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I’m a dance major (and I’m not) 5 6 7 8!

Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader

Theatre kid au

Synopsis: You and Charlie have been best friends ever since you met in your high school’s theatre club in freshman year. Since then, you were inseparable, even though you were a techie, and he was an actor.

Or, tech week goes really well, with a little luck.

Warning(s): swearing, cuticle picking, slight anxiety, high school theatre tech week.

Word count: 1.5k

A/N: In loving memory of all the high schools that recently finished tech week (I am not American I only saw any of this on TikTok) (Also I assume those TikToks pertain to American high schools? I actually don’t know sorry) (I hope people get the title LOL it's the sound I saw some people used). And thank you to the wonderful @fullofgutsndopamine for beta-ing this for me :)

As a wise man once said, behind every great actor is an exasperated techie.

That wise man was truly wise, because you could find nothing better to encapsulate the current state of your friendship with Charlie.

You were sitting in a pile of wires, trying to hold on to a shred of sanity because who the fuck sorted these wires yesterday, when your goofball of a best friend stumbles into the theatre.

“Y/N!” cries Charlie, practically sprinting towards you with enough energy to power a sun.

“Charlie,” you deadpan, not even looking up from your sorting because whoever coiled these wires needed to be strangled by one –

“Y/N, I’m having a crisis,” he cries again, dramatically flopping at your feet on the carpeted floor of the high school’s auditorium. He reaches for a wire, presumably to start strangling himself, and you snatch it back from him with an annoyed tch.

“So am I,” you deadpan again. “I have no idea who touched these wires last, but they’re tangled as shit and I need to sort them and coil them before rehearsal today.”

In your peripheral vision, you see Charlie freeze in place as a guilty expression takes over his face.

“Charlie.”

“Y/N.”

Exasperatedly, you pause your sorting and stare at him.

“Did you coil the wires last?”

Silence, and you see Charlie’s eyes dart between yours and the pile of tangled wires on the floor, then:

“Maybe?”

You should have let him strangle himself with the wire.

“Charlie, you’re not even a techie!”

“I’m sorry!” He throws his hands in the air. “You guys were so busy after rehearsal, and Nate was shouting, ‘Can somebody help keep the wires!’, and nobody else was free, and the security guard was minutes away from chasing us out, so I volunteered myself.”

You stare at your best friend for a second, absorbing the flurry of words that had just tumbled out of his mouth, before leaning over to flick his forehead.

“Ow!” he complains, holding his forehead.

“Karma’s a bitch,” you say without bite.

“I guess no good deed goes unpunished, huh,” he laments.

“We’re not even doing Wicked, nerd.”

“We should! I would make a great Elphaba.”

Charlie begins to sing the climax of Defying Gravity. You smack his shoulder before he can get too far.

“Shut up, idiot, you’re going to ruin your vocal cords before rehearsals even start.”

“Aw you care,” Charlie coos at you, reaching up to pinch your cheek.

You lean back as you try to bat his hand away, only to tumble over your pile of wires. Your groan is interrupted by a fit of laughter from Charlie.

“Now it’s even more tangled,” you complain.

“Hey, hey.”

You glare at Charlie as he scoots over to you to pull you back to sitting.

“You’re looking a little tied up, want some help?”

“I will strangle you – ”

Your voice cuts off when you catch a glimpse of the clock on the wall of the auditorium. You had fifteen minutes till the rest of your crew would start to stream in for rehearsal. You don’t even realise that you had started picking at your cuticles until gentle hands pry yours apart.

You exchange glances with Charlie, your best friend, your partner-in-crime, your actor to your techie. And you know immediately that he has clocked your anxiety for the impending disaster that would be the rehearsal if you don’t get the wires sorted in time.

“C’mon,” his voice is gentle. “I’ll help you and we’ll sort them a little faster. Just tell me what to do.”

The two of you sort and coil the wires in comfortable silence, shoulders brushing whenever one of you leans to grab a wire that was just a little too far away. With two pairs of hands, the wires are sorted and coiled just in time for the first people to start streaming into the auditorium.

You’re gathering the wires in your arms and about to rush off when Charlie stops you.

“Wait, I have – ” he interrupts himself, shooting you a sheepish, almost embarrassed grin as he rummages through his pockets. You look at him expectantly, but the look melts into one of fondness as he pulls out a small keychain shaped like a tech headset.

“It’s a good luck charm for you,” he says proudly.

Your mouth falls slightly open in shock.

“For tech week?”

“For tech week.”

God, you guys were such theatre kids.

“I didn’t get anything for you,” you say, warmth rising in your neck.

Charlie shrugs as he moves to hand it to you, but when he realises that your arms are too full to take it, he bends and clips the keychain to the belt loop of your jeans.

“I don’t need a keychain when I have you!” he says as he pats your shoulders good-naturedly.

You’re saved from having to give him a proper reaction when somebody yells for Charlie to get backstage to prepare. So, you mouth “Thank you” to Charlie just before the two of you are swept up by the whirlwind of chaos that was tech week rehearsal.

In your three years of friendship with Charlie, the two of you had never really gotten gifts for each other, much less good luck charms. But then again, it was your last tech week of your high school career, so maybe you did need it.

Equipped with a good luck charm from your best friend, you were sure that tech week was going to go just fine.

-

As it turns out, you really did need the good luck charm.

Over the week, several episodes of misfortune occurred. First, part of the set piece fell apart during a climax scene. Then, two of the leads’ mics stopped working during two separate rehearsals. Subsequently, two ensemble members sprained their ankles tripping over a prop. In a completely unrelated incident (lie), you now had a broken bench that needed to be fixed. Lastly, you got chased out by the security guard before the techies could keep all of the equipment. You returned the next day to find three wires and a wireless mic set missing.

All in all, it was tech week. And somehow, you got out of it alive.

By some miracle, the set pieces and props were easily fixed. The two ensemble members had gotten injured at the beginning of the week, so by the end of it their ankles were much better, and both were ready to perform. Another techie found the missing wires and mic at the beginning of the last day of tech week by sheer luck when she was cleaning out the backstage area.

You suppose you should thank Charlie for the good luck charm.

You didn’t get much time alone with your best friend during tech week, the both of you being too caught up with your various responsibilities as an actor and techie. So, by the end of tech week, it was safe to say you missed your best friend.

“And that’s a wrap for tech week!”

Your director’s words are met with cheers from your whole crew. Tech week was over, nothing burned down, and you were officially less than 24 hours to opening night.

Charlie finds you as you’re packing your bag, his own bag sitting on his shoulders.

“Hey,” he greets.

“Hey,” you return, bumping his shoulder. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a week.”

He rubs the back of his neck as he replies, “Yeah, it’s been a crazy week, huh?”

You hum in agreement, before unclipping the keychain he gave you and holding it out to him.

“Turns out I really did need the good luck charm. I don’t think I would’ve made it through otherwise, so, thank you. Now’s your turn to have the keychain for opening night.”

He chuckles, reaching forward and taking it from you. Then, he’s grabbing you by the belt loop and pulling you closer, clipping the keychain back onto your belt loop.

“What – Charlie – ”

“I told you, I already have my good luck charm,” he says sincerely, gazing into your eyes.

The two of you are close, standing inside each other’s personal bubble. You’re acutely aware of Charlie’s hand hovering over your hip where he had clipped the keychain. You’re also aware that you’re so close you can see specks of green in his blue eyes.

“Charlie,” you whisper. “What does that mean?”

His smile line crinkles as he says, “How about I tell you after opening night?”

There’s a quiet moment as he studies your face for your reaction.

“Okay,” you reply.

You’re not sure what drives you to do your next action – maybe because you missed your best friend and the stress of tech week and opening night were getting to you – but you’re pulling Charlie in for a hug before you can stop yourself.

“A hug for good luck,” you blurt out.

For an embarrassing second, Charlie doesn’t move. Then he wraps his arms around you and squeezes you.

The two of you pull away, smiling.

“You’re gonna smash it tomorrow, Charlie.”

“So are you.”

“I think I’d rather not smash anything,” you joke.

Charlie shoves you slightly, and the two of you are chuckling.

The biggest event of your senior year was happening in less than 24 hours. And the two of you were going to get through it by the power of friendship and good luck charms.

since a fair number of my posts have been gaining traction recently, just wanted to say HELLO i'm medlar and i ramble a lot about charlie slimecicle and jrwi (fell off genloss and qsmp quite a bit but founders cut got me hyped for genloss again) and sometimes write (finals has me dead right now) so if you wanna chat about any of that stuff my inbox is open!

my pinned navigation post also has a few other interests of mine that i don't usually post about but if you wanna chat about it i'm super down :)

(also please reblog my stuff it helps a lot hehe)

i know quite a number of my followers followed me for my past content, if you're still sticking around for my new stuff i really appreciate that! but if you wanna unfollow it's no biggie either

tldr: inbox is open, come and chat (promise i don't bite)!

The Best of Us, The Worst of Us (The Last of Us)

q!Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader

Synopsis: In the midst of the zombie apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, you and Charlie stumble upon a little girl who became the light of your lives for the rest of her life.

Warning(s): blood, swearing, violence, mild gore (descriptive scenes of wounds and blood), main-character (?) death, HEAVY angst, mild-suicidal ideation, physical threatening, panic attack, bittersweet ending

Word Count: 6.6k

A/N: The last sentence in my notes for this fic was “This is angst we ball”. I am so sorry.

masterlist

Surviving in a zombie apocalyptic world was tough. If you weren’t fighting off zombies or other survivors, your next problem was finding food and shelter.

Luckily for you and Charlie, you both knew how to be resourceful.

You’d both done things you weren’t proud of. Between sneaking up on survivors and picking them off one by one so you could loot the bodies and the location, and savagely tearing apart the bodies of the undead without even blinking an eye, you could safely say the apocalypse had changed you both.

Whether that turned you into the worst versions of yourselves, you couldn’t say.

“Hey Charlie,” you had asked him on a rare day when you had simply relaxed by a brook. It had been a peaceful day, one without any scavenging runs, or even run ins with zombies or other survivors.

“Yes, my love?” he replied.

Despite yourself, you feel your chest warm. Ten years since the world turned to shit, but your boyfriend never failed to find a way to make you feel loved.

Too bad you would be the one to break that mood.

“Are we bad people?”

There was a beat of silence as Charlie registered your words. You see him frown from behind the old sunglasses he had picked up from an abandoned mall (“You can’t stop the drip, even if you might get bit!” “Charlie, if you wear that and we get ambushed, you are most definitely going to get bit.” “But I will look cool during it.” “And also dead.”), the sun reflecting off the lenses and shielding his eyes from your view.

“Sure, we’ve done questionable things,” he starts slowly, as if he was processing every word before he said them. “But I don’t think that makes us bad people. I think that just makes us survivors.”

It’s your turn to frown as you mull over his words. The dead leaves on the ground rustle as Charlie shifted, leaning over to hold the side of your face gently.

“We’ve been doing this for ten years,” he murmurs. “What’s got you thinking about this now?”

You worry your lip as you lean into his touch, his calloused hands bringing a striking contrast to his gentle hold. It grounds you in the midst of your busy thoughts.

“I don’t know,” you reply softly. “I guess, I’ve just been feeling a little sentimental recently.”

“Oh yeah? I get that too.”

You snort, before grabbing Charlie’s hand in yours and placing a kiss to the back of his hand. He responds by pulling you towards him into a cuddle on the forest floor.

“I guess that just shows we still have a little bit of humanity left over,” he murmurs as he places a kiss into your hair.

“I guess so,” you reply as the two of you drift off into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the soft burbling of the brook.

-

Camping out in the forest was always a gamble, no matter how peaceful it seemed to be. Without four walls to protect you, you could be easily ambushed by survivors and zombies alike.

You were up the second you heard the sound of empty tin cans crashing to the ground. Charlie shot up from the bed roll moments after you, eyes wide and alert.

The two of you had set up camp behind a couple of large logs, large enough to obscure most of your view of where your campfire had been (Survival tip number 1: never sleep immediately next to your campfire, and always put it out before you sleep) so you couldn’t immediately see whoever or whatever had knocked over your trash.

Reaching for your shotgun that was always within arm’s reach of you, you mouthed to Charlie, “I’ll approach, you flank.”

With a thumbs up from him, you make your way to the source of the noise as quietly and quickly as you can. The moment you step out to face the culprit, you aim the shotgun at them, ready to fire if need be and –

“Oh my god.”

The moonlight just barely illuminated the figure before you. Standing before you, in clothes torn, tattered, and muddied with both dirt and what must have been dried blood, was a girl who could be no older than eight years old. She was on her knees, seemingly having just tripped over the small pile of tin cans in the darkness, and you notice that one of her shoes was missing.

The girl is frozen for a second, eyes wide and staring at the shotgun. The pair of spectacles slips down her nose just a little, enough to draw your attention to it. One of the lenses was cracked.

Charlie appears behind her just a second later, moments away from tackling what he had probably thought was a lone adult survivor. She senses him behind her and turns, mouth falling open.

In a split second, Charlie has the girl in his arms, one hand pressed over her mouth to stop her from screaming. You drop the shotgun on the ground and run to them.

“Calm down,” you try as she wiggled in Charlie’s grasp. Her chest rose and fell in panic.

This wouldn’t do.

“Charlie let go of her,” you hiss at him, keeping your volume low to avoid attracting any potential threats.

“If I let go, she’s going to scream,” he hisses back.

You let out a deep sigh and try to put on the most kind and genuine smile you could muster.

“Hello,” you say gently. “I’m Y/N. We’re not going to hurt you, but we need you to calm down and not scream. If you scream, the zombies will come, and everybody is going to get hurt.”

The kid’s eyes widened just a fraction, darting around the darkness to look around. You reach for one of her hands and rub your thumb over the back of it in hopes to help soothe her.

“There’s no one here except for us, for now. You can relax, try to calm down.”

After a few seconds, the child’s breathing slows down, and she seemed to relax in Charlie’s arms a little. When he was sure that she wasn’t going to scream, he let go of her and moved to kneel beside her on the ground.

“Hey,” Charlie says softly. “Sorry for grabbing you like that, I’m Charlie. What’s yours?”

The girl raises her hands and starts to gesture shakily. Confused at first, Charlie turns to look at you, but you realise quickly that she was signing to the two of you. Your mouth opens slightly when you realise.

“– I – P – P – A. Juanaflippa? Did I get that right?” you ask.

The girl nods excitedly, a smile spreading on her face in contrast to the panic she had been in just moments earlier.

“It’s nice to meet you, Juanaflippa. What are you doing out in the forest?”

She starts signing again, but soon realised that you were reaching your limit of your sign language knowledge. You exchange looks with Charlie, who was equally lost. Then, Juanaflippa was gesturing again:

“Oh! Pen and paper!” gasps Charlie. “I think we might have scrap paper and a pen somewhere, let me find it.”

As Charlie rushed back to your bed roll, you move closer to Juanaflippa to help her stand up. She stumbles a little and leans a little into your side.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?”

She nods, lifting her foot with the missing shoe.

“You hurt your foot?”

As she nods again, you feel something in your heart shatter for her. Why was a girl so young out in the forest all alone? Why did she have to suffer in this world that would never be kind to her?

You almost whiplash. You weren’t sure when was the last time you felt compassion for someone other than Charlie.

Pushing down your bubbling, confusing emotions, you say, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you patched up. Come on.” And you gather her up in your arms and carry her over to where your bed rolls were.

The remainder of the night was spent patching Juanaflippa up. By the time you had finished wrapping her foot injury – which luckily seemed to just be a sprained ankle – with some bandages and wiped the dirt off her face, the little girl was sound asleep in Charlie’s arms.

Cradling her gently, Charlie looked up at you. His wide eyes met yours, and you immediately knew the question which was on his mind.

“Charlie,” you began softly. “It could be dangerous.”

“But – ” you wince when his voice cracked slightly “ – she’s just a child. God knows what she’s already gone through alone, we can’t – we have to – ”

“We won’t,” you say firmly.

You place a hand over one of Charlie’s which had started to shake over Juanaflippa’s shoulder. Intertwining your fingers with his, you lean over to place a chaste kiss on his cheek. Strong emotions start bubbling up again from your chest, this time towards your boyfriend with a heart of gold. Charlie had already set his mind on taking in Juanaflippa, and you knew you would follow his lead in a heartbeat.

“We’ll protect her, I promise.”

-

You and Charlie had only planned to camp in the forest for one night, so you were going into the nearest town in the morning. As per yours and Charlie’s routine, the plan would be to scope out a potential camp for the night, preferably in a secured building, then search around for loot. If you were lucky, you would be able to sneak around zombies and survivors alike. Most of the time, the two of you would be able to make it through the day without anything more than a minor scuffle.

Truth be told, you and Charlie enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came with a fight. You didn’t push you’re your luck often, but what was life without a little risk? However, with Juanaflippa to take care of, the two of you had to be more careful than you were used to.

The little girl was a good sport, even with her injury. But even then, the three of you moved slower than usual.

“We should probably set up camp, then one of us stays with the kid, the other goes and scavenges,” you had suggested in the morning.

“Are you kidding?” came Charlie’s worried reply. “We don’t ever split up. That’s like the worst decision ever. Besides, the kid’s gotta learn how to survive in this world.”

“Yeah, but maybe when she’s got some food and healed up,” you shot back.

“Fine, fine. But once she’s recovered, I’m gonna teach her how to shoot a gun.”

