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fangswbenefits · 5 months

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The Arrangement (9) - The Arrangement

Chapter summary: Ava proposes an arrangement, and things get out of control with Astarion... once again.

Pairing: Astarion x female!Tav

Warnings: 18+. Alcohol. Innuendo. Body worship. (almost) Fingering. Sexual tension.

Word count: 6k

Series masterlist . Ao3

Ava extended the palm of her hand across the table, expecting you to comply with her silent request.

But you weren’t so easily swindled, especially when too much of her story was beginning to rub you the wrong way.

As such, you feigned complying by placing your hand atop hers, whilst your other carefully unsheathed the dagger at your hip.

Her face held a honeyed smile that you didn’t return, and your watchful eyes followed her every move,

But before her knife could come close to your skin, you got on your feet, sending the chair sliding across the floor before you made a lunge for her, plucking her from her seat with one hand and pressing her back against the cabinet behind, your dagger firmly held against the side of her neck.

She did try to swing the knife in her hand, but you immediately caught hold of her wrist and squeezed tight until she dropped it on the floor.

“Sharp reflexes,” she noted with a curt smile.

You held her in place with the weight of your body, the sharp edge of your blade ready to slice through her skin.

“You sound surprised.”

She smiled again. “It is uncommon for sorcerers to be so skillful with anything but a staff and fancy hand flourishes.”

“Not many have the opportunity to learn from a seasoned rogue.”

Astarion had taken a liking to honing your dexterity, even when constantly remarking you’d never rival his.

However, in this particular moment, it did come in handy and his teachings had paid off.

“Unfortunately for you,” Ava said, her smile dropping slightly. “You are not the only one with tricks up their sleeve.”

And before you could question her remark, you felt the cool sting of metal tapping against your neck, just above the faint bite marks from the night before.

For a moment, the grip on your dagger faltered, but you quickly regained composure, not easing the blade pressed against her skin.

“This is coated in a most agonising poison.”

You offered a devious smile. “What a coincidence – so is mine.”

“Astarion’s?”

“Touché.”

A homebrew recipe that he had once shared with you.

Travelling together with Astarion had given you the opportunity to broaden your skill set and that covered knowing how to brew most basic poisons.

She did look far too amused for someone who you could easily incapacitate should she stray but a little.

“And here I thought we had made some progress.”

Her taunt made you snap at once. “How much of an idiot do you take me for?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Idiot?”

You pushed harder into her, causing the glass jars inside the cabinet to rattle. “Your story sounds a little too convenient. You were a monster hunter for decades, then had a sudden change of heart, and tracked down Astarion to aid him,” your words were venomous enough to match the poison coating your blade. “I’m sorry if I have a hard time believing someone could just abandon their principles all at once and even go as far as to kill their own kin.”

Her arm was gripping yours, but you didn’t flinch, your eyes boring into hers. “You don’t have to believe me. I wouldn’t either, to be frank. However, you shouldn't be passing judgement when it comes to others having changes of heart.”

You remained silent.

“You took a leap of faith with Astarion, did you not? You trusted him even after learning he could easily turn on you,” she went on, her voice now firm and low. “But he didn’t. He proved he could change, even when it goes against his very nature as a vampire spawn.”

Another wave of anger flared inside you.

How could she even compare this situation to that of Astarion’s? She was nothing like him. She didn’t know the first thing about the two of you.

“You utter sweetened words and use my bond with him to make me sway,” you said in a low warning tone. “But I simply don’t like you. It’s not even about you wanting my blood – it’s how you so easily take and take from him and expect me to compactuate with it.”

Ava scoffed, trying to push you off of her but to no avail. “So is that why you’re here? To stake your claim?”

" Claim? Astarion is his own person.”

She chuckled darkly. “Yet here you are, speaking on his behalf. Enlighten me on how that works.”

Her words tore through your flesh more effectively than the knife she held to your neck ever could.

You immediately let go of her as if suddenly burned by her touch and took a few steps back, falling silent.

Was that the impression you gave her? That you were taking away his free will on this matter? Would he think the same if he knew how close you had been to sinking your dagger into her?

Shame.

Guilt.

Your chest felt impossibly heavy from the weight of your doubts, and you dropped your arm at your side at once.

Ava adjusted her dress as she straightened up, but there was no triumphant smile on her face. “I am not the enemy. You don’t have to trust me – Hells, you don’t have to like me – but he does to an extent, and I already said that I do not take a single drop of his blood without his full consent, as I won’t take yours.”

It was starting to overwhelm you just how hard Ava was to decode. You wanted to trust her word and to believe that helping her with your own blood could be helpful to Astarion in the long run, especially if there were people out there who wanted to hurt both of you.

But you just couldn’t bring yourself to fully digest her reasoning without asking the proper questions and double checking.

You were once told: “Never swallow before chewing.”

“Why did you kill your group, then? Why not just leave?”

Ava’s pleasant features turned sour as she returned to her seat. “There are no fiercest shackles than those of the mind. I know it. Astarion knows it,” she said nonchalantly, placing her knife on the table. “Not that I expect you to resonate with this as I’m sure you’ve lived a sheltered life.”

You’re wrong…

On so many levels.

But you weren’t going to give her leverage on your past.

Not even Astarion was aware of the intricate details of your upbringing.

“Sorcerers are born with an innate talent for magic wielding,” she went on, her eyes fixed on you. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your family in Baldur’s Gate ranked up high with the rest of the nobles.”

You narrowed your eyes, lips still pressed shut.

It was unfair that she was drawing all these assumptions in regards to you when they couldn’t be further from the truth.

There had never been privilege.

The magic coursing through your body was what made you nearly lose it all once…

But silence was your best weapon now.

“Not everyone has that privilege – I know I didn’t. I was forced to do the bidding of others, because that was all I knew growing up until Astarion’s case put things into perspective. Sure, I did expand my knowledge on Alchemy here and there, but I was never allowed to openly practice it,” there was a faint hint of sorrow in her voice that nearly made you feel sorry for her. Nearly. “So long as they lived, I would never be truly free as they would make sure I’d painfully regret leaving them. But I was done hunting those who could use a second chance, which was exactly what you offered Astarion.”

Her answer absolutely floored you.

Your mind wanted her explanation to not make any sense.

You wanted a reason to hate her.

A reason to tear her bond with Astarion to smithereens.

Yet here she was, giving you seemingly truthful justifications to her deeds, which further troubled your heart and mind and completely defied your anger.

Eventually, you slid your dagger back in its holster with a long sigh. “Who’s after us?”

She crossed her legs. “I have my suspicions, but I need more time.

As much as you wanted to take her vague answer at face value, your common sense spoke louder this time.

“How can I be sure you’re not just feeding me some fable to cover up your own tracks?”

She chuckled almost in disbelief. “You truly are a tough one to crack, no doubt. I have a solid alibi, if that is what you’re requesting.”

“Go on.”

She paused briefly as if pondering her next words. “I was with a patriar.”

Hold on…

“Who?” you immediately shot back.

“Someone from the Parliament of Peers.”

Now, this piqued your interest. “ Who?”

“Rob Sorel.”

The wealthy baldurian merchant with an uncanny reputation for being ruthless when his interests were involved? The man whose wealth could easily overshadow that of a duke?

That seemed like a stretch.

A very unsettling stretch.

You crossed your arms. “And what were you doing with such an influential patriar, especially so late at night?”

Ava gave you a long and hard look, lips tugged upwards, unveiling her amusement.

Oh.

“His influence reaches beyond Baldur’s Gate and I am able to gain exclusive access to wares that aid my research.”

You felt tempted to ask what the trade off was, but judging from the way her face twisted deviously, you could tell it probably revolved around carnal pleasure, which you refused to know the sordid details of.“Feel free to have Wyll cross-check this information as I’m sure Rob has mentioned my name.”

This nearly sent off alarm bells ringing in your head. “Wyll had never heard your name before I told him.”

She chuckled again, drumming her nails on the wooden surface of the table. “Oh, but he has . Ava is short for Avalar. I have had long dealings with Rob and he will uphold my alibi. Feel free to ask.”

Against your better judgement, you began to feel less… wary of her.

Not that you were able to fully let go of your gut feeling, but every answer was delivered with almost no hesitancy on her part and, truth be told, you would quickly be able to catch her if this involvement with a patriar was nothing but a desperate lie.

A sudden knock on the door made you jolt in place.

It was Wyll. “We ought to get going. Are you done?”

Your eyes remained fixed on her. “Yes. We're just going over some details.”

He didn't reply again and you saw Ava raise her eyebrows. “Details?”

You ignored her remark. “Will you try to track whoever is after us, then?”

“I will.”

You swallowed. “What's the price?”

She rose to her feet and took slow yet sure steps towards you until she was close enough for you to fully see the olive green colour of her eyes.

“Let's just say our interests are temporarily aligned.”

Bullshit.

“You wanted my blood.”

“I want your blood, yes. But I will settle with running a few more experiments after he's fed on you, if you accept this condition, that is.”

As far as you were concerned, you would rather she stopped meddling with anyone's blood, but Astarion seemed so confident in her promises…

Maybe there was a chance of success… maybe she could truly help with their hunger.

Maybe.

“Only after you tell Astarion about this discovery of yours in regards to his blood mixing with mine,” you said firmly. “Or I will.”

She nodded, offering a sweet smile.

“Don't think of this as payment, though. A mere transaction. An arrangement, if you will.”

You were starting to dread that term as of late. It was as if everything revolved around transactions and that it was the only way people knew how to properly function and establish relationships with others.

Slowly, you nodded and, for the second time that night, Ava extended her hand to you, only this time you took it in yours.

A mysterious smile settled on her lips until you pulled her closer to you, lowering your voice, “I still don’t trust you.”

“I’d be disappointed if you did.”

You glared intensely into her eyes, hardening your face. “Any small step in the wrong direction, and you’ll hear from me.”

She nodded. “Deal.”

Then you gave her a firm shake before letting go and exiting her room without even looking back, as you were in dire need to distance yourself from the overwhelming events of tonight.

Wyll hurried to your side, glaring at you inquisitively. “So? What did you find out? Is she to be trusted?”

“Do you know a woman who goes by Avalar?”

He tapped his chin pensively for a moment. “Avalar? That name does sound familiar. Wait – she is Avalar? The merchant?”

You nodded as you made your way down the staircase, feeling the uncomfortable and draining presence of the mage slayer right behind you.

“She is connected to Rob Sorel, right?”

He hesitated at first, grabbing your arm and bringing you to an abrupt halt as you reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Lord Sorel isn’t one to trifle with idly. If she is indeed who she claims to be, then we must keep an eye on her.”

You felt a shiver run down your spine, already feeling that you might have given her the benefit of the doubt too quickly.

Wyll turned to one of the Fists by his side and gave him a silent command to which the man nodded and exited the tavern.

“She said she was with him on the night we were caught, and that Sorel will vouch for her.”

The commotion around the two of you from the rowdy and very much intoxicated crowd made it nearly impossible to hold a proper conversation.

“I will dig around,” he said with a raise of his voice, guiding you to the door.

But you yanked free from him, which earned a wary look from the other Fist.

“I need a drink. Please.”

The Fist spoke before he could, “My Lord, I don’t think we should linger any longer.”

You rolled your eyes and promptly made your way to the counter, squeezing past a few smelly individuals who grumbled in

Bork appeared rather quickly in front of you, and you blinked twice.

“What can I get you, missy? ”

Wyll was by your side at lightning speed. “Are you sure you want to have a drink? Now?”

You never felt a particular interest in indulging in alcoholic beverages, but you craved it now more than ever.

“A pint, please.”

Bork’s lips parted into a devious smile and you tapped your fingers impatiently as he shifted to work on your request.

“You are not one to hold your liquor, if I remember correctly, my friend,” Wyll noted, already placing one gold piece on the counter. “Mayhap you ought to take a sip or two before we leave.”

He was absolutely correct, but you also needed a quick way to numb your restless mind.

At worst you’d get a bit too intoxicated.

At best, you’d find a way to, hopefully, sleep through what was left of this night.

As Bork set the mug in front of you and eagerly collected his payment, you grabbed it with both hands and proceeded to down the sweet liquid.

In one go.

Wyll’s hand tried to ease your eagerness, but you slapped it away with a chuckle.

“Why do I have the feeling I will have to carry you home after this?”

By the time you were through with the ale, you realised you had made a severe mistake.

If Wyll had not been there to steady your unbalanced feet, you would have certainly tripped on the nearby stool.

Fuck…

By the time you made it back home, it was more than evident you should not have drunk all of it.

But it seemed that your brain was starting to morph a sense of guilt into finding anything within your grasp to be rather hilarious.

Even when you almost bumped into the mage slayer stationed outside your house.

You gave them a wide grin and a pat on the shoulder as if he couldn’t easily split you in half.

Wyll pushed the door open and guided you inside with both hands gripping your shoulders for added support.

“Easy now. Mind the step.”

You completely disregarded his warning, which led to you almost losing balance if not for his strong arm that looped around yours, pulling you back.

You giggled.

He was truly a sweetheart.

Inside, you were met with the dim flickering of a few candles that provided enough brightness to spot the love of your life.

Wait.

Love of your life?

