

The group discusses where to go and what to do. You hang back with Sophia and Carl, knowing that you don’t have much to add to the conversation since you’re not from around here. But when Daryl runs at Jim with the pickaxe and Rick puts a gun to his head, you quickly jump in between them. 

“Hey!” you yell, startling both of the men. You stare Rick down, his gun pointed between your eyebrows. Daryl lowers the pickaxe and wraps an arm around you but you plant your feet and refuse to move. 

“We don’t kill the living,” Rick says through gritted teeth.

“That’s funny coming from a man who just put a gun to our heads,” Daryl snarls. You smack him in the side.

“We may disagree on some things, not on this,” Shane drawls in agreement with Rick. “You put it down,” he orders Daryl. “Go on.” Daryl slams the pickaxe on the ground and stalks off, taking you with him. 

The two of you return to his tent. 

“Pack up yer things,” he murmurs, still glaring at Rick and Shane. “I feel like we’re gonna be moving soon.”

“Okay,” you say. “Don’t do anything stupid.” 

The left side of his mouth lifts into a small smirk. “Never,” he says before turning his back and returning to cleaning up the campsite.

After you pack up your few belongings, plus Daryl and Merle’s stuff, you pop back out of the tent to see Daryl handing the pickaxe to Carol. She then drives it into her dead husband’s skull time after time.

Good for her, you think to yourself, smiling. He sucked anyway. 

Not long after, the group convenes up by the graves. You stand next to Daryl as everyone watches Andrea and Dale lower Amy’s body into her final resting place. Andrea is clearly struggling, and you feel for her - of everyone in the group, Amy was one of your favorites, always so positive despite the dire circumstances you all lived in every day. A tear runs down your cheek, surprising you. You quickly wipe it away, hoping no one noticed, but Daryl always does. He takes your hand and gives it a quick squeeze. You squeeze his hand back, before he pulls it away, a blush creeping up his neck. He disappears as soon as the group disperses.

You walk back from the graves with Carol and her daughter. Carol is also one of your favorite people in camp. You saw how her husband mistreated her and always felt the urge to step in and protect her. You wrap an arm around her, and she drops her head onto your shoulder. The two of you walk this way until you get back to camp. Carol gives you a small smile before heading to her destroyed tent with Sophia to pack up their belongings. Your heart breaks for her too, but not as much.

Shane calls for a group meeting. You take a seat in one of the plastic folding chairs around the fire. Daryl appears behind you, resting his hands on the back of your chair. You instantly feel safer with him there.

“I’ve been thinking about Rick’s plan,” Shane says to the group. “Now look, there are no guarantees either way. I’ll be the first one to admit that. But I’ve known this man a long time. I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together.” He looks around the group as he talks. “So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning. Okay?”

Most of the group nods in agreement. You just sit there and listen, taking in the information as well as the events of last night.

When everyone heads towards their own tents, Daryl falls into step with you.

“So what do ya think?” he asks you. “You wanna go with ‘em?”

You just shrug. “I got nowhere else to go,” you say simply. “You?”

Daryl looks at the ground, suddenly incredibly interested with the tip of his boots. “I go wherever you go,” he mutters.

You can’t help but smile. “Then I guess we’re going,” you say, unzipping the tent. You crawl inside. Daryl looks around a few times, before following you in as well.

The next morning, you wake up to a heavy weight on your stomach. You crack up an eye to find Daryl’s arm draped over you. For once, you didn’t have to sleep squeezed between him and the edge of the tent, with his body acting as a barrier between you and Merle, so you got to sleep on the inside. Apparently in his sleep, Daryl curled into you, wrapping his arm around you. You smiled, unable to help feeling safe this way. You close your eyes, savoring the moment.

Not long after, you feel Daryl start to stir behind you. You feign sleep, not wanting to make him feel embarrassed or anything about how your bodies ended up during the night. You expect him to jump up, snatching his arm back, not wanting to be caught with it around your sleeping form. But to your surprise, you feel him let out a deep sigh and curl even closer into your back before getting up. He carefully crawls over you, thinking you're still asleep, and unzips the tent. You don’t hear anything for a minute, but you can sense that he’s still there. You hear a low chuckle before you feel the tent move as he exits it.

You wait at least ten minutes before moving yourself. You crawl out of the tent to find the group circling up. Daryl walks back towards you as you slide into your boots, and he extends a hand to you, which you gladly take, helping you up. He doesn’t let it go as the two of you walk over to everyone else as Shane addresses the group yet again.

“Everybody listen up,” he instructs. You fight the urge to roll your eyes. He really loves the sound of his own voice,  you think snarkily to yourself. “Those of you with C.B.s, we’re gonna be on channel 40,” he continues. “Let’s keep the chatter down, okay? Now you got a problem, don’t have a C.B., can’t get a signal or anything at all, you’re gonna hit your horn one time. That’ll stop the caravan. Any questions?” He looks around the group.

“We’re, uh,” Morales starts, and your heart immediately drops. “We’re not going.”

“We have family in Birmingham,” his wife continues for him. “We wanna be with our people.”

“You go on your own, you won’t have anyone to watch your back,” Shane says, like he's trying to convince them not to go. 

“We’ll take the chance,” Morales says. “I gotta do what’s best for my family.”

“You sure?” Rick asks, earnestly.

“We talked about it,” Morales replies. “We’re sure.”

“All right,” Rick says, bending down. He and Shane whisper to each other about who knows what. Then they step toward him, handing him a handgun and ammo. 

“Box is half full,” Shane explains. 

Next to you, Daryl is clearly frustrated. He’s biting his nails on the hand that’s not holding yours. Then he scoffs and turns, letting go of your hand and stalking off, leaving you with the rest of the group. They’re all giving each other heartfelt goodbyes. Morales claps you on the shoulder and tells you to take care of yourself. “And Dixon,” he says with a smirk. You smile back. To your surprise, his kids latch on to your waist as his wife pulls you into a tight hug. You didn’t expect the affection from them, but you appreciate it nonetheless.

After you peel yourself away from the Morales family, you walk towards Daryl’s pickup. He has Merle’s motorcycle strapped to the back, and all of your stuff in the backseat.

“Got room for one more?” you ask playfully.

Daryl looks up at you from the other side of the truck. “ ‘course,” he says.

“Wasn’t sure if you were trying to pawn me off on somebody else,” you joke.

“Shut up,” he says, smirking. He climbs into the driver’s seat. You hop in the passenger side and barely close the door before he starts driving, following the rest of the caravan out of the quarry.

The caravan drives for several hours. You entertain yourself by bothering Daryl while he drives. This time, you’re reading the horoscopes off of an old newspaper you found on the floor of the backseat.

“When’s your birthday?” you ask him. 

“Why?” he asks, trying to sound annoyed with you but you can see right through him - he’s happy to not be alone on this drive. 