“Charlie, no – ”

“Hey, Juanaflippa! Wanna learn how to shoot a gun?”

That conversation had ended with Charlie and Juanaflippa jumping around you excitedly. You sighed exasperatedly, but it had been hard to hide your fond smile.

Luck seemed to be on your side because your plan for the day went smoothly. You managed to find an old video game store (“Oh my god, Dying Light! I loved that game!”) and secured it as your camp for the next few nights. Once that was done, Charlie had slipped out to gather some food and medicine, returning safely before night fell.

The three of you took things slow, slower than you and Charlie had ever done things in the past ten years. What was routine and almost second nature to the two of you became teaching opportunities for Juanaflippa.

And she had the best teachers.

“Okay, Flippa – can I call you Flippa?”

Juanaflippa nods at Charlie, bouncing on her toes excitedly.

“Awesome! Alright, here’s how you hold a gun – ”

Just at that moment, you emerge from the store to see your boyfriend and Flippa standing side by side, Flippa clutching Charlie’s handgun awkwardly in her small hands.

“What the fuck, Charlie – ”

“Don’t curse around the baby!” he exclaims, shooting you a look and covering Flippa’s ears dramatically. The young girl just looks at you innocently, eyes wide behind her cracked glasses.

Dumbfounded, you set down the water you had brought out for them.

“You’re admonishing me for cursing, but you’re teaching her to shoot a gun?”

Shaking your head at them, you march back into the store to retrieve your shotgun, coming back out to stand watch for them in case any runners or scavengers got attracted to the noise of a clumsily fired handgun.

-

A few days later, you find yourselves back in the woods after getting chased out of the town by some stray runners that had caught you off guard. The moment the sound of ambling limbs and uncoordinated footsteps drew near, Charlie had scooped Juanaflippa up in his arms and raced away while you covered their backs, occasionally letting a gunshot ring when a runner got too close.

After ensuring you were no longer being chased by the pack of zombies, you and Charlie decided to set up camp in the woods. Charlie insisted on bringing Juanaflippa with him to collect firewood (which you knew was a poorly disguised excuse for bringing her aside to teach her how to kill some small woodland animal probably) but you quickly denied the man, offering to teach Juanaflippa how to set up camp instead.

“So, Flippa,” you asked as you teach her how to set up the tarp for shelter, “how did you come to find us in the woods?”

Flippa worried her lip, setting down her side of the tarp to take out the notebook and pen you had managed to scavenge for her. After scribbling down a few words, she turns the notebook to you:

I was left behind. We were attacked. I couldn’t find anybody.

“Oh,” you breathed shakily.

Flippa nodded before hanging her head. One of her hand lifts to wipe at her face as her shoulders start to shake.

“Oh, baby,” you whisper, before gathering her up in your arms. Her arms come to wrap around your neck, squeezing you back tightly as she buried her face into your neck.

“Flippa, I’m so sorry that happened to you,” you say as you rub circles into her back, “but we’ve got you now. Charlie and I will protect you, I promise.”

Juanaflippa takes a minute to calm down, and when she does, she pulls away slightly and brings one of her hands up to face. Opening her palm, with her pinkie facing you, she taps her thumb twice on her chin.

Curious, you tilt your head and ask, “What does that mean?”

A grin starts forming on Flippa’s face and she starts signing the letters to you. You feel tears well up in your eyes as you recognise the four-letter word as:

“Mama,” you choke on your words. Sniffling, you nod vigorously at the girl, gripping her tighter. “Yes, I’ll be your mama sweetheart. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I promise that I’ll keep you safe.”

Charlie returns to see the sobbing mess that you are, and a grinning, slightly teary-eyed Flippa. Knowing it took a lot to get you to cry, Charlie drops the bundle of wood he had collected and rushes to your side, holding the two of you and barraging you with a series of questions:

"Are you alright? What happened? Are you both okay?”

Flippa interrupts him by signing at him, making the same gesture as before but this time tapping her thumb twice on her forehead. Charlie frowns, confused and worried.

“What does that mean, Flippa?”

She manages to wriggle out of your grip slightly to pick up the discarded notebook and pen to write down one word:

Papa.

If you were emotional, Charlie was downright inconsolable. The three of you sit there on the forest floor, wrapped up in each other both physically and emotionally. Juanaflippa is sandwiched in a hug between the two of you, content to just be between the two humans who had decided to love her unconditionally that night in the woods.

By the time you calm down, the sun is starting to set, and you and Charlie both get to teach your daughter how to start a fire.

(“Charlie, please control your pyro tendencies,” you plead with him out of Flippa’s earshot. All you get is a non-committal “No promises.” and a wink.)

-

You make a couple days trek out of the woods and into the next town to search for more supplies. By this time, Flippa’s ankle had healed, and she was wearing tightly laced shoes Charlie had found in the last town. She was armed with a small knife (you had refused to let Charlie give her a gun) and walked between you and Charlie at all times.

Given that Juanaflippa was better equipped now, you and Charlie decided to take the chance and go on supply runs together as a family. It was a hard-fought battle between Charlie’s insistence and your anxiety, but he eventually reasoned it out with you, proposing a game plan.

Whenever you entered a new area, Charlie, being at the head of the group, would keep an eye out for potential hiding spots for Flippa, signalling them to you. If things went south, one of you would shout “Flippa, hide!” and point to one of the hiding spots for her to go to.

It was a fair plan, and the only way for him to convince you to let all three of you go on supply runs together.

Quietly, the three of you were sneaking into an abandoned grocery story in hopes you could scavenge some canned food, one of the supplies which dwindled the fastest now that you were a party of three and not two. The sliding glass doors were frozen half-open, allowing the three of you to slip through with no issue.

It was early in the afternoon, but the sunlight didn’t reach far enough into the grocery store for you to be able to see well inside. Electricity certainly didn’t work anymore, so after walking deeper into the store, the three of you took out your flashlights.

Too bad you didn’t notice the clicker first.

The sound of three flashlights clicking on at the same time was enough for the clicker to turn its gruesome, fungal head in your direction. The three of you freeze, breathing shallowly as the grotesque creature made its disturbing clicking noises. Charlie motions for the three of you to back away quietly, and so you do.

Too focussed on the clicker in front of you, you don’t notice the clicker that had crept up behind you until it clicks in your ear.

You side-step the clicker before it can take a chomp out of your neck, but not quick enough for you to avoid getting pulled down to the ground by it. There’s a high-pitched scream in the background, and you put all your strength into your hips and arms to quickly overpower the creature, rolling the two of you over and stabbing your knife into its neck. Mercilessly, you drag the knife, ripping it’s throat out in a spray of blood and gore to ensure it was dead.

The noise had prompted the clicker in front of your party to charge, and you could see Charlie engaging with it, dodging its arms, and slicing its jaw with his machete. Quickly, you turn your gaze to where Flippa was, ice seeping into your veins when you don’t notice her figure between yours and Charlie’s.

A second high-pitched scream rang out from your right.

Whipping your head further down the aisle, you notice a squirming mass on the floor, barely illuminated by the flashlights which had dropped to the floor. You sprint over to wrestle the third clicker off of Juanaflippa, yelling for Charlie to get Flippa out of the store. As your boyfriend scoops Flippa into his arms and runs out, you manage to climb onto the clicker’s back.

You’re briefly winded when the zombie knocks you into the shelf, but you quickly retaliate by plunging your knife deep into its chest several times, uncaring of how your hands were dripping in its blood. It finally drops to the ground, unmoving, and you sprint out of the store before any more unseen clickers or runners came looking for the source of the noise.

The first thing you saw was Charlie patting Flippa down, fussing over her and checking for injuries. You approach them after sheathing your knife, panic slowly dissipating seeing them out of danger.

“Are you both okay?” you ask, patting Flippa down quickly before turning to Charlie.

He pulls you in tightly and kisses you deeply, quickly pulling away when he remembers the small child watching. You catch his gaze briefly, noting his pupils still wide from adrenaline, before sweeping your gaze over the rest of his body to check for injuries.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, “Adrenaline rush. I think that’s the most action I’ve gotten in more than a week.”

You nod in agreement. Your right hand shakes slightly from leftover adrenaline, and you glance down to notice it soaked in blood that wasn’t your own. Nonchalantly, you wipe it against your pant leg.

“It was a little fun,” you admitted, but turning to Juanaflippa, you feel a stab of fear in you again. “But Flippa, oh my god, I’m so sorry, we should have been more careful.”

You scoop her up in your arms, hugging her tight. You can feel the erratic beating of her chest against your own, and your squeeze her a little just to remind yourself that she was okay. Pulling away from her slightly, you check her again.

“Are you alright? Did you get hurt?”

Juanaflippa shakes her head, holding up an OK sign. Satisfied, you ruffle her hair and stand up.

After that run in, neither you nor Charlie were in a state to go on another supply run, so you found an abandoned house to set up camp in. In a stroke of luck, you managed to find some leftover canned goods in the kitchen.

As you prepared dinner, you notice Juanaflippa draw into herself, doodling or writing something in her notebook. Worriedly, you turn to Charlie who was checking how much ammo you had left.

“Charlie, could you check on Flippa again?”

He looked up from your supplies, eyes darting over to where Flippa was before looking back at you.

“I checked on her just now,” he assures you. “She’s alright, just shaken. Said she needed some time alone.”

You hummed, not quite content with his answer, but accepting it. You hear a sigh, then footsteps, and a pair of arms was wrapping themselves around your waist.

“You’re worried,” Charlie mumbles into your hair.

“Of course I am,” you bite back, your gaze remaining focussed on the beans you were heating up on a makeshift stove.

“Love, you know it’s not your fault, right?”

You give a heavy sigh, gripping the spoon tightly.

“But she got hurt. We weren’t careful enough.”

“She’s alright, we checked her over multiple time.”

“She could’ve gotten bit.”

“But she didn’t.”

“But she could’ve,” you shot back, mindful to keep your volume low so that Flippa wouldn’t overhear your conversation.

The arms around your waist hug you tighter, and Charlie presses a kiss to your hair (which was dirty and slightly bloodied from the fight, but of course your boyfriend had to be a sweetheart).

“She’s okay,” he insists. “We all got a little roughed up, but we’re all fine. We’ll be more careful next time. And if anything happens, we’ll fight our hardest to make sure she’ll get out of it unscathed.”

A gentle hand reaches for your jaw, tilting your head towards him and giving you a light, reassuring kiss. You revel in the safety of being in Charlie’s arms, and in that moment, you feel as though you were sheltered from every horror the world could throw to you, both physical and emotional.

A tug at your pants draws your attention to the small girl who had made her way towards you two, giving you a cheeky grin as though she knew she was interrupting a moment. Letting out a playful sigh, Charlie picks her up and places a sloppy kiss on her cheek, which she protests by batting at his face.

You shake your head softly at them, turning your attention back to the food to ensure it didn’t burn. Your attention, however, was split again when Flippa and Charlie start launching double attacks on you, trying to outdo each other on the number of kisses they can sneak on your face as you cook.

(Charlie has Flippa in his arms, giving her an unfair advantage as he purposely sways her closer to you. He doesn’t acknowledge this when she cheers and raises her hands 5 to 2, signalling her win, but you shoot him a knowing look.)

As the night drew to a close, you tucked Juanaflippa into bed, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

If anything were to happen to her, you swore you would burn the world to the ground.

-

Everything was going to shit.

The three of you had decided to make a supply run the next day. You had banked on the hope that things would be more chill after the scare the previous day.

Of course, luck chose to run out on you today.

You had made it barely ten minutes into stuffing cans into your rucksacks when gunshots were ringing in the convenience store. Semi-automatic gun shots.

“Fucking Fireflies!” hissed Charlie as the three of you took cover behind the counter.

Your eyes scanned around, looking for a way out that was not blocked by the Fireflies. You notice the glass-less window by the counter.

“Charlie, roll your pipe bomb the other way, then sneak out with Flippa. I’ll give cover,” you whisper frantically.

Charlie nods at you before doing what you say. The bomb goes off, clearly taking some of the Fireflies down by the sound of pained screams, and the three of you are off. You whip out your shotgun and fire on the Fireflies nearest to you, taking down another two more before following Flippa and Charlie out.

Another series of gunshots ring out as you’re pulled down behind an abandoned car.

“Why the fuck is a whole squad here,” you curse.

“Hell if I know,” Charlie shoots back. He peeks up from the car to fire off a few shots from the semi-automatic rifle he had, cursing when empty clicks come out after only a few shots.

“Fuck! I don’t have anymore ammo for this stupid gun,” he says as he swings the gun over his back, pulling out another pipe bomb and throwing it at the Fireflies.

Between the two of you, Flippa is crouched with her hands over her ears, eyes wide and darting around. You wrap an arm around her shoulder, squeezing and trying to offer as much comfort as you can to the distressed girl.

“We’re going to get you out of this, Flippa, I promise.”

There’s another spray of bullets, then the sound of thundering footsteps. Gunshots start ringing again, but this time directed away from the three of you. Poking your head up from the car, you realise that a hoard of runners was attacking the Fireflies, clearly having been attracted by all the noise.

“Retreat!” one of the Fireflies yelled.

“Let’s go, now,” hissed Charlie, taking advantage of the chaos.

You follow Charlie as he leads the three of you through the chaos, ducking behind another car. However, it seems that the hoard was much bigger than you had realised because stragglers were starting to approach you too.

With your cover blown, you aim your shotgun and take down as many runners as you can, ears ringing slightly. As you reach into your pocket to grab more shotgun shells, you curse when you realise your pocket was empty.

“Fuck! Charlie, I’m out.”

“Your handgun?”

“Ran out of ammo in the store.”

“Fuck.”

You share a quick look of panic before he tosses you his machete. Turning to Flippa, he grabs her hand in his.

“Flippa, we’re gonna get you out of this. I’m gonna put you in a hiding place, okay? Don’t come out unless one of us comes to get you, alright?” he says, before glancing over at you.

You give him a short nod, before turning your attention to the runners. By now, you couldn’t hear anymore gunfire and you presumed that the Fireflies were either all dead or had fled.

One less set of problems for you.

You lunge at the nearest runner, slashing at it with your machete. You keep yourself between the runners and your family, trying your hardest to stop them from getting anywhere near where Charlie was trying to hide Flippa.

You let your mind fall back into the routine of combat, slashing and hacking at the runners with practiced ease. While Charlie’s machete weighed a little heavier on your hand, it gave you better range than your knife did.

In the corner of your eye, you spot Charlie return to the fray. He’s firing at the runners, landing lucky headshots, and taking down runners quicker than you do with the machete. You refrain from asking about Flippa, too high strung and tensed from the combat to break out of your hyperfocus.

One by one, the runners go down, but not fast enough. Your concentration breaks slightly when you hear a yell from Charlie. You turn around in time to see him get knocked down by a runner who got too close for him to shoot.

“Charlie!”

You try to rush over, but a pull at your pants holds you back. On instinct, you swing your machete without looking, turning to look right after the blade hits flesh with a heavy crunch.

Your blood runs cold when your gaze drops below your eye level to make eye contact with Juanaflippa, her eyes wide with fear.

Your gaze drops lower.

The blade was lodged right into the crook of her neck, blood spurting from the wound at a horrifying rate. Her blood seeps into her clothes, and what isn’t absorbed by the fabric drips down her arm.

The knife she was holding drops to the ground, right before her knees give out.

“NO!”

You barely register the scream you let out, focussed on catching Flippa in your arms to bring her softly to the ground. The machete drops to the floor the moment you let go, causing the wound to gush even more. Frantically, your hands press against Flippa’s neck, desperately trying to plug the wound.

Your world tunnel visions to just Juanaflippa. You feel words tumble out of your mouth, but you don’t register any of it. You don’t remember how to breathe.

Someone is shaking your shoulders. Muffled words rise to your ears. The person stops shaking you and you see arms enter your vision, reaching for Flippa –

“DON’T TOUCH HER!” you scream, one arm pulling her closer while the other still tries to stop the gushing wound. The fog lifts slightly and you finally hear Charlie’s voice saying:

“We need to go! More runners are coming.”

“Flippa, oh god – ”

“Fucking move Y/N!”

With incredible strength, Charlie picks Flippa up, balancing her on one arm while the other pulls you to your feet and drags you along with him. You don’t register where you’re going until you hear the door close behind you, and you realise you’re in a building.

Charlie softly puts Flippa on the ground before rushing back to the door to barricade it, ensuring you were safe from the zombies. But you barely notice his actions, your focus tunnelling into Flippa again.

You drop to your knees beside her, hands shakily pressing into her neck once more.

“Y/N stop.”

“No – Charlie – she’s bleeding, I need to stop it.” Your words come out in stuttered gasps.

“Y/N – ”

“I need cloth, gauze, oh my god where’s my medkit – ”

“Y/N, she’s – ”

“Charlie shut up! Help me, please – ”

Hands grab yours and tears them away from Flippa’s body. You protest with a cry, wrestling in Charlie’s grip as he forces one of your hands to Flippa’s chest.

You don’t feel a heartbeat.

You stop struggling.

“She’s dead,” says Charlie.

Your mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.

You stare at Flippa’s lifeless corpse.

Your hands slip from her chest to her upper arms limply, and you notice a scabbed over wound on one of her upper arms. Lifting the sleeve, you finally notice the bite mark.

Suddenly, you’re shoved away from Flippa’s body.