Scratch that. What a ridiculous overstatement.

“What in the sweet Hells took you so long?” Astarion said with a scowl, rising from his chair and heading straight towards you like an arrow.

You giggled again, throwing your arms in the air. “You stayed up and waited for me!”

Astarion halted abruptly in front of you, hands on both hips. “I don’t sleep as I’m sure you’re aware. What is wrong with you?”

Wyll patted your back reassuringly. “She…drank a pint, and – well… this is the result.”

Suddenly, there were two Astarions standing next to each other and you yelped in shock, flinching back.

“Why are there two of you?” you asked, pointing at them.

Both of them cocked an elegant eyebrow. “Two of what?”

Odd.

They moved and spoke in perfect unison.

If one Astarion was already such a headache at times, you couldn’t even begin to fathom what two Astarions would be capable of.

Driven by curiosity, you tried to reach out to one of them with your hand, but grasped nothing but air as your vision corrected itself and only one Astarion was left.

Really odd.

But entertaining.

He quickly gripped your gesticulating arm by the wrist. “Will you stop it? You’ll hurt yourself.”

The sudden proximity made your stomach turn dangerously, but you were far too amused to care. “ You’ll hurt yourself ,” you mimicked poorly, earning another scowl.

“I let you out of my sight for a few hours and this is the result,” he said with a sigh, then turning to Wyll. “Why would you let her drink a whole pint?”

Wyll rubbed the back of his neck. “She insisted, and I figured she could use the distraction.”

“What happened with Ava?” Astarion pressed.

Oh, Gods… not her again. “Will everyone please stop talking about her? Gods!”

He then pulled you closer to him, not letting go of your wrist, but easing his grip.

His beautiful eyes met yours and you felt yourself swoon, feeling the image of Ava dissipating into thin air.

Gods… he was the most beautiful man to ever grace this earth, no doubt.

Books should be written on his beauty and songs should be sung in his honour.

You felt yourself smile widely at him, feeling a rush of heat flood your face.

You’re so handsome…

His brows immediately furrowed.

Oh.

Shit.

You had said that aloud.

But you stood by it.

Astarion was so very handsome.

The only man who could make you yearn for him and have your heart and soul enamoured by all of him.

Then his face gradually softened. "Well, good thing there are no newshounds nearby. Can you imagine the headlines in tomorrow’s paper about the hero of Baldur’s Gate making a fool of themselves?”

You felt so giddy and drunk in his beauty that you just nodded at every word that spilled from those full lips that you wish you could just–

Whatever you say, handsome…

“Where’s Shadowheart?” you heard Wyll ask.

Astarion shrugged. “No one else is here, and it’s not as if I’m their mother.”

He was so snarky and it just made you almost melt under his touch.

“I can stay if need be.”

You rapidly turned to face Wyll, and immediately felt dizzy as Astarion steadied you.

“Please stay! We can have a party!” you suggested with a dramatic pout.

Behind you, Astarion scoffed. “I’m quite sure dear Wyll is busy with his Duke duties, darling.”

Wyll chuckled. “I always make time for my friends.”

“Well, I can take it from here,” he retorted and you could spot a hint of disdain in his voice.

So attractive…

Astarion then lifted your arm and wiggled your wrist. “Say goodbye to Wyll, sweetheart.”

You giggled dramatically again. “Goodbye Wyll!”

He took a step forward and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. “I’ll be back tomorrow once I have an update on what we discussed.”

Astarion pulled you away from him at once with a gasp. “Keeping secrets from me? Oh, you two lovebirds.”

Hold on!

No! You weren’t that close to Wyll.

As you were about to protest, Wyll spoke, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you sound jealous, Astarion.”

“What is there to be jealous of, I wonder?”

You nodded vehemently, finding it utterly amusing how he sounded so territorial all of a sudden.

Adorable man.

Wyll gave a lighthearted chuckle before turning to leave. “Well, I’m sure I can think of a few reasons.”

You laughed way too loudly at his remark, which caused Astarion to click his tongue in annoyance.

Adorable.

The door closed shut behind him, and Astarion immediately spun you on your feet to fully face them.

“What were you thinking? Drinking a pint?”

You couldn’t care less about what he had to say in this moment, and simply glared at his face, your hazy mind reminding you just how much you adored him.

And before you could restrain yourself, the words tumbled from your mouth. “I… I really like you.”

Idiot.

A deafening silence settled around you, and you began to feel an increasing wave of nausea as he merely glared at you.

Then you giggled, trying to disperse the awkwardness as fast as possible.

He didn’t laugh with you, tugging at your hand instead. “I think it’s time to get some sleep, darling.”

Too bad you were clearly incapable of walking in a straight line, which earned his attention. Without a warning, you felt your balance shift rapidly as he scooped you in his arms, effortlessly carrying you along the dim corridor.

“Put me down! Astarion!”

Instinctively, you looped your arms around his neck for support, but still trying to wriggle out of his fierce hold.

“I don’t need to be carried… please put me down,” you whined. “I - I will curse you!”

An amused smile tugged at his lips. “How very ferocious of you. I suppose we should have gotten you drunk more often back then. I’m sure our foes would have fled in horror at the sight of you.”

You slumped into him with a pout. “Mean.”

He pushed the door to your room open with a nudge from his shoulder, before easing you back on your two feet again.

The room was plunged in darkness and you felt him shift away from you, setting alight a single candle next to your bed, and you blinked a few times to adjust to the clarity.

You were now entering the less amusing stage of your insobriety and you could feel yourself scowl at him, clumsily crossing your arms.

“I should have hexed you.”

“Darling, the only thing you’ll be hexing in that state is a doorknob.”

You snorted at his playful jab. “I was perfectly capable of walking!”

“Into a wall? Yes, indeed.”

He then moved back to your side, helping you out of your cloak and quickly wrapping a blanket around you.

The simple gesture was enough to melt your defiant demeanour at once.

The two of you stood there in silence, eyes locked and you found yourself wishing he’d kiss you, but you knew he never would.

Astarion valued consent above all else, and he would not cross any lines. Each time you had gotten ahead of yourself in terms of sobriety, he always reigned you in.

And that was just one of the many things you adored about him.

How safe he made you feel and how you knew he’d never take advantage of your vulnerability.

“You need to properly rest,” he urged, ensuring the thick fabric around you was tucked properly in place.

Just as you were about to head to bed, you felt the room tilt to the left and you yelped, clutching onto him for support.

“I’m going to fall!”

The walls around you began to swirl and sway and your own legs wobbled.

A genuine laughter rumbled across his chest as he patted your back. “You silly little goose. Your warped mind is playing tricks on you.”

That term of endearment caught you slightly off guard and your heart fluttered.

Gods…

Why was he so easy to love?

Or was this the alcohol talking? Were you truly so far gone, that the alcohol was merely making it easier to surface your feelings?

Either way, you wouldn’t voice them, and allowed him to guide you to your bed, helping you to slip under the bedsheets.

It felt rather good being taken care of this way.

Maybe he didn’t think of this as anything but a nuisance, but you were grateful, nonetheless.

“Thank you…” you mumbled in a whisper, gripping his hand.

The ceiling was now begging to spin dangerously fast and you had to close your eyes to help with the overwhelming sensory overload.

He didn’t reply back, but you felt him tugging his hand away from your grasp.

A sudden shiver of panic coursed through your body. “Please stay? You always leave…”

Please…

He relaxed his cool hand against yours.

Slowly, you peeled back an eyelid only to see him easing onto the spot next to you over the covers.

You turned on your side to glare at him and he mimicked you, meeting your eyes in silence.

“How do you feel?”

In love.

“Well…”

He nodded and you smiled warmly at him, probably looking rather silly, but too mesmerised by his face to even look away.

“May I touch you?” you asked hesitantly.

He arched his brow, but nodded.

You lifted your hand and with a single finger, you began to slowly trace the bridge of his nose, admiring how he didn’t just look perfect…

He felt perfect…

“You’re so beautiful…” you sighed, feeling the slight bump of his nose as you trailed down to his lips. “So… so beautiful.”

He chuckled deviously. “I’m all for praise, darling… do go on.”

And you wanted to, but you were beginning to feel lightheaded, and your hand dropped from his face and your eyes dropped close.

“Or not…” you heard him say.

His voice seemed so distant now as drowsiness enveloped your senses. A part of you wished you could trace all of his face with the pad of your finger, worshipping every inch of him.

“Please, don’t leave…” you found yourself repeating.

He clicked his tongue. “I will if you vomit on me.”

You giggled, managing to shift closer to his body and rest your head on his still chest. “Deal, handsome…”

Your heated body welcomed his coldness, and it didn’t take long for your busy mind to progressively quiet down as you drifted off into a pleasant sleep.

It was the soft click of a door being shut that roused you from your sleep. With eyes still closed, you flipped onto your back with a pained groan as your body was hit with the aftermath of last night.

“Rise and shine,” Astarion’s honeyed voice filled the room.

You stretched yourself with a yawn, feeling your mouth dry as sawdust and an overwhelming thirst that nearly made you sob.

“I’m never drinking again…” you whined pitifully.

The mattress dipped slightly next to you. “Well, how do you feel today?”

“Like death…”

“Your breath definitely reeks of it,” he said, voice dripping with disapproval. “I drew you a bath, as I anticipated you’d need one.”

At this, your eyes flew open. “Is this your chivalrous way of telling me I stink?” you grumbled, trying to make sense of your surroundings.

The curtains were no longer drawn and the faint light bleeding from the top and bottom was enough to tell you the sun had already risen.

He took your hand in his, tugging gently until you were sitting in front of him with your legs crossed. “Darling, you’re free to bask in that dreadful stench for all I care.”

You shot him a serious glare before bursting into laughter. “Good point. I need to get off these clothes…”

Astarion helped you on your feet and you carefully paced across the wooden floor and into the washroom.

A pleasant smell hit you as you stepped inside, with him following closely behind.

“I borrowed a few bath salts from Gale,” he informed, pointing to the round tub in the middle of the room, almost filled to the brim with steamy water.

You glared at him in disbelief. “Borrowed as in… stolen?”

He shrugged.

You knew him too well.

“He does have a decent selection, yet manages to always carry the most interesting smells around,” he said, bringing you over to the large basin under a round mirror. “I minced peppermint and it should help with your breath,” he added, handing you a glass of water.

You did as he advised and took a gulp, rinsing your mouth eagerly before spitting the content onto the basin.

“So… are you going to tell me how the conversation with Ava went?”

Wiping your lips clean with a rag, you gave him a look.

“It could have gone worse, I suppose.”

“Charming,” he said. “Worse as in ‘I almost killed her’ or ‘She made me want to pluck my eyes out’?”

“All of the above, maybe,” you said with a roll of your eyes.

To be fair, after hearing her reasoning, she didn’t come across as that bad. But you couldn’t help but to still feel wary of her intentions in the long run.

Astarion was studying your face intensely as you emptied the glass of water to quench your thirst, the minty aftertaste doing wonders to your throat.

“Anything in particular I should know about?”

Besides her wanting to take my blood? Nothing at all, you thought grimly.

You merely shook your head.

“I’ll be waiting outside, then.”

Right.

Bath time.

You took a quick look in the mirror and nearly groaned out loud from the sight of your weary face.

Just as you were trying to strip the shirt you had on, you huffed in annoyance, which earned his attention before he slipped out of the washroom.

“You need help.”

You tried to pull the sleeve, but your body ached too much to comply. “I need help.”

Astarion slowly crossed the room again, and swiftly helped you out of your shirt.

You hissed as his cold knuckles brushed against your bare stomach. “Cold, cold…” you said, teeth jittering.

Being naked in front o fhim had long lost some of its inherent sexual meaning. It used to make you feel too exposed and only when the two of you were about to indulge in one another.

Now, it felt like something casual.

His stare didn’t linger on your breasts for too long or on your now hardening nipples.

“I apologise,” he said with a smile. “Let’s get you out of these next.”

Skilled fingers worked on the front of your trousers, undoing them slowly before carefully dropping on one knee and pulling them down along your thighs.

You had to look away to hide the rush of heat that had settled on your face.

Now that felt too intimate…

He tugged at your underwear next and shiveres began to prickle along your body.

You suddenly felt too exposed.

Astarion had seen you this bare since you last slept together before reaching Moonrise Towers.

And this new predicament had your heart strumming hard in your chest.

You slipped out of your trousers and looked down to meet his crimson eyes. “What?”

“May I kiss you?”

You swallowed. Hard. “Where?”

He leaned in to press his cold lips to the dip of your hip, lingering for a few seconds before pulling away and rising to his full height again.

Gods…

“Do you need my help getting inside?” he asked and you could see it .

You could see the lust in his eyes.

You could hear the faint innuendo in his words.

And you could feel the familiar throb between your legs increasing.

“Yes…”

He promptly gripped your hand and you lifted each leg to dip into the nicely heated water, its surface covered in frothy suds.

Slowly, you lowered yourself into a sitting position before leaning back.

Astarion placed a folded towel under your neck, so you could easily relax against the wooden tub as you sank below the waterline.

“May I wash you?” he asked, settling himself on his knees behind you.

You immediately nodded, gripping the edges and trying your best to ignore the swell in between your folds.