“Stop being so difficult and tell me,” you snap, hitting him with the newspaper.

“April 7th,” he answers, reluctantly.

“Hmmmm,” you say, reading. “So you’re an Aries. That makes sense.”

“What’s that supposed t’ mean?” he demands.

“‘Aries have bold personalities,’” you read from the newspaper. “‘They are courageous and determined individuals, natural leaders, but tend to be moody and aggressive when they don’t get their say.’” You burst out laughing.

“Shut up,” he says for the millionth time on this car ride, but you can see he’s trying not to smile. 

“It’s so true though!” you yell between laughs.

“Yeah?” he says, giving into his smile, “what about yours?”

“April 23rd,” you tell him. “Taurus.” You quickly scan the paper. “‘Reliable, patient, and as devoted and loyal as they come,’” you read. “‘Stubborn to a fault and possessive of those they love.’” 

It’s Daryl’s turn to laugh. “That sounds right,” he says. “Yer stubborn as shit.” You hit him with the newspaper again, laughing with him, before he has to slam on the breaks. The caravan has stopped.

“Stay here,” he says quickly, putting the truck in park and sliding out of it. 

“What, am I safer here?” you ask, rolling your eyes.

“Nah,” he says simply. “So you can protect my bike.” He dodges the newspaper that you ball up and throw at him, laughing, as he takes his crossbow and runs up to the front of the RV. 

Asshole, you think to yourself, but you can’t help but laugh too. 

After a while, Daryl walks back to the truck, all the laughter and levity from before wiped from his expression.

“What’s going on?” you ask, suddenly concerned. 

“Jim’s done,” Daryl says, looking at the ground. “He’s struggling. Wants to be left behind, so that’s what we’re gonna do.” He comes around the truck and opens the door for you. You slide out, and follow him up to where the rest of the group is.

Jim is sitting up against a tree when you get there. Jacqui talks to him softly before planting a kiss on his cheek. Rick offers him a gun - you guess to end it for good - but he refuses it. 

“I’m okay,” Jim reassures him. 

The group takes turns saying goodbye to him. You and Daryl weren’t particularly close with him - to be honest, he kinda gave you the creeps, not for any fault of his own but because of everything he had been through before he joined the group - so you both give him a goodbye nod before walking back to the truck. 

This time, when you and Daryl get back into your seats, you stay quiet while you drive off.

Just before sundown, the caravan parks outside of the CDC building. When you jump out of the pickup truck, you struggle to take in the scene in front of you. There are bodies everywhere. Piles of sandbags suggest that the military was there, but there are no surviving humans in sight. There are several walkers stumbling about, but for the most part, the place is a graveyard. Flies buzz around everywhere.

Daryl has his crossbow raised and a shotgun in his other hand, ready to fight. You grip the hunting knife he gave you and follow him and the rest of the group. As quietly as possible, you all approach the building.

Rick knocks on the shutter doors. The sound is so loud compared to the silence of the place. It immediately draws the dead.

“Walkers!” someone yells. 

You and Daryl turn, ready to fight them off. He shoots the closest one with his crossbow, but more are quickly approaching. He tosses you his gun.

“Aim for their heads,” he tells you. “Do yer best, I’ll handle the rest.”

You raise the gun, never having shot one before, and aim it at an approaching walker. You fire, hitting it in the chest. You pump the gun again to get another bullet in the chamber and this time, you hit the walker straight in the face. Next to you, Daryl takes out two more.

Behind you, Shane and Rick are arguing again, and you can hear Lori trying to get involved too. But you don’t have time to focus on what they’re saying - Carol cries, holding Sophia to her chest, and you refuse to let anything happen to them. You shoot another walker that tries to close in on them, then place yourself between Carol and any more of the dead that try to follow. You take aim at another one, when all of a sudden, there’s a loud sound and a bright light behind you. You turn, and see that the doors to the CDC are open.

The group rushes inside the building. Daryl pretty much pushes you through the door, keeping his eye on the walkers stumbling their way forward.

You step into the lobby of the CDC. It’s bright, even with most of the lights off. The place is amazingly clean, given the carnage that lays just outside its front doors. From what you can see, it’s empty. Everyone that’s armed keeps their guns up, reading for the next attack, but it doesn’t come.

“Anybody infected?” a voice calls from inside. You can’t see where it’s coming from.

“One of our group was,” Rick explains. “He didn’t make it.”

“Why are you here? What do you want?” the voice asks again. Now you see the lone man with a gun approaching the group.

“A chance,” Rick answers. 

“That’s asking an awful lot these days,” the stranger says, still approaching. You raise your gun at him, not even sure if you have any ammunition left.

“I know,” Rick says simply.

There’s a pause as the man surveys the group in front of him. You can only imagine what you all must look like to him.

But after a minute or so, he announces, “You all submit to a blood test. That’s the price of admission.”

“We can do that,” Rick assures him. 

The man lowers his gun. “You have stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes, it stays closed.”

Daryl quickly hands you his crossbow as he runs outside. You stand in the doorway, watching his back as he collects your bags from his truck. You don’t breathe until he comes back in, and the group piles into an elevator.

You and Daryl stand in the back corner. He moves himself in front of you, placing himself between you and this strange new man. You are grateful for it, and you lean your forehead into his back as you take deep breaths, trying to calm yourself down. We’re safe, you tell yourself. We’re safe now. 

When the elevator dings, you follow Daryl and the rest of the group out and down a long hallway.

“Are we underground?” you hear Carol ask. 

“Are you claustrophobic?” he asks back.

“A little,” she says quietly.

“Try not to think about it,” is all he says back.

Dick, you think. 

He leads the group into a big room with a lot of computers, where he announces that he’s the only one left there. Rick and several others ask him a bunch of questions, but you can’t be bothered to listen. You are still trying to process the events of the last half hour, and have to lean heavily on Daryl to keep your breathing steady. He lets you, giving your shoulder a small squeeze as he leads you to the next room where the man - Dr. Edwin Jenner, you find out - takes blood samples from you all. 

After he takes Andrea’s blood sample, she stumbles.

“Are you okay?” the doctor asks. 

“She hasn’t eaten in days,” Jacqui explains. “None of us have.” 

Jenner looks around at the group thoughtfully, then leaves the room without a word.

A short while later, the smell of food fills the air. You follow Daryl into yet another room, and see a table covered in food. There’s pasta and vegetables and bread. And wine! So much wine. Jenner pops a bottle open and pours some for all of the adults around the table. You swallow half of yours down, and savor the fuzzy feeling you get as it hits your brain. 

T-Dog piles a mound of spaghetti onto your plate and you dig in right away. It’s been so long since you’ve had something as simple as pasta, and you nearly moan after the first bite. Your cheeks burn, almost embarrassed at your reaction, but everyone around the table is reacting to the food as well, so you’re sure your reaction went unnoticed.