“Don’t you dare,” hisses Charlie, his demeanour changing like a switch turned on in him as he scoops Flippa’s body into his arms, shuffling away from you. “Don’t you dare touch her, you fucking murderer.”

You think your lungs stopped working. You think you’ve gone mute. But all you can do is stare.

“How could you!” he screams at you, tears spilling over. “She was our daughter!”

Numbly, you try to crawl towards them, but you’re stopped when Charlie draws his knife at you.

“Don’t come any fucking closer,” he heaves, one arm tight around Flippa. “I’ll kill you.”

That snaps you out of your stupor.

“Charlie – ” your voice cracks. “I – ”

“You don’t get to make excuses. This is all your fault.”

His eyes are blown wide, his entire frame shaking. Before you wasn’t your boyfriend, it was the horrifying consequence of your actions.

“Flippa – ”

“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth!” he shouts at you. But his attention draws to the girl in his arms.

Flippa’s eyes were still open, devoid of life and the playful glint that never seemed to go away. Her body was limp in Charlie’s arms, which now curl around her protectively, knife forgotten on the floor.

“Flippa,” he wails, holding her close to his chest, uncaring of how her blood stains his clothes or the fact that her body was growing steadily colder.

You watch the two of them, your greatest loves.

You look down at your bloodied hands.

You want to cry, but you can’t.

You stare.

-

You and Charlie spent the night in the secured building, neither of you having the energy to move, much less fight through a horde of runners your dead daughter in your arms.

(“This was her hiding spot,” scoffed Charlie as he cradled Flippa’s body in his arms. “But I guess she wanted to come out and help”.

He glances at you from across the room. While you hadn’t moved from your spot, Charlie had shuffled himself and Juanaflippa’s body as far away from you as possible.

“I wish she hadn’t thought you worth helping,” he spits.)

The next day, once you were sure the runners had drifted off somewhere else, the two of you exited the building and brought Juanaflippa’s body to a nearby forest.

You buried her body by a tree, marking her resting place with a small stone that Charlie had carved her name into.

(Charlie finally notices the bite mark on her upper arm. You could see the gears turning in his head, questions welling up in his mind. But he heaves a heavy sigh, and you gather that he probably reached the same conclusion you did:

It didn’t matter anymore.)

You each speak your final words to Juanaflippa. Charlie casts loathing glances at you the whole time.

You camp near her grave for one night. You move on the next, survival instincts pushing the two of you back onto the monotonous routine of kill-scavenge-camp.

You and Charlie don’t speak to each other unless it was necessary, and even then, Charlie’s voice is laced with a poison you had never heard from your lover before. The animosity drives you to sleep apart from each other, never coming within two metres of each other.

Some nights, you wonder if you wouldn’t wake up at all.

Some mornings, you wish you hadn’t woken up at all.

Five days after Juanaflippa’s death, you’re taking stock of your shared supplies. As you pour out the contents of your rucksack onto the carpeted floor of the abandoned house, a folded note drops out along with the metal tin cans.

Unfolding it, you immediately recognise Flippa’s chicken scratch handwriting.

“Charlie,” you croak out, voice rough from disuse.

“Fuck off.”

You glance over to wear Charlie was laying by the opposite wall. You gesture the paper at him, knowing he could probably see it in his peripheral vision.

“It’s a note. From Flippa.”

He turns towards you slightly, and you can tell he’s debating whether or not to come over. His anger clearly trumps over any other emotion because he says:

“Read it, I’m not coming over.”

You open the note fully, and begin reading:

Dear Mama and Papa, thank you for being there for me. You saved me in that forest, and you taught me so many things. The past elaven ellen eleven days have been the best of my life. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the bite. I know what it means. I’m sorry that I’m going away soon. But I want you to know that it was not your fault. I love you both very much. Please live well. Love, Flippa.

You don’t realise that you’d begun crying until your tears clouded your vision. Shakily, you put down the letter, scooting away in case Charlie wanted to come over to read it.

You swipe your hands over your eyes, but nothing seemed to stop the tears from falling. You let out a whimper that turns into unbridled wails of despair you’d kept bottled up over the last five days. Burying your head in your hands, you shake and cry.

You don’t hear Charlie move until arms wrap around you. You flinch away from him, a warbled apology coming out from your mouth, but he holds you tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you repeat over and over, hands shaking as you try to pry yourself from the man you know hates you.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, and you can hear him holding back tears.

“IT WAS MY FAULT. I promised I would keep her safe and I KILLED HER,” you yell back at him, hands reaching for your hair to pull and pull because you deserved all the pain from the same hands that tore Juanaflippa away from this world.

Charlie’s hands reach for yours, prying them away from your head and holding them by your side. You try to wrestle them out from his grip, but he holds your wrists tighter. His legs and arms cage you in, holding you close to him as he whispers apologies and words of comfort between his own tears.

Finally, you stop fighting him, and you sob into your boyfriend’s chest. Charlie lets you breakdown, lets you finally come to terms with everything that had happened, and comforts you through it all.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeats.

One of his hands comes up to wipe your cheeks.

“I’m sorry for the words I said.”

He presses a kiss to your forehead, and you can feel how his cheeks are wet with his own tears.

“I still love you.”

Charlie holds you until the tears run out. He holds you until you stop shaking. He holds you even when words start tumbling out of your mouth again. He holds you as he counters every self-deprecating apology with apologies of his own and whispers of love.

In the abandoned house that was once possibly home to a loving family, a broken one reconciles over the shared loss of a beloved daughter.

-

Weeks pass. You and Charlie heal together and move on together, but Juanaflippa is never forgotten, always held close to your memories.

As you lay by a brook, taking a break from supply runs to simply relax, you turn to your boyfriend and ask:

“Charlie, are we bad people?”

Your boyfriend turns to you, grasping your hand in his and kissing it, before pulling you into a warm hug.

“Maybe we are,” he says, holding you close. “But just for those twelve days, I think we were the best of people.”

The End.

hello! you reader yes YOU if you've read this and you enjoyed it, please give it a reblog and like so that i know you've enjoyed it. i put in so much creative effort and brain energy into this piece, so it would really signal to me how it's been received by other people!

(but regardless i'm still really proud of this piece, reblogs and likes just help a little)

this also is a general psa that if you see a fanart or fanfic or whatever fan creation you like, remember to give it a reblog and like to support the blog!

The Best of Us, The Worst of Us (The Last of Us)

q!Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader

Synopsis: In the midst of the zombie apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, you and Charlie stumble upon a little girl who became the light of your lives for the rest of her life.

Warning(s): blood, swearing, violence, mild gore (descriptive scenes of wounds and blood), main-character (?) death, HEAVY angst, mild-suicidal ideation, physical threatening, panic attack, bittersweet ending

Word Count: 6.6k

A/N: The last sentence in my notes for this fic was “This is angst we ball”. I am so sorry.

masterlist

Surviving in a zombie apocalyptic world was tough. If you weren’t fighting off zombies or other survivors, your next problem was finding food and shelter.

Luckily for you and Charlie, you both knew how to be resourceful.

You’d both done things you weren’t proud of. Between sneaking up on survivors and picking them off one by one so you could loot the bodies and the location, and savagely tearing apart the bodies of the undead without even blinking an eye, you could safely say the apocalypse had changed you both.

Whether that turned you into the worst versions of yourselves, you couldn’t say.

“Hey Charlie,” you had asked him on a rare day when you had simply relaxed by a brook. It had been a peaceful day, one without any scavenging runs, or even run ins with zombies or other survivors.

“Yes, my love?” he replied.

Despite yourself, you feel your chest warm. Ten years since the world turned to shit, but your boyfriend never failed to find a way to make you feel loved.

Too bad you would be the one to break that mood.

“Are we bad people?”

There was a beat of silence as Charlie registered your words. You see him frown from behind the old sunglasses he had picked up from an abandoned mall (“You can’t stop the drip, even if you might get bit!” “Charlie, if you wear that and we get ambushed, you are most definitely going to get bit.” “But I will look cool during it.” “And also dead.”), the sun reflecting off the lenses and shielding his eyes from your view.

“Sure, we’ve done questionable things,” he starts slowly, as if he was processing every word before he said them. “But I don’t think that makes us bad people. I think that just makes us survivors.”

It’s your turn to frown as you mull over his words. The dead leaves on the ground rustle as Charlie shifted, leaning over to hold the side of your face gently.

“We’ve been doing this for ten years,” he murmurs. “What’s got you thinking about this now?”

You worry your lip as you lean into his touch, his calloused hands bringing a striking contrast to his gentle hold. It grounds you in the midst of your busy thoughts.

“I don’t know,” you reply softly. “I guess, I’ve just been feeling a little sentimental recently.”

“Oh yeah? I get that too.”

You snort, before grabbing Charlie’s hand in yours and placing a kiss to the back of his hand. He responds by pulling you towards him into a cuddle on the forest floor.

“I guess that just shows we still have a little bit of humanity left over,” he murmurs as he places a kiss into your hair.

“I guess so,” you reply as the two of you drift off into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the soft burbling of the brook.

-

Camping out in the forest was always a gamble, no matter how peaceful it seemed to be. Without four walls to protect you, you could be easily ambushed by survivors and zombies alike.

You were up the second you heard the sound of empty tin cans crashing to the ground. Charlie shot up from the bed roll moments after you, eyes wide and alert.

The two of you had set up camp behind a couple of large logs, large enough to obscure most of your view of where your campfire had been (Survival tip number 1: never sleep immediately next to your campfire, and always put it out before you sleep) so you couldn’t immediately see whoever or whatever had knocked over your trash.

Reaching for your shotgun that was always within arm’s reach of you, you mouthed to Charlie, “I’ll approach, you flank.”

With a thumbs up from him, you make your way to the source of the noise as quietly and quickly as you can. The moment you step out to face the culprit, you aim the shotgun at them, ready to fire if need be and –

“Oh my god.”

The moonlight just barely illuminated the figure before you. Standing before you, in clothes torn, tattered, and muddied with both dirt and what must have been dried blood, was a girl who could be no older than eight years old. She was on her knees, seemingly having just tripped over the small pile of tin cans in the darkness, and you notice that one of her shoes was missing.

The girl is frozen for a second, eyes wide and staring at the shotgun. The pair of spectacles slips down her nose just a little, enough to draw your attention to it. One of the lenses was cracked.

Charlie appears behind her just a second later, moments away from tackling what he had probably thought was a lone adult survivor. She senses him behind her and turns, mouth falling open.

In a split second, Charlie has the girl in his arms, one hand pressed over her mouth to stop her from screaming. You drop the shotgun on the ground and run to them.

“Calm down,” you try as she wiggled in Charlie’s grasp. Her chest rose and fell in panic.

This wouldn’t do.

“Charlie let go of her,” you hiss at him, keeping your volume low to avoid attracting any potential threats.

“If I let go, she’s going to scream,” he hisses back.

You let out a deep sigh and try to put on the most kind and genuine smile you could muster.

“Hello,” you say gently. “I’m Y/N. We’re not going to hurt you, but we need you to calm down and not scream. If you scream, the zombies will come, and everybody is going to get hurt.”

The kid’s eyes widened just a fraction, darting around the darkness to look around. You reach for one of her hands and rub your thumb over the back of it in hopes to help soothe her.

“There’s no one here except for us, for now. You can relax, try to calm down.”

After a few seconds, the child’s breathing slows down, and she seemed to relax in Charlie’s arms a little. When he was sure that she wasn’t going to scream, he let go of her and moved to kneel beside her on the ground.

“Hey,” Charlie says softly. “Sorry for grabbing you like that, I’m Charlie. What’s yours?”

The girl raises her hands and starts to gesture shakily. Confused at first, Charlie turns to look at you, but you realise quickly that she was signing to the two of you. Your mouth opens slightly when you realise.

“– I – P – P – A. Juanaflippa? Did I get that right?” you ask.

The girl nods excitedly, a smile spreading on her face in contrast to the panic she had been in just moments earlier.

“It’s nice to meet you, Juanaflippa. What are you doing out in the forest?”

She starts signing again, but soon realised that you were reaching your limit of your sign language knowledge. You exchange looks with Charlie, who was equally lost. Then, Juanaflippa was gesturing again:

“Oh! Pen and paper!” gasps Charlie. “I think we might have scrap paper and a pen somewhere, let me find it.”

As Charlie rushed back to your bed roll, you move closer to Juanaflippa to help her stand up. She stumbles a little and leans a little into your side.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt somewhere?”

She nods, lifting her foot with the missing shoe.

“You hurt your foot?”

As she nods again, you feel something in your heart shatter for her. Why was a girl so young out in the forest all alone? Why did she have to suffer in this world that would never be kind to her?

You almost whiplash. You weren’t sure when was the last time you felt compassion for someone other than Charlie.

Pushing down your bubbling, confusing emotions, you say, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you patched up. Come on.” And you gather her up in your arms and carry her over to where your bed rolls were.

The remainder of the night was spent patching Juanaflippa up. By the time you had finished wrapping her foot injury – which luckily seemed to just be a sprained ankle – with some bandages and wiped the dirt off her face, the little girl was sound asleep in Charlie’s arms.

Cradling her gently, Charlie looked up at you. His wide eyes met yours, and you immediately knew the question which was on his mind.

“Charlie,” you began softly. “It could be dangerous.”

“But – ” you wince when his voice cracked slightly “ – she’s just a child. God knows what she’s already gone through alone, we can’t – we have to – ”

“We won’t,” you say firmly.

You place a hand over one of Charlie’s which had started to shake over Juanaflippa’s shoulder. Intertwining your fingers with his, you lean over to place a chaste kiss on his cheek. Strong emotions start bubbling up again from your chest, this time towards your boyfriend with a heart of gold. Charlie had already set his mind on taking in Juanaflippa, and you knew you would follow his lead in a heartbeat.

“We’ll protect her, I promise.”

-

You and Charlie had only planned to camp in the forest for one night, so you were going into the nearest town in the morning. As per yours and Charlie’s routine, the plan would be to scope out a potential camp for the night, preferably in a secured building, then search around for loot. If you were lucky, you would be able to sneak around zombies and survivors alike. Most of the time, the two of you would be able to make it through the day without anything more than a minor scuffle.

Truth be told, you and Charlie enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came with a fight. You didn’t push you’re your luck often, but what was life without a little risk? However, with Juanaflippa to take care of, the two of you had to be more careful than you were used to.

The little girl was a good sport, even with her injury. But even then, the three of you moved slower than usual.

“We should probably set up camp, then one of us stays with the kid, the other goes and scavenges,” you had suggested in the morning.

“Are you kidding?” came Charlie’s worried reply. “We don’t ever split up. That’s like the worst decision ever. Besides, the kid’s gotta learn how to survive in this world.”

“Yeah, but maybe when she’s got some food and healed up,” you shot back.

“Fine, fine. But once she’s recovered, I’m gonna teach her how to shoot a gun.”

“Charlie, no – ”

“Hey, Juanaflippa! Wanna learn how to shoot a gun?”

That conversation had ended with Charlie and Juanaflippa jumping around you excitedly. You sighed exasperatedly, but it had been hard to hide your fond smile.

Luck seemed to be on your side because your plan for the day went smoothly. You managed to find an old video game store (“Oh my god, Dying Light! I loved that game!”) and secured it as your camp for the next few nights. Once that was done, Charlie had slipped out to gather some food and medicine, returning safely before night fell.

The three of you took things slow, slower than you and Charlie had ever done things in the past ten years. What was routine and almost second nature to the two of you became teaching opportunities for Juanaflippa.

And she had the best teachers.

“Okay, Flippa – can I call you Flippa?”

Juanaflippa nods at Charlie, bouncing on her toes excitedly.

“Awesome! Alright, here’s how you hold a gun – ”

Just at that moment, you emerge from the store to see your boyfriend and Flippa standing side by side, Flippa clutching Charlie’s handgun awkwardly in her small hands.

“What the fuck, Charlie – ”

“Don’t curse around the baby!” he exclaims, shooting you a look and covering Flippa’s ears dramatically. The young girl just looks at you innocently, eyes wide behind her cracked glasses.

Dumbfounded, you set down the water you had brought out for them.

“You’re admonishing me for cursing, but you’re teaching her to shoot a gun?”

Shaking your head at them, you march back into the store to retrieve your shotgun, coming back out to stand watch for them in case any runners or scavengers got attracted to the noise of a clumsily fired handgun.

-

A few days later, you find yourselves back in the woods after getting chased out of the town by some stray runners that had caught you off guard. The moment the sound of ambling limbs and uncoordinated footsteps drew near, Charlie had scooped Juanaflippa up in his arms and raced away while you covered their backs, occasionally letting a gunshot ring when a runner got too close.

After ensuring you were no longer being chased by the pack of zombies, you and Charlie decided to set up camp in the woods. Charlie insisted on bringing Juanaflippa with him to collect firewood (which you knew was a poorly disguised excuse for bringing her aside to teach her how to kill some small woodland animal probably) but you quickly denied the man, offering to teach Juanaflippa how to set up camp instead.

“So, Flippa,” you asked as you teach her how to set up the tarp for shelter, “how did you come to find us in the woods?”

Flippa worried her lip, setting down her side of the tarp to take out the notebook and pen you had managed to scavenge for her. After scribbling down a few words, she turns the notebook to you:

I was left behind. We were attacked. I couldn’t find anybody.

“Oh,” you breathed shakily.

Flippa nodded before hanging her head. One of her hand lifts to wipe at her face as her shoulders start to shake.

