TUNNEL SNAKES RULE.

Shadowheart creating a mostly one-sided rivalry. Trying to heal everyone up fully, not let Halsin do what he said he would. She’s obviously the better healer: Shar is her goddess, and this druid fought against her. His animalistic magic and “skill” can’t be anything compared to what she can do through Shar.

But of course there is only so much Shadowheart can do on her own, especially on more intense days. So Halsin still helps around the camp. He heals, he gives the leader advice when asked, he continues pouring over his notes. She tries to insult his healing, but she cannot find a fault. All she can muster is that he isn’t really helping, he’s just taking up space in camp, he’s not doing enough, not like the rest.

And then the days when Halsin can actually help heal the group… Does he ever see a wound and flash back to a time he had to heal a similar wound on himself? Punishments from the drow House that kept him enslaved, or a bit more recently from his “many times” visiting the Underdark since then?

Yandere!Zombie x Partner!Reader

The apocalypse completely devastated the rest of civilization, but for your relationship, it just turned your boyfriend into a slightly more unhinged, heavily attached house pet. When he first turned, you thought it was the end until you realized that the virus completely failed to overwrite his obsession with you. His brain might be ninety percent decayed, and he can’t speak coherent sentences anymore, but his territorial instincts are operating at a terrifying 110% capacity. He doesn't want to eat your brains; he wants to aggressively cuddle you in the middle of a ruined supermarket while low-level growling at the passing horde outside the glass.

Yandere!Zombie has a deeply endearing, slightly disgusting way of bringing you "gifts" to show his affection. Because his cognitive functions are entirely warped by the outbreak, he doesn't understand that you can’t use a rusted car engine part, a half-chewed designer shoe, or a shiny piece of broken glass he found in a ditch. He will trudge into your makeshift safehouse at 3:00 AM, covered in dust, and proudly drop a literal waterlogged, moss-covered teddy bear onto your lap, tilting his head and letting out a soft, rattling huff from his chest while waiting for you to pat his head. If you praise him and tuck the gross toy into your backpack, he’ll let out a wet, raspy purr that sounds like a broken garbage disposal, completely ecstatic that he pleased his favorite human.

Yandere!Zombie protective instincts are absolutely terrifying because he has zero self-preservation left. If a group of armed scavengers or raiders tries to corner you to steal your supplies, your zombie boyfriend will instantly drop his slow, clumsy facade. He will sprint forward with supernatural, adrenaline-fueled speed, tackling the threat with a feral, bone-snapping violence that leaves the entire area looking like a horror movie scene. He doesn't care if he takes a bullet to the shoulder or gets stabbed he doesn't feel pain anyway. The second the threat is completely neutralized, his bloody, snarling face will instantly soften. He’ll turn around, tilt his head, and clumsily stumble back to your side, whining like a scolded puppy until you wipe the grime off his cheek.

Yandere!Zombie handles your human survival needs with a clumsy, suffocating level of micromanagement. He knows that you need to eat "the soft box food" to stay alive, so he will literally use his massive zombie strength to rip the steel security shutters off a locked convenience store just so you can walk inside and collect canned peaches. While you’re gathering supplies, he will walk right behind you, his cold, gray hand resting firmly on the small of your back to steer you away from any broken glass or dark corners. He treats you like a priceless, fragile antique that might shatter if he lets go for even a single second.

The most chaotic part of your dynamic is how Yandere!Zombie interacts with the other infected. Because he smells like a corpse, the other zombies usually ignore him but the second they try to wander too close to you, he turns into a total nightmare. He will literally physically throw himself in front of you, baring his decaying teeth and letting out a deep, echoing roar that asserts total dominance over the area. He has effectively conditioned the local zombie population to treat you like a radioactive zone; the horde will literally part around you in a wide, terrified circle whenever you walk down the street, entirely because they know the terrifyingly aggressive ghall holding your hand will rip them to pieces if they even look in your direction.

Ultimately, your life in the wasteland is a bizarrely comfortable, post-apocalyptic fairy tale. You are navigating the ruins of human civilization with a partner who is legally dead, completely unhinged, and entirely consumed by your existence. When you settle down for the night in an abandoned apartment, Yandere!Zombie will carefully pull your warm body against his cold, silent chest, wrapping his heavy arms around you like a protective human shield. He doesn’t have a heartbeat anymore, but as he rests his forehead against yours, letting out a long, contented sigh of rot and devotion, you realize that not even the end of the world could figure out a way to make him leave you behind.

Setting up a makeshift laboratory in the basement of an abandoned university science building is a nightmare, but managing your undead research assistant makes it absolute comedy. Yandere!Zombie has zero understanding of microbiology, virology, or why you’re staring through a microscope for eighteen hours a day, but he understands that this room is where you stay. While you’re frantically mixing chemicals and analyzing blood stability, he will sit flat on the concrete floor right next to your stool, his heavy, cold head resting directly against your thigh. If you accidentally drop a glass pipette or let out a frustrated, exhausted sob over a failed synthesis, he will instantly bolt upright, letting out a protective growl at the empty room before clumsily wrapping his massive arms around your waist to drag you onto his lap, entirely convinced the microscope is actively attacking your peace of mind.

Yandere!Zombie treats your highly sterile scientific environment with a terrifying lack of biochemical etiquette. He knows you need "the shiny glass tubes" to do your work, so he tries to help by scavenging for them in other wings of the hospital. He’ll stumble into your lab at sunrise, proudly holding a hazardous waste container or a random piece of an MRI machine over his head like a trophy, his face covered in ceiling tile dust. When you gently explain to him that a rusted dentist's drill isn't going to isolate the pathogen, he’ll let out a deeply offended, wet huff, crossing his gray arms and sitting in the corner like a scolded toddler until you go over and pat his messy hair.

Drawing his blood for chemical testing is an absolute circus. Because his survival instincts are completely gone, Yandere!Zombie doesn't care about the needle, but he deeply dislikes the fact that the tourniquet forces you to stop holding his hand for three minutes. The second you insert the syringe to pull a sample of his infected marrow, he won't even flinch, and instead he’ll use his free, decaying hand to clumsily play with your safety goggles, bopping the plastic frames and letting out a soft, rattling gurgle from his chest because he thinks you look incredibly cute in your lab coat. If you try to tell him to hold still, he’ll just lean forward and clumsily press his freezing forehead against your cheek, completely sabotaging your sterilization protocols with pure, unadulterated affection.

Yandere!Zombie has a deeply unhinged, territorial policy regarding your test subjects. To find a cure, you eventually have to trap a few low-level, regular zombies in reinforced steel cages at the back of the basement to test your experimental serum variants. Your boyfriend completely hates them. He views those caged infected not as scientific data, but as gross, uncultured peasants who dare to look at his favorite human. Whenever you walk near the cages with a clipboard, he will aggressively march right in front of you, slamming his massive fists against the iron bars and letting out an echoing, chest-vibrating roar that makes the test subjects completely cower in the corner of their cells. "H-Huhnnn," he’ll snap darkly at them, baring his teeth until you pull him back by his collar. "Shhh, leave them alone, they're for science," you’ll sigh, while he just grumbles, wrapping his arms tightly around your neck from behind to shield you from their dead eyes.