For the first time in what feels like weeks, the atmosphere of the group is pure happiness. Everyone is eating their fill and enjoying the drinks that Jenner has provided. Dale goes around the table, topping off everyone’s wine glasses, and everyone laughs as Carl takes his first sip of wine and nearly spits it out onto the table. 

Having finished eating, Daryl has taken to leaning against the counter behind where you sit, bottle of Southern Comfort in hand. You keep turning around to steal peeks at him as he taunts Glenn, making the group laugh even more. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him smile this big before. He catches your eye, and you match his smile, holding your glass out to him. He clinks his bottle with it and you each take a sip, not breaking eye contact until Rick starts tapping his knife on his glass.

“It seems to me we haven’t thanked our host properly,” Rick announces, standing and lifting his glass into the air.

“He is more than just our host!” T-Dog calls out, raising his glass too.

Everyone in the group raises their glasses in cheers to Jenner. 

“Booyah!” Daryl yells, and Dale and T-Dog echo his cheer. Everyone goes around, clinking glasses together and laughing and drinking to your host, thanking him for his hospitality. 

Shane is the first one to break the levity of the evening. “So when are you gonna tell us what the Hell happened here, Doc?” he asks Jenner. The room goes quiet. “All the—the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?”

“We’re celebrating, Shane,” Rick says quietly, sitting down. “Don’t need to do this now.”

But of course, Shane continues. “Whoa, wait a second. This is why we’re here, right? This was your move—supposed to find all the answers. Instead we—” he stops, chuckling to himself. “we found him. Found one man, why?”

Jenner clearly looks uncomfortable, but answers him anyway. “Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted.”

“Every last one?” Shane presses him.

“No,” Jenner replies, staring him down. “Many couldn’t face walking out the door. They… opted out. There was a rash of suicides.” He looks away, as if reliving it. “That was a bad time.”

This time, Andrea leans in and asks, “You didn’t leave. Why?”

“I just kept working, hoping to do some good,” he answers sadly, looking up at her.

An awkward silence falls over the group. Everyone takes quiet sips from their drink, not making eye contact with anyone else, waiting for someone to break the tension.

Glenn wanders forward, looking at Shane. “Dude, you are such a buzzkill, man,” he mumbles. 

Shane at least has the courtesy to look a little ashamed of himself.

After dinner, you stumble behind the rest of the group, the effects of the wine hitting you harder than you expected. Daryl swoops in, reaching an arm around you and holding you steady.

“You all right?” he asks, concern lacing his glassy eyes. He’s probably just as drunk as you are.

“I’m more than all right,” you answer, a smile breaking across your face. “I feel great!” You sway as you say this, and Daryl is the only thing keeping you from falling. He smirks as he pulls you upright, and the two of you nearly trip over each other, trying to follow everyone else. 

Jenner is explaining things to those of the group who can actually listen. But whatever he says last catches Glenn’s attention. He turns back to the rest of the group, and says excitedly, “Hot water?”

“That’s what the man said,” T-Dog replies, and both of the men start laughing.

Then, the group splits up, each running to a room to call dibs on a shower. You are too busy laughing to try and claim one for yourself. Thankfully, Daryl has you, and he pulls you into one of the rooms with him.

Inside, there is a twin bed, a nightstand, and another door that you are assuming leads to the bathroom and the glorious shower with hot water. You fall onto the bed, laughing still as you sit up and look at Daryl. He stands by the door, looking at the ground awkwardly.

“What?” you ask him, giggling.

“You can go first,” he says shyly. “In the shower, I mean.”

“Oh,” you say, standing up off of the bed. You grab onto the doorframe of the bathroom to keep from falling. Daryl is right behind you, a hand on your waist, steadying you. You smile at him, then once you get your balance back, you walk into the small bathroom, and turn the water on for the shower. It comes out cold, so you decide to give it a minute before getting in.

When you turn around, you see Daryl trying to walk out of the bathroom.

“Wait,” you say, grabbing his arm.

“What?” he asks, looking at your hand on him rather than your face.

“Come with me,” you say quickly.

His face shoots up to yours. “What?” he asks again. You see the tips of his ears turning pink.

“There’s not much hot water,” you say. You feel your cheeks burning, not sure if it’s the wine or what you’re saying, but you carry on anyway. “This way, we’ll both get some.”

“Are you sure?” he asks quietly.

“Very sure,” you reply, pulling him towards you. 

When his body nearly collides with yours, you bring your hand up to his face and crash your mouth onto his. You can tell you took him by surprise - for a moment he freezes, but before you can pull back and apologize, his hand finds the back of your neck and he’s kissing you back. His kisses start off gentle but quickly deepen as he pulls you even closer to him. You run your tongue along his bottom lip and he parts his, letting you slip inside. He tastes of cigarettes and whiskey, and the taste alone is enough to make you moan.

Daryl pushes you so that your back is up against the wall, the hand that’s not on your neck finding your waist, slipping his fingers under the hem of your shirt. You raise your arms so that he can slip your shirt off entirely, only breaking the kiss when it gets in the way. Once it’s off, you wrap your arms around his neck and deepen the kiss even further as the two of you wrestle for dominance. 

You slide your hands down his muscular chest and move to unbotton his shirt, but he catches your hand, stopping you. “Wait,” he says.

“I don’t want to,” you say, trying to catch his mouth with yours again but he dodges it, looking at the ground instead.

“You don’t want-” he starts, but you cut him off.

“I do,” you say quickly. “Whatever you’re going to say, I do.” You cup his cheek with one hand. “We might die tomorrow. Who knows in this world.” You rub your thumb along his cheekbone. “But what I do know is that I want this. I want you.” You bend your knees, putting your face in front of his so that you can look into his eyes. “Please, Daryl.”

He gazes into your eyes. “You sure?” he asks.

“If you ask me that one more time, I’m taking your crossbow and shooting you with it,” you say smirking. At this, he smiles, grabbing your face with both of his hands and smashing his lips onto yours.

You and Daryl kiss each other while also trying to kick your shoes off. You have to break apart so that you can each wrestle with your pants. You’re suddenly really regretting your choice of skinny jeans, as you have to jump and yank to get them off. When you finally do, you find Daryl standing in front of you in just his boxers, and you take in his muscular form. His chest and arms are littered with scars, all of which you plant kisses on before he places his hands at the back of your thighs and picks up you, pushing you back into the wall. You wrap your legs around him and you catch his mouth with yours, savoring every moment of this kiss. 

He reaches one hand out and feels the shower water.

“It’s hot,” he murmurs into your kisses.

“Put me down,” you nearly yell, wiggling out of his arms. “I want in!”

Daryl laughs as he drops you to the floor, then he catches his fingers under your sports bra and pulls it up over your head. You grab the waistband of his boxers and yank them down just as he does the same to your panties. You stand in front of him, naked as the day you were born. Daryl looks you up and down, and you swear you can see the hunger in his eyes.