“Oh, baby,” you whisper, before gathering her up in your arms. Her arms come to wrap around your neck, squeezing you back tightly as she buried her face into your neck.

“Flippa, I’m so sorry that happened to you,” you say as you rub circles into her back, “but we’ve got you now. Charlie and I will protect you, I promise.”

Juanaflippa takes a minute to calm down, and when she does, she pulls away slightly and brings one of her hands up to face. Opening her palm, with her pinkie facing you, she taps her thumb twice on her chin.

Curious, you tilt your head and ask, “What does that mean?”

A grin starts forming on Flippa’s face and she starts signing the letters to you. You feel tears well up in your eyes as you recognise the four-letter word as:

“Mama,” you choke on your words. Sniffling, you nod vigorously at the girl, gripping her tighter. “Yes, I’ll be your mama sweetheart. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I promise that I’ll keep you safe.”

Charlie returns to see the sobbing mess that you are, and a grinning, slightly teary-eyed Flippa. Knowing it took a lot to get you to cry, Charlie drops the bundle of wood he had collected and rushes to your side, holding the two of you and barraging you with a series of questions:

"Are you alright? What happened? Are you both okay?”

Flippa interrupts him by signing at him, making the same gesture as before but this time tapping her thumb twice on her forehead. Charlie frowns, confused and worried.

“What does that mean, Flippa?”

She manages to wriggle out of your grip slightly to pick up the discarded notebook and pen to write down one word:

Papa.

If you were emotional, Charlie was downright inconsolable. The three of you sit there on the forest floor, wrapped up in each other both physically and emotionally. Juanaflippa is sandwiched in a hug between the two of you, content to just be between the two humans who had decided to love her unconditionally that night in the woods.

By the time you calm down, the sun is starting to set, and you and Charlie both get to teach your daughter how to start a fire.

(“Charlie, please control your pyro tendencies,” you plead with him out of Flippa’s earshot. All you get is a non-committal “No promises.” and a wink.)

-

You make a couple days trek out of the woods and into the next town to search for more supplies. By this time, Flippa’s ankle had healed, and she was wearing tightly laced shoes Charlie had found in the last town. She was armed with a small knife (you had refused to let Charlie give her a gun) and walked between you and Charlie at all times.

Given that Juanaflippa was better equipped now, you and Charlie decided to take the chance and go on supply runs together as a family. It was a hard-fought battle between Charlie’s insistence and your anxiety, but he eventually reasoned it out with you, proposing a game plan.

Whenever you entered a new area, Charlie, being at the head of the group, would keep an eye out for potential hiding spots for Flippa, signalling them to you. If things went south, one of you would shout “Flippa, hide!” and point to one of the hiding spots for her to go to.

It was a fair plan, and the only way for him to convince you to let all three of you go on supply runs together.

Quietly, the three of you were sneaking into an abandoned grocery story in hopes you could scavenge some canned food, one of the supplies which dwindled the fastest now that you were a party of three and not two. The sliding glass doors were frozen half-open, allowing the three of you to slip through with no issue.

It was early in the afternoon, but the sunlight didn’t reach far enough into the grocery store for you to be able to see well inside. Electricity certainly didn’t work anymore, so after walking deeper into the store, the three of you took out your flashlights.

Too bad you didn’t notice the clicker first.

The sound of three flashlights clicking on at the same time was enough for the clicker to turn its gruesome, fungal head in your direction. The three of you freeze, breathing shallowly as the grotesque creature made its disturbing clicking noises. Charlie motions for the three of you to back away quietly, and so you do.

Too focussed on the clicker in front of you, you don’t notice the clicker that had crept up behind you until it clicks in your ear.

You side-step the clicker before it can take a chomp out of your neck, but not quick enough for you to avoid getting pulled down to the ground by it. There’s a high-pitched scream in the background, and you put all your strength into your hips and arms to quickly overpower the creature, rolling the two of you over and stabbing your knife into its neck. Mercilessly, you drag the knife, ripping it’s throat out in a spray of blood and gore to ensure it was dead.

The noise had prompted the clicker in front of your party to charge, and you could see Charlie engaging with it, dodging its arms, and slicing its jaw with his machete. Quickly, you turn your gaze to where Flippa was, ice seeping into your veins when you don’t notice her figure between yours and Charlie’s.

A second high-pitched scream rang out from your right.

Whipping your head further down the aisle, you notice a squirming mass on the floor, barely illuminated by the flashlights which had dropped to the floor. You sprint over to wrestle the third clicker off of Juanaflippa, yelling for Charlie to get Flippa out of the store. As your boyfriend scoops Flippa into his arms and runs out, you manage to climb onto the clicker’s back.

You’re briefly winded when the zombie knocks you into the shelf, but you quickly retaliate by plunging your knife deep into its chest several times, uncaring of how your hands were dripping in its blood. It finally drops to the ground, unmoving, and you sprint out of the store before any more unseen clickers or runners came looking for the source of the noise.

The first thing you saw was Charlie patting Flippa down, fussing over her and checking for injuries. You approach them after sheathing your knife, panic slowly dissipating seeing them out of danger.

“Are you both okay?” you ask, patting Flippa down quickly before turning to Charlie.

He pulls you in tightly and kisses you deeply, quickly pulling away when he remembers the small child watching. You catch his gaze briefly, noting his pupils still wide from adrenaline, before sweeping your gaze over the rest of his body to check for injuries.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, “Adrenaline rush. I think that’s the most action I’ve gotten in more than a week.”

You nod in agreement. Your right hand shakes slightly from leftover adrenaline, and you glance down to notice it soaked in blood that wasn’t your own. Nonchalantly, you wipe it against your pant leg.

“It was a little fun,” you admitted, but turning to Juanaflippa, you feel a stab of fear in you again. “But Flippa, oh my god, I’m so sorry, we should have been more careful.”

You scoop her up in your arms, hugging her tight. You can feel the erratic beating of her chest against your own, and your squeeze her a little just to remind yourself that she was okay. Pulling away from her slightly, you check her again.

“Are you alright? Did you get hurt?”

Juanaflippa shakes her head, holding up an OK sign. Satisfied, you ruffle her hair and stand up.

After that run in, neither you nor Charlie were in a state to go on another supply run, so you found an abandoned house to set up camp in. In a stroke of luck, you managed to find some leftover canned goods in the kitchen.

As you prepared dinner, you notice Juanaflippa draw into herself, doodling or writing something in her notebook. Worriedly, you turn to Charlie who was checking how much ammo you had left.

“Charlie, could you check on Flippa again?”

He looked up from your supplies, eyes darting over to where Flippa was before looking back at you.

“I checked on her just now,” he assures you. “She’s alright, just shaken. Said she needed some time alone.”

You hummed, not quite content with his answer, but accepting it. You hear a sigh, then footsteps, and a pair of arms was wrapping themselves around your waist.

“You’re worried,” Charlie mumbles into your hair.

“Of course I am,” you bite back, your gaze remaining focussed on the beans you were heating up on a makeshift stove.

“Love, you know it’s not your fault, right?”

You give a heavy sigh, gripping the spoon tightly.

“But she got hurt. We weren’t careful enough.”

“She’s alright, we checked her over multiple time.”

“She could’ve gotten bit.”

“But she didn’t.”

“But she could’ve,” you shot back, mindful to keep your volume low so that Flippa wouldn’t overhear your conversation.

The arms around your waist hug you tighter, and Charlie presses a kiss to your hair (which was dirty and slightly bloodied from the fight, but of course your boyfriend had to be a sweetheart).

“She’s okay,” he insists. “We all got a little roughed up, but we’re all fine. We’ll be more careful next time. And if anything happens, we’ll fight our hardest to make sure she’ll get out of it unscathed.”

A gentle hand reaches for your jaw, tilting your head towards him and giving you a light, reassuring kiss. You revel in the safety of being in Charlie’s arms, and in that moment, you feel as though you were sheltered from every horror the world could throw to you, both physical and emotional.

A tug at your pants draws your attention to the small girl who had made her way towards you two, giving you a cheeky grin as though she knew she was interrupting a moment. Letting out a playful sigh, Charlie picks her up and places a sloppy kiss on her cheek, which she protests by batting at his face.

You shake your head softly at them, turning your attention back to the food to ensure it didn’t burn. Your attention, however, was split again when Flippa and Charlie start launching double attacks on you, trying to outdo each other on the number of kisses they can sneak on your face as you cook.

(Charlie has Flippa in his arms, giving her an unfair advantage as he purposely sways her closer to you. He doesn’t acknowledge this when she cheers and raises her hands 5 to 2, signalling her win, but you shoot him a knowing look.)

As the night drew to a close, you tucked Juanaflippa into bed, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

If anything were to happen to her, you swore you would burn the world to the ground.

-

Everything was going to shit.

The three of you had decided to make a supply run the next day. You had banked on the hope that things would be more chill after the scare the previous day.

Of course, luck chose to run out on you today.

You had made it barely ten minutes into stuffing cans into your rucksacks when gunshots were ringing in the convenience store. Semi-automatic gun shots.

“Fucking Fireflies!” hissed Charlie as the three of you took cover behind the counter.

Your eyes scanned around, looking for a way out that was not blocked by the Fireflies. You notice the glass-less window by the counter.

“Charlie, roll your pipe bomb the other way, then sneak out with Flippa. I’ll give cover,” you whisper frantically.

Charlie nods at you before doing what you say. The bomb goes off, clearly taking some of the Fireflies down by the sound of pained screams, and the three of you are off. You whip out your shotgun and fire on the Fireflies nearest to you, taking down another two more before following Flippa and Charlie out.

Another series of gunshots ring out as you’re pulled down behind an abandoned car.

“Why the fuck is a whole squad here,” you curse.

“Hell if I know,” Charlie shoots back. He peeks up from the car to fire off a few shots from the semi-automatic rifle he had, cursing when empty clicks come out after only a few shots.

“Fuck! I don’t have anymore ammo for this stupid gun,” he says as he swings the gun over his back, pulling out another pipe bomb and throwing it at the Fireflies.

Between the two of you, Flippa is crouched with her hands over her ears, eyes wide and darting around. You wrap an arm around her shoulder, squeezing and trying to offer as much comfort as you can to the distressed girl.

“We’re going to get you out of this, Flippa, I promise.”

There’s another spray of bullets, then the sound of thundering footsteps. Gunshots start ringing again, but this time directed away from the three of you. Poking your head up from the car, you realise that a hoard of runners was attacking the Fireflies, clearly having been attracted by all the noise.

“Retreat!” one of the Fireflies yelled.

“Let’s go, now,” hissed Charlie, taking advantage of the chaos.

You follow Charlie as he leads the three of you through the chaos, ducking behind another car. However, it seems that the hoard was much bigger than you had realised because stragglers were starting to approach you too.

With your cover blown, you aim your shotgun and take down as many runners as you can, ears ringing slightly. As you reach into your pocket to grab more shotgun shells, you curse when you realise your pocket was empty.

“Fuck! Charlie, I’m out.”

“Your handgun?”

“Ran out of ammo in the store.”

“Fuck.”

You share a quick look of panic before he tosses you his machete. Turning to Flippa, he grabs her hand in his.

“Flippa, we’re gonna get you out of this. I’m gonna put you in a hiding place, okay? Don’t come out unless one of us comes to get you, alright?” he says, before glancing over at you.

You give him a short nod, before turning your attention to the runners. By now, you couldn’t hear anymore gunfire and you presumed that the Fireflies were either all dead or had fled.

One less set of problems for you.

You lunge at the nearest runner, slashing at it with your machete. You keep yourself between the runners and your family, trying your hardest to stop them from getting anywhere near where Charlie was trying to hide Flippa.

You let your mind fall back into the routine of combat, slashing and hacking at the runners with practiced ease. While Charlie’s machete weighed a little heavier on your hand, it gave you better range than your knife did.

In the corner of your eye, you spot Charlie return to the fray. He’s firing at the runners, landing lucky headshots, and taking down runners quicker than you do with the machete. You refrain from asking about Flippa, too high strung and tensed from the combat to break out of your hyperfocus.

One by one, the runners go down, but not fast enough. Your concentration breaks slightly when you hear a yell from Charlie. You turn around in time to see him get knocked down by a runner who got too close for him to shoot.

“Charlie!”

You try to rush over, but a pull at your pants holds you back. On instinct, you swing your machete without looking, turning to look right after the blade hits flesh with a heavy crunch.

Your blood runs cold when your gaze drops below your eye level to make eye contact with Juanaflippa, her eyes wide with fear.

Your gaze drops lower.

The blade was lodged right into the crook of her neck, blood spurting from the wound at a horrifying rate. Her blood seeps into her clothes, and what isn’t absorbed by the fabric drips down her arm.

The knife she was holding drops to the ground, right before her knees give out.

“NO!”

You barely register the scream you let out, focussed on catching Flippa in your arms to bring her softly to the ground. The machete drops to the floor the moment you let go, causing the wound to gush even more. Frantically, your hands press against Flippa’s neck, desperately trying to plug the wound.

Your world tunnel visions to just Juanaflippa. You feel words tumble out of your mouth, but you don’t register any of it. You don’t remember how to breathe.

Someone is shaking your shoulders. Muffled words rise to your ears. The person stops shaking you and you see arms enter your vision, reaching for Flippa –

“DON’T TOUCH HER!” you scream, one arm pulling her closer while the other still tries to stop the gushing wound. The fog lifts slightly and you finally hear Charlie’s voice saying:

“We need to go! More runners are coming.”

“Flippa, oh god – ”

“Fucking move Y/N!”

With incredible strength, Charlie picks Flippa up, balancing her on one arm while the other pulls you to your feet and drags you along with him. You don’t register where you’re going until you hear the door close behind you, and you realise you’re in a building.

Charlie softly puts Flippa on the ground before rushing back to the door to barricade it, ensuring you were safe from the zombies. But you barely notice his actions, your focus tunnelling into Flippa again.

You drop to your knees beside her, hands shakily pressing into her neck once more.

“Y/N stop.”

“No – Charlie – she’s bleeding, I need to stop it.” Your words come out in stuttered gasps.

“Y/N – ”

“I need cloth, gauze, oh my god where’s my medkit – ”

“Y/N, she’s – ”

“Charlie shut up! Help me, please – ”

Hands grab yours and tears them away from Flippa’s body. You protest with a cry, wrestling in Charlie’s grip as he forces one of your hands to Flippa’s chest.

You don’t feel a heartbeat.

You stop struggling.

“She’s dead,” says Charlie.

Your mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.

You stare at Flippa’s lifeless corpse.

Your hands slip from her chest to her upper arms limply, and you notice a scabbed over wound on one of her upper arms. Lifting the sleeve, you finally notice the bite mark.

Suddenly, you’re shoved away from Flippa’s body.

“Don’t you dare,” hisses Charlie, his demeanour changing like a switch turned on in him as he scoops Flippa’s body into his arms, shuffling away from you. “Don’t you dare touch her, you fucking murderer.”

You think your lungs stopped working. You think you’ve gone mute. But all you can do is stare.

“How could you!” he screams at you, tears spilling over. “She was our daughter!”

Numbly, you try to crawl towards them, but you’re stopped when Charlie draws his knife at you.

“Don’t come any fucking closer,” he heaves, one arm tight around Flippa. “I’ll kill you.”

That snaps you out of your stupor.

“Charlie – ” your voice cracks. “I – ”

“You don’t get to make excuses. This is all your fault.”

His eyes are blown wide, his entire frame shaking. Before you wasn’t your boyfriend, it was the horrifying consequence of your actions.

“Flippa – ”

“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth!” he shouts at you. But his attention draws to the girl in his arms.

Flippa’s eyes were still open, devoid of life and the playful glint that never seemed to go away. Her body was limp in Charlie’s arms, which now curl around her protectively, knife forgotten on the floor.

“Flippa,” he wails, holding her close to his chest, uncaring of how her blood stains his clothes or the fact that her body was growing steadily colder.

You watch the two of them, your greatest loves.

You look down at your bloodied hands.

You want to cry, but you can’t.

You stare.

-

You and Charlie spent the night in the secured building, neither of you having the energy to move, much less fight through a horde of runners your dead daughter in your arms.

(“This was her hiding spot,” scoffed Charlie as he cradled Flippa’s body in his arms. “But I guess she wanted to come out and help”.

He glances at you from across the room. While you hadn’t moved from your spot, Charlie had shuffled himself and Juanaflippa’s body as far away from you as possible.

“I wish she hadn’t thought you worth helping,” he spits.)

The next day, once you were sure the runners had drifted off somewhere else, the two of you exited the building and brought Juanaflippa’s body to a nearby forest.

You buried her body by a tree, marking her resting place with a small stone that Charlie had carved her name into.

(Charlie finally notices the bite mark on her upper arm. You could see the gears turning in his head, questions welling up in his mind. But he heaves a heavy sigh, and you gather that he probably reached the same conclusion you did:

It didn’t matter anymore.)

You each speak your final words to Juanaflippa. Charlie casts loathing glances at you the whole time.

You camp near her grave for one night. You move on the next, survival instincts pushing the two of you back onto the monotonous routine of kill-scavenge-camp.

You and Charlie don’t speak to each other unless it was necessary, and even then, Charlie’s voice is laced with a poison you had never heard from your lover before. The animosity drives you to sleep apart from each other, never coming within two metres of each other.

Some nights, you wonder if you wouldn’t wake up at all.

Some mornings, you wish you hadn’t woken up at all.

