→ Famous Octaven

send me a [x] to see my muses favorite picture of your muse

Daisy paused, her cold feet still tucked behind Jemma’s warm calves. 

“It’s Valentines Day?” How did Jemma know that? Daisy knew she was keeping track of the days since the last group they ran into but somehow she had forgotten holidays even existed. Everything in their society was obliterated, there didn’t seem point to remembering such things. 

Still, she felt herself warm and pressed further to Jemma’s back, seeking out her hand to take in her own. 

“I wish I had known that earlier.” Daisy mused, her voice hushed into a whisper. She knew that it wouldn’t have mattered. What could she have done? There wasn’t exactly a place to pick up a box of chocolates in a dead infested apocalypse. 

Then, absently, she remembered the wild flowers Jemma had put into a clouded bell jar at dinner. Daisy of course had noticed it but she was too busy ravenously digging into her half can of probably expired beans to make much comment about it. It just seemed like Jemma being Jemma, finding small joys. 

Every holiday, when they had a mind to remember them, felt empty. Easter …Christmas, but this seemed different. Daisy was glad she knew, it was one she felt she could celebrate. Even with everything, they had this one thing. They could celebrate that. 

She smiled, squeezed Jemma’s hand, and pressed a short kiss to the back of her neck where her hair had fallen away.

** CHARACTER DEATH.

Daisy can’t breathe. Its not from the running or the taxing effort in hacking away at the undead with a dull machete, she’s not winded. She just can’t breathe. Like an imaginary snake has taken a liking to her chest and wrapped itself around her, constricting her. She can’t breathe because there, on the back of Jemma’s shoulder, is a gnarly ring of broken flesh. Daisy knows what it is, she just can’t process her way through it. 

“Jemma…” She finally manages, hushed and barely spoken. 

When Jemma looks back at Daisy her eyes are soft, sad, she already knows. 

Daisy is seconds from asking why didn’t she tell her, with accusation, as if something could be done about it. Nothing could be done about it. But Jemma is already answering that, reading her mind. 

“I wanted to get somewhere safe first. Away from…” She gestures back the way they came. From the hoard of infected corpses flooding around a mill they’d accidentally happened upon. From the danger Daisy had moments before thought they had escaped.

It settles like acid into her core. Jemma is looking at her, something pleading in her eyes that Daisy doesn’t know how to identify, she doesn’t want to anyway. She’s too busy beginning to writhe with it internally. Her stomach twists, her heart rattles in her chest and her lungs are still struggling for air. She’s never been hit by a train or an oncoming truck but through the buzz in her head she thinks this is what it must feel like. 

Then she rails against it. 

“No.” Daisy spouts, her words firmer than she’d expect from lungs with no air in them. “You can’t. No, no, no.” Its a demand. She’s making the rules. Taking charge, ordering Jemma when to run, when to stay hidden, and when to fight back. To keep her safe. Jemma always listened before.

“You’re not—” Daisy reels back against the word, her jaw snapping shut and her body jerking backward, rolling on her heels. “No.”  

“Daisy.” Jemma says, her voice calm and soothing in a way. Daisy hates herself for it. She hates everything. 

They stare at each other, Daisy burning from the inside out, and Jemma, eyes brimming, swallowing down her emotion. 

Daisy builds a fire. She doesn’t care what the flames attract, it doesn’t matter now; nothing does. 

“You’ll have to do it.” Jemma whispers, pressed into Daisy’s chest, snug in the tight arms surrounding her. She must be feeling it now, her skin clammy, body shaking. 

Daisy kisses her lips, closes her eyes and pretends its a different night. Like their first one like this, wrapped in each other, thunder and rain beating against the window of an abandoned bedroom that didn’t belong to them. Admitting something in their touches. 

“I know.” She says, voice cracking. 

Daisy doesn’t want to, she feels sick and hopeless and beaten. All this time she’d been fighting and finding Jemma felt like a blessing. Nothing had ever hurt like this before and she’s been through a whole heck of a lot. 

When Jemma looks at her Daisy sees that same desperate pleading in her eyes, she wants to look away but she can’t. These moments—these last moments—they’re precious and wont be long enough. 

She knows what they’re saying, what Jemma wants to tell her but the idea of it is already gnawing at her belly. Jemma is asking her to stay alive. To pick herself up off the hard ground, wipe Jemma’s blood from her knife and somehow carry on. Daisy can’t imagine how. 

Before Jemma can say it Daisy interrupts. 

“I love you.” She says fiercely, wanting to say more but not knowing how to make it into words. And then, “I’m sorry.” Not just for right now, not just because Jemma is dying but because she’s not sure she’s going to be able to listen to her. She doesn’t know how. 

Jemma closes her eyes, presses her sweaty forehead to Daisy’s and exhales slowly. “I love you.” She breaths out. “Thank you for finding me Daisy.” 

Nicole rolled over, her neck hurt—stiff and difficult to move for a moment until she rotated it in a circular motion. It only took her a second more to realize her pillow was missing and she’d been laying flat against the bed. In her own bedroom she would immediately check the small space between the top of the mattress and her headboard thinking it’d fallen through but Waverly’s was flush with no space for her impossibly fluffy pillows to get away.

She squinted through the darkness, just making out Waverly’s sleeping form beside her. With a little closer inspection it was pretty easy to tell, even with only moonlight coming through the window, the rascal had the second pillow in her arms and was hugging it to her chest. 