“C’mon now,” he says as he takes your waist, and pulls you into the shower with him.

You can’t decide what feels better: the hot water or Daryl Dixon’s kisses. The water sprays your back as he kisses and nibbles your lips, your jaw, your neck, your collarbone. Your hands find their way into his hair, running your fingers through it. A small moan escapes you as he worships you with his lips. Daryl kisses you lower and lower until he gets down onto his knees, hooking one of your legs over his shoulder, and he bites the inside of your thigh. You grab a fistful of his hair as he moves in to kiss your core.

The effect is immediate: you fall back into the wall as Daryl licks his way from your entrance up to your clit. One of his large hands grips your waist, holding you in place. Your head falls back in pleasure as he sucks on the sensitive nub, sending jolts of pleasure through your body. Your knee buckles beneath you, but he doesn’t let you fall. His free hand finds your entrance, teasing you by circling around it before he slips one finger inside.

You moan loudly as his finger enters you. You can’t remember the last time you felt this good, the last time you even hooked up with someone, and it sends your body into a frenzy. You tug on his hair, pulling his face up from kissing your core.

“I need you,” you say, breathlessly. “I need you now.”

Daryl immediately yields to your desire. He stands up, towering over you. When he kisses you, you taste yourself on his lips, and it makes you crave him even more. One of your legs already around his hip, he gently lifts you like you weigh nothing. You wrap both of your legs around his waist as he lines himself up with your entrance. He catches your lips in his, then presses his forehead to yours, looking deep into your eyes.

“All right?” he asks, his voice low and husky. You want to melt just at the sound of it.

“All right,” you whisper back. And when he pushes himself into you.

His head falls into the space between your shoulder and your neck as he does, starting slow. Gradually, he pushes into you further until he bottoms out. He pauses there, giving you a moment to adjust to his size, before he pulls his head back up, catching your lips in his. 

You kiss him back fiercely, letting him know you’re okay, and then he begins thrusting into you. He is gentle at first but he quickly picks up the pace. Your back slides up the wall with the power of his hips, but you can barely tell. All you can think - and feel and taste - is Daryl. Arms circling his neck, you kiss any part of him that you can reach: his lips, his jaw, just under his ear, his neck. When you bite down on his shoulder, you elicit a deep groan from him, and the sound makes your toes start to curl.

The mix of the hot water, his thrusts, the friction between you from his closeness lights a fire deep in your lower belly. You can feel your orgasm approaching, starting as a little spark and growing into a wildfire. With all your might, you pull him closer to you, moaning his name as you do.

“Oh Daryl,” you say breathlessly. “I’m gonna- I’m gonna-” and then your head falls back as your orgasm crashes over you.

All at once, your body feels as if it engulfs in flames. The knot in your stomach explodes like a firework show. Eyes closed, you moan and whimper into Daryl’s ear as he fucks you through your orgasm. He keeps the pace of his thrusts slow and steady. Your arms start to slip, but his grip on your thighs tightens, refusing to let you fall. He places gentle kisses and bites along your neck and jaw as you ride out your high.

When you start to come down, you catch his lips in yours.

“You good?” he asks into your kiss.

“So good,” you mumble out, smiling into his lips.

Daryl bites your lower lip, pulling on it lightly before letting go. His forehead finds the crook of your neck again as he thrusts into you harder, searching for his release next. Your nails drag along the back of his neck and his shoulders as he keeps pushing you up and into the shower wall. His thrusts become more erratic as he approaches his own orgasm. You grab a handful of his hair and pull, forcing him to lean his head back so you can kiss and bite along his neck. 

This undoes him. Quickly, he pulls out of you, lowering one of your legs to the floor. Eyes squeezed shut, he pumps himself once, twice, three times before he comes too, trying his best to aim it away from you. One leg still wrapped around him, you lay kisses along his chest, sucking on his collarbone as he rides out his own high. You steady him the best you can, then he falls into you, groaning as he does.

You kiss him on the forehead. “You good?” you ask, smirking.

Daryl chuckles before responding. “Amazin’, darlin’,” he drawls. He catches your lips again, then gently lowers your other leg so that you are standing on your own. You kiss him deeply, exhausted and giddy, wanting to draw it out for as long as possible. His hands are on your waist again, with one slowly dragging its way up your body, sending a shiver up your spine.

He pulls away, looking up into the stream of water. “Guess we should actually shower, huh?” he asks, smirking.

“Yeah,” you say, a little reluctantly, not wanting this moment to end. “If we run out of hot water, I’ll cry.”

Both laughing, you and Daryl break apart to start cleaning up. Thankfully, the CDC has body wash, shampoo, and conditioner dispensers on the wall of the shower. You grab some of the shampoo and dig your fingers into Daryl’s hair before he can stop you. You massage it into his scalp, eliciting another deliciously low groan from him. While you work on his hair, he reaches behind you to get some of the soap, and starts lathering your body, working meticulously from your shoulders to your chest, down your legs. He grabs you, switching your places so that he’s under the stream of water, rinsing out the shampoo as you start to shampoo your own hair. 

By the time the water starts to run cold, you and Daryl are both washed, rinsed, and conditioned. He jumps out of the shower first, tying a towel around his waist before wrapping you in one. Arms trapped inside, you have to let Daryl pull you out of the shower and back into the room. You trip over your discarded shoes, and land on the bed, giggling. 

As soon as you feel the softness of the mattress, your exhaustion catches up to you. You dry yourself the best you can, before chucking the towel across the room.

“Don’t be getting mah bed all wet,” Daryl says from across the room. He’s already slipped back into his boxers and sleeveless flannel shirt.

“Shut up, Daryl,” you mumble, sinking into the pillows. You pull the blanket out, making space for him to lay with you. He scoffs, but he climbs in anyway. You lay your head on his chest, pulling him tight. You barely feel his kiss on the top of your head before sleep overtakes you.

The next morning, you wake up, still snuggled into Daryl’s chest. You can tell that he's already awake; you can feel him gnawing on his fingernails before you even open your eyes. Anxiety radiates off of him.

Using your arms, you squeeze into him tighter, then lean up to kiss his neck.

“Good morning,” you murmur, eyes still closed but smiling.

“Mornin’,” he says, shortly.

Your eyes shoot open at his tone. All the affection, the gentleness from last night has been replaced by a coldness. You sit up, leaning on your elbow so you can look at him. He looks away.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“Nothin,” he grunts out.

You nudge him. “Liar,” you say. You grab his face with your free hand, and pull it towards you, forcing him to look at you. “Talk to me.”

“It’s nothin,” he mutters. He moves to get out of the bed but you don’t let him go.

“It’s not,” you say, more forcefully this time.

Daryl looks away from you again. It makes you want to punch him in the face.