It was almost embarrassing how easily he could turn you on with mostly his words and intonation.

Your eyes fluttered shut and you jolted briefly when you felt a soft sponge being dragged from your neck and down your breasts.

A sigh parted your lips and you arched your back instinctively, just enough to raise your nipples above the waterline as he grazed each of them in circular motions.

You instantly clenched around nothing, knowing fully well that it would have driven him insane had his cock been buried inside you.

A second moan was heard when he started planting soft kisses along your jaw while his hand kept on gliding the sponge down your abdomen.

“Does that feel good?” he whispered in between kisses.

Your legs parted as you welcomed his ministrations.

With his other hand he gripped your jaw and applied enough pressure until the back of your head hit his chest, his thumb caressingly you lovingly.

A strained whimper erupted from you when the sponge reached your folds, deliciously caressing the growing swell in between.

Your hips rolled a few times to increase the friction and you begged the Gods above to have him use his fingers instead…

“Please… Astarion…”

He planted a lingering kiss on your lips, pressing the sponge against you so you could grind desperately on it.

“Does it feel good, darling?”

“Use your fingers… please…” you begged against his lips, squeezing your legs together to trap his hand as you gripped the edges of the tub for support.

He chuckled darkly, dropping the sponge and he had to cover your mouth with his other hand to muffle a loud moan as he slid one finger along your folds.

“Do you remember how many you could take?”

Your eyes rolled shut as lust clouded your senses, hips rolling at a faster pace.

All you remembered was struggling to fit his cock inside at first…

The pad of his finger teased your swell a few times before he moved to place it at your entrance.

“Answer me.”

You could cry from the despair alone as he refused to slide a single one inside.

“I - I… two? Astarion… please… ”

He chuckled teasingly in response, and you

The door to the washroom burst open, causing him to detach from you at once.

Shadowheart.

You let out a yelp, sinking until you were neck-deep in water.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Astarion’s words were dripping with poison.

“Even heard of not greeting people with... that?”

From this position you were almost at eye-level with his lower half, giving you a privileged view of his rather generous bulge, strained against his own trousers.

You felt heat flare in your cheeks as you remembered just how easily he would drip precum for you.

She hurriedly crossed the room and threw a robe at you. “Dress up. Quickly .”

Lust quickly turned into panic from the way Shadowheart glared worriedly at you.

“What happened?”

“Gale is leaving,” she said. “We just received word from Waterdeep that his contact has been killed.”

TBC

#astarion #astarion bg3 #astarion x female reader #astarion x female tav #astarion x reader #astarion x f!tav #astarion x tav #astarion x you #astarion x oc #astarion x f!reader

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flowerandblood · 3 months

Text

Object of Desire (1/3)

[ dark • Aemond x Arryn • widow female ]

[ warnings: dubcon, hate sex, sex content, smut, angst, domination, violence, swearing, humiliation, hard chauvinism ]

[ description: Aemond is forced to marry a widow from House Arryn as part of the alliance and support of his brother in the war against the Black faction. This story is an Anon Request, sorry it took me so long. I know anon wanted it to be a softer and sweeter story, but it didn't fit Aemond's character and what I think would be going on in his head. The female character has a specific eye and hair color. Lots of humiliation, violence and chauvinism. ]

Part 2 − Object of Despair Part 3 − Object of Delight Epilogue

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

My other works: Masterlist

______

He thought the greatest humiliation of his life was behind him when he lost an eye, when his brother and nephews gave him a pig instead of a dragon. He thought that now that he was a man, rider of the greatest dragon walking the earth, he would finally get everything he deserved − a wife from a dignified, respected House, and with her an offspring, his inheritance, an extension of his lineage.

He could not hide his expression of disappointment, disgust and bitterness when his mother informed him that instead of one of Lord Baratheon's daughters he would be marrying Lord Arryn's niece − his grandfather, intent on strengthening his brother's position on the throne felt that depriving Rheanyra of the support of the Eyrie, her mother's kin, would greatly weaken her in the ongoing war.

He would have endured this change without a word were it not for one thing.

The woman was a fucking widow.

Already intimate with another man who had taken her maidenhood, she was worn, marked, like an overbitten apple that now someone had to eat to the end to keep it from rotting.

He imagined in the back of his mind how the court, which both feared and mocked him, would spread rumours that the One-Eyed Prince was not only crippled but must marry a woman devoid of value and her greatest virtue, for no other lady would agree to be his wife.

However, he knew what duty was and intended to fulfil it.

Despite his mother's suggestion, he did not want to see her before the nuptial day. He felt that he did not want to further exacerbate her bad enough appearance in his eyes; he feared that she was not only worthless but plain ugly, her mind empty and shallow.

Although the nuptials were to take place in the noble family, knowing that this would not be her first wedding it was decided that the whole ceremony would be modest, only the most loyal lords and relatives who supported their cause were invited.

Looking at his reflection in the mirror in shame and disgust, at his emerald tunic adorned with golden threads swirling in embroidery reminiscent of dragon's heads, he thought it seemed too refined for such an occasion, for such a woman who could offer him nothing.

He knew that there was no fault of hers in her husband's sudden passing from this world, that it was pure politics, but he could not help thinking that it would have been better if she had died with him.

Waiting for her in the Great Sept, he felt nothing − he had not even bestowed a single glance on her when he heard the sound of trumpets, indicating that she and her father had entered the temple and were heading towards him.

As he felt her presence beside him he immediately noticed out of the corner of his eye that she was dressed in a blue gown, flowers of the same colour in her hair − curiosity forced him to at least glance at her and he swallowed loudly as his gaze met her violet eyes.

The colour of the Targaryens.

He froze, feeling his heart suddenly begin to beat faster, unable to look away from her irises, from her long, dark lashes and eyebrows surrounding her eyes like a sky surrounding the sun − unintentionally his gaze studied quickly her entire silhouette and face.

He swallowed with difficulty, turning his head away, realising that her figure was pleasingly girlish, she was young, too young in his eyes to be a widow − her dark hair was tied back, myosotis tucked into her curls at the sides of her head, her gown made of some thin, smooth, shiny material shimmering blue and purple at the same time.

He couldn't focus on what the Septon was saying; he only glanced at her again when Daeron handed him the cloak with which he was to cover her − her gaze fixed on him, her eyebrows arched in sorrow as if she was in pain, her eyes gleaming, slightly reddened, as if she was barely holding back tears.

He felt like asking if she was so disgusted with him, but no sound came out of his mouth.

With a stony face expressing indifference, he threw his cloak embroidered with a three-headed red dragon over her back and then took her hand in his, small and surprisingly smooth.

She didn't look at him when, in a trembling, soft voice, she repeated the words of her vows with him. He tried to remember her doing it for the second time in her life, that she was someone else's, warming someone else's bed, but he couldn't.

She seemed so innocent.

They hadn't exchanged a word during the wedding feast; he watched from the corner of his eye her demeanour, her face − she seemed to him absent, sad, ashamed.

He thought with a squeeze in his throat, filled with jealousy and envy, that she was a beautiful young woman, and someone had her before him.

He took a loud, impatient sip of wine from his cup, its tart, slightly sweet aftertaste spilling over his tongue, dulling his mind.

He felt like his head was going to burst.

They both tried to put it off for as long as they could, however, eventually his mother suggested that his spouse was surely tired and should retire to bed.

He pressed his lips together at her words, rising silently, looking at this strange, frightened girl out of the corner of his eye, her face turned towards him, her eyes open wide in terror.

"Come, wife." He hummed coldly, without emotion and heard her swallow hard − she followed him quietly as he left the hall, heading down the dark torch-lit corridors to his chamber.

He watched indifferently as her servants helped her undress from her beautiful gown, slowly untangling the curls of her hair, one of them wanted to remove the flowers from them, but he protested.

"No. The flowers are to stay. Let at least some semblance of innocence and purity remain." He sneered, saw that the corners of her mouth twitched, her eyebrows arched in pained humiliation.

He cocked his head, intrigued that she endured his words and what was happening with such humility.

He thought that if she behaved like this, perhaps he would take pity on her and actually put his child inside her, so that she could somehow regain her dignity, to be the mother of his heir.

"That's enough." He said at last, when she was left only in her nightgown, from under which he could see the outline of the pleasing shapes of her womanly body, waiting patiently until they were left alone.

She was looking somewhere far away, sad, tired, humiliated, her face, although pale, as if filled with mourning, was smooth and pleasant, the shade of her eyes seemed to him more blue in the firelight.

Proof that they shared ancestors, a common heritage.

For some reason he felt some kind of affection for her at the thought.

He got up from his seat with a loud creak of wood, walking with a slow, lazy step towards her − he saw that she twitched but did not look at him, her lips parted slightly in an accelerated breath, betraying her nervousness.

He walked around her, looking at her as if she were an object, assessing her figure, the shade of her hair, the shape of her face from every angle. She swallowed quietly and lifted her chin, looking at him with some kind of challenge, a decision that she would accept what was about to happen and give him no reason to mock her.

He hummed at the thought, stepping behind her, feeling her flinch all over as she felt his large hands touch her waist and then slide lower, to her womb − he felt surprised, licking his lips with his tongue, that his manhood swelled hard in his breeches when, in some sudden, involuntary reflex, her small hands grabbed his wrists, yet not stopping his movements, just trying to maintain some semblance of control over what was happening.

She let the air out of her lungs nervously, closing her eyes for a moment as his nose sank into her sweet-smelling, smooth hair, his hands stroking her lower abdomen trailing over it in tender, slow movements as if he imagined she was already carrying his child, his reason for being proud and pleased with her.

"This poor man, whose name I can't even remember, died without an heir. Why?" He whispered in her ear, a note of menace in his voice, his fingers digging into the fabric of her nightgown and her stomach, forcing her to take a step back, bumping into his throbbing manhood pushing against her buttocks. He heard her gasp softly, swallowing loudly, her body quivering in his embrace.

"The will of the Gods." She replied softly, her voice melodious, warm, pleasant to his ear. He hummed again, acknowledging her answer, his hands again beginning to stroke her womb in an unhurried, tender gesture.

"Why would I need a wife who won't give me an inheritance? Hm?" He asked in a tone as if he was curious and intrigued − he felt her whole body tense up in fear knowing that he was mocking her.

She drew in air loudly, suddenly tightening her fingers on his arm as his hand slid lower, between her thighs, the tips of his fingers began to brush her there with calm, steady strokes.

His free hand rose higher, to her neck, tightening around it warningly when he felt her buttocks begin to rub against his length, feeling a pleasant wave of heat surge through his spine and lower abdomen. He looked down at his fingers between her thighs, even through the material feeling the moisture leaking through it.

"A wife is a gift. Like a sword, a book or a horse." She cooed softly, responding with a rocking of her hips to the touch of his fingers. He involuntarily chuckled at her words, charmed that she understood exactly his approach, that her mind was not obscured by bottomless female fantasies, but stood in reality.

"Why would I need a chipped sword, an empty book, or a blind horse?" He asked lowly, his hand from her neck moved higher − his fingers cupped her cheeks, forcing her to turn her head towards him, to look at him, her violet eyes misty, bright, beautiful.

She smiled and giggled softly, startling him completely, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"It's amusing to hear you speak about blindness, husband. I hope the lack of your eye doesn't bother you anymore." She whispered with a satisfaction that made him snort in fury − she squealed quietly and closed her eyes as his fingers dug into her cheeks and shook her, as if he wanted her to come to her senses and remember who she was standing in front of.

"You are nothing, whore. Do you understand? Nothing. A worn-out cup to be filled with seed. I don't have an eye, but I do have a fucking dignity that my mother deprived me of by forcing me to marry a creature like you." He hissed, shaking her head violently once in a while, wanting it to get into her little empty head what he had just said.

She looked at him with hatred, her gaze seeming darker, more dangerous to him, her tongue hitting her palate with a quiet click of her saliva as she whispered a single word in his direction.

"Pathetic."

He didn't even know when his hand tightened in her hair, slamming her head against the table that stood in front of them forcing her to lean forward with a violent gesture − she squirmed loudly and cried out, clenching her fingers on the tabletop as she tried to catch her balance − he kicked her ankle with his foot forcing her to spread her thighs wider.

"You like it rough, hm? You find yourself better at being a whore than a wife? Very well then." He growled, his free hand undoing the buckles of his tunic, untying his breeches quickly, releasing his throbbing erection, giving it a few sure squeezes at the base, for some reason what was happening, their quick, rapturous breaths aroused him even more.

"Fucking male pride. Take what you want, you won't break me." She hissed with such hateful envy that he chuckled out loud, somehow impressed by how brazen she was.

"There's a little dragon burning inside you, isn't it? We shall see. I'm a man full of patience." He sneered, lifting her nightgown up in an impatient motion, exposing what was between her thighs, her rosy, puffy folds glistening with her moisture.

She pressed her lips together, struggling to hold back the sound of discomfort as he pushed against her, forcing the fat, pink head of his cock between her tight walls. He sighed heavily, feeling how wonderfully she clenched around him on all sides, hot and surprisingly soft.

"− fuck −" He gasped out, spreading her thighs wider with his leg − she cried out loudly as he sank all the way into her with one sure thrust, her fleshy muscles throbbing againt him in panic.