Five days after Juanaflippa’s death, you’re taking stock of your shared supplies. As you pour out the contents of your rucksack onto the carpeted floor of the abandoned house, a folded note drops out along with the metal tin cans.

Unfolding it, you immediately recognise Flippa’s chicken scratch handwriting.

“Charlie,” you croak out, voice rough from disuse.

“Fuck off.”

You glance over to wear Charlie was laying by the opposite wall. You gesture the paper at him, knowing he could probably see it in his peripheral vision.

“It’s a note. From Flippa.”

He turns towards you slightly, and you can tell he’s debating whether or not to come over. His anger clearly trumps over any other emotion because he says:

“Read it, I’m not coming over.”

You open the note fully, and begin reading:

Dear Mama and Papa, thank you for being there for me. You saved me in that forest, and you taught me so many things. The past elaven ellen eleven days have been the best of my life. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the bite. I know what it means. I’m sorry that I’m going away soon. But I want you to know that it was not your fault. I love you both very much. Please live well. Love, Flippa.

You don’t realise that you’d begun crying until your tears clouded your vision. Shakily, you put down the letter, scooting away in case Charlie wanted to come over to read it.

You swipe your hands over your eyes, but nothing seemed to stop the tears from falling. You let out a whimper that turns into unbridled wails of despair you’d kept bottled up over the last five days. Burying your head in your hands, you shake and cry.

You don’t hear Charlie move until arms wrap around you. You flinch away from him, a warbled apology coming out from your mouth, but he holds you tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you repeat over and over, hands shaking as you try to pry yourself from the man you know hates you.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, and you can hear him holding back tears.

“IT WAS MY FAULT. I promised I would keep her safe and I KILLED HER,” you yell back at him, hands reaching for your hair to pull and pull because you deserved all the pain from the same hands that tore Juanaflippa away from this world.

Charlie’s hands reach for yours, prying them away from your head and holding them by your side. You try to wrestle them out from his grip, but he holds your wrists tighter. His legs and arms cage you in, holding you close to him as he whispers apologies and words of comfort between his own tears.

Finally, you stop fighting him, and you sob into your boyfriend’s chest. Charlie lets you breakdown, lets you finally come to terms with everything that had happened, and comforts you through it all.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeats.

One of his hands comes up to wipe your cheeks.

“I’m sorry for the words I said.”

He presses a kiss to your forehead, and you can feel how his cheeks are wet with his own tears.

“I still love you.”

Charlie holds you until the tears run out. He holds you until you stop shaking. He holds you even when words start tumbling out of your mouth again. He holds you as he counters every self-deprecating apology with apologies of his own and whispers of love.

In the abandoned house that was once possibly home to a loving family, a broken one reconciles over the shared loss of a beloved daughter.

-

Weeks pass. You and Charlie heal together and move on together, but Juanaflippa is never forgotten, always held close to your memories.

As you lay by a brook, taking a break from supply runs to simply relax, you turn to your boyfriend and ask:

“Charlie, are we bad people?”

Your boyfriend turns to you, grasping your hand in his and kissing it, before pulling you into a warm hug.

“Maybe we are,” he says, holding you close. “But just for those twelve days, I think we were the best of people.”

The End.

We Were (Never) Meant To Be

prince!Charlie Slimecicle x lady-in-waiting!reader

Synopsis: You attempt to get your lady (and best friend) and your ex-boyfriend together.

Warning(s): none

Word Count: 955

A/N: This is based off an original story and character that came to me suddenly. There’s a whole lot of backstory (let me know if you want more?), but I just really wanted an excuse to write this scene out. Writing for Charlie is just an excuse to write out my original plots.

masterlist

You’re surveying the crowd occupying the palace garden with careful eyes. It wasn’t rare for the royal family to open their palace grounds for a festival, but it wasn’t the most frequent either.

Your eyes slide over to a prince with messy brown hair standing at the other side of the garden. He’s standing with his friends – other young noblemen – with a glass of champagne. The sun glints off the golden embroidery of his dark green dress shirt, emphasising the royalty that he is.

When you glance back up to his face, you’re suddenly locking gazes with the prince. Jolting, you turn away from him, ignoring how your heart still flutters when you stare into his eyes.

Letting out a breath, you nudge Princess Amelia, your best friend and your boss, gently with your elbow, saying, “You should go talk to him.”

Amelia pauses in her movements. She had been dancing with one of your other friends who was a noblewoman. Her lavender dress swishes around her legs as it is carried by the light breeze.

She raises an eyebrow at you and says, “You should go talk to him.”

You resist a flinch, but the hair on the back of your neck stands.

“As your lady-in-waiting, I am tasked to remind you that the two of you are betrothed,” you reply lowly, hands clamped together in front of the waist band of your lady-in-waiting uniform. It was a dark blue dress simpler than the nobles would wear, but fancier than most maids to signify your status as the princess’ right hand.

“Your parents would be disappointed if you don’t get together by the end of the week.”

“And as your lady,” she teases and begins swaying again, “I say that I don’t care about the betrothal. I’ve already told my parents that, and you know that too.”

You don’t match the teasing grin that she has, nor the light tone of her voice.

As your king and your queen, we command you to bring Princess Amelia and Prince Charles together as a couple according to the betrothal by the end of the festival week. You will face the consequences of your actions should you fail to do so.

“Mels,” you say quietly, a nickname only you and a few others got to call the princess, “disobeying the king and queen would be treason.”

“I’m literally their daughter.”

“For me.”

Amelia stops swaying, her demeanour turning serious.

“Did they say something to you?”

“They just gave me instructions – ”

“Did they threaten you?”

“Who threatened who?” says a familiar voice.

You flinch, turning around quickly to face Charlie. Prince Charlie. Prince Charlie who was kind, sweet, funny, and charming. Prince Charlie who was betrothed to Princess Amelia.

Prince Charlie whom you broke up with two years ago and haven’t talked to since.

“My parents threatened Y/N to get us together by the end of the week,” says Amelia before you can stop her.

Charlie’s eyebrows raise in disbelief.

“What?”

“They didn’t threaten me,” you lie through your teeth, stepping away from the man who had appeared behind you and refusing to look at him directly. “I’m just doing my job.”

“No,” scoffed Amelia, “you’re being a bad friend.”

“And you’re lying,” says Charlie at the same time.

You shoot him a glare, cursing him silently. Damn him for still remembering your tells.

Taking a quick glance around, you check for anyone listening in to your conversation. Your friend who was dancing with Amelia was now conversing with Charlie’s friends, sending the three of you occasional glances, but besides them, no one else seemed interested in your conversation.

“The fact is that you are betrothed to each other,” you deadpan. “You need to start dating publicly or – ”

“Or our parents will come after you?” questions Charlie, his arms now crossed over his chest. “You’re the one who broke up with me, I think they should be thanking you.”

You flinch again as Amelia comes to your defence.

“Charlie, don’t be mean.”

She sighs, running a hand through her hair. Reflexively, you reach up to adjust the jewellery around her braids, but she bats your hand away.

“I know you guys haven’t talked in two years, so maybe now is the time to do so. Maybe that is what can change our parents’ minds – ”

“Just drop it, Mels, please?” you plead with your best friend. “It’s not important.”

“What’s not important?” asks Charlie with a heated tone as he takes a step closer to you. “I wasn’t important to you? Our relationship wasn’t important to you?”

Suddenly, his hand shoots out to grab one of yours, pulling your hands apart. You hadn’t realised that you had started picking at your cuticles nervously. Something electric shoots up your arm from where his hand holds yours. His gaze softens, and you can’t bear to look him in the eye.

“Please,” he says softly. “Can we talk?”

You’re about to answer him when you see Amelia’s parents – the king and queen of the land – approach your trio from behind Charlie.

“Prince Charles! How nice it is to see you today,” the king begins to say.

You don’t catch the rest as you take advantage of Charlie’s distractedness to slip your hand out of his grip.

“I will prepare your gown for the evening, Your Highness,” you rush out to Amelia, ignoring her as she starts to call for you to stay.

Then, you’re rushing out of the garden and back into the palace, away from the king and queen, and your best friend and ex-boyfriend.

You miss the sceptical looks from the king and queen.

You miss the worried glance Amelia casts you. You miss Charlie’s longing gaze.

I Still Love You (Do You?)

prince!Charlie Slimecicle x lady-in-waiting!reader

Synopsis: You succumb to your injuries after an attack at the palace. Charlie is there by your bedside when you wake up.

Warning(s): mentions of explosions, stabbings, and injuries, emotional angst, unrequited-ish love

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: This fic expands on the other prince!Charlie fic, but can be read alone! This takes place a few days after the first fic, but still within the week-long festival the royal family was hosting. Sorry that I used the same screenshot lol, couldn't be bothered to take a new one and this man does not have enough non-goofy sad pictures for me to use (please send if you have any plsplspls). Enjoy!

masterlist

You wake up with a groan. Your mouth and throat were dry, and there was a dull throbbing in your side. When you open your eyes, you’re grateful to see that the room was softly lit by the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows.

Furrowing your brow, you try to remember the events of the night before:

Small explosions rocked the palace grounds. Dirt was spit up from the ground and festival decorations were torn or set on fire.

Hooded figures were attacking festival goers, both royal and common. Blood was spilled, chaos enveloped the scene as people frantically tried to flee.

You were rushing both Princess Amelia and Prince Charlie to a safe room. Along the way, a hooded figure rammed into your body at an awkward angle. The attack sends you stumbling, but the attacker was quickly subdued by the guards who were with you.

You made it to the safe room with other members of royalty and nobility. Jumping into your duties, you check on Amelia to make sure she was uninjured before helping the other servants present treat other injuries.

When somebody accidentally elbowed your side, white light blinded your vision from the sheer pain that shot through your body. You doubled over before falling and passing out.

“You’re awake, thank gods,” a voice to your right jolts you out of your memories.

You turn to see Charlie, his brown hair still messy from the chaos of the night before, his lavender dress shirt and black suit pants dirtied and slightly torn. He was sitting on what looked like the most uncomfortable chair in the palace, and seemed as though he hadn’t slept at all.

Yet, he looked as handsome as he always was.

You suck in a breath.

“Are you injured?” you ask him before he can get another word in.

Charlie chokes out am almost-laugh, surprised by your question.

“Am I injured? What – I’m not the one in an infirmary bed,” he responds incredulously.

“Where’s Mels? Is she okay?” you continue, worry for your princess causing you to ignore his remark as you push yourself with your arms to sit up.

The dull throb turns into a sharp pain, and you curse as you pause in your movements, breathing heavily through the pain.

“What happened?”

Charlie sighs, before standing up from his chair to lean over and help you scoot up into a more propped up position. You go stiff as he approaches.

Sighing again, he says, “Let me help you.”

He meets your gaze.

“Please?”

You take a beat to still your heart, still apprehensive and very very guilty, and relax, giving him a nod.

As he props you up (and you pretend not to notice how the warmth from his arms seep into your bones even through your clothes), he explains what had happened:

“Do you remember the hooded person that rammed into you as we were running? He was trying to go for either Amelia or me, but you were in the way. I guess he had a knife that cut into your side, but you didn’t feel it because of adrenaline and the chaos of everything around us.”

He runs a hair through his already messy hair and all but collapses back into his chair.

“Gods, Y/N, you could’ve died if nobody noticed your injury. You had lost so much blood by the time you collapsed – I don’t know how you were still up and tending to other people with that hole in your side.”

Charlie pauses, and you see the hand that was resting next to yours twitch. He retreats his hand and leans back in his chair.

“Do you know how devastated I – Amelia would be if you died?” he choked out, not meeting your gaze.

Silence fills the room as Charlie hangs his head, refusing to look up at you. You frown at him, taking in his tired state.

It didn’t make sense why he had probably sat by your bedside for the whole night. It didn’t make sense why he was so worried.

“Why do you care?” you ask, your hands coming to your stomach to fidget and pick. “I broke up with you. I ignored you for two years as you tried to piece our friendship back together. All I’ve ever done these past two years is push you and Mels together for the sake of a union neither of you want. Why do you care if I live or die?”

Charlie raises his head and catches you picking at your cuticles. Instinctively, he reaches for them, pulling them apart gently and cradling your hands in his. His sincere gaze falls on you, and despite yourself, you can’t seem to look away.

“You might have broken up with me. You might have thrown away two years of happiness together for the kingdom. But I know you, and I know you didn’t do any of that out of hate.”

“Charlie – ” You start to protest and pull away, but his hands tighten around yours just barely, a silent plea to let him finish. And you do.

“I know that you’re stupidly selfless and loyal,” he continues, a thumb soothing over the back of your hand like he’s trying to write his truths into your skin until they become yours. “And you would place the happiness of other over yours. But I’m selfish. So, despite the past two years of avoiding me, despite all that you did to drive me away – ”

He takes a shaky breath, closing his eyes like he’s gathering strength, before he looks at you again.

“I still love you.”

Your lips part as you stare at your worst nightmare happening in front of you in real time.

“Charlie – ” your voice breaks a little.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t still love me,” he pleads with you, leaning closer. “Tell me you don’t still love me, and I’ll leave.”

You stare at a man who looks starved in all ways but physical. A royal prince begging a lady-in-waiting for a chance to live again.

“Your parents would never allow it,” you try to reason. “Duty would never allow – ”

“And if it wasn’t for duty?” he cuts you off. “If I wasn’t a prince and you weren’t a lady-in-waiting? Ignoring everything around us, do you still love me?”

You swallow hard.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t, or you don’t?” Charlie presses. “Please don’t lie to me again.”

You can feel his hands shaking as they grasp yours. Or maybe, yours were too at the sheer weight of his plea.

A stone sits at the base of your stomach. Guilt pushes the stone up your throat to choke you for what you are about to do.

Staring straight into Charlie’s eyes, you say:

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m sorry, Charlie.”

The way Charlie’s expression crumples makes you want to take back your words and apologise over and over again. But the weight of the king and queen’s threat still pressed down on your shoulders:

You will face the consequences of your actions should you fail to bring Prince Charlie and Princess Amelia together.

He retracts his hands from yours, and you immediately feel colder. Even the sunlight streaming in had disappeared as the sun slowly set beyond your line of vision. Shakily, he stands.

“I really hope that was the truth,” he whispers, looking at you with glassy eyes. “I really hope that you’re happy.”

And he leaves. Leaves you with ice in your bones that you froze with your own words. Leaves you with an emptiness in your soul that you hollowed with your own hands.

Leaves you with a broken heart that you smashed on your own accord.

a firefly in your night sky

cc!Charlie Slimecicle x small streamer!reader

Synopsis: When you think no one notices you sinking in your darkness, Charlie does.

Warning(s): poor mental health, a little heavy but it’s mostly allegorised, tiny ounce of comfort.

Word count: 1.4k

A/N: Smol comfort fic. Hugs to everyone who’s going through a tough time <3

masterlist

There are always challenges that come with living overseas, in a foreign country, away from your childhood home and friends. Away from familiarity, away from comfort.

Of course, that isn’t to say that you couldn’t become familiar with or find comfort in your new environment. New sceneries become the norm, and strangers become friends. And when it comes to the job that you have, you will always be thankful for the strangers that had become your friends.

They were the reasons you moved in the first place.

Ranboo, whom you met at a convention and hit it off so well you became friends and started streaming together.

Moonzy, whom you met through Ranboo and quickly became one of your favourite people.

And so many more people who you met either through Ranboo or through various streaming events you had the opportunity to participate in.

Including Charlie, whose witty puns and genuine compassion pulled you in until you felt that you couldn’t get enough of his presence.

With how close you became to these group of people, it was no surprise that you eventually made the big decision to move continents to be nearer to them. It was the biggest move you had ever made in your life, and it filled you with excitement and nervousness.

But boy was it the best decision you had ever made.

Your friends were with you every step of the way, from Charlie picking you up from the airport, to Ranboo helping you set up some of your furniture, to Moonzy bringing you around Los Angeles and introducing you to the city.

It felt like a dream come true.

But as life would have it, highs were almost always accompanied with the lows.

Imposter syndrome hit you when you followed your friends to meet new ones in LA, new streamers who were far bigger in following than you were.

Homesickness hit you when Charlie travelled to a different country for a short family holiday, and you realised just how far away from your family you were.

Burn out hit you out of nowhere. Jadedness weighed on your shoulders. Suddenly, shadows were creeping at the corners of your mind.

And, maybe, you should have confided in your friends? You were friends, after all, right?

But anxiety warped your decision-making abilities, and you find yourself putting up a front. You were good at that anyways, you were a streamer after all.

And viewers never know what happens after the stream is over.

Your stream schedule became slightly less frequent, what with you not being in the best mental space to stream as often as you used to, but it was still frequent enough to not alert any of your fans that something might be wrong.

You still hung out with your friends, following them for outings streaming with them, because spending time with people should cheer you up, right?

You weren’t sure how good your acting skills were, but they were apparently really good because you managed to slide your jadedness under the radar of your friends’ concern.

Except for Charlie.

You didn’t notice it at first, being too focused on keeping a smile up and looking engaged in conversations. But every time people laughed and you only offered a snort, every time you were more reserved than the energy of the room, Charlie was looking at you.

And when you finally realised it, you couldn’t help but feel shame.

It was during a small get together that he approached you about it. Everybody else were occupied screaming at the Smash Bros match on the television, so you took the opportunity to sneak into the kitchen and get some snacks.

Or let yourself drop the pretence for a little bit, but you’re too proud to admit that to yourself.