“So that’s it?” you ask, trying to ignore the prickling of the tears in your eyes. “You get to fuck me once, and then go cold on me? That’s what we’re gonna be now?”

“That what you want?” he asks, still not looking at you.

“If you would look at me, you could see that’s not what I want at all,” you snap. 

This makes him look at you, and he immediately sees how glassy your eyes are. He hesitates, eyes flicking between yours and your lips. “You don’t?”

“Not at all,” you whisper. You cup his cheek with your hand, and he leans into it, eyes falling closed. “I want you. Just as much as I did last night. I want you. I want this. Forever. Even if forever is just for today.”

His eyes snap back open. “You do?” he asks, and you can hear the eagerness in his voice, even as he tries to hide it.

“I do,” you say breathlessly. You lean your face in towards his, pausing less than an inch away from his lips. “I really do.”

You can feel his breath hitch at your words. Gingerly, you close the gap between your lips and his, and place a soft kiss upon them. He kisses you back timidly, as if waiting for you to be repulsed. But when you deepen the kiss, he relaxes, his hands crawling up your back to pull you in closer.

Without breaking the kiss, you lay back onto the mattress, pulling him on top of you. Using one arm to hold up his weight, Daryl’s free hand trails up your side to cup your face. You slide your hand down his body, feeling the muscles of his chest again and then catching on the waistband of his boxers. Taking your hint, he pulls them down, releasing his cock, already hard, and lines it up with your entrance. He breaks the kiss only for a moment to look into your eyes, before pushing into you again.

Forehead pressed against yours, Daryl grinds into your body slowly. You lift your hips to meet him with each thrust, your hands exploring every inch of your body. The warmth that radiates off of his skin reignites your fire from last night. You catch his mouth with yours, his lips parting to allow your tongue in as your kisses deepen. 

Your bodies begin to flow like one, melting into one another with every movement. One of your legs wraps around his hips, pulling him in even closer. Daryl’s kisses become sloppy, slipping from your mouth to your jawline, trailing along it and down to your neck. Every one of your nerves feels like it's been pulled taut; every place that he touches you is like him strumming them like a guitar. 

The deep pool of desire inside of you begins to overflow, and your fingers find his hair as you come undone in his arms again. You moan his name, pepper him with kisses, drag your nails along his arms as your body gives into the pleasure that only he can give you. Your walls clench around him, and he barely lasts through your orgasm before he has to pull away, shooting his own onto the bed just beneath you. 

Daryl lays his head on your chest as you both recover from your mutual releases. Eyes closed, you rub his back as he pushes kisses into your skin. He eventually crawls back up to you and kisses your forehead, your nose, then your lips. When you open your eyes, you can see a gleam in his eyes that you’ve never seen before.

“Let’s go find some grub,” he says through his smirk. “I’m starvin’.”

You can’t help smiling, feeling happier than you have in a long time. But you should’ve known better.

By the time you and Daryl make your way to the breakfast room, most of the group is following Jenner out. You look at him, but he just shrugs and moves to follow the group. You stop to pour yourself a cup of coffee; the smell alone is making your mouth water, and you refuse to miss out on a luxury you used to take for granted. You assure Daryl that you’ll be in there in just a minute. 

“I won’t be missing out on anything too exciting,” you say to him with a smirk.

Boy, were you wrong.

When you walk into the main computer room, everyone is crowded around Jenner and watching the big screen. On it, you see what looks like an x-ray of a brain, and you nearly jump out of your skin when a streak of light shoots through it.

Carol asks, “God. What was that?”

“He shot his patient in the head,” Andrea explains, turning to Jenner. “Didn’t you?”

Jenner hesitates, before talking to the computer. “VI, Power down the main screen and the workstations.”

The computer voice responds, “Powering down main screen and workstations.” The room starts to go dark. 

As people hound the doctor with questions, you move over to where Daryl is standing. He watches the doctor carefully, and you can feel the tension radiating off of him. You try to place a hand on his arms but he pulls away, starting to pace the floor.

“So it’s not just here,” Andrea questions Jenner. “There’s nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That’s what you’re really saying, right?”

When he doesn’t answer, realization hits the group like a bag of bricks.

“Jesus,” Jacqui mutters, exasperated.

Daryl rubs his hands into his eyes, still pacing, “Man, I’m gonna get shitfaced drunk again,” he complains, leaning on one of the computers. 

Dale speaks up, “Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but…that clock—” he points to a big red countdown clock on the wall. “it’s counting down. What happens at zero?”

“The basement generators—they run out of fuel,” Jenner answers quickly, before walking out of the room.

“And then?” Rick asks, but Jenner ignores him. Instead, Rick turns back to the supercomputer.  “VI, what happens when the power runs out?”

The computer answers, “When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur.”

Daryl throws his hands up into the arm and curses before stalking out of the room. You look around at the rest of the group, who all look just as confused as you are. Rick nods his head towards Shane and the two of them, followed by Glenn and T-Dog, run out of the room. You look over at Carol and Lori, who are both holding their kids close. You decide to go find Daryl and try to figure out what the fuck is going on.

You find him back in the room where you had spent the night with him. He’s pacing the room, bottle of whiskey in hand. Every few steps, he takes a swig from it, muttering to himself.

“Daryl,” you say gently. He doesn’t seem to hear you. He keeps pacing and talking to himself as if you’re not even there.

“Daryl,” you say again, louder. He stops and looks at you. “Calm down,” you say, moving closer to him. “We’ll figure something out.”

“But what if we don’t?” he asks angrily. But underneath that anger, you can hear a twinge of fear laced in his voice. 

“We will,” you reassure him. “Rick and some of the guys ran off, probably to go look at those generators.” 

Daryl only grunts at you. You chuckle a little, before snatching the whiskey out of his hand. You plop down on the bed, patting the space next to you.

“C’mon,” you try to coax him over, but he doesn’t move.

“What are we supposed to do now?” he asks, quietly.

“I mean, you did say something about getting drunk,” you trail off, taking a long sip of the whiskey.

With a huff, Daryl lands on the bed next to you, snatching the bottle back from you and drinking.

A short while later, you are still sitting on the bed, legs draped over Daryl’s lap, enjoying the fuzziness in your head, courtesy of the whiskey. Daryl’s sitting with his head leaned back against the wall, one hand making lazy circles along your thigh. You take another sip from the bottle before passing it back to his open hand. As you do, the lights in the room dim.

Daryl immediately jumps, and moves to pop his head out into the hall. “What’s going on?” he asks. “Why is everything turned off?”

Jenner walks past your room, dressed in a shirt, tie, and lab coat, and takes the whiskey bottle from Daryl as he continues moving down the hall.

“Energy use is being prioritized,” he says as a means of explanation.

“Air isn’t a priority?” Dale asks, dumbfounded. “And lights?”

Jenner takes a swig from the bottle and says simply, “It’s not up to me. Zone 5 is shutting itself down.”