They both began panting loudly as, in some subconscious, natural reflex, he began to pound into her with the impatient, aggressive stabs of his hips.

"− fucking whore −" He growled angrily, clamping his hand painfully tight on her hair, her mouth parted wide in a helpless moan as he suddenly quickened his pace, looking down, feeling a wonderful thrill of elation at the sight of his manhood opening her slick folds wide again and again with deep, brutal thrusts of his hips.

"− bastard −" She cried out, responding however to the pushes of his hips with a fierceness from which his voice stuck in his throat. He was no longer sure, groaning low with pleasure, feeling the way her walls squeezed him wonderfully, sucking him inside, whether what they were saying was true or just a test of strength and dominance, an attempt to establish who would have the last word.

"− shut the fuck up − to think you still have the strength to babble − shall I put it in your mouth so you'll finally be quiet? −" He snorted through clenched teeth, gripping his free hand over the soft, smooth skin of her firm buttocks, slamming into her like mad.

It seemed to him that they were both moaning and panting too loudly, as if they were in some kind of frenzy, his thighs slapping against her bare skin with a sticky smack again and again, barely sliding out of her.

"− fuck − o-oh fuck, stop −" He gasped out as he felt her muscles suddenly clench greedily against his manhood at his words, intensifying his sensations. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes as he heard sweet, loud moans of fulfillment begin to erupt from her throat, her body trembling all over − she whimpered when he didn't slow down, chasing his own fulfilment.

"− I know − fuck, just a moment longer − shhh −" He hushed her and groaned low, sighing in relief when he felt that wonderful, relaxing feeling, bliss in his mind and whole body, delight as his seed spilled deep inside her, right where it belonged.

His hips rocked inside her a moment longer with her mumble of displeasure, her eyes closed, her breathing ragged, her fingers trailing over the table top as if she couldn't calm down.

"− it's alright − easy − it's alright −" He whispered, panting heavily, stroking her soft hair with slow, tender gesture, her eyebrows arched in pain as she wept loudly, tears one after another began to run down her face.

He wasn't sure if she was crying from relief that she had it behind her or from grief that she had to go through this again.

"− I know − I know −" He hummed, running his fingers over her smooth, dark curls, for some reason feeling the need to reassure her, fulfilled and content after what had happened between them, his half-soft manhood still twitching deep inside her, all slick from their shared moisture.

"− I don't blame you, wife − that man was weak, as was his seed − you will soon bear me a son −"

_____

Aemond Taglist:

(bold means I couldn't tag you)

@notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar

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joelsgreys · 1 year

Text

we need you

Post Outbreak! Joel Miller x Female Reader

summary: Afraid of failing the two of the people he cares about more than anything, Joel decides you and Ellie are better off without him.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. SET IN JACKSON. takes place during Kin. arguing, angst. helpful to know reader was not present when Joel and Tommy talked in the garage. NO mentions of age, reader has no physical description.

word count: 1.6k

a/n: welllllp i don't know about you guys, but i am DEAD inside after tonight so to cope i am going to write a little drabble. already put it in the warning/tags section, but once again, just to be on the safe side of things: potential spoilers, proceed with caution if you do not want the newest episode spoiled!

“Just what in the motherfucking hell was that, Joel?” You nearly growled, bursting through the door of the bedroom that he’d chosen to occupy for the night. Having heard the way he’d spoken to Ellie—not to mention, all that he had said to her even after her heartbreaking confession to him, her unspoken cry for him not to abandon her, all you could see in your mind was the color red. Sure, you and Joel had been through your fair share of bullshit over the years, disagreements that caused friction between the two of you weren’t all that uncommon seeing as the two of you shared similar personality traits to each other, stubbornness being one of them. But you could not, for the life of you, remember an occasion where you’d been this angry with him, this fucking livid. As you watched him sink down onto the bed without a word, your hands curled into fists at your sides. You knew it would only make matters worse, losing your temper, but you weren’t all too sure that you could contain it this time around.

The blood in your veins was bubbling, boiling hot underneath your skin.

“Are you going to fucking answer me or what?” You prompted, a cool edge to your tone despite the heat radiating throughout your body. “You’re really trying to hand her off to Tommy?”

Joel sighed, shaking his head. “You weren’t supposed to find out like this.”

“Find what out, Joel? That you went off and made a decision, and a really fucking dumb one at that, without even talking to me about it first?” You crossed your arms over your chest, glaring at him. Despite how incredibly furious you were, the sadness was heavy inside of your chest. Tt was as if Joel had forgotten the fact that for the last few months, Ellie had been under your care too, and you had every right to be a part of any decision that he made regarding her and her well-being. It hurt you to your very core that he’d done this without talking to you first, and it hurt you even deeper to know that Ellie had known about this and she’d kept it all to herself all evening.

She’d come home from the movies and when you offered her dinner, she refused to eat and stomped upstairs, locking herself in the bedroom. You’d chalked it up to nothing more than a typical teenaged girl simply having a mood swing. After all, it hadn’t exactly been the best day for Ellie. She’d arrived in Jackson and the first thing she noticed was how everyone in the colony looked at her, especially the children. She was different. She didn’t fit in, she stuck out like a sore thumb and you knew that had to have been hard for her. Not wanting to push her, you’d figured that she would come out of the room eventually and talk you about it when she was good and ready. But now that you knew the real reason why she had come home so upset, you couldn’t help but to feel guilty.

For hours, Ellie had been upstairs in that room knowing that Joel planned on dumping her on Tommy and you didn’t have the slightest fucking clue about what was going on until you’d overheard Joel and Ellie’s shouting match just moments ago.

“Joel.” You said his name in a tone neither of you recognized.

Low, venomous, borderline dangerous.

You were like a ticking bomb, seconds away from going off.

Joel narrowed his eyes at you. “She’s better off with Tommy, alright? And we both fuckin’ know that,” he said. “It’s the best thing to do for her. I’m doin’ it because I know damn good and well that if she stays with me, all I’m gonna do is have her fall into the wrong fuckin’ hands or killed.”

“You’re wrong!” You countered, dropping your arms away from your chest and back down to your sides. “Joel, don’t you dare fucking do this. Ellie doesn’t want Tommy, she wants you. She all but fucking said it right to your face just a minute ago!” You cried, pointing a finger towards the door of the room as if pointing to Ellie herself. “She admitted to you that she wouldn’t feel safe with anyone else, Joel. So don’t you fucking do this to her.”

He gripped the edge of the bed, his knuckles going ghost white. “She’ll be better off with Tommy,” he repeated himself. He paused for a brief moment, just long enough to avert his tortured gaze from yours as he said, “And so would you.”

Your mouth parted slightly in shock. “Fucking excuse me?”

“I can’t keep her safe. Hell, I can barely keep you safe! How many fuckin’ times have I almost lost you? ‘Cause I don’t move fast enough? ‘Cause I’ve made the wrong decisions? ‘Cause I’ve asked you to do somethin’ for me and turns out that I unknowingly sent you into the fuckin’ lion’s den?” He inhaled a sharp breath, and you could hear his voice breaking with each and every word that fell from his lips. “I’ve almost cost you your life how many fuckin’ times now?”

“Joel—”

“Tess died ‘cause of me.” He saw you open your mouth to protest and he quickly added, “You can sit there and tell me over and over that it wasn’t my fault ‘til you’re blue in the face, but let’s just fuckin’ be honest and tell it how it is, alright? I couldn’t get to her quick enough and now she’s dead. I won’t let you meet the same fate.” Joel reached up, raking a hand tiredly through his hair, mentally bracing himself for your reaction to what he was about to say next. “I think you should go with Tommy and get Ellie to where she needs to be. After that, you should—you should think about stayin’ here with him in Jackson. I probably don’t belong here, but you do.”

You let out a small, shaky breath of air.

“Who the hell are you to make that kind of decision for me?” You asked, willing yourself to keep yourself from crumbling into tears. “I’m sorry Joel, but you can’t make that kind of a choice for me. And do you want to know what else?” You didn’t even wait for him to respond. “You can’t make it for Ellie, either.”

“She’s fuckin’ fourteen years old—”

You took a step forward as you challenged him. “Do you really think that girl isn’t smart enough to know deep down inside what’s best for her? Tell me, do you really think that Ellie pulled everything she said out of her ass? Do you honestly think that she could ever trust Tommy the way that she trusts you?” You felt a warm tear slide down your cheek and quickly wiped it away before he could see it. “Ellie is young, but she’s not a baby, Joel. I get that sometimes we need to guide her through shit, but let’s be real. She is old enough to make decisions for herself. Maybe not all of them, but the decision that you’re trying to make for her right here, right now—it isn’t yours to make.” Another tear made its way down the side of your face as you whispered, “And the one you’re trying to make for me isn’t either.”

Joel hung his head, seemingly defeated. “Why can’t you see it’s for the best? Why are you makin’ this so hard?”

Willing your trembling legs to move, you slowly walked over to him and sank to your knees in front of him; although you tried to meet his eyes, he refused. “You care about Ellie. I know it, I can see it and I can feel it. For as much shit as you give her all the time, I know that she’s become so important to you.”

“‘Course she is,” he mumbled. “You’re both important to me.”

You reached for his hands, pulling them forward onto his lap. You placed your own hands on top of his, lacing your fingers together. “Then don’t fucking do this to us, Joel. Please. I’m already down on my knees and I will fucking beg and plead if that’s what it’s going to take.” You crouched down a little further, enough so that you could look up into his dark brown eyes. “Ellie wants to be with you, Joel. And I do too.”

Joel’s gaze glistened with tears that he tried, but failed, to keep from falling in front of you. “I’ll fail you, just like I’ve fuckin’ failed everybody else.”

“Joel, please listen to me. Hear what I am saying, for the love of Christ. We have come so far,” You said, firmly squeezing his hands in yours as if somehow that would snap him out of it. “Whether you choose to believe or not, we’ve only come this far because of you. You have done so much for us. It’s why we trust you, why we feel safe with you. Me and Ellie, we belong with you, Joel—not with Tommy, not with anyone else. We need you, okay? We fucking need you. Do you understand me, Joel?”

Joel exhaled the breath he’d been holding shakily, leaning down to be closer to you. Closing his eyes, he rested his forehead against yours as he tried to even out his breathing.

Rubbing the back of his hands with your thumbs in soothing circles, you lifted your head and lightly pressed your lips against his forehead.

“We’re going to finish what we started,” You murmured quietly against his skin, feeling a slight shudder rack his body as a single whimper escaped him. You squeezed his hands again. “Together, Joel.”

#joel miller x you #joel miller #joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller pedro pascal

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xx-lemon-drop-xx · 3 months

Note

Thor, Shiva, Poseidon, and Hades meeting their child, but they are created by humans using splices of their DNA during battle. Would they kill their child, or surrender the fight for their child?

💜 Anon <3

Thank you for the request! I ate this up like a fucking gourmet meal. I had a bit of a hard time on Hades part deciding, and like you asked in pms I didn't add in Shiva. Thank you for requesting!

Warnings: reader death, gn reader swearing, angst, Poseidon being Poseidon, wounds, ooc characters.

Request: Yes.

Words: 3,064.

Thor

Humans were distasteful, obnoxious and utterly shameless creatures. That was known to the gods as soon as they chose to pave their own paths and religions. And destroy the land granted to them by doing so. Ragnarok was a pointless arena full of boisterous clowns who’d assumed they had a chance. Thor was going to shatter those hopes.

The arena was deathly quiet as Thor was introduced as the first God up, Zeus’ plan to crush the hopes and dreams of fellow humans. On the god’s side of the arena, Goddesses, demi-gods, nymphs and others alike cheered at his arrival, despite his silent annoyance.

Heimdal cleared his throat, speaking into the mic to introduce Thor’s opponent. “And on the human side we have a guest made specifically to mimic the humans creators. Using the DNA of the righteous Thor. A man-made god. Child against Father. Introducing (Y/n)!”

It was a shushed silence of horror between man and god, a tense silence and a deadly aura. Zeus was shocked, though a look of slight interest was on his face. Aphrodite and Hermes had their hands over their mouths. And as expected Ares was yelling out a string of curses against the humans who dared defile godly presence.

Brunhilde, ever the calm, had her arms crossed over her chest whilst Goll couldn't even bring herself to speak. A man-made god? It sounded distasteful and shockingly sad.

The humans all had different reactions as well, Qin was overly interested, Adam was disappointed, Sasaki could only voice his thoughts in bitterness. “Their whole creation.. For a fight? How pitiful.”

Of course, the norse gods were to be affected the most out of this. The room's atmosphere seemed to darken, Odin’s nails digging into the chair and crumbling it under his strength. Pesky humans, making a child out of Thor’s dna? The thought alone caused his blood to boil, soaking the others in his rage as the aura of the room grew dark. Of course he couldn't leave it to those human pests to play fair, rather to stoop low enough to challenge their pride.

Loki’s smile shaped across his face big enough to threaten to tear the skin at his cheeks, his fingers grasping at his cheeks and dragging them down his face, tongue snaking out as his eyes trend towards that damned Valkyrie. What an interesting specimen indeed.

