DAVY
Davy muttered to himself angrily, scratching the top of his head every few seconds. He hated it. He hated how he felt weak around that girl, like she meant something to him. She didn't. She didn't! He was Davy effing Prentiss, son of the effing president. People all 'round were scared of him and he was getting himself caught up on some girl he saved for who knows why.
When he got into town, he covered his Noise up. He tried to get to the stables quickly enough without looking like he had somewhere he needed to be. He couldn't let himself think about her.
('Cause they could hurt her.)
(Why should he care tho?)
(She's just a girl.)
He thought of Spackle and bombs and anger and all of the dumb women that try to make fools out of the men in town. He thought of anything and everything (except her, he wouldn't think of her, he effing wouldn't-), anything and everything.
(Just a girl.)
(A girl that he has been thinking 'bout a lot lately.)
(Thinking 'bout-)
(Like how Todd thought of that girl-)
(How Todd thought of his girl-)
(But she ain't his girl.)
(Why the eff did that thought make him so depressed?)
...
"They won't know what hit 'em," Davy said, riding on his horse next to Todd.
"Who won't?" Todd asked.
"The Answer," Davy said bitterly, "and any man who helps them."
"There ain't gonna be no one left," Todd replied.
"There'll be us," he said. "That'll be enough."
"What about her?" Todd asked after a minute.
"Who? Yer girl?"
"S- No," Todd said, voice cutting off. His Noise was full of pain for a brief moment there, but then it was nothing. "Yers."
Davy's horse stopped moving. "I ain't got no girl," he said. "So shut up."
"You saved her, didn't you?"
"Shut up or I'll kill you, Todd Hewitt," he snapped.
Their horses slowed down and they saw it.
They saw all of the Spackle.
Dead.
"Holy-"
...
"I don't unnerstand this at all," Davy said, shaking his head.
Todd whispered, "Shut up."
Piles and piles and piles of Spackle, all 1,150 of 'em, stacked on top of one another. Davy's eyes raked around all of their identical faces - their stretched, creepy, weird faces - and he saw 'em.
The girl's Spackle.
The mother, holding her baby to her chest, its face tucked in her neck. Holding one another close. It looked like the mother was protecting it from whatever they were getting attacked with. Davy felt a little sick, thinking of ___ and the face she made when she found out they were alive a few days ago. And now-
And now...
Todd saw his Noise but didn't say nothing. He was thinking of the Spackle and their bodies.
"I gotta tell Pa," Davy said, "I gotta tell Pa."
He went off to tell his pa, feeling sick and angry and worried.
(Worried for that effing girl and her stupid effing love for her effing Spackle.)
...
The Office of the Ask was opened a while later.
Davy wanted his pa to be proud of him for building it, but he was proud of Todd. 'Course he was proud of Todd.
Davy was feeling pretty weird, 'cause for some reason, he went to ___'s house and told her 'bout her dead Spackle.
And she-
Did it really happen? It did-
She laid her head on his chest-
On his chest-
And she cried and cried and held onto him-
Held onto him like no woman had ever held onto him before.
And ever since then, Davy felt a sort of buzzing in his chest, right where her head had been laying. It was like the sound of Noise but inside of him and warm and nice and welcome.
(He wanted her to lay like that again.)
He had to not think 'bout her.
It was easy to think of other things, like of the Askings going on in the Office of the Ask.
Davy and Todd had to watch 'em all. Plus they had to guard the new prison, which was mostly full of women instead of men. And they heard a lot of screaming and pleading and crying as those women got tortured in form of Askings. Davy seemed more affected by it than Todd, and Todd was the sensitive one.
And after all of the Askings, he saw her on his way back, getting water from the river 'cause the water tower nearby had been bombed.
"Mr. Prentiss," she'd say, and he didn't correct her like he did everybody else. "How was work?"
"You can't talk to me like that," he'd said one day, when he was looking 'round before helping her lift the jugs full of water. "Like we're friends."
"Ain't we?" she'd asked.
"Why you talk like that? Yer not from Prentisstown."
"My pa's pa lived there for a while," she had explained, "kept the accent, passed it down. Reminds me of 'em both."
He'd walked alongside her back to her house, keeping the jugs of water tucked under his arms. She had reached over suddenly and put her hand over his. He had stiffened, his Noise bursting with asking marks, but she'd ignored it all.
"You saved my life, Davy Prentiss," she'd said. "You did the best you could to save the family I had left, and when they died, you came and told me so I didn't find out through rumors. I don't very well know what you've done in your past or what kind of person you are trying to be, but gosh, you're my friend. My only friend and family. You're all I've got left, I think." She'd looked at him and he'd looked at her. "All I'm trying to say is I don't want you to just go off and leave me 'cause you mean something to me now, Davy. I'm sorry if you don't want that."
He'd stopped. "I don't want nobody to hurt you," he'd said honestly. "Prentisstown men ain't like other men. They're sick."
(Yer sick, too.)
(All that you did before-)
(Before her-)
(What you did to Viola-)
"Davy," she'd said. "I think that you'll keep me safe."
He'd thought of the screams he heard every night. Screams of women he couldn't keep safe and didn't try to save and thought -
If she got sent to prison-
Would he save her?
He'd looked back into her eyes.
Yes.
Yes.
He would save her again and again, no matter how many times he had to do it.
YOU ARE READING
From the Stars (Davy Prentiss Jr x Reader)
Fanfiction"yer just so different from any other woman i ever knew," he said, and there was a twinge of guilt in his words as he shuffled his feet. "yer... from somewhere else. from the stars, maybe - and that sounds stupid. i think i'm stupid." "you're not st...