Daryl starts following him down the hallway. “Hey! Hey, what the Hell’s that mean?”

But Jenner keeps walking, and your entire group follows. You trail behind everyone else, just barely able to make out Daryl yelling at the doctor. “Hey, man, I’m talking to you. What do you mean it’s shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?”

More lights begin to turn off as you follow Jenner back to the computer room. Rick, T-Dog, Glenn and Shane come running from another doorway to join the rest of the group. Rick runs ahead and meets up with Jenner, demanding answers. The rest of you trickle down the stairs to join them at the computers.

The clock on the wall reads 30 minutes left.

Jenner pauses, allowing everyone to catch up. He hands the bottle to Daryl, who angrily snatches it out of his hand, spilling some whiskey on the floor.

Then Jenner turns to Andrea. “It was the French,” he says.

“What?” she asks, confused.

“They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know,” he explains. “While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution.”

“What happened?” Jacqui asks.

Jenner looks defeated as he continues. “The same thing that’s happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?”

Shane jumps up to confront him but Rick pulls him back. He calls out behind him, “Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We’re getting out of here now!”

But as you all turn to run back to the rooms, an alarm starts blaring.

“What’s that?” Shane asks Jenner.

The computer answers for him, announcing: “30 minutes to decontamination.” Everyone is looking around the room, at each other, panic in their eyes.

“Doc, what’s going on here?” Daryl yells. But Jenner is too busy messing with the computers to answer.

Shane addresses the group, “Everybody, y’all heard Rick. Get your stuff and let’s go! Go now! Go!” 

But as everyone starts to run again, there’s a loud bang: the security door to the computer room has slammed shut.

“He just locked us in!” Glenn yells, fear almost causing his voice to break.

You look for Daryl in the chaos, and you find him running at Jenner, the bottle in hand, ready to hit him.

“You son of a bitch!” he yells as he tries to swing, but Shane and T-Dog catch him before he can connect with the doctor’s head.

Rick stalks up to him. “Hey, Jenner, open that door now,” he demands.

“There’s no point,” Jenner explains, dejected. “Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed.”

“Well, open the damn things,” Dale yells.

“That’s not something I control,” Jenner continues. “The computers do. I told you: once that front door closed, it wouldn’t open again. You heard me say that. It’s better this way.”

Rick looks at him, confused. “What is? What happens in 28 minutes?” When Jenner doesn’t answer, Rick asks again, “What happens in 28 minutes?!”

Jenner shouts back, “You know what this place is?! We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don’t want getting out! Ever!” He pauses, sitting back down. He continues, quieter this time. “In the event of a catastrophic power failure—in a terrorist attack, for example—H.I.T.s are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out.”

“H.I.T.s?” Rick asks, approaching him.

Jenner orders the computer to define it for him. “H.I.T.s—high-impulse thermo baric fuel-air explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen at between 5,000 degrees and 6,000 degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired.”

“It sets the air on fire,” Jenner explains in a low voice, not making eye contact with anyone. “No pain.”

The group stares at Jenner, understanding hitting everyone differently. Rick grabs Lori and Carol, holding them close. Carol is openly crying now, hugging Sophia to her chest. Dale and T-Dog just stare, mouths agape. Your hands reach up to cover your mouth as you try to process what you just heard: Jenner is going to kill us all.

Only Daryl still has his wits about him. Kind of. He throws the liquor bottle at the sealed door, yelling at Jenner to open it.

Shane runs at the door with a fire ax, trying to cut it open. T-Dog tosses a second one to Daryl, who catches it and starts working with Shane to get the door open. Lori and Carol slide down to the floor, each with their kid in their lap, trying to keep them calm. You move closer to where Shane and Daryl are working on the door, trying to watch for any indication that it’s working. As far as you can see, they aren’t making a dent.

After a few minutes of no progress, they both stop, out of breath. You try to catch Daryl, but he and Shane are moving back to where Rick is talking to Jenner, practically begging him to let you all out.

“Can’t make a dent,” Shane tells him, out of breath.

“Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher,” Jenner explains, smugly.

“Well, your head ain’t!” Daryl yells, running up, swinging his ax at the man.

It takes Dale, Rick and T-Dog to hold Daryl back. T-Dog pulls the ax out of Daryl’s hands, who pushes past them all and stalks back over to the door. You follow him.

“Daryl-” you start, but he cuts you off.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” he snaps at you.

“I wasn’t-” you try but he moves in swiftly, taking your face between his hands.

“You said you wanted forever, right?” he asks. Tears in your eyes, you can only nod in response. “Then I’m gettin you yer forever.” He leans in, touching his forehead to yours, and looks deeply into your eyes. “I’m gettin’ us out of here.” 

You nod again. “O-okay,” you manage to get out. You and Daryl stay this way for a minute, soaking each other in, only breaking apart when you hear the sound of a shotgun cocking. Both of your heads snap back to the group as Shane runs up to Jenner with the gun, pressing it into his face.

“Open that door or I’m gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?” he threatens the doctor.

Rick and Lori try to talk him down, but Shane begins yelling and shooting at the computer monitors. The other members of the group duck for cover as pieces of the machines start flying in different directions. Daryl nearly has to knock you to the ground as Rick tries to get the gun from Shane, causing a stray round to hit the light fixture above you. 

Rick wrestles the gun away from Shane. Everyone looks to him for guidance. He hands it off to T-Dog before turning on Jenner again. “I think you’re lying,” he says. “You’re lying about no hope. If that were true, you’d have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn’t. You chose the hard path. Why?”

Exasperated, Daryl finds the ax again and returns to beating on the door. You follow him with the second one, and stand between him and the rest of the group, trying to hear what they’re saying in between the slams of the ax on the door. Each slam of the ax on the door lines up with your heart, which is pounding in your chest. Fear threatens to take over, but you shove it back down. Daryl’s going to get us out of here, you tell yourself on repeat. We are going to live.

After a while, Daryl’s hits on the door begin to slow down. He stops, hands on his knees, panting. He refuses to look at you. Don’t give up,  you want to tell him, but your throat feels like it's closing. You look back to Jenner, who is watching Rick intently as he continues to plead. 

Whatever he says to Jenner must work, because all of a sudden, the door shoots open.

“Come on!” Daryl yells, signaling for everyone to follow him. You reach him at the door, pulling him into a quick hug as everyone runs up behind you.

Everyone except Jacqui.

“Let’s go. Let’s go,” T-Dog says to her, trying to pull her along.

But Jacqui pulls away. “No no. I’m staying,” she tells him, tears in her eyes. “I’m staying, sweetie.”

“But that’s insane!”

“No, it’s completely sane,” she continues. “For the first time in a long time. I’m not ending up like Jim and Amy.” Everyone stops and stares at her. She looks at the group, and motions them forward. “There’s no time to argue. And no point, not if you want to get out. Just get out. Get out.” She pushes T-Dog to urge him to go.