Thor had a straight face, though underneath that facade was a brewing storm. How.. Interesting. Facing what would be his child in a battle to the death. A kin he’d never met before, a kin he had no share of memories with. A kin he didn't even know he existed. Mjollnir felt heavier in his grasp for a moment. And he didn't quite understand why. You resemble him quite a bit. But was that something he should be proud of, as a person he’d never known existed.

Then, why was he so hesitant? Even the birds flying ahead seemed to quiet right down, joining the silence in the stadium.

“What is your name?”

“(Y/n).”

You had his quiet atmosphere too. How intriguing. Or perhaps you were stripped of those emotions a long while ago? He would have those human heads on a rope after he finished this fight.

“Ready yourself. Show me what a child of thunder can possess.”

Grabbing his hammer from its place next to him, he readied himself, and the clash between child and father began. You used no weapon, only the condensed electricity you created from fingertips. What an interesting being. No. How interesting his child was. You had complete control of lighting, redirecting his own power and using it back against him. You were quite fast too. Was this a branch of the power you controlled in that tiny body of yours, (Y/n)?

The insane grin that nabbed at Thor’s face while he fought felt like parental bonding. If only for a fleeting moment. He wondered, did you enjoy fighting as much as he did? The adrenaline, the pain, the excitement? But nothing showed through those unperturbed serious eyes of yours.

He of course noticed your changes. Your body couldn't handle the surplus of power. You were deteriorating. Such was the curse of a god being produced by a human. Your mortality would be your demise. So why did he want to stop despite all of the emotion of the fight running through his veins like smoldering lava?

Stopping wasn't a possibility though. In this tournament of power it was kill or be killed, slay or be slain.

Somewhere deep down, Thor knew you knew this was it. The final remnants of battle. Your finishing move skewered the sky apart in a flurry of blinding light, The loud crackle of lightning hitting the ground had everyone but him closing their eyes and turning away as dust blew through the stadium. He felt it though. The pain you felt in your attack. Against your creators, your family, against him. Against the world. The bloodthirsty need for revenge.

As it died down hitched gasps of shock and whispers of sweet ignorance rang through the air. Thor could feel that damned Valkyries eyes cutting through him like razor blades.

Falling to the ground, You broke apart into gorgeous green crystals that blew through the stadium in a soft wind. Through chill, glazing over eyes you saw Thor standing above you, nodding his head in proud approval. And what a wonderful emotion that was, flooding through your systems. The tears that filled your vision blurred out the world, hand outstretching in a final attempt to reach towards him but falling short. Your body stiffened, deteriorating.

Maybe in another time, things would have been different. Things would've been happier. Maybe you would've survived. Maybe in a different universe you and him were close, maybe you knew each other. The world was full of unfilled and empty maybes. Like a tapestry of lies.

“Rest, dear child of mine. I will seek the revenge your soul deserves.”

Poseidon

This whole thing was an annoyance to Poseidon. A Valkyrie thinks humanity deserves a chance and the gods agreed? What petty foolishness. They should have wiped the floor with those pesky vermin without a second glance. Yet here he stood, with half the stadium full of them and the other half full of slightly smarter idiots.

Only one person here deserved any glaces; and that was his elder brother and Hades alone.

After giving the obnoxious audience some time to calm down, Heimdal began to speak, “And for our humans side, produced from splices of the sea gods dna himself, I present to you, (Y/n!)”

The stadium went utterly silent. As if everyone was afraid to move a muscle, despite (Y/n) herself, walking up through the water with ease. The aura in the stadium was changing, darkening down in the belly of anger. Loki was ferocious, but amused all the while, hands coming up to cup his face as insane laughter echoed through from his place on one of the other thrones. Were these humans crazy or just stupid? Making a man-made god from one of the most feared to walk the mortal realm and Valhalla itself? Why of course they had to be, no one in their right minds would do such a desperate thing to win. Aphrodite and Shiva were in a silent state of shock and anger, while from a different room, Thor lifted his head in interest.

Brunhilde held a grin that showed her pearly whites, loving the gods' reactions. Did they truly think she wouldn't pull the strings as tight as they could go? “Sis.. That's.. That's terrible!” Goll was in a state of denial shock, looking down at the arena where the two fighters stood.

Sasaki’s hand rose to rub his chin in thought. “What matching auras those two have. I wonder, do they have the same mind, or were they carved into indifference differently?” Raiden laughed, one of borderline disbelief. “That poor kid. Made just for the fight huh?” The emotions ranged differently. Tesla wanted to know through what where you produced? How many failures were there before you? Science.

Zeus’ aura threatened his temper, his muscles bulking up and his hand raising to stroke his beard in interest. Through what thought process did those humans thought they would get away with something like this? Hades was in a silence, deep in thought and emotions indecipherable. Ares was in an uproar and Hermes was sipping tea in amused interest.

Poseidon himself had no thoughts or words despite what he came here to do. It didn’t matter if you were made from his Dna or from his skin alone. Standing in front of him was another being unworthy of his time and his precense. Though, you both did look alike and share the same steely resolve.

“Insolent pest.” You both shared a mirrored scowl, your head tilting to the side in mocking defiance.

“Lily-livered snot sniffer.”

Zeus let out a laugh of pure amusement. eyebrows shooting up, whilst a smirk curled up on Hades face.

Poseidon faced what seemed to be a mirror image of himself. And that was not something he took kindly to. Especially not your attitude either. With a burst of speed Poseidon was on top of you, Trident already thrusting directly at your face. Although, you weren't his child for no reason at all.

Poseidon narrowed his eyes ever so slightly as you parried his attack with water. That was his domain. Though it seemed now it ran through the blood relation you both had. How interesting it was, such an inadequate person could control such a sliver of water with a few twitches of fingertips. Blood splattered across the floor or the arena before anyone could muster up a gasp, eyes widening.

“Th-There seems to have been blood dropped already! (Y/n) has sliced the Great Poseidon straight across the chest!” Heimdal screamed out, much to both of your annoyances. So this, this beast of a man was your father? No wonder you acted like a snob. The both of you disappeared from sight again, after images fleeting across the arena as you both taught toe to toe. Like a dance. Poseidon was almost impressed. But his copy was just a copy and the original was always the better of the options.

He spun around his Trident, dripping with the blood from your cheek and shot forwards, releasing a barrage of attacks. Amphitrite. Though you weren't so slow not to catch up, even shooting past some of his attacks enough to make him back up. More blood splattered across the floor of the arena. The both of you now suffering wounds.

You manipulated water with ease, he had picked up on, making weapons out of it and shields. Even waves to try and knock him around. Though you weren't the only one that could control water. Your movements were filled with underlying anger, he'd noted. Anger towards what? He didn't know and he didn't bother to ask either. He didn't come here for a sob story.

You pierced him through the side with a spear of water, and he did the same to you, the both of you twisting around. You were beginning to get dizzy, blood loss affecting you. He'd noticed the rings on your hands seemed to be your divine weapon. Though you could likely control water just fine without it too.

The fight ended three minutes after it started, his Trident plowing through your stomach. He let your body slide down towards him, your hands gripping onto the poke of the Trident. “Not bad.” He said bluntly, eyes widening as you raised a hand, severing his arm from his shoulder in a lasting rage before breaking apart into the air in a flurry of green.

He moved off the arena with silence, leaving you to disperse into the rest of the air. Good enough to be his child, no. But.. A worthy opponent indeed. You'd even managed to take off his arm.

“Not bad at all..”

Hades

Hades was here for one reason. To avenge his dear brother. He didn't bat an eye at the disputing differences between humans and the other gods, his eyes held a calmness as he was introduced into the arena. The crowd sounded excited to some extent, he'd noted. Yet again, it wasn't everyday you got to see the god of the underworld come up for a fight. He had business to attend to yes, but this was much a more important matter to handle.

“Created by humans in the image of Hades, I present to you, (Y/n)! Representing humanity for this round of Ragnarok! Don't let them surprise you, made from Hades Dna, they're expected to pack a punch.” Heimdal introduced you to the field, much to his interest and the gods' anger.

What did they mean, a human made god? What bullshit. Shiva laughed at the thought of it, hiding a bout of anger under it all. How annoying. Those humans really thought they could create a god of all things. Why, it was just laughable. Buddha's eyebrows shot up in keen interest, a smirk taking up on his lips. “Well well.. Looky here. Brunhilde, you sly Valkyrie, using Hades' love of family against him.” Loki and Aphrodite's mouths were slightly slack as they stared down at you. “Well.. Aren't they just gorgeous?” Aphrodite murmured.

Brunhilde held a wicked grin as her and Hades shared eye contact, her smile only widening in amusement. Ah, the looks on their faces. It was something she could lounge in for days.

The humans were filled with interest, Adam sitting up a bit against Eve's lap. “A man made god? But how?” Technology wasn't his thing, suffice to say the least. Qin was quite amused, leaning forwards to view the arena better. And Jack hummed. “I sense quite the amount of anger in that young one's veins.” “Anger?” Adam questioned, frowning. “Why of course, good sir.” Jack poured some tea, “Hoe would you like, being created simply for the purpose of war? A shame it would be, yes?”

Zeus and Adamas stared down into the arena, eyes wide in utter shock. “What do those filthy pests think they're doing!? Using my brother's DNA to make.. Make a pawn!” Adamas bellowed out, making his anger known to the group. “Calm now, dear brother. Humans can stoop quite low when they feel threatened. I expected no less.” Zeus rasped, clearing his throat. “You're just okay with this!?” Ares choked out, “Why no, I'm quite.. Pissed, Ares.” Zeus responded, steam rolling into the air from his small noodle body.

Hades held an expression nothing less of surprise, though it calmed almost immediately. So, this could be considered his child? Why, they both did look strikingly similar. From the nose to the eyes down to the tips of their toes. How interesting. He took a step towards, though not a threatening one, holding his weapon with a firm hand. “I am here to avenge my brother. My apologies, little one.”

“I am here.. Because I have to be.” That didn't seem a reason that involved importance. Rather more than force. But could he really do this? Yes, his brother was family but this.. Spawn was as well. Hades wore he would protect his family to the best of his ability, wasn't that going against his words?

He launched forwards, and you dodged him with ease, slicing your skin open with the iron claw-like ring you wore on your finger. And the blood transformed. How interesting. He dodged the incoming weapon, made from straight blood and twisted around to stab at your side, catching the skin of your shirt only. Well aren't you just a quick one on your feet?

That was something he could respect. You seemed well trained. Despite the blows dealt between the both of you, Hades could tell there was an underlying rage. Towards humans? He'd wondered. Well, that would make sense. You've been used from the day you were born. How much of that could you take though.

He sent you flying back into the wall with a timed attack, watching you crawl back to your feet. “Not bad, for someone not trained by a god's hand.”

“Not bad for a dead man.” Your words were blunt as you charged forwards, and Hades' side stepped, at this point just toying with you a bit. This was a hard decision. And Zeus and Adams were on their toes about what his answer would be.

The fighting lasted for a good long while, the both of you covered in blood. You staggered forwards after a long while. Honestly, he was impressed. Hades never knew someone could withstand blood loss as long as he could. Perhaps it ran in the genes. His opponents' defenses were open.

The tip of his bidet tore into your skin, and he watched you prepare through the ending blow. Pulling away his bidet with a drawn out hesitant breath, Hades knelt down, and brushed some hair from your eyes, before extending his hand.

“Come on, (Y/n). Let's go home.”

The series of words were weird and (Y/n) wasn't used to them. No, you weren't used to them at all. But his eyes held the gentleness of a warm bath after a long tiring day. He supported your weight as you both stood up, surrendering the fight to the humans.

“I won't let you fall into their hands again, kid. We have a lot to learn about each other. You are angry. And you deserve to be angry. And you deserve to process.”

Hades wondered what Poseidon would have thought of this? Would he think of him as a coward? That didn't matter now. He had a child to introduce to the family. His head raised, looking into the wide eyes of a stunned audience as the both of you walked on out of the torn apart stadium.

#x reader #gn reader #record of ragnarok #ror hades #shuumatsu no valkyrie #ror headcanons #ror poseidon #ror thor #snv thor #snv poseidon #snv hades

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batterygarden · 2 years

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even more bf Denji hcs

Part 3; F!reader, suggestive moment MDNI, college age, very miscellaneous

m.list , part 1, part 2

One time you were complaining about your lower back aching all day and Denji was sick of it. “I could just crack your back right now and ya wouldn’t have to be hurting.” “Denji you’re not a chiropractor, it’s fine.” “A what? Here, just turn around.” You hesitantly faced the other way and Denji swiftly karate chopped your spine so hard it knocked the wind out of you. Then somehow your back did feel kinda better.

Animals absolutely love this man. Kids too. It kinda hurts your feelings that they seem to forget you’re there the second Denji walks in a room, but there’s just something about his energy that has them gravitating. Even your own kin!! Your own little cousins and family members. Like you’ll show up to a dinner without him and when they see you’re alone it’s all frowns and “Where’s Denji? Why didn’t he come?”