Nicole let out a grunt of a sleepy laugh and scooted forward so that she could lay her head on Waverly’s ( very where it was supposed to be ) pillow to ease the stiffness growing in her shoulders. 

All of her to hold onto and Waverly chose her allotted pillow instead. Nicole wasn’t jealous of a pillow. That would be ridiculous.

It was as polite as Clarke could be, cold, but free from a few words she felt more like saying, or screaming. 

“I just, I don’t want to talk to you right now Raven.” She paused, her phone pressed too firmly to her ear, her jaw slack and undecided on which words to make her lips form next. 

She felt so stupid. Like she had fallen for some gigantic joke. Raven knew the whole time, she’d known exactly who Clarke was the first time they had met and said nothing. 

Her eyes fell to her exposed thigh, staring blankly at the letters poking out from the end of her shorts until her eyes welled up and she tore them away. 

That was the thing, Clarke had finally answered the phone after six missed calls in less than two hours and she spoke quickly before Raven could. She cut her words out as best as she could manage but she didn’t hang up. Clarke had every right to be mad about this, pissed, and she was but still---she didn’t hang up. 

Jemma isn’t sleeping. She is in bed, in her usual spot at the center, eyes closed, but she isn’t asleep. She can’t. There is worry and longing balled up together in her stomach and apart from herself the bed is empty. 

But the biochemist does need her rest if she is going to be of use to anyone. 

Daisy never needs as much sleep. In fact just that moment while Jemma was curled up hoping to get some shut eye Daisy was in the other room, relentlessly tapping away at her laptop, being useful. 

Bobbi was gone again, another mission. How was Jemma expected to sleep when Bobbi was out trapped somewhere outside of communication? How was she supposed to relax when they had no idea where Bobbi even was? 

Daisy had held her close earlier, urged her to make herself some tea and get some sleep in the few lapsed moments of downtime she had while her computer screen displayed a number of scrolling numbers and letters then seemed to reboot itself. Actually taking her advice however was proving more difficult than it sounded. 

Jemma hadn’t known how long she’d lay there with her eyes closed but eventually she must have drifted because suddenly she felt herself waking. Her mind cloudy with unsatisfactory sleep and lagging behind. 

She felt herself be physically pulled forward, wrapped in a set of arms. Her immediate thought was Daisy and Jemma welcomed her warmly, pressing her face closer, curling her body inward against the other’s. Then the bed dipped behind her and Daisy’s voice settled down into her lazy thoughts. 

Jemma opened her eyes to find blonde hair and the distinct sweet and calming smell of Bobbi hit her like a freight train. Her arms squeezed as well as she could around the taller woman and Bobbi made a soft humming sound at her in response; then with a scratchy and sleep ridden voice seemed to answer Daisy’s question. 

“Just get in here.” Bobbi had said and Jemma, still with her eyes closed, gripping Bobbi around her middle, couldn’t agree more. 

Billie shook her head, hands palm up in surrender already. 

“YOU” she emphasized, poking at Jason’s chest with an index finger as she spoke “are the one that agreed to watch this demon cat.” 

Billie only rolled her eyes through his insistence that the cat wasn’t a demon, not wanting to get into the how-do-you-think-he’s-lived-this-long argument. Again. 

“I told you, when Britt goes poking around for a Tubs sitter we are very busy. It’s in the married to me handbook.” She gave a nod, watching the familiar recognition to this defense flicker across his face and beat him to the punch. “Yes, along with I always get half of your burrito and every third Friday is animated movie binge night.” 

Jason’s shoulders slumped, defeat beginning to set in. 

“You’re saying you wouldn’t come help if I’m screaming?”

The pout was almost working, but Billie had plenty of practice against that particular method and held her ground. She leaned in, wrapped her arms around Jason’s shoulders and gave him two tight squeezes. 

“I’m saying, I love you but when it comes to bathing supposed ex-crime lord senior citizen Tubbington, you’re on your own.” 

Lexa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Leave it to Raven to make who gets the least amount of sleep a competition. 

“You’re being ridiculous.” Lexa decided aloud, doing her best to keep her voice calm. The baby was settled, nestled against her chest and latched on. She didn’t need to go josling him by getting into a petty argument. 

Raven, as childish as ever, mocked her. Going on about how she was the one being ridiculous. They went back and forth. Raven saying Lexa needed rest too, and Lexa countering with the fact that both Raven and Clarke had work in the morning. To which Raven shot back a remark about the bags under Lexa’s eyes but knew enough to look apologetic when Lexa’s eyes snapped up in a glare. 

But then Lexa could see the worry in Raven’s expression. The face she makes when she is trying so hard to appoach a subject gently, as to not cause Lexa to retreat. Lexa knew she could be stubborn but this was different. 

“I’m not saying you or Clarke couldn’t care for him as well as I can, I’m just… I just…” She looked down at their son, his eyes closed and tiny cheeks flushed. “I just want to be here for everything.” 

Raven knelt beside her, ran her index finger over little flexing toes, and puffed out a breath. She reminded Lexa of what Clarke had said earlier, they weren’t asking Lexa to go back to work, or to do less. They just wanted her taking care of herself too and let them be there. They were a team. 

They leaned into each other, foreheads touching, both peering down at the squirming infant in Lexa’s arms. 

“I guess I could use a little more sleep…” Lexa relented and Raven only just barely suppressed a triumphant scoff.