Daryl grabs your hand. “We gotta go, girl,” he says as he starts pulling you down the hallway. You stumble along behind him, doing your best to keep up. You hear the footsteps behind you as more group members run out, but when you peer behind you, you see that Dale hasn’t left the computer room, and neither has Andrea. You want to yell out but you can’t as Daryl throws open the door to the stairwell and you have to start climbing.

When you make it to the lobby, T-Dog runs forward, trying to open the doors. They’re locked.

Daryl and Shane take the axes again and start trying to break open the windows, but they barely even splinter with each hit.

Your blood is pounding in your ears. There has to be only three minutes left on that timer, and you can’t find a way out of the building. You look around for something to use to try and break out, but there’s no use. T-Dog hits the window with a chair but it bounces right off each time. Shane shoots at it with the shotgun and, while it makes a small crack in it, it’s not enough to break it open.

We’re not going to get out in time, you think to yourself. You feel your chest tightening as fear takes over. Tears start to prick your eyes again as you look at Daryl. He’s frantic, looking up and down the lobby, trying to come up with another plan. But you can tell he comes up empty-handed.

Then Carol runs forward, digging in her purse, “Rick, I have something that might help,” she cries. Shane mutters under his breath, but she ignores him. “Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform I found this in your pocket.” She pulls out a grenade - a grenade?! - and hands it to Rick before running back to her daughter.

As Rick runs towards the window with the grenade, Daryl runs at you, looping an arm around your waist and dragging you behind a low wall. He spins you around so that his back is to the windows, and he holds you tight. You grip his arms and squeeze your eyes closed, bracing for whatever is about to happen.

The grenade explodes, shattering the window. Daryl pokes his head up, peering over the wall, then grabs you by the arm. “Run!” he yells, and you and the rest of the group make a break for it. 

Daryl reaches the window first, tossing the ax out before jumping down to the ground. Then he turns around, grabbing you by the waist and pulling you down next to him. He picks the ax back up, and yells at you to stay behind him. You pull your hunting knife out of its sheath on your hip and follow him.

Together, you make a beeline for his truck. Everyone is running. Shane and Rick shoot a couple of lingering walkers, clearing a path to the vehicles. Daryl drops your hand to take the head off of an incoming walker with the ax. He pushes you on ahead of him and you sprint to the pick up.

When you reach it, you run around to the driver’s side, trying to put as much distance between yourself and the building as possible. Daryl runs up, yanking the door open.

“Get in, get in,” he yells, half lifting you into the truck. You barely make it on to the seat before he jumps in behind you, slamming the door shut. You go to slide over but Daryl pushes you down so that you’re laying on the seat. He lays on top of you, holding you close to his chest. You squeeze your eyes closed and wrap your arms around him the best you can, and you pray for the first time in ages.

Please god, you beg. Let us be okay-

Then you hear the explosion. The truck rattles at the sheer force of it. Daryl pulls you even closer to him, his face lost in your hair. 

It feels like it goes on forever. Eventually when it starts to quiet down, you feel Daryl sit up slightly. You lean forward too, trying to peer out of the window, and you gasp.

The building is gone. All that’s in front of you is a pile of rubble and massive flames, with black smoke reaching up to touch the sky. You let your tears stream down your face now, thinking about your friends who stayed behind. 

You crawl out from under Daryl to get a closer look. Behind one of the sandbags, you see a blonde ponytail pop up.

“Oh my god,” you cry out, hitting Daryl’s arm. You point. “Look!” He leans in, and the two of you watch Andrea and Dale stumble towards the RV. “They made it,” you sigh, leaning back in the seat. Daryl leans back too, chest heaving. 

The two of you sit there for a moment, catching your breath and taking in the destruction around you. Eventually, you hear the RV’s engine start up. Daryl puts the keys in the ignition of the truck, starting it too. He turns and looks at you.

You place a hand on his thigh. “So forever, huh?” you ask.

The Sacrifice

The Sanctuary

The Engagement Party

The Interrogation

The Promise

The Wedding

The Honeymoon

The Attack

The Graves

The Punishment

The Rescue

The Confrontation

The Traitor

The Injury

The Reward

The Babysitter

The Prisoner

The Cell

The Nightmare

The Trap

The Escape

You let out a small whine at the soreness between your legs as you rolled on your side to fish for your sweater that had been taken off, well more like ripped off by Tae when he arrived at your apartment.

You didn't bother putting on pants because you knew how this went.

How it had gone for the last eight months.

He would text you asking if he could come over. You would reply, usually saying yes unless you were busy. He would pull up in an unmarked car to your apartment. Have mind-blowing sex with you then get you cleaned up and leave.

You had met nine months prior and both were immediately sexually attracted to each other. After a long discussion about what you both wanted you started to become fuck buddies.

Tae didn't want the drama of a relationship but still wanted to get laid and you had just gotten out of a relationship at the time and had no desire to jump back in.

It was perfect.

You sat up on the bed and frowned at the closed door.

He was usually back from the bathroom by now with a damp washcloth.

You slowly got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom where you saw him on his knees getting a bath ready for you.

You cocked an eyebrow in confusion

He never stayed longer than he had to, and sure as hell never did this.

He must have felt you staring because he turned around and shot you a boxy grin, adorned back in his sweatpants and oversized hoodie

“Hey, uh what's all this?” You asked trying to keep the suspicion out of your voice.

“I-shit you hate it don't you?” He said boxy smile falling off his face.

“No! Not at all. I just. We don't do this? Ever? I'm just confused.” You admit as you lean against the counter and he turns off the water.

The bath does look heavenly with steam rising from it and the smell of lavender bubble bath in the air.

“Well I feel like I owe it to you, I was pretty rough this time.” He says with a cocky grin eyeing the bite marks he had left all over your thighs, which were starting to turn a beautiful shade of dark red.

“Tae it was fine, I would have said the safe word. But thank you.” You say as you remove your sweater and slowly climb into the bath.

He watched as you settled in.

You closed your eyes, fully expecting him to leave like he always did, but instead he closed the lid of the toilet and sat on it watching you.

“Tae…everything okay?” You ask watching how nervous he suddenly looks.

“Yeah, I…are you okay?” He responds, playing with his long fingers and not looking at you.

“Yeah, I said I was fine.” You say and a light blush covers his cheeks.

“Okay, Taehyung.” You say, which has his eyebrows shoot up. You never call him by his full name.

“What's going on? I don't want to sound rude, this is all very nice but you never do this. You clean me up and go. I'm not complaining at all! It's not a bad thing. I'm just..well… still confused.” You admit staring at him as his gaze finally catches yours.

“I want to talk to you about something.” He says slowly, carefully.

You stare him down and wait for him to speak. He looks so uncomfortable and nervous, picking at his fingers.