Sometimes Denji’s openness with strangers leads to the wrong idea, and, occasionally, Denji will get hit on despite having a girlfriend. If no one else is there to notice, he honestly just gives a polite yet firm “I have a girlfriend.” in response. But on one occasion it happened while you were standing next to him, and, not wanting you to feel jealous, Denji crossed his arms and scowled. “Can’t ya see my lover standing right here?? Get lost, champ! I’d never be interested in you or anyone but her! >:-(“

The person promptly apologized and left. “Denji.. I’m glad you’re loyal but you didn’t have to do all that.”

Denji has to mumble sorry in between kisses when he accidentally bites you. “No it’s okay, I like a little biting!” “Oh yeah?” He smirks then deliberately chomps hard on your lower lip. ”Ow! Not like that.” “sorry.”

He is a talented sleeper! Before he met you, you could have named any location and Denji would have claimed to be able to nap there. Now that you’re in the picture though, Denji’s gotten a little more high maintenance. He still thinks he could fall asleep anywhere—but now it’s only if you’re there too. Denji feels your absence, he can’t relax the same way he used to be able to without you. So he has to be really tired and in a comfy bed to fall asleep somewhere you’re not.

Speaking of sleep, napping together is one of Denji’s love languages. You have to be cuddling though, or at the very least holding hands, or else it isn’t the same. Denji’s favorite napping position is one where his head’s on your chest, listening to your heartbeat. He’s always happy spooning too.

“Y’smell kinda nice.” Oh yeah? Only kinda? “No no very nice. Like, you smell like uhh.. that freezuh stuff you use.” My freesia perfume?? Thanks.

He’s a sassy texter for certain :(

You text him you won’t be home for another 30 minutes and he thumbs down the message and sends back “ugh! 😒”

“If there was a zombie apocalypse I’d so die cause of you.” “Huh!” “I just know we’d be fucking scavenging in some old supermarket and I’d be getting us food and weapons and you’d be riskin’ it all to try and stock up on your see-rah vay face wash or somethin’” “You mean my Cera Ve cleanser??”

He’d rent one of those electric scooters to ride around town and then immediately crash it. You have to make him wear a helmet next time.

He narrates random things he’s doing. He did it all the time growing up with Pochita, and old habits die hard. You find it endearing! Sometimes it’s just mumbling “okay now I’m gonna get dish soap and put some on the plate… and now we gotta scrub it clean..”

He’s careful as hell when trying out new kinks with you. He doesn’t want to hurt you and he cares so much that you’re comfortable!! Like if you’re asking for some bdsm he’s down to try! He is kinky too! But like… constant check-ins at first. And a safe word for sure.

He will EAT UP some deez nuts jokes 😞. The day you were craving a Wendy’s frosty around him was the day you lost peace.

A mall trip with Denji… oh my god he’d have a ball. Getting Cinnabon and trying on a million pairs of shoes—there’s so much to do! Then you start tugging his hand towards the Victoria’s Secret and his cheeks almost burn off. He pretends like he’s been in there before and it’s no big deal but his brain is on red alert Where am I supposed to look???

Like he’s touched underwear before! While doing laundry and while looking for things in your dresser and most importantly while you were wearing it, but he can’t help but feel like a perv doing it in public. So when you ask him to “feel how soft this bra is,” he has to triple check no one is paying attention to him first.

This man is a board game CHEATER. And he’s never ever as sneaky about it as he thinks he is. He’ll ask you to leave the room to get something for him at the most convenient times and you’ll come back to missing chess pieces or your hand of cards laying in a different position. If Power is there she’s an automatic co-conspirator; you may as well give up and admit defeat the easy way.

He’s convinced you have magic kisses—and maybe it’s a placebo situation but your lips do seem to carry healing properties for him. His headaches will go away. His sinuses will clear. He’ll get a boost of energy. You can always motivate him with them. If he was stuck in the desert for thirty days he’d take a kiss from you before taking water.

kinda short but im thinkin im going to try and post csm stuff at least every csm tuesday! also sorry i've been slow on requests--I appreciate them and am working on them just slow bc im busy! I updated info ab those in masterlist <3

#csm headcanons #denji x you #Denji x reader #chainsaw man drabble #chainsaw man headcannons #Denji fluff #boyfriend Denji #bf Denji #Denji hcs #denji/reader #csm x reader #csm fics

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anonymooseforever007 · 1 year

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Shadow by the Bed

(Mainly Finn & Tommy platonically) + (Technically Finn Shelby x Unnamed Girlfriend)

Summary: It's the middle of the night after a family party and everything seems calm. Until Lizzie's woken up by a shadowy figure standing over her and Tommy's bed.....

A/N: Hi Y'all! No trigger warnings other than Finn and his Girlfriend getting drunk. Also even though this was made as a Finn x Reader fic in mind, it really is a Finn and Tommy funny fluff fic, and I actually didn't use Y/N in this one at all. I think I want to connect it to some more ideas I have for the same girlfriend in mind, hence the tag. But the prompt for this one has been on my mind for a while and it was super fun to write! Also I looked it up and it seems the first "instant portable camera" so to speak was invented in 1923 which I checked on that fact! Enjoy❤️

WC-4.2k

Main Masterlist

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It was Lizzie who woke up in the early morning to the sound of master bedroom being entered. The squeak of a doorknob broke through her previously unconscious mind, and the soft stumbling steps towards the bed woke her even further. And for a second, her sleep idled mind thought it was Tommy.....but he was ,for once, sound asleep next to her. Then she thought it could be Charlie, trying to find comfort in their bed after a nightmare. But when she looked over, her blood ran cold and she froze, seeing the tall figure standing by the side of the bed, cloaked in shadows too dark to see his face.

The intruder looked at her for a second, and tilted his head, as if he was confused to why she was there. Tommy himself still hadn't woken up which served to scare Lizzie even more since he was probably the lightest sleeper she'd ever met. Every time she went to check on baby Ruby, or when Charlie tried to sneak in because of a nightmare, Tommy would be wide awake as soon as be heard the turn of the doorknob or footsteps by the bed. So the fact her usually vigilant husband was still softly snoring while an unknown man stood over them both, only increased her growing fear of what was about to occur. But before she could open her mouth to scream or hit Tommy awake, the figure moved again. He raised his hand and waved at her, almost eagerly, like he finally recognized her as someone he liked a lot.

"Hiii Lizzzzieee!"

Finn.

It was Finn standing beside the bed in the middle of the night waving at her. He was drunk too, very drunk in fact, but Lizzie recognized her youngest brother in law. She remembered the party the family had that night. By then end of it, the only two people remaining in the living room were Finn and his girlfriend who, sat on his lap as they eagerly talked, lost in their own little world again. Evidently, after the rest of his kin had gone away Finn decided he wanted another drink... or four. Placing her hand over her chest, she took a few breaths trying to calm her racing heart. Now it made sense why Tommy hadn't woken up.

Thomas Shelby was a hard man to sneak up on, even in his sleep. He was a light sleeper and had been since before the war. Almost every little creak or bump in the night was enough to wake him to at least open one eye and see what was going on. It was like his mind perceived any noise as a possible threat he needed to size up. And as he grew older it remained that way. But for some reason, Finn was the only one able to move around at night and not wake up Tommy. It didn't matter if he was trying to be quiet or accidentally knocking over the dining room chairs at three o'clock in the morning. It was like Tommy's internal danger sensor had a glitch that would skip over any ruckus made by his youngest sibling. And there was a reason for that too. It was likely caused by the years of young Finn sneaking into Tommy's bed at night. Whether it was because of the cold or nightmares or just because he wanted to, there were many nights before the war then Tommy would wake up to his youngest brother sprawled out on his chest hogging all the blankets. And even if in the beginning Tommy would wake up, it seemed he got use to it. So much to the point where his little brother's movements at night became a background noise he could recognize even in sleep. One he recognized as nonthreatening and thus not a reason to wake up. And it was a noise he could apparently remember even years later today. Hence why Tommy was currently laying on his bed eyes closed and breathing peaceful, while his youngest brother and his wife stared each other down.

"Hiiii Lizzie....."

Finn repeated again, slurring slightly, noticing he didn't get an answer the first time and in his fogged mind figured she hadn't heard him. Lizzie ran a hand down her face once and finally composed herself again, whispering to the freckled twenty year old who grinned at her drunkenly.

"Finn? What are you doing here? Is everything alright," she questioned, hoping that nothing had happened to him or his sweet girlfriend after the family had left them. She couldn't think of any reason why he'd be here otherwise. Something must have been wrong. Tommy grumbled slightly and shifted in his sleep at her words.

"Noo.. It's all fineee," Finn replied, his words being drawn out and trialing off as he spoke. But he still hadn't told Lizzie why he was there. She'd evidently have to try a new route.

"Ok, that's nice Finn," Lizzie spoke in the same manner she did to four year old Charlie when he showed her the croaking dirt covered mystery box he was trying to take to the bathtub one day. She still wasn't sure how he'd caught so many frogs... "Why don't you tell me why you're here ok? Wouldn't you rather sleep in your bed?l

"No. I want Tommy."

"Tommy?"

"Yeahhhh, I need Tommy right now," Finn raised a hand to rub the back of his head, nodding like everything made sense. He nodded to himself again, looking down at his sleeping brother once more. Then to Lizzie's surprise, and with much more agility than a drunken boy should have, he sat on the bed and rolled to lay right on top of his older brother. It was the sudden weight on top of him that finally woke Tommy. Even if he could ignore the noises his little brother made moving around the room, the sudden, almost crushing heaviness on his chest was enough to scare him out of his sleep.

"Fucking fuck....Fuck!"

Tommy shot up, cursing as he tried to get his bearings. Well, he tried but the heavy mass on top of him, grumbling in his ear, made it hard to move. Fortunately, before he could grab his razor cap from the side of the bed, he recognized the annoyed whine of his baby brother coming from the man whose head he was trying to shove back. It was Finn. Why the fuck was Finn on top of him?

"Finn?"

"Tommmyyyy!," the mentioned man groaned lightly as Finn shifted on top of him. Despite being the youngest, Finn had nearly a head over his brothers and wasn't quite the tiny little thing he use to be. He practically blanketed Tommy as he sprawled over the bed. "Tommy I'm gonna sleep here tonight. I want you to rub my back."

A brief glance to his left, showed Tommy his wife who was quietly laughing at his predicament. After she got over the fear of his intrusion, Lizzie found the whole situation quite entertaining. It wasn't often Tommy was caught so off guard, especially when he couldn't just threaten or fight the person off like he usually did. Polly would probably beat his ass if he shoved Finn off him and left him to his own devices while this intoxicated. It didn't happen too often, but when Finn did get as drunk as his older brothers usually did, it never ended well. Last time it ended with him climbing a tree and refusing to get down even when all his brothers demanded it. To his brothers' slight annoyance, in the end, all it had taken to get him down was his girlfriend passing by on the street, who saw him and asked if he would come down to hold her hand. Before she had even finished her request, he was out of the tree, fingers entwined with hers, grinning like an idiot even though she was softly lecturing him on the dangers of drunk climbing. But now, Finn's girl was nowhere in Tommy's, admittedly limited, sight. That still didn't stop the growing annoyance towards the brother who'd interrupted his sleep.

"Don't you have a your own bed to do that? And stop moving your fucking legs, I don't need you kicking me in the balls."

Somewhat defeated, Tommy closed his eyes again and laid his head back against his pillow. Lizzie, still laughing silently, obviously wasn't going to help him, and truth be told Tommy was still tired enough that he didn't want to keep trying to move what wasn't moving. Finn ignored his last comment, shifting again to get more comfortable, and buried his face deeper into the blankets on top of Tommy.

"I can't go to bed. My girl's there."

"Your girlfriend's in your bed?"

"Yeah, I have a girlfriendddd and she's reallyyy pretty and I lo..loveee her and she helps me read and she had this really cute fucking freckle on her top lip that's slightly off the middle and you can only see it if..." Finn's intoxicated rambling about his favorite person could barely be heard as he described his love. Rolling his eyes beneath closed lids, Tommy wished he could free one of his hands to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"That's great Finn, she sounds great, so why don't you go to her and ask her to rub your back and play with your hair? Why don't you get in bed with her?"

It was a decent enough question too. What would compel a young drunk man to seek the company of his grumpy older brother over the girl he's so in love with? Especially if he wants affection. In fact, Tommy was rather confused why Finn came to him instead of her. He knew that when he was this young and drunk he would rather have been with Greta than Arthur any day of the week. He remembered the nights long ago when they'd both fall asleep on his small bed after a night out. She use to play with his hair and kiss his neck lightly while he drunkenly professed his love in Romani... But that was a long time ago. And judging by the way his head finally shot up in shock, and by how he attempted to...glare maybe?....At Tommy, Finn had other opinions.

"I'm a not fucking pervert," he slurred out slightly while mixing up his words and bringing up a hand to thump his brother on the head, almost as if admonishing him for suggesting such a thing. Which confused Tommy even more as it wouldn't have been the first Finn shared a bed with his girlfriend. He'd come across them curled up in Finn's room after a party on more than once occasion, so it wouldn't be a stretch for it to happen again.

"What does that.... stop fucking hitting me... Lizzie grab his hand... Lizzie help me.... Lizzie help.... ok. What the fuck does that mean?"

Rolling his eyes (or trying to) and pulling up his head to scrutinize his brother again, Finn huffed.