You weren’t expecting Charlie to follow you into the kitchen and catch you staring into space, hands fiddling with a packet of chips.

“Look at you being the snack goblin while everyone’s distracted,” came Charlie’s teasing voice from the door of the kitchen.

Startled, you reply, “Huh?”

Charlie looks pointedly at the packet of chips in your hands. You follow his gaze to look at the packet, and feel your neck warm slightly when you realise that you had been so deep in your head that you forgot about the chips.

Attempting to salvage the situation, you reply, “I was about to open it.”

“Uhuh,” says Charlie, raising an eyebrow at you. “Like you weren’t just staring at Ranboo’s cursed Garfield portrait unmoving.”

You let out a snort at the mention of the painting that Ranboo had done during the last time you attempted a paint and sip (you couldn’t draw for nuts), but your fingers start tapping on the kitchen counter nervously, avoiding Charlie’s gaze.

You don’t catch the way his eyes soften with concern until he’s moved next to you, the movement causing you to look back at him.

The two of you stand in the kitchen in silence for a while, neither of you wanting to breach the question that was clearly swimming in Charlie’s eyes. Against your better judgement, you scan his features, letting yourself get trapped in how his face was slightly scrunched in concern, how his sincere gaze made you want to pour out your soul to him.

Charlie inhales deeply, as though gathering the courage for his next words, before saying, “I should’ve asked so much earlier than right now, but are you okay?”

You wish that you could come up with a clever quip in that moment, something to take his attention off the darkness behind your eyes, but all you brain could think about was how much you wanted to tell him.

And how much you wanted to crawl into a hole and never come back out just for thinking about that. Because the little parasite in your mind tells you that good friends don’t burden your friends with your problems.

As though he could somehow glean your thoughts from the way you averted your eyes, Charlie tells you softly, “You know I’m here for you, right? I care for you – you’re my friend. I want to be able to shoulder your burdens with you.”

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth, as though that action could keep the words from spilling from your mouth. It’s effective, but only because something in your gut keeps you from sharing your feelings with him.

Somehow, he senses that you aren’t ready yet, and instead offers you a hug.

“If you can’t, or don’t want to share, it’s okay. But can I at least give you a hug?” His eyes crinkle a little as the beginnings of a smile starts on his face. “Hugs are statistically proven to make people feel better.”

You let out a snort at that, one that actually causes a small smile to form on your face. You don’t trust your words in that moment, so you give Charlie a nod.

His arms come around you, enveloping your frame and pulling you into his chest. In that moment, it was just you and Charlie, who was like a little firefly in the midst of your darkness. You wrap your arms around his waist, resting your head on his chest.

You don’t know if it was because Charlie gives really good hugs, or you were just emotional in the moment, but you physically sag into the hug, melting as Charlie rubs small circles into your shoulders. Somehow, it energises and relaxes you at the same time.

You felt safe in Charlie’s arms, like just the act of him holding you was protecting you from the invisible monsters in your mind.

In the middle of Ranboo’s kitchen, with various muffled Smash Bros sounds coming from the living room, time stands still. And when you’re inevitably pulling apart, you find the darkness is far less dark, and your shoulders far less heavy.

You don’t tell him everything that night. Just enough to let him know that you were going through a rough patch. But you promised that you would tell him soon, because deep down you knew you wanted to.

Because Charlie noticed you while you were trying your best to hide away from everybody. He reached out to you when you were possibly pulling away from your friends.

He offered to be a firefly in your night sky.

i'm in love with you too, dumbass

cc!Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader

Synopsis: Four times you hid your unrequited love for Charlie, and one time you discover the love is requited.

Warning(s): feelings, some tooth-rotting fluff, angst, kissing.

Word count: 4k

A/N: This is finally done! Sorry it took so long, it became much longer than I expected it to be. Will probably take a break from writing after this, because creative juices have kind of run out recently (part of the reason this took so long. Hope you enjoy it!

masterlist

1.

The chaos of conventions never failed to amaze you. Granted, it was your first time at one, but within the short period that you spent at the convention, you just felt equal parts amused and overwhelmed by everything.

Including Charlie.

It wasn’t that you couldn’t stand his presence – he was one of your best friends, of course you wanted to spend as much time with him – but if you had to swallow down the butterflies in your stomach one more time, you swore you were going to vomit them out.

As it turns out, going on an extended vacation with your best-friend-that-you-are-in-love-with-who-doesn’t-know-you’re-in-love-with-him-and-most-likely-will-not-return-the-feeling was not the best thing for your emotional and mental well-being.

To a certain extent, you were able to hide your feelings behind a camera, what with being his plus one (platonic) and camera woman (he was paying you in food, so who were you to say no?) for the convention. It was pretty rewarding too, watching him interact with fans and other creators.

You were happy seeing him be happy.

However, you were still spending hours on end with each other, so there were bound to be instances that threw you off.

“Hey, I haven’t said this yet, but you look really nice today,” Charlie told you as you were resting on some benches in a quieter part of the convention.

You nearly sputtered water out of your mouth.

“Thanks?” you replied, praying to God that your face hadn’t turned bright red. Panicking, you try for a banter:

“I mean, I look the same as always? Don’t tell me you think I look ugly on a daily basis.”

“For the record, I think you look pretty on a daily basis. You just look prettier today.”

He said it with the sincerest look on his face, his eyes crinkling as he smiled at you softly. So many words threatened to pour out of you in that moment, some suave retort on your tongue, some embarrassing confession behind gritted teeth. But all that came out was:

“You look great too.”

Charlie lets out a chuckle.

“You’re just saying that because I complimented you.”

“Well, was I not supposed to say anything? I don’t know how else I should’ve responded – ”

“How about just take the compliment, dumbass,” he huffs out, but you can hear the affection in his tone.

Affection that was 100% platonic, you tell yourself.

You’re saved from trying to come up with another response as another one of Charlie’s creator friends approaches, launching them into a discussion about something like therapy and a funny video idea.

Just like that, you were back behind the scenes, behind a camera, your pride and friendship protected for yet another day.

-

2.

When you had stepped out the house that day for a picnic, you weren’t expecting it to be so fucking cold.

It was freaking September! Why was it so windy?

You tried your best to pay attention to the story Ranboo and Moonzy were sharing, but half your focus was on not shivering whenever the wind blew through the park.

The other half was trying it’s best not to let your eyes linger on how the wind messed up Charlie’s hair just right.

“Can you pass me the strawberries?” asked Charlie.

It takes you a second to register that he was talking to you, and you give him a stiff nod, not really trusting your teeth not to chatter if you replied verbally. Your fingers seemed to also be stiff as you gripped the box of strawberries and handed it to him.

When he takes the box from you, your fingers brush just the slightest, sending a shiver down your spine that you wish you could blame on the wind.

“Thanks – Jesus, why are your hands so cold?” he exclaims.

In a second, Charlie’s put down the box of strawberries on the picnic mat and cupped your hands in his.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.

“It’s really fuckin’ wimdy,” you blurt out.

It sends your friends into a fit of laughter, Ranboo and Moonzy’s story interrupted as they burst out in giggles over your comment. You’re chuckling along with them, but you’re also still really fucking cold.

“Here, take my sweater.”

PANIC.

“Wha – what, wait – ” The rat running the hamster wheel in your brain is sprinting as you try to salvage the situation. “Then you’ll be cold, idiot.”

If you wear Charlie’s sweater, you think you might combust.

But the stupid, handsome, kind, idiot only shrugs and begins to pull his sweater over his head, before holding it out to you. You stare at him dumbly for a second, still trying to come up with a way to reject the sweater.

“God, stop being stubborn and take it, I’ll be fine,” he sighs, brandishing his sweater at you like a weapon. “We both know I’m better at dealing with the cold than you are.”

He’s right, because every time you watch a movie with him, you’re usually hogging the blanket.

But that’s different from taking his sweater!

As the cogs in your brain keep turning, you hear another sigh from him before your vision goes dark. You yelp and start batting your hands as Charlie forces his sweater over your head.

“Charlie – you fucking – I can’t see – ”

“Just wear the stupid sweater, dumbass,” he chides as he gets your head through the collar. “Now, put your arms through the sleeves, or do I need to help you with that too like the baby you are?”

Your eyes widen and you look away from him in panic. As your gaze shifts away from Charlie, you unintentionally lock eyes with Moonzy, who gives you a knowing look.

(Why was she so perceptive.)

(Why did Charlie indirectly calling you baby make your neck uncomfortably warm.)

“Guys, this isn’t the Ranboo baby stream,” you mumble as you put your arms through the sleeves.

That sends your friends into another fit of laughter and signals Ranboo and Moonzy to continue the story. Now, with everyone’s attention back on the story, you privately settle into the warmth of Charlie’s sweater.

You try not to think about how long the sleeves are as you bury your cold hands in the fabric.

You try not to think about how much bigger the sweater is on you than on Charlie.

You try not to think about how you could smell his cologne on the sweater.

-

3.

You wouldn’t say that you were a very short person. You’d like to think that you were about average height. It wasn’t your fault that most of your friends were freakishly tall.

Including Charlie.

Whose house you were currently in.

And trying to get snacks from the top of his cabinets because of-fucking-course it had to be in the highest cabinet possible.

“I swear to God if I fall, I’m charging him for my medical bills,” you mutter under your breath as you drag a chair over to climb on to. But just as you were about to put both feet on the chair, Charlie walks into the kitchen.

“ – taking so long to get the snacks,” he says as he enters, pausing when he sees you about to hop onto the chair. He stares at you quizzically, head cocked to the side.

“Why do you look like you’re about to climb onto my cabinets?”

“Because you decided to discriminate against me and put the snacks in the highest shelf possible,” you huff, resuming your mission.

But as soon as you’re rising to your full height on the chair, you feel hands place themselves on your waist. You’re lifted off the chair easily and placed back onto the floor so swiftly you don’t manage a reaction in time.

You’re still staring at Charlie dumbfounded by the time he’s replaced you at the cabinet, chair nudged aside, and retrieved the snacks.

“You could’ve just asked me to come get them, dumbass.” Charlie turns around with an armful of chips.

You’re still trying to process what just happened. You point a finger at Charlie.

“Why’d you pick me up?”

He raises an eyebrow at you, amused.

“To stop you from falling off the chair?”

“But I would’ve been fine.”

“Or you could’ve fallen. Ever heard of being safer than sorry?”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, trying to clear the fog in your brain that has randomly spawned. Your cheeks were warming, you needed to get a grip.

You’re snapped out of your head when Charlie brushes past you, turning just slightly to send you a playful smirk.

“Let’s get back to watching the movie. Or you do also need to be carried over like a princess?”

“Shut the fuck up,” you snark back, annoyed at him and also yourself.

You’re grateful that he had turned back around with a chuckle, because you were pretty sure the tips of your ears were turning red based on how warm they were getting.

You spend the rest of the movie as far away from Charlie on the couch as possible. When he asks why you’re so far away (and to stop hogging the blanket), you kick at him and try to play it off as wanting to stretch your legs out.

It’s definitely not because you think your brain would shut down if you were any closer to Charlie.

-

4.

Clubbing was always a fun thing to do with friends, because no matter how many people were crowded around you, or how stinky the place was, it was always fun just jumping around and dancing with your friends.

Of course, it helped when all four of you had consumed a considerable amount of alcohol.

“Let’s dance!” Moonzy squeals, pulling you away from the group and towards some open space before you can object.

The two of you bounce around each other, showing off half-assed drunken movements of really cool dance moves (see: orange justice) and screaming the lyrics of the songs blasting through the speakers at each other.

You’re so engrossed in trying to dip Moonzy without dropping her you don’t notice Charlie come up to you until he’s right next to you, causing you to shriek.

“Jesus – Charlie!” you yell at him, smacking his shoulder for scaring you.

He rolls his eyes, nudging you with his elbow.

“Not my fault you were so caught up trying not to drop Moonzy. I just came over to see what the fuss was all about.”

Your tipsy brain latches on the implication that he was watching you and Moonzy. Your cheeks start to warm at the possibility that he was watching you.

“We were so close before you came over,” Moonzy says with an exaggerated sigh. “You ruined our moment.”

Charlie fakes offense, dramatically placing a hand on his chest.

“I sincerely apologise, fair maiden,” he says in a stupid medieval accent. “However can I make it up to you?”

Moonzy lets out a snort, shoving him playfully before stepping away, saying, “Forget it, I’m going to get us more drinks.”

She shoots you a mischievous look before leaving the two of you. Your brain catches up a second too late for you to retaliate.

Damn Moonzy and her stupid perceptiveness.

Turning towards Charlie, you feel slightly awkward now that your dance partner had left you. But it seems that Charlie didn’t feel the same as he quickly grabs your hands.

“Let me show you how to actually dip someone, dumbass,” he says with a smirk.

Your expression turns panicked for a split second, but you’re not able to object before he’s pulling you towards him sharply. One arm wraps around your waist securely and suddenly he’s dipping you low towards the ground.

You’re acutely aware of how close the two of you are, how snugly his arm fits around your body, and how you could spot the specks of brown in his blue eyes.

As he brings you back upright, your proximity to him remains the same. You let yourself get lost in his eyes for a few seconds, before you realise just how close your faces are.

Nervous, you reflexively wet your lips. Charlie’s eyes dipping from your eyes to your lips catches you off guard, causing your breath to catch in your lungs.

There are words dancing on the tip of Charlie’s tongue. Words you know would ruin you, and your friendship. Because it’s not going to mean anything to him, and it’s going to mean the world to you.

You know what he’s about to ask.

You’re not sure if you have it in you to say no.

It’s as though someone dumped an ice bucket on you as you become uncomfortably sober. You yank yourself away from Charlie, breathing heavily.

“I need to go,” you say breathlessly, eyes darting around for where Ranboo and Moonzy might be.

Charlie’s brows are furrowed, like he notices something was wrong, but he didn’t understand why you were reacting the way you did.

“I’ll take you home,” he says automatically.

“No!” you shriek before you can stop yourself.

The air between you two becomes tense. It doesn’t help that the DJ had changed the song to something slower, no noisy techno beats to diffuse the situation.

“Damn, if I was such a bad dance partner you could’ve just said so,” he jokes, but you can hear the bitterness in his tone.

“It’s not that,” you say immediately. Because it wasn’t his fault. It was never his fault.

How could it be his fault that you fell for your best friend?

“Then?” he questions. “What’s your deal?”

It’s sharp, accusatory, almost like a wounded animal. One hand is clenched and the other is fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

You know your best friend well enough to know that he’s hurt.

You know you’re fucking up your friendship in real time.

“I can’t tell you,” you choke out, cursing yourself internally because you know how flimsy that excuse was.

Charlie raises an eyebrow at you. You know he can see through your bullshit.

A moment passes between the two of you as he looks like he’s mulling over his thoughts. He runs a hand through his already messy hair, something like distress passing over his face.

You could just leave.

You don’t know why you’re waiting for his response.

“Fine,” he says slowly, grinding the word out like he’s forcing himself not to say what he actually wanted to. “But can you text the group when you’re home? Please?”

There’s concern in his eyes, even underneath all the hurt. Your heart drops like a stone because even though you were being a total asshole to him, Charlie was still looking out for your well-being.

“I will,” you promise.

You’re quick to book it out of the club after that. Not even bothering to find Ranboo and Moonzy, knowing that Charlie would eventually find his way to them and let them know what had happened.

That you had left in a hurry after being the worst friend ever.

All because of your goddamned feelings.

-

1.

You avoid Charlie for two weeks.

In fact, you avoid Ranboo and Moonzy too because the guilt of being a bad friend weighed down so heavily on you that you couldn’t bear to see your other friends.

It was isolating and caused you to spiral down a deep dark hole you didn’t know how to pull yourself out of.

You tell yourself you deserve it.

Over the course of the two weeks, you tried to formulate a way to apologise to your friends, particularly Charlie for being rude and running out on him. You spent nights muffling your frustrated yells into your pillow because you don’t know how to tell him that you were sorry without exposing your feelings for him.

Part of you wondered if you should just bite the bullet and confess.

But another part of you tells you that was stupid, and you go back to drafting apology after apology to salvage the mess you had caused.

It’s during one of those moments when you were lying on your bed deep in thought that your doorbell rang. Confused, you creep to the door to check who it was. You hadn’t ordered any food or delivery, and you weren’t expecting anyone to show up –

You spot messy brown hair and blue framed spectacles through the peephole. He’s looking down, but you recognise Charlie regardless.

Your blood runs cold.

Should you let him in? Were you even ready to face him again after you practically threw your friendship in his face? What would you even say?

Knocking on the door interrupted your thoughts. You were taking too long.

“Y/N?” called Charlie. “Please let me in. I just want to talk.”

I just want to talk. Maybe he was coming to demand an explanation. Maybe he wanted to tell you he was uncomfortable and that he didn’t want to be friends anymore. Maybe –

“I can hear you breathing on the other side of the door, I know you’re there,” he says.

You let out a heavy sigh. Your thoughts threatened to overwhelm you once more, but your hand moves before you register it. Suddenly, you’re opening the door and coming face to face with Charlie.

In the two weeks you had avoided him, it didn’t look like much had changed. He still looked healthy, save for slightly darker circles under his eyes.

Did you cause that?

The two of you stare at each other on opposite sides of the doorway. His eyes scan your face, as if gauging your reaction to him being there, before tilting his head as though asking to be let in.

Sheepishly, you step aside and allow him into your home.