“Go ahead Tae. The floor's all yours.” You say softly waving your hand.

“I, well I know I've liked this arrangement we have and I know you do too. It works. And I think it's good for both of us. And god you are the perfect fuck buddy like I could not have asked for better, honestly.” He rambles.

“Tae. If you want to stop this arrangement you could have just said. You didn't need to butter me up with a hot bath or anything. We agreed to be open with each other.” You say.

“No! Oh god, I'm making this worse! I want…the opposite actually.” He says running his hands through his fluffy brown hair.

You stare at him.

He stares at you.

The room is thick with tension and steam from the warm bath. Even though he has seen you naked many times you still feel slightly vulnerable as you sit there and try not to let your mind run wild.

“Tae please, whatever it is just tell me.” You plead as he slides off the toilet and sits on the floor right across from you.

“I know what I want to say I just don't want it to offend you that's all.” He admits.

You let out a little laugh.

“Like twenty minutes ago you called me your little whore and spanked me raw. I don't think I'll be offended.” You say with a soft laugh as you see his features soften a bit.

“I-yeah you're right. Okay. So as I said I love fucking you. I love having someone I can text who can get rid of my stress. Again, you are the perfect fuck buddy. Really I couldn't have asked for better.” He starts, staring at the floor, once again not making eye contact.

Which has you nervous.

You feel like you are on the edge of a very tall cliff, you know something is coming but you don't know what.

“I-Well. The guys know about you. Not who you are or anything! Just that I have…someone on the side. They know about our…arrangement.” Tae says pausing again to gauge your reaction.

You weren't surprised. You knew how close they all were and you expected Taehyung to tell them about you, hell, you expected him to brag about his arrangement.

However, the both of you had a set of rules when you started this whole thing, one of them being he would never talk about work, or the other band members. So you were surprised he was even mentioning them to you at all.

“Anyway. We have been training for our tour, we leave in three months and everyone is very stressed and high-strung. Hobi almost hit Namjoon yesterday because he got a dance step wrong and nearly took him out.”

“The last couple of weeks have been very long and very tiring. I'm sure you noticed I've been calling on you more, and being a little more….rough.” He admits with a shy smile.

“Tae believe me it's hot as fuck. This is what our arrangement was for right? Stress relief. For both of us.” You remind him.

You didn't mind that he was calling on you more. You knew once he went on tour he wouldn't call on you at all so you were relishing all this until he came back.

“This is why I'm glad to have you. I love going on tour. I love seeing our fans but the prep can be…well. A lot. Everyone is feeling it. Everyone is at maximum stress. And you're like my oasis from all of it.”

“Well after our last practice, some of the guys mentioned… how they wish they had… what we had. An… arrangement where they could blow off some steam. Have someone to help with all the stress.” He says cocking an eyebrow.

Your mind is running a million miles a minute and you are sure your eyeballs are about to pop out. Is he suggesting what you think he is suggesting?

“I really don't want to offend you, and you can yell at me if you want. But I was wondering if you would be willing…to share the wealth. Help my bandmates with their tension. Let them fuck you.” He finishes finally staring at you.

Your jaw drops and even in the hot water of the bath, you feel yourself shiver. Goosebumps cover your arms and legs.

How could you possibly say no to that?

There was no universe or timeline where you would say no to that.

You knew the members of BTS of course, from what you had seen online as you had never met them but a slew of dirty thoughts started racing though your mind.

“You still with me?” Tae teases which has you snapping out of your thoughts and looking down to see some of the bubbles have disappeared and Tae can clearly see you clenching your thighs under the water.

“I-um sorry I think my brain stopped working.” You admit with an awkward laugh.

Tae leans down and presses a kiss to your collarbone as your eyes roll to the back of your head. His lips are soft and warm against your skin as his hand comes to palm your breast. It feels so good and you already feel yourself throbbing. You weren't sure if it was because of him, or his suggestion but you felt a moan fall from your parted lips.

His hands traveled down your wet, naked body and settled between your legs, which you opened obediently for him.

He darkly chuckled against your throat as he felt how soaked you were.

“God you really like that idea huh?” He mutters as a finger enters you and you buck your hips up at the sensation of him slowly thrusting his finger in and out.

“Tae. Fuck.” You cry out as he curls his finger under the water and rubs against that spot inside you that has you moaning out his name and gripping the side of the tub.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd like to be Bangtan's little slut. Let all the members fuck you. So naughty Y/N. So dirty.” Tae growls out as his finger speeds up and you are a moaning, whining mess under him.

Soon enough he coaxes you through an orgasm that has you shaking and moaning below him. You bury your face in his sweater to muffle your cries as your wall flutters around his digit.

Once he removes his finger you throw your head back and try to catch your breath.

He is above you grinning as he watches you try to recover.

“Fucking hell Tae.” You say breathless as you stare him down.

“So I take it you like that idea?” He asks with a lick of his lips as his fingers dance around the water, swirling the leftover bubbles around.

“Yes. I do. Very much. Mhmm.” You say trying not to show how excited you are.

Tae laughs, he can see right through you. But is nice enough not to comment on it.

“So here's what I'm thinking. I talk to the members. Make sure they are okay with it. It will be the same arrangement we have. I give them your number. They text you when they need you. Sound good?” He asks.

“Sounds good to me.” You reply.

“Yeah seems like it sounds very good to you. Don't make yourself cum too much tonight thinking about it yeah?” He teases which has you flicking water at him.

“You are the one who suggested it!” You tease back with a laugh.

“I didn't want you to be offended and here you are, enthusiastic as ever. I love it.” He says removing his hands from the water and wiping them on your bath towel.

He stands up and adjusts his sweater, pulling it down to cover his hard-on. You smirk and Tae shoots you a look.

“Well, I should get going. Just remember who you belong to babe. I was here first.” He reminds you pointing to your thighs where the red bite marks are starting to turn into small bruises.

You nod at him and he winks at you.

“I don't think I'll let you know what they say. I think I'll let it be a surprise. If you get a text from an unknown number…well you'll know. Now be a good girl and don't be glued to your phone too much.” He says over his shoulder as he turns to leave which has your mouth hanging open in shock.

You hear him chuckle and slip his shoes on as he leaves, you lay back in the bath and close your eyes, mind reeling with what the next couple of months are going to be like.

-------------------------

Authors Note #2- Firstly, thank you for reading! I do plan to make this into a series! Here's how it will go, on the last day of each month (Starting January 2024) I will release another part

Seven parts total for Seven members (because let's be real Taehyung deserves a full fic not just a small intro)

I spun a wheel to decide the order (but purposely saved Namjoon for last for...reasons)

The Order that was decided was

Jimin, Jungkook, Jin, Yoongi, Taehyung, Hobi, Namjoon

If you want to be put on a tag list send me a message and I'll add you.