"She's drunk. I'm not gonna get in bed with her if she's drunk," he explained as it was the most obvious thing ever. "She doesn't like doing it with me. So I'm not going to do it with her. It's respectful and all that shit."

"She's drunk?"

"Yeahhhh, we played a game to see who could flip a coin into a cup first and if you lost you had to drink and theeenn we both lost a lot. And she kept giggling and almost tripped on the stairs and then she was tired so she's sleeping in my bed. But I'm not gonna get in with her. Not tonight. No no no," Finn shook his head eyes closed as he recounted the end of his night with his girl. Even if he had too many drinks, he still remembered all the times she sent him to her couch for being a bit too tipsy after a night out. Sure, she'd still give him water and kiss his forehead, but she didn't want to risk getting thrown up on. Besides she had told him she didn't feel comfortable getting in bed with him when he was drunk and he figured she'd feel the same way about it if she was.

Finn kept shaking his head to show how much he wouldn't be sleeping in his room that night, until the motion made him nauseous and he groaned burying his head back on the bed. He didn't notice Tommy's look to Lizzie, who was already grabbing her robe from the side of the bed to go check on the occupant in Finn's room. Though it was unlikely she was injured or needed help, the older pair felt it would be safer to check just in case.

Now the only two people in the room were Tommy and Finn, the latter of whom was still sprawled out over his brother. Tommy shifted around once again, hoping that Finn would move to take the spot Lizzie left empty but to no avail. It only served to make Finn groan more as the consequences of the alcohol began to hit his his system.

"Tommy.... rub my back... don't you love me?"

Finn had resorted to trying to guilt trip his brother now. It was something he'd done many times when he was younger. Asking for something and then questioning his siblings love if they said no. It was always done with the mischievous intentions of a sneaky child. It rarely worked on Polly, who was immune by now to the childish manipulation, but more often than not his siblings were more than willing to "prove" they loved him the most.

Tommy let out another sigh, but this one was laced with slight amusement. Even if it was slightly annoying, there was some entertainment to seeing Finn this way. It felt nice for Tommy to be able to recognise the bit of youth still left in him. Truth be told, he didn't see it as much anymore.

In recent years, Finn had become very different from the kid he use to be. And not in the fact that he was a bit harder like his brothers. No, Finn was undoubtedly softer than the rest of his family, something that wasn't necessarily bad. But as he'd grown, the effects of the pressure he felt from his family had become more and more obvious. Almost gone was the Finn young who use to ask lots of questions and run around, rather spending the day playing football than sit at desk. He was replaced with a quieter young man who often lacked the confidence his older brothers posed. He didn't laugh loud enough to be heard from the street like he use to, always unsure if it was the right thing to laugh at or not. He seemed to make a point at time never to be louder than his brothers. like they set all the limits for what should be done. Where his brothers gladly wielded the power their last name held, Finn didn't seem to know what to do with it. He was always somewhat tense even around his closest family and friends. Like if he fully relaxed and acted as he did when comfortable, he'd be teased or told to man up like so often before. Tommy wouldn't apologise for it, but he knew it was partially him and his brothers fault for that. The anxieties that came with what Finn thought his family would want him to say or do or enjoy often lead him stay quiet, and do nothing, rather risk the wrong thing. At it's worst, it came to a point where someone would have probably looked at him and the only words they'd have been able to use to describe him would be Shelby and Blinder. He's gotten so caught up in appeasing his family he forgot to have a life and personality outside the image he believed they wanted him to be.

Luckily however, finding his girlfriend seemed to fix that. She was the sweet girl who had agreed to teach him how to read. One day their lesson plans switched from reading words in books to reading the word cards during a silent film. Then when she started taking him places with her friends and going to do the things they liked to do, Finn was able to get a bit of his younger self back. When he was able to find a place in life that was completely separated from the one he was strictly living, and have time to try interests he enjoyed independently, even if his brothers didn't care for them.... That's when his family noticed another, admittedly healthier, change in their youngest. He was more relaxed and comfortable making his own decisions, knowing that there was someone there for him at the end of the day, even if he'd messed up at work or the rest of his family was fighting. A little bit more social at the family gatherings again, he wasn't as annoyed by the teasing comments they'd always made, and felt a bit more confident to share his opinions, knowing he had someone who'd usually try to back him up or at least hear him out. His girlfriend had done some good in him, helping him recognise that he could still have a life outside of his family's expectations. And while it did hinder somewhat his brothers plans to toughen him up to the darker side of the business, they were glad to see Finn a happy as he was. When he was around her he reminded them of the bouncy kid he was when he still laughed loud enough to be heard down the street. And Tommy was glad for that.

"Tommmmyy," Finn mumbled again, his eyes were closed and he was almost asleep. His words were barely audible. Tommy looked at the face of his twenty year old brother, seeing it was still so much like the one he'd had at five. Sure he'd lost the baby fat and gained a numerous amount of freckles and a few small scars, but it was still the face of the small boy who climbed in his bed because at night when Arthur's snoring sounded like a monster in his closest. It was the same face that shared a mischievous glint with Ada when he wanted to prank John. It was the same face that tears were streaming down on the day he'd left for France and the same one buried in his neck the day he'd returned. It was the face he kept seeing in nightmares for weeks after the Lee family blew up the car, imagining what would have happened if he hadn't got there in time. It was the face of Tommy's baby brother, he still didn't like to deny, even if he did it more and more often these days.

"Do you really want me to rub you back like I did when you were little?"

"Uh huhhh...."

Finally relenting, Tommy rolled his eyes again, but this time he had a small smile on his face. Giving a somewhat dramatic sigh, the older brother was finally able to free his arms from the weight on top of him. Then, much to Finn's delight, Tommy moved his arms around to rub and scratch his brother's back. He did it the same way he'd done it all those years ago, calming movements all the way down and then rubbing a few small circles between the shoulder blades. Occasionally he'd move one hand to the base of Finn's neck and place some pressure there for a few seconds.

Tommy's couldn't even hear Finn's mumbled thanks as the younger man had finally fallen asleep. The soft familiar snoring made it's way to Tommy's ears less than a minute after he'd finally given in, leaving him to chuckles softly under his breath. Finn always did fall asleep fast, especially when someone was rubbing his back. Tommy could have chosen to stop now, rescinding his hands and moving Finn off of him. He could have gotten up and gone to meet Lizzie in the guest room by the nursery that she was likely sleeping in now.... However he didn't.

That night Tommy would spend another half hour rubbing his sleeping brother's back, before he fell back into his own, surprising peaceful, sleep. Finn remained sprawled over his brother, softly snoring in his ear, while Tommy's hand lay on his brother's back, softly gripping the shirt he wore. And once again the night was calm.....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Fucking hell Ada, go slower or you're gonna step on my balls"

"I am going slow, it's not my fault that John's fat ass is making the bed squeak."

"Fuck off, my ass isn't fat! Besides at least I'm not the one using his head to keep my balance."

"All of you quiet before you wake them."

Argued whispers broke though Tommy's mind a few hours later. It confused his sleep idled mind. Not the fact they were arguing, that was a regular occurrence, but just hearing the voices of Arthur, Ada, and John so early in the morning. Why was he hearing them this early?...

Or maybe it wasn't early, Tommy could feel a warmth on his back probably from the morning sun. Usually he was at breakfast before it came up. Still half asleep, he ignored their argument, not wanting to deal with whatever fight they were having now, and shifted to get more comfortable. Only to find that he couldn't move, still held down by a heavy weight. Moving agin to try and free himself he realized that not only had he turned on his stomach during the night, but the warmth on his back was from Finn, still asleep hugging onto his form. He also figured it was Finn's hand gripping his hair tightly too. The quiet ginger had a habit of doing that in his sleep to Tommy when he was younger.

The hushed voices around the room froze, and he could feel eyes on his form. Then he felt the bed shift slightly and the soft thump of a hand hitting a chest. What the fuck was going on?

"Shit, Esme take it already."

Groaning at the bright light, Tommy opened his eyes and lifted up his head. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust and his nose inadvertently scrunched at having to wake up. For once, Tommy was actually sleeping well and he was mildly annoyed at having been disturbed. But that annoyance turned to more confusion soon enough.

Ada, John, and Arthur were all situated on their own spots in Tommy's bed. He could feel the back of Arthur's knees by his head to the left side of the bed and it was Arthur griping his hair, apparently for balance. Ada seemed to be next to Arthur sitting criss-cross, the extra pressure over his back indicating that she was leaning some of her weight on Finn. And John he could actually see sitting directly on the back of Tommy's knees, keeping him from rolling over again.... had Finn not still been sprawled on top of him. Looking to right he saw not just Esme, but Lizzie, Linda, Polly, Michael, AND Uncle Charlie watching them. He also noticed Finn's girlfriend over Lizzie's shoulder, wrapped tightly in a blanket, watching silently with a glass of water for her own hangover. They were all observing the scene before them with equal levels of amusement as all the Shelby siblings plied into one bed for the first time in an over a decade probably. It was that moment Tommy, still half asleep, noticed the camera in Esme's hands and realised what was about to occur. But he didn't get the chance to protest.

"Shit he's seen it, ESME GO!"

A second before Esme took the photo, Ads raised her hand and brought it down as hard as she could on Finn's back.

Scared shitless Finn shot awake and cursed, his eyes wide open. Instinctively he began fighting off whoever was on top of him, causing Tommy to groan in pain as an elbow was driven into his back. This started a miniature wrestling match between the five of them as Finn scrambled to grab whoever hit him, Ada, John, and Arthur, fought to hold him down just because they could, and Tommy, having enough of it all, fought to get up. They were all yelling, but none of them could be understood by the rest of the family watching on. Eventually, Finn tried to shove himself up again and succeeded to do so while also knocking Ada off the bed. When she fell she grabbed John and Arthur, who ended up grabbing Finn, who grabbed Tommy and they all ended up in another pile on the floor.

Across the room Linda and Lizzie were almost crying they were laughing so hard. Uncle Charlie was holding onto Michael's shoulder to keep himself up right as they laughed. Polly was chuckling quietly but just mostly watched the scene with a nostalgic smile on her face, remembering the times when the siblings acted like that more often. It have been a long time since then and it was nice to see them acting like they did when they were younger. Esme's smile was partially hidden as she held the camera to her eye to take another photo of the pile on the floor. Finn's girlfriend was still wrapped with a blanket around her like a hooded cloak, and she was grinning while telling Esme the best spot to take another picture. In her hand was the other photo that had just finished developing. Arthur, John, and Ada could be seen smiling happily as they piled over their two brothers, Finn's face showed pure fear as he was smacked awake, and Tommy's half asleep confusion finally processing what was in Esme's hand. It was a perfect picture showing the Shelby siblings in their natural habitat....Chaos.

From the pile on the floor, it seemed as if Finn's body finally remembered the events of last night and he heaved slightly as the nausea kicked in.

"I'm gonna be fucking sick."

His siblings scrambled to get away.

....

Main Masterlist

#finn shelby imagine #Tommy Shelby Imagine #Peaky Blinders Imagine #finn shelby x reader #finn shelby #tommy shelby #peaky blinders #Shelby Family

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queenshelby · 2 months

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An Illicit Affair

Part 27: Hard Choices

Pairing: Cillian Murphy (46) x Reader (23)

Warning: Age-Gap, Taboo Relationship, Infidelity

After thinking about it for several minutes, Max finally picked up the phone and called his father. His voice was tight, muscles tensed with anger and resentment. Cillian answered on the first ring, his voice guarded.

"Max?" he asked tentatively, unsure of what was going on. "Are you alright?" he wanted to know, seeing that Max had ignored his attempts to make contact with him during recent times, so his call surprised Cillian.

Max took a deep breath, his shoulders tensing. "No, dad, I am not alright," he replied tersely. stammering slightly.

Cillian's heart skipped a beat. "What's wrong, Max? Tell me where you are and I'll come right away," Cillian said urgently.

"It's not me that needs help, dad. It's Y/N. She's been in an accident, and she's in the hospital," Max said, trying to keep his voice steady.

"She was hit by a car," he added quietly, trying to process the information himself while Cillian gasped silently.

Cillian's heart clenched, and he could feel the air being knocked out of him. He breathed heavily, his mind racing with questions. "Is she okay? Did they say anything about her injuries? Which hospital is she in?" Cillian asked, trying to hold onto his composure., blurting out questions almost incoherently.

"She's at the university hospital. She's stable, but they had to remove one of her kidneys. Her leg is shattered too, and I don't know what to do, dad, they're asking me to make decisions about her treatment, but I can't do that," Max said, his voice breaking slightly.

Cillian took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. "Max, listen to me. I'm on my way," Cillian said, his voice cracking as he quickly slipped into his boots and reached for his wallet and key.

"Okay," Max replied, his voice quiet as he hung up the phone. "He is coming right now," he then informed Lucy, causing her to let out a sigh of relief before asking the attending doctor whether he could leave now.

The doctor, however, told him that he could not seeing that it was still him who was listed as your next of kin rather than Cillian and, what Max said next, surprised both Lucy and the surgeon.

"Yeah, but that's a mistake. They are kind of together," Max said, avoiding the surgeon's gaze as his cheeks burned up with embaressment and discomfort.