The sound of the door closing is far too noisy for your nerves, making you flinch slightly as the two of you move to your living room.

Where you continue to stand in awkward silence.

Fuck, how could you have let your friendship come to this?

Charlie is the one to break the silence, placing a paper bag you hadn’t noticed him carrying on the coffee table.

“I brought your favourite pastries.”

You blink.

“Why?”

He sends you a shrug, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“Thought I might butter you up before asking why you’ve been avoiding my texts and calls.”

There it was.

You worry your lip, hands fiddling with the hem of your sweater nervously. You turn your words over in your head, trying to come up with some semblance of a reason that wasn’t complete bullshit.

When Charlie realises that you’re probably not going to respond anytime soon, he sighs and continues:

“I came to apologise, too.”

That snaps you out of your thoughts. Your head snaps to look at him as you meet your gaze directly for the first time since the club.

“Why?” you ask, cringing when you realised that’s exactly what you had said a minute prior.

Charlie runs a hand through his hair, eyes closing briefly like he’s steeling himself.

“At the club,” he begins slowly, “I made you uncomfortable. I’m sorry for that. I should’ve asked first, should’ve waited for you to respond to dancing together and being that close. I’m sorry – ”

“No, stop. Don’t apologise,” you interrupt him, eyes wide. His expression falls, and you think you see fear in his eyes.

So, you ramble on like a steam train running off track. Your words pour out of your mouth before you can filter them.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t make me uncomfortable – I mean, I was uncomfortable, but that was my own doing. None of it is your fault, I should be the one apologising for avoiding you and – and being a terrible friend.”

You pause to take a deep breath. Charlie’s mouth is hanging open slightly, and you can practically see the gears turning in his head.

You push on before you can stop yourself. Before your brain could tell you that this was a bad idea.

Because you know your next words could change everything.

“I’ve been a shit friend to you because I’m in love with you, Charlie.”

It feels like time stops for you, as you gauge his reaction. You hold your breath without realising and watch him carefully.

This was the moment he was going to tell you that he doesn’t feel the same. That he’s not comfortable being your friend anymore. That he doesn’t want to see you again. That he –

He laughs.

Not a full belly laugh, but a snort that leads to a chuckle. That crinkles the corners of his eyes and fills them with joy.

You feel a pang in your chest, and tears start to prick your eyes. Taking a step back from Charlie, you lower your gaze shamefully.

But then he’s striding up to you and lifting your head up to look at him with gentle fingers on your chin. Charlie’s other hand brushes down your arm to take your hand in his, intertwining your fingers together.

“Don’t apologise,” he says, eyes shining. “I’m in love with you too, dumbass.”

It’s your turn to have your mouth hanging open as you process his words.

“You’re what?” you ask dumbly.

He chuckles again, hand moving from your chin to hold your cheek. You can’t help but tilt slightly into his warmth, revelling in his affection.

“I’m. In. Love. With. You.”

He punctuates each word carefully, sincerely, like he’s making sure that they pierce through your confusion and straight into your heart.

And they do, because the weight lifts from your chest, and the corners of your mouth start to raise into a smile.

Because your best friend was in love with you too.

“Holy shit,” you breathe. “For how long?”

He hums as he thinks, thumb caressing the side of your face.

“Several months, now? Before we went to that convention in LA,” he admits.

“Me too, holy shit,” you breathe, letting out a small chuckle. “Were we just dumb this whole time?”

“Mm, no, I think that’s just you,” he teases, giving your nose a pinch.

You feel your cheeks warm at the action, but you manage to give a sarcastic, “Sure thing.”

Charlie let’s out a breathy laugh at your response, before his eyes turn serious again and he cups your face in both his hands.

“I’m in love with you,” he reiterates. “Can I please kiss you?”

You tell him yes without hesitation, your hands coming up to hold the back of his neck. Because finally you could let your feelings come through as transparent as glass.

He pulls you close and slots his mouth over yours, capturing you in a sincere kiss.

Time stands still again as you embrace. The two of you pour out months of frustration and unrequited feelings (that was really requited the whole time) into the kiss.

When the two of you pull apart, there’s joy shining in both of your eyes. The moment is sweet, before it’s broken by laughter as the two of you consider the stupidity of your situation again.

Charlie spends the rest of the day at your place, the two of you passing stories back and forth when you were hiding your feelings. And when your expression darkens a little as you remember that you have to apologise to Ranboo and Moonzy for avoiding them too, he kisses a little bit of the darkness away.

Finally, you no longer had to hide your feelings deep in your chest.

Finally, you could wear them on your sleeve, as the one you love held your hand.

The end.

accepting requests!

Disclaimer: I can't guarantee that I'll get to all of them promptly, or even write all of them at all because of work and brain juice, but I think this could be fun!

Guidelines for requests:

Only for Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader or gn!reader (sorry if you're looking for more!), both romantic or platonic

Can be cc!, q! or au! Charlie (meaning if you have an AU in mind, like best friend!Charlie or superhero!Charlie you can request it!)

Avoid giving specific descriptions about the reader, i.e. physical attribute / race / etc.

You can make your requests about a certain situation the reader is in, i.e. reader is going through a tough time, reader is working in so and so

I WILL NOT WRITE:

NSFW, gore

Heavy topics, e.g. depression, etc. If I do, they will only be implied or alluded to in a general way (read my fic a firefly in your night sky for an example of how i would write about these kind of topics!)

Please be understanding if I don't get around to writing your requests for various reasons!

a close streamer friend gaming with charlie or doing a ylyl stream with him?? but secretly in love with him? and the chat picks up on it and they end up trending on twitter with their ship name???? which kinda forces the two of them to confront and talk about their feelings???

only if you want to write this, of course <3 i love charlie i cannot get enough of your writing

Thank you for the request and your kind words anon! This was so fun to write and really is a feel good fluffy fic. I hope this piece is up to your expectations :)

-

you smile you snooze (i do, when i’m with you)

cc!Charlie Slimecicle x streamer!reader

Synopsis: You Laugh You Lose turns out to be a lot harder when Charlie lights up your life with every smile.

Warning(s): light swearing.

Word count: 1.4k

masterlist || requests are open!

“Okay, enough! We need to up the stakes.”

You raise an eyebrow at your good friend, Charlie, who sits by your side in his own office chair. The both of you have headphones on, the sound of a submitted funny video streaming through them.

“What do you mean?” you feign confidence, switching your gaze between Charlie and the camera. “The stakes are pretty high at the moment, I mean, we both have one heart left.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the one heart on each of your corners of the OBS scene.

“Yeah, for the past thirty minutes,” he argues. “We need to up the ante! More viewership! Mo-ney.”

He throws out the last parts jokingly, making you roll your eyes and bite your lips to keep yourself from laughing.

Giving in, because you always do, you ask, “So, what do you suggest?”

Charlie snaps his fingers towards the audience.

“Instead of You Laugh You Lose, we’re now playing,” he pauses dramatically, “You Smile You Snooze!”

True to your job as a streamer, you insert your own flavour of entertainment by slumping down in your chair exasperatedly.

“Charlie,” you whine, “that’s going to be so hard.”

“Exactly why we’re going to do it,” he insists, staring back at you for your confirmation.

You grumble and glare at him briefly before glancing at chat, curious to see what their opinions were:

yes, up the stakes! it was getting boring anyways we’ll see who’s the best at not smiling i bet y/n’s gonna lose y/n can’t keep her smiles to herself! mods run a poll? have you seen how y/n looks at charlie? she’ll lose immediately she’s a goner, she smiles whenever she looks at Charlie

You blink hard. Certain chat messages sear into your corneas.

Were you that obvious?

Glancing back at Charlie, you realise that he’s still staring at you, patiently waiting for your response. You feel your cheeks warm, even though you’re certain that he hasn’t read the chat yet.

Not being able to smile at your good friend turned crush was going to be a huge struggle for you.

You sigh.

Goddamnit, you were going to lose, but anything for the views, right?

“Fine,” you answer resolutely. “You Smile You Snooze it is!”

And so, the two of you resume the media playlist with the new challenge of not smiling. The submitted videos turned out to not be that challenging to stay poker-faced at, but Charlie’s quips would often tickle your funny bone in a way that had you breathing in slowly to keep your poker face.

Curse Charlie and his good humour.

The two of you made it through a good fifteen minutes without anything crazy happening, until someone submits an edit of the YLYL stream.

“What’s this? You guys are fast,” comments Charlie.

“This better not be an embarrassing one,” you add, biting your lower lip to prepare yourself for the worse.

The edit gets straight to the point, compiling all the moments from the stream thus far of you smiling at Charlie. Heartwarming music floods your ears, barely piercing through the sudden blood rushing through your eardrums.

Panicked, your eyes glance at chat before you can stop yourself:

whoever made that is doing the Lord’s work isn’t that a little against their boundaries? what’s their duo name? no shipping guys! aw they’re actually really cute wish someone would look at me the way y/n looks at charlie

Charlie’s voice interrupts your reading, jolting you slightly:

“Dude, we should’ve done You Smile You Snooze earlier,” he snorts. “You would’ve lost so bad from the beginning.”

You turn your head to look at Charlie with wide eyes, thoughts reeling about whether he was teasing for the sake of teasing or if he was beginning to catch on to you, when you notice the expression on his face.

The way his eyes crinkle a little. The way the corners of his mouth are lifted.

He’s smiling.

“YOU’RE SMILING!” you yell at him, pointing a finger at him.

His expression turns shocked at your outburst, before he leans back in his chair in defeat.

“Damnit,” he says, although he doesn’t sound all that upset about the loss.

Meanwhile, you get out of your chair and start a victory dance for yourself, losing yourself in the euphoria of winning the YLYL stream.

You miss the fond smile that rises back on Charlie’s face as he gazes at you.

-

“Yo, we’re trending on Twitter,” Charlie says in between bites.

It’s been two hours since the YLYL stream. You’re still at Charlie’s place because he insisted that the two of you should just have dinner and hang out together while you’re there. You didn't object.

“We are?” you ask curiously, scooting closer to Charlie to look at his phone screen.

“Mm,” he replies nonchalantly, clicking on a post and passing the phone to you. “We even have a ship name now.”

“What?”

Your eyes bulge from your sockets and you stare at Charlie. He shrugs, too calm and collected for your racing heart, and gestures for you to have a look at the tweet he pulled up.

It begins with a hashtag of your ship name, followed by “get you a duo that smiles at each other the way charlie and y/n smile at each other”. Below that was a side-by-side comparison of two screenshots from the YLYL stream, one of you smiling at Charlie while he wasn’t looking, and vice versa.

Your eyes glance back and forth between the phone screen and Charlie’s expression. While your brain is working a hundred miles an hour to come up with some sort of damage control, Charlie looks relaxed, almost satisfied or relieved.

“I – We – ” your words stutter as you struggle to focus on a topic. When you look back at Charlie, you scoot yourself a little away from him, nerves suddenly taking over from the proximity and the tweet.

Finally, you settle on accusation:

“Why are you so calm?”

“I mean,” Charlie reaches for another piece of fried chicken, “it’s no big deal. We’re friends. Let the chat think what they want to think. Unless… ”

He trails off, taking a bite of his chicken and chewing too slowly for it not to be deliberate.

“Unless what?” you push. You’re sure you look a little frazzled, still embarrassed and shocked by the post and the emergence of a ship name.

Charlie swallows before leaning closer, closing the gap that you created, saying:

“Unless you actually like me.”

You stare at him. It feels as though something in your brain has short circuited as you register his statement. As you juggle around the possible answers you could give and the potential situations they could create.

You know your face is turning red, what with how your cheeks are warming and how fast your heart is racing, so you shove Charlie’s shoulder a little first, unable to give an actual answer yet.

Letting you push him, he leans back, away from you, a smile lifting on his face.

“It’s okay if you do. I like you too.”

You stare again, your mouth opening and closing like a goldfish as you try to come up with something intelligible to say.

“Huh?”

Charlie is laughing now, full-bellied, head thrown back. At his response, you bristle a little, overthinking his words.

“Wait,” you say nervously. “Do you actually like me?”

You fiddle with his phone, dropping your eyes to the screen to examine the tweet again. Studying the screenshots, you can’t help but think that the kind of smile Charlie wore was the same one you had whenever you looked at him.

The phone is gently pried from your grip and placed face down on the table, forcing you to look at its owner. Instead of the humour that filled his eyes, Charlie now looks at you with utmost sincerity.

“I’m being serious. I like you.”

Staring into Charlie’s eyes, taking in the face of the man that made you smile in every situation, you find yourself being honest:

“I like you too.”

His eyes brighten, and the smile appears on his face again. The same smile that he wore in the screenshot, you realise. His smile is infectious, causing your lips to lift into a wide smile that reaches your eyes.

“Guess we’re both snoozing and losing today,” you quip, sending Charlie into a fit of chuckles before he’s pulling you close to him.

When Charlie retweets the aforementioned tweet, Twitter goes nuts for days.

you’ve captured me (and my heart)

hero!Charlie Slimecicle x villain!reader

Synopsis: You’d think capturing and interrogating a hero would be easier what with the number of years you’ve been a villain. Turns out it’s a whole lot more complicated when the hero you captured fancies you a little.

Warning(s): slightly suggestive, swearing, a bit of sexual tension, violence (no blood, just some tripping and a headbutt).

Word count: 1.4k words

A/N: No part of me wants to admit that this emerged from the Duolingo stream. I wrote this in an hour. I am ashamed and amazed at the same time.

masterlist || requests are open!

Slime had been yapping non-stop since you’d kidnapped him midway during his nightly patrol. Even after placing a bag over his head; even after shoving him into your getaway car; even after dragging him into an abandoned warehouse; even after forcing him onto a chair and tying his arms behind his back – he refused to stop talking.

You should’ve just knocked the idiot out while you had the chance to.

Now, you had no more chance to render him unconscious because you were meant to interrogate the yapper.

“ – dude, the ropes are kinda chafing my wrists, could you loosen them a little?”

Rubbing the space between your eyebrows, you sigh wearily before yanking the bag off his head.

He looked like the typical hero in your city: a green mask obscured the top half of his face, and he was clad in a flexible, but sturdy suit of different green hues. He really committed to the slime theme.

You guess you were no different. You could see his eyes scanning your dark purple suit, which was accompanied by a cloth that obscured the lower half of your face from your nose down. What can you say? You loved your moniker Foxglove.

A light sparks in Slime’s eyes when he registers who you are.

“Ah shit, Foxglove,” he starts somewhat nervously, one foot tapping a rhythm on the floor. “We meet again, huh?”

You roll your eyes at him, folding your arms in front of your chest.

“This isn’t a meeting, Slime. It’s an interrogation.”

“And a kidnapping, I noticed,” he quips, arms twitching in what you assumed was discomfort. “I know kidnapping kind of runs in villainy, but I didn’t think that was your brand.”

“I don’t really give a shit about branding,” you shoot back, cocking your head to the side. “That’s your kind of thing.”

“Yeah, hah,” he replies, a little breathy. “Heroes and branding, that’s how we appeal and gain people’s trust, I guess. Anyways, nice place you’ve got here. A little bare and dusty. You come here often?”

You squint at him. He was rambling.

The two of you often exchanged banter and insults during your fights, and there was usually an air of confidence, almost playfulness around Slime. You don’t recall a time he truly sounded nervous or borderline panicky.

You suppose you’ve never seen him under duress like that before.

Good. It means you had the upper hand.

“ – mean, it’s not a bad place, just not too homey. I could help you spruce things up! It would require the use of my hands though, so maybe we could negotiate that – ”

Snorting at his predicament (that you put him in), you interrupt his rambling by snatching one of your batons and pointing it at him threateningly.

“Zip. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them.”

Slime’s rambling cuts short with his mouth still agape. His eyes dart between your face and the baton warily.

“What are you going to do if I refuse?” he asks, eyes wide, body fidgety.

The corner of your lip twitches up in a smirk, and you draw closer to rest the tip of your baton under his chin, forcing him to tilt his head up to look at you.

“If you refuse,” you begin slowly, trailing your eyes over his obscured features, “you’re going to be a lot more black-and-blue when I return you to your fellow heroes.”

He meets your eyes with a wide-eyed gaze, treating you to front row seats of brown speckled blue eyes. You’re surprised that you never noticed that before, though you suppose you’ve never been this close to Slime before no matter how much you tussled with him.

It seems as though you’d finally intimidated him into submission, as his breathing slows and shoulders set almost cooperatively. So, it catches you off guard when his lips quirk up and he lets out a little breath through his nose.

“Freaky, I like it.”

Frowning, you’re about to throw a remark when a hand suddenly shoots up to grab onto your wrist. A hand that should’ve been bound behind his back.

“What – ”

You don’t get any more time to react as Slime’s other hand reaches forward to shove you backwards. At the same time, his leg kicks out to knock your feet from under you.

In a second, you’re slammed with your back to the hard warehouse floor, the complete upset of your balance sending you to the ground. You hear your baton go skittering across the floor as Slime lands on top with you, hips straddling your thighs to keep you in place.

One hand is still around your wrist, while the other presses onto your collarbone.

Normally, your body would’ve kicked into overdrive by instinct and started pushing him off you, but your brain was still reeling from his comment and his body on yours and how close his face is.

“At least take me to dinner first,” Slime continues, a smirk rising on his lips.

“What the fuck,” you sputter.

Finally regaining one brain cell, your free hand comes up to jab at his throat. Unfortunately, he anticipates your attack, and his hand on your collarbone quickly slides to your wrist, capturing it and holding it next to your head, mirroring your other wrist.

It’s your turn to stare at him wide-eyed, wiggling in his grip in attempts of some futile escape plan. With both his arms caging you now, you’re stuck under his weight with no way out. The cogs in your brain were running on overdrive.

It didn’t help that you could feel every puff of hot breath against your throat when he exhaled.

You wish you could say you had some experience breaking out of this position, but truth be told, you were bailed out by another villain anytime Slime managed to catch you like this.

As though he could read your thoughts, Slime raises an eyebrow almost mockingly at you.

“What’s wrong? No friend to help you out of this one, huh?”

You glare at him before attempting to buck your hips to upset his weight, but the hero had placed himself over your thighs instead of your hips, smartly evading your escape attempt.

“Now, now,” he chides, “I don’t think we’re at that base yet. Although, it could be negotiated.”

“The only negotiation we are going to have is one that gets you off me, you bastard,” you shoot back.

Slime chuckles, much to your chagrin. But he quickly calms and turns serious.

“Listen, I’m not sure what you were going to try and get out of me, but you’ve already lost the upper hand here. So, why not we just call it a day, eh?”

You keep glaring at him.

“Will you get off me then?”

“Depends. Will you try to attack me?”

“Yes.”

“What if I get off you and take you to dinner some time?”

“Yes – what?”

You’re so caught off guard that your body slackens under him. Staring up at him, you notice something shining in his eyes.

Something like hope.

“I mean it,” he repeats. “Will you let me take you to dinner some time?”

As the two of you gaze into each other’s eyes, his grip on you relaxes slightly. Taking the opportunity, you headbutt him and slip your hands from his grip, pushing him to the side and getting up on your feet. You don’t look back at him before you book it out of the warehouse, swiftly pulling yourself up into a ledge on the side of the warehouse he wouldn’t be able to notice you on when he came out.

Seconds later, Slime is sprinting out of the warehouse, scanning the immediate area for you. He chuckles a little before cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling:

“You never said no!”

You roll your eyes, holding in a scoff as you watch him leave, figuring his way back to the city centre.

You’re not sure why you remain there, on the side of the warehouse. But you sit there and recall the events that had just happened. How he managed to outsmart you and undo his binds; how he quickly overpowered you before you could even start interrogating him.

How right it felt for the weight of his body to be over yours.

Feeling warmth creep up your neck, you shake the thoughts out of your head. There was no way you were falling for a hero, right?

Hi! My special interest is photo booths...can you do Charlie x fem reader where they take goofy pictures in a photo booth?

If thats too specific, i'd love headcanons or fluffy drabbles about amusement park or arcade dates.

Anon, your request is so freaking cute! The idea of going to photobooths with Charlie is so endearing to me, you got me so excited to write this!! It’s a bit more of a drabble, a little tiny one, but packed with so much fluff. Hope you enjoy!

-

photobooth shenanigans

cc!Charlie Slimecicle x fem!reader

Synopsis: Photobooths have been a special interest of yours for a long time, but where’s the joy in going to photobooths alone? Luckily, your boyfriend is there to indulge in your interests.

Warning(s): tooth-rotting fluff, Charlie calls reader baby/babe, established relationship.

Word count: 866

masterlist || request guidelines

You’re walking down the street with Charlie, your hands swinging between the two of you. Comfortable, peaceful silence surrounds you two, when something catches your eye.

The excited squeal you let out bursts the quiet bubble you’re in.

“Charlie!” you exclaim, pointing towards your object of interest. “Charlie, look!”

“What, baby?” he asks, trying to follow your line of sight. He squints his eyes as if the action would help him spot what you were pointing out.

“Babe, the street’s pretty crowded,” he starts, eyes slightly furrowed as he tries to work out what caught your attention. “What’re you pointing at?”

You’re bouncing on your toes now, excitedly shaking his hoodie sleeve to expel the excess excitement that has built up in your body, before pointing again, exclaiming:

“Photobooth!”

This time, Charlie’s eyes immediately latch on to the photobooth you’re pointing at. It was sitting on the side of the street and was a dull grey booth with a cream curtain and bright blue letters on the side reading PHOTOBOOTH in all capitals. It’s almost impressive how you managed to spot it as it nearly blended into the side of the building.

He’s turning back to you, drinking in your form that was practically buzzing with energy. Your excitement was contagious, and he can’t help but smile fondly at you.

“Do you wanna take a photo together?” Charlie asks, even though he already knows what your answer would be –

“Yes!”

That’s how the two of you end up crammed into a photobooth that looked as though it had seen better days. There was a small bench inside of it, so small that you had to prop one leg on Charlie’s thighs in order for both your butts to fit on the bench.

But of course, it didn’t stop your combined joy from filling up the small photobooth.

You’re quickly inserting a coin into the slot to start the photobooth. You were given three poses, so you and Charlie reacted as quickly as possible between each camera shutter to come up with the goofiest poses you could think of:

The first pose the two of you strike is one of utter seriousness. You both keep a straight face and stare straight into the camera, even if the façade of seriousness was broken by the fact that one of your legs was still propped up awkwardly on Charlie’s lap.

The second pose contains Charlie squishing your cheeks together with his other arm slung around your shoulders, while your hands reach up to muss up his hair. One of your hands don’t quite reach the top of his head because of your awkward position, which sends both of you into a fit of laughter.

The final pose has you both making the funniest faces you could think of. Charlie’s pulling the Zoolander face (cough Edward Twilight cough) while you try your best to contort your face weirdly.

When the photo strips are printed out (you managed to print two to your delight), you’re shocked by the quality of the pictures. The photobooth looked so old you honestly thought that the pictures were going to turn out pixelated, but the photobooth managed to catch every last goof in HD.

“Oh my god,” you say in between laughs, “your Zoolander face has been immortalised in high definition.”

You turn to your boyfriend, admiring the way a spark lights in his eyes as he studies the photo strip in his hands.

“But look at you!” He gestures at the second picture. “Your cuteness has been immortalised too, babe.”

You’re giggling again, slapping Charlie across the bicep.

“Shut up!”

“I’m not lying! You’re so cute here.”

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“Nobody else is in here but us. Who am I embarrassing you in front of?”

You’re quiet for a beat, before a shy smile forms on your face.

“You.”

Charlie’s expression immediately turns cheeky as he leans impossibly closer to you.

“Oh? Do you, perhaps, maybe, have a – ah – crush on, moi?”

What should have probably been a sweet moment is completely ruined because as he says that he pulls the Zoolander face, speaking in an exaggerated tone.

You’re shoving him with more force this time, barking out a laugh at his outlandish expression and tone.

“Stop that! You’re going to give me stitches from laughing so hard – ”

“I’ll stitch you right back up, baby.”

“Charlie!”

The two of you end up goofing around for a bit longer in the photobooth and eventually decide to take another photo. This time, it’s a lot calmer and sweeter, each pose being either a hug or the two of you looking endearingly into each other’s eyes.

And, of course, it ends with a sweet kiss.

Which was promptly ruined by Charlie pulling the Zoolander face when you pull away. You smack him again before snatching up the freshly printed photo strips and bolting out of the photobooth before he can stop you.

You’re sprinting down the street, Charlie hot on your heels. Neither of you care that passers-by are giving you two weird looks. Neither of you notice them.

Because you’re both caught up in the little joys shared between you two that came from a simple photobooth.

arm's length

cc!Charlie Slimecicle x gn!reader

Synopsis: After several soured friendships and failed relationships, you grew to hold people at arm’s length. But Charlie threatens to break down your walls brick by brick and hold you in his arms.

Warning(s): mild angst, mentions of past failed/soured relationships/friendships, not a happy ending.

Word count: 965

A/N: Sorry for disappearing, I was too locked in to lab work and then went on holiday. I had a sudden burst of inspiration after coming back, so here this is (I promise I’ll get to that one request and my hero!Charlie sequel). The writing style in this one is a little more descriptive than usual, and I blame it on me reading The Lies of Locke Lamora.

masterlist || request guidelines

You used to wear your heart on your sleeve, arms wide open to welcome any newcomer into your bubble of friendship.

Your cheer and openness to making new friends was infectious, until some people took advantage of it and turned it into your very own disease.

From one soured friendship to another failed relationship, it didn't take you long to realise that not everybody was as they seemed, and not everyone returned your bright charity with equal vigour. Some assumed you were easily walked over. Others simply left once they were bored.

So, you started holding people at arm’s length. Sure, there remained a few in your close circle whom you call your real friends. Sure, you still responded to everyone with equal cheer and sincerity. But a wariness hid behind your eyes, and you stopped being as open, as naive as you once were.

Then Charlie entered your life. He was introduced to you through Ranboo and Moonzy. A friend of a friend (of a friend, if you considered how it was your long-term best friend Moonzy introduced you to Ranboo several years prior).

He was bright, witty, and sincere as far as he was letting on. Even with the jokes and bits he created, there was a certain groundedness to him. You could see why Ranboo and Moonzy were such good friends with him.

But the little voice at the back of your head told you to keep your walls up.

Especially when your heart started fluttering every time you were in the same room as him. Especially when the warmth of his words threatens to melt down your defences.

Especially when he looked you in the eye like he could see into your very soul.

You had agreed to visit Charlie’s home to play some games together against your better (was it really better?) judgement. Neither Ranboo nor Moonzy were around as a buffer. So, when Charlie fixed you with the most genuinely serious stare you had ever seen on his face after your multiple attempts to shrug off his flirty banter and prying questions, you had no one turn to for help.

“Why do you do that?” Charlie asks, his controller resting on the table as the It Takes Two pause menu song plays softly in the background.

“Do what?”

You fiddle with the joystick of your controller absentmindedly, desperate to stall for time to think of some excuse because you absolutely knew what he was referring to. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Charlie raise an eyebrow at your bluff.

“You always deflect my banters,” he starts to list slowly, “you always dodge out of my hugs even though no one else does. I envy every single time you smile at Moonzy and Ranboo because you give them the brightest, widest smile that never seems to get thrown my way. Every time I think we’re getting closer as friends, I hit a glass wall. Almost as though,” he swallows, “you don’t want to be friends?”

You wince. Holding people at arm’s length was meant to protect you from being hurt by others. Was it possible you were hurting your own friend by doing so?

“If I didn’t want to be your friend, I wouldn’t have come here to play games with you,” you mumble, suddenly finding the grooves and buttons of the controller extremely interesting.

An inhale, then exhale from Charlie.

“So, you don’t hate me.”

His extreme statement causes you to snap your head to look at him.

“What?” you protest. “I don’t hate you. Why – ”

“Then why?” he pleads. You see the questions swimming behind his eyes. The desperation of a man trying to make sense of why their friend seemed so close yet so far away. “Why do you always dodge out of my way? Why don’t you want to spend time together? Why do you always put this distance between us?”

“Because – ” and the words spill out before you can stop yourself “ – if I hold you at arm’s length; if we never become anything more than friends, or barely friends, then I can never be hurt or disappointed. I can never be tricked or walked over.”

The downcast look on Charlie’s face makes you regret your words. More questions seem to surface behind his eyes as he stares at you, pleading for a friendship that you seem to be self-destructively tearing down on your end.

The jenga tower of your shaky friendship was already wobbling, and you were taking out a disproportionate number of bricks out from your side.

You’re standing up before Charlie can ask any more questions. You leave the controller on his desk, the cheerful soundtrack still playing in the background. He doesn’t stop you from grabbing your belongings, doesn’t stop you from stepping out the door.

You reckoned this was the first time you’d left behind a friendship before things turned sour. You reasoned with yourself that this was a smart move, to leave before you could get hurt. You rationalised that this was in your best interest.

But was it really in your best interest, when the man of your interest was sitting in his room with hurt blossoming in his heart?

hi pookie can I get an mcyt with reader that bakes?? Like they'll just come in on stream and give mcyts a fucking platter of baked goods lol

-🎀 anon

oooo yes omg!! thank you 🎀 anon! <3 got the whole gang in here for this one LOL

MCYT ; "in my baker era"

includes ; tommyinnit, tubbo, ranboo, badlinu, nihachu, quackity, foolish gamers, slimecicle, karl jacobs, cellbit, & punz

warnings ; language, mentions of drugs

masterlist

TOMMYINNIT

"Hi y/n- oh, thank you, darling!'

literally has the widest smile on his face

shows off the goods to the stream

"do these have any drugs in them? me n charlie are trying to sell drugs, y/n. we need more stock"

you hear charlie screaming through tommys headphones, "we need the grain, y/n! we need THE GRAIN"

bro is munching away on those cookies holy shit

he feeds chat as well dw

TUBBO

"Oh, hi y/n/n. wh- ohmygosh, thank you!"

smiles and gives you a little hug before showing off the goodies to stream & his friends

"look what y/n made me! I can't wait to try these" He smiles looking back at you

"new recipe, tell me if you like them"

"will do!"

he gives you a thumbs up as he shoves his mouth full of the cupcakes

safe to say he's a fan of the birthday cake flavored cupcakes

RANBOO

"Hey babe! Oh, thank you!"

does a whole 360 of the plate for chat 💀💀💀💀

"Oh my God, these are so fucking good"

"guys, y/ns in their baking era. can you write an album about that? please become Taylor swift for us"

"BAHHAHAHAH"

literally takes a picture as per usual and posts it to Twitter LMAO

he gets some fans to send you recipes you should try for a serious baking stream LMAO

BADLINU

"Hey love- oh, hi!"

all smiles and shit, he swears you have a sixth sense to know when people are hungry

"guys, y/n made me some bisexuality cake!" He giggles, showing off the tri-colored cake on the plate

he was making a video with harry, tubbo & tommy so everyone had their facecams on

it was like a three tier cake you made and cut out a slice for him

the inside was just the bi flag and the outside was plain white with some fun icing piper testing

he tries it and it's SO MOIST AND SOFT IT IS PERFECT.

there's just 5 raw minutes of him telling you how amazing this fucking cake is LMAO

QUACKITY

"Hey, I'm streaming ba- ohmyfuckinggodthankyou!!"

does a 360 of the plate for the camera

"Holy shit these look so fucking good, thank you so much, y/n"

he's literally just streaming on the qsmp with roeir and fit and he like games and eats the damn cookies at the same time LMFAO

"Dude I feel like I'm high, these are so good, what's in this shit?"

"cocaine"

"WHAT!? DID YOU JUST DRUG ME? GUYS, MY PARTNER DRUGGED ME, HELP"

you're just playing into the bit dw

best red velvet cookies he's ever eaten

CELLBIT

"Hey darling, what's up?"

you hand him the little strawberry shortcake and he just looks at you like 😍😍

turns to his stream and shoves the plate up to the camera all happy like "Oh my God look what they made for me!"

he eats the entirety of it on stream and asks you a bunch of questions

like how you made it, where you found the recipe, etc

he shares it with you too 💔🫶

NIHACHU

"Hi honey! Ooo, what's this called?"

"Chocolate mousse. it's a little thick because it's my first time making it but let me know if it's good"

she holds that little glass like it's her child

she tries it with a tiny spoon you gave her and she's like "oh my God this is amazing, y/n/n"

shows it off to the friends she's streaming with too

"send them more recipes guys, I wanna be spoiled with sweets!"

"thank you nikis viewers!! love you all"

FOOLISH GAMERS

when I tell you this man's face LIGHTS UP.

"you made me fudge? oh my God! I love you"

literally spends the next 15 minutes talking to you and gobbling the fudge down

"since when do you make fudge??"

"since I wanted to try" you shrug

"you should totally make some more... when you're not busy and if you want to!"

"Thank you y/n! everyone say thank you!"

KARL JACOBS

"Hi babe! Oh my God, thank you!!"

literally jumping around

you made him a chocolate cake, and the icing was multicolored and you made sure to make it like karl themed basically

it was so cute omg

"guys!! look what they made me, I love my partner so fucking much!"

gives you multiple kisses before he gulps it down lmaooo

PUNZ

"Hey, babe"

you hold out the cheesecake for him like "eat, I know it's one in the morning but eat"

he graciously accepts it, he didn't have the motivation to try and make grilled cheese in the air fryer again

"when did you make this??"

"earlier, you've been down here for a while, dude"

"oh, true. thank you" He smiles, taking a bite

you talk to chat while he eats and stuff lmao

SLIMECICLE

"Oh, hi y/n! thank you so much"

does a 360 for stream

"when did you find time to make this? I thought you were at work????"

"special treat" you shrug

you watch him run across the qsmp and go to ems bakery to sit inside and eat it 😭

he keeps you on stream for a while cause chat loves you n stuff 🫶🫶

REALLLLLLL

My ancestors looking down at me as I talk about how much I love white men

oodles-o-noodles masterpost

requests are open

about me — hi, i’m oodles or mj! (any pronouns.) the dsmp has been on my mind for the longest of times, so i decided to start an ‘x reader’ and sometimes 'x cc!,/c!/au!' blog.

about this blog — in this blog, i’ll be writing for the dsmp men that includes imagines, scenarios, blurbs, headcanons, etc.

dsmp people i write for — dream, sapnap, george, corpse, tubbo, tommy, ranboo, jack, quackity, fundy, c!techno, and foolish <to expand>

If anyone is uncomfortable with being written for, I will need where they said that, and I will remove it immediately!

requests are open! so, feel free to send in any you have. anything i am not comfortable with writing will be on my rules!

Here is my masterlist