The surgeon raised an eyebrow, surprised by Max's words. "I am confused," he said, looking back and forth between Lucy and Max. "Are you telling me that your father is the patient's partner rather than you?" the doctor asked, trying to make sense of what Max had just told him.

Lucy's heartbeat quickened. This was the moment of truth. She had promised Y/N that she would never reveal their affair to Cillian. It was their secret to keep. But at this point, Lucy couldn't care less as all she wanted was for Y/N to be taken care of by someone who loved her and who could make informed decisions about her medical treatment.

Lucy nodded. "Yeah, kind of," she thus affirmed, her voice strong and confident while Max simply swallowed harshly and nodded. "But it's more complicated than that," she then said, trying to downplay the gravity of the affair as she held her breath waiting for the doctor's response even though she knew he wouldn't approve.

However, the surgeon simply nodded, seemingly understanding the implications of Lucy's words. "Alright then, I'll have one of the interns prepare the forms to appoint him as a next of kin, but until the patient is conscious and can confirm that she would intend someone other than the person listed on her current records to make those decisions for her, we have to keep working under the assumption that Max has the authority to do so," the surgeon explained, causing both Lucy and Max to nod in agreement.

Max, however, still looked uncomfortable and out of sorts, but as the gravity of the situation began to sink in, Max knew that he had to put aside his personal feelings and do what was best for you. He couldn't let his own ego and personal feelings get in the way of your care and well being.

"So, what I suggest is that we will wait until your father gets here and, when he arrives, I will discuss the treatment plan with the both of you for you to decide on together ," the surgeon offered kindly, noticing the strain on Max's face.

Max nodded, still looking uncomfortable. "That sounds good," he finally said, his voice quiet and, just as Max spoke to the surgeon, his father came running towards them.

Cillian's eyes scanned the area, taking in the white-tiled floors and the antiseptic smell of the hospital. "Where is she? Is she okay?" Cillian asked, his voice laced with concern as he approached his son, Lucy and the doctor.

Lucy stepped forwards, her voice steady, and her gaze direct. "She is stable, but that's about it," she said honestly, and Cillian nodded, his eyes still scanning the area.

Max could see that his father's eyes were red-rimmed, as if he had been crying , and he felt a pang of sympathy for him. He knew that his father cared for you deeply, and that the thought of you being in danger would be tearing him apart inside.

The surgeon nodded in agreement. "Indeed, she is in stable condition, but her injuries are severe. She has a head injury and she is unconscious and has been ever since she arrived, we think it is most likely a concussion from the impact," he explained to Cillian.

"Can I see her?" Cillian asked with tear filled eyes. His hands were shaking, and Lucy could see the worry etched onto his face.

"I am afraid that this isn't possible. She is still in theatre and we will need to make a decision with regards to her leg. Currently, her right leg is severely damaged, and we have three options. We can isolate the injuries until she can recover from her concussion and while her body deals with impacts from the dialysis for her left kidney," the doctor began before taking a deep breath. "But the problem with this approach is that the leg will be beyond repair once isolated and she will need surgery in a few weeks to go through an amputation procedure," the doctor explained professionally and, immediately, his heart dropped. "It's the safest option and the one I would recommend to ensure her recovery," he explained again, leaving Cillian utterly speechless.

"And the other options are?" Cillian finally managed to ask, his voice barely audible as he struggled to process the doctor's words.

"The other options are not ideal, I'm afraid. The second option is to perform emergency surgery to repair the leg, but there's a risk that she could have an adverse reaction to the anesthesia given her current state, and there's a significant chance that her leg may not heal completely even with the surgery," the doctor replied gravely.

"And the third option?" Cillian asked, bracing himself for the worst.

"The third option is to amputate the leg immediately," the doctor explained, his voice gentle but firm.

Cillian felt his heart drop. He couldn't believe what he was hearing as you were lying in a hospital bed, fighting for your life, and he had to make a decision that could potentially change the course of your life forever.

He turned to Max and Lucy, his eyes pleading for guidance.

"What is the success rate if you were to proceed with option two? And how soon would the operation have to take place?" Cillian asked with surmounting dread and anxiety.

The surgeon looked at Cillian with a grave expression, knowing that the answer he was about to provide would not be easy to hear. "The success rate for option two is only around sixty percent given the severity of the damage. There is a considerable risk of infection and nerve damage. The operation would need to be performed as soon as possible, as any delay would decrease the chances of success," he replied honestly, making sure to convey the importance of this decision. "The main issue is that she is concussed and, by performing this surgery, we will put her at risk of stroke or brain damage," he further added.

Cillian took a deep breath, trying to push down the anger and frustration that was rising within him. How could this have happened?

"So she could die during the surgery?" Max interjected , his voice laced with disbelief and the surgeon nodded gravely. "That's a huge risk to take, dad," he added, looking at Cillian, his gaze full of concern.

"It is, but it's one that we might have to take," Cillian said, squeezing his eyes shut. He felt overwhelmed with emotions. Fear, anger, guilt, and love all warred within him.

"But we can't," Max said, shaking his head. "I am not going to sign off on something that could kill her!"

"Max, think about it," his father said. "What would Y/N want to do?" Cillian asked gently, as if trying to remind Max of the person who was at the center of this whole ordeal. It was your life on the line, and they needed to make a decision that would respect your wishes as much as possible.

Lucy nodded, her eyes misty. "I agree with your dad, Max. We need to consider what she would want. All she wants is to be surgeon herself. She studied so hard for this. She also wants to go travelling still, hiking, running, living her best life," she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

Max took a deep breath, trying to process everything that was happening.

"Dad?" Max asked, his voice quiet and uncertain. "Are you sure about this?" Max asked again, searching his father's face for any signs of uncertainty.

Cillian took a deep breath, holding Max's gaze. "Yes, I'm sure," he said, his voice firm and steady. "Y/N is a fighter and she would want us to have the surgeons try and save her leg. If anyone can pull through this, it's her," he said, trying to inject some optimism into his words.

"But what if she dies?" Max asked, the words hanging heavy in the air.

Cillian took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving Max's. "Then that is on me, not you," he said, his voice heavy with emotion.

Max looked away, pained. "Fine," he finally said. "We'll go with option two." He would sign the consent forms, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this was a mistake.

The surgeon nodded, taking the consent forms from a nurse and handing them to Max.

"Very well then. We will proceed with option two. I will notify the surgical team to prepare for the operation," he said, watching as Max signed his name on the dotted line. "It will be a long and difficult road ahead, but I am confident that with time, rehabilitation, and support, Y/N can recover from this," he added, giving Max a reassuring smile before turning to leave.

Lucy watched the surgeon go, feeling a mixture of relief and unease.

She turned back to Max and Cillian, both of whom were lost in their own thoughts. She desperately wanted to tell Cillian about the stalker you had told her about, but knew that now was not the time. Now was the time for focusing on getting you better and Cillian was clearly struggling to keep his composure as he waited for the surgical team to prepare for the operation.

Lucy took a deep breath and moved closer to Cillian, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "She is going to be okay," she said, her voice soft and soothing.

Cillian looked at her, his eyes filled with gratitude for her presence and support. "I hope so," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I can't lose her, you know. I just can't," Cillian said, his eyes filling up with tears.

Lucy's heart ached for him. She knew how much he loved you, and it was clear that the thought of losing you was enough to break him.

"She's a fighter," Lucy reassured him while even Max remained quiet, no longer caring about the somewhat strange dynamics in his family right now.

It was irrelevant compared to the life-and-death situation they were currently facing and all he hoped for was a favorable outcome for you.

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#cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy x you #cillian murphy imagine #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murhpy #cillian fanfic #cillian murphy fic #cillian murphy fanfic

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bonefall · 6 months

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Is Crowfeather's parenting and abuse of Breeze going to be any different and/or handled differently by other cats in BB? Thinking about his honor title being for Feathertail and... ugh this poor woman having to watch a cat who named himself for his love for her be so horrible to his own kin after she's torn from hers so soon. She should get to come down and knock some sense into him, if that's even possible

I haven't been able to get into BB!Feathertail yet, but she's fascinating honestly. I like the vibe that Feather x Crow is like this cosmically doomed ship, destined to torpedo itself time and time again for various reasons, and that's the foundation of them in BB.

They were NEVER going to work. Crowfoot has a ton of issues he's working through. Feathertail values herself too much to allow him to mistreat her in the meanwhile. If Feathertail never died, the breakup would have been good for him. He REALLY needed it, actually. Calm, funny, easygoing Feathertail just laying their problems on the table, why she doesn't want a relationship, but still spinning it in that way-of-hers that softens a hard blow.

It wouldn't have fixed him overnight, of course. It just would have been a spark. Paws on a better, happier path. Not a lover in another Clan, but a friend, if he took her words to heart.

But she's dead. She died horribly. And her memory is this perfect fantasy for the magical, flawless love they could have had, an impossible standard Crowfeather viciously holds all of his future lovers to. So as a spirit guide, with all her eloquence, she'd say to him, "That's not very cash money of you."

But anyway, on Breeze's abuse.

For one, I absolutely would want to make sure to stress Breeze's good qualities sooner and harder, and explicitly make them friends at certain points.

The Tribe Journey in particular, where there's a lot of opportunities to get him away from Crowfeather. By the end of it, I would want to include a poignant moment where they have one final nice moment together, before Crowfeather barks for him, and it's gone.

(and, also, add a couple of cats who help The Three discuss their complicated emotions towards seeing their bully being abused.)

I would also actually remove the way that the cats of WindClan "look to" Crowfeather on how Breezepelt should be treated, particularly from Crowfeather's Trial. I feel it misses the point and ends up saying that Breezepelt could NEVER get the social approval he craves unless his abusive dad CHOSE to stop mistreating him.

Like!! FUCK no!!! You do NOT need the approval of a guy who NEVER would have given it without 3 different women and Onestar screaming it into his ear!

Instead, I'd stress how the Clan was beginning to turn on him as soon as his problems escalated into active reckless endangerment. His abuse was causing his social alienation by making his behavior worse and worse.

That seems like a minor change, but it's one of my bigger complaints. ALL of WindClan shouldn't be looking to an abusive parent to model how they'll react to his son. PLEASE let the cats have their own unique social opinions.

One of Breezepelt's adult defenders is Brushblaze. I will be picking more-- but there's always going to be some cats in his corner besides Nightcloud and Heathertail (and Harestar of course who is poly with Heather and Breeze in BB.)

(though Pro-Breeze cats are in the minority unfortunately.)

MOST of the Dark Forest trainees from WindClan were personal friends of Breezepelt. Harespring, Sunstrike, Furzepelt, and Antpelt all came into the training because of him.

All that said, not much else is different about the setup of Breezepelt's childhood abuse! It's a part of canon I think is good and I would like to stay relatively faithful to it.

His arc also continues into BB!AVoS. Continued distrust of him after fighting for the Dark Forest, misplacing his anger onto Harespring when he manages to take deputyship, and Dishonor Titles from Onestar end up causing him and his friends to feel so rejected that they join The Kin.

Its message, that they are "The Kin that the Clans abandoned" appeals to over a dozen cats from other Clans who are shunned for various reasons. HalfClan cats, codebreakers, and Dark Forest trainees alike all come together, because BB!The Kin is mostly comprised of Clan cats, particularly ones from SkyClan, NOT rogues.

There's about 6 or so non-Clanborn cats in The Kin; Rain, Raven, Flame, Dragonfly, Roach, Nettle. If I end up keeping Silt, Thistle, or any of the 7-10 unnamed cats, they'll get shuffled to be Clanborn.

(Max, Loki, and Zelda are cut. Many of Zelda's roles are being absorbed by Dragonfly, who is remaining with Violetshine after The Kin disbands)

#BB!AVOS #BB!Po3 #BB!Breezepelt #Better Bones AU

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athanasius-symposium-of-writings · 5 months

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Ello!

Love your blog!

Can I request a female hunter reader where she’s looks frightening and intimidating to the survivors but she’s actually very gentle and doesn’t like to hurt them , she doesn’t talk much. She’s very curious of them and finds them very cute, due to that she doesn’t strike them down during the matches she just catches them in her arms and places them gently on the chairs, while camping she likes to examine them closer, for the female survivors she looks at their makeup and plays with their outfits while for the male survivors she likes to boop their nose and play with their hair while giggling. And *cough* *cough* when carrying the male survivors to the chairs she sneakily purposely presses them closer to her *cough* mellonsssss just to tease and see their reaction (she’s a bit of a flirt)

Wasnt sure how to write this but hope you like it.

I based this off a indie game i played lol

It no secret among the out "gods" of your curiosity towards humans. Hastur claims they are all selfish and greedy creatures, and Cthulhu can claim the same. You, a creature formed by Azathoth, you have seen many of your Creator realms and have decided to study the reality of this world. Nightingale allowed you to see the manor, her domain as long as you respect her rules.

Though she knows a young deity like you will have no want to hunt nor kill humans, she still asks for you to partake in her games.

The last human you where with, in another reality, was detective who was solving a case about the both the death of his father and cult. His mind was amazing to lurk in, and his life exciting to shadow behind. Sadly, he died after solving the case in order to seal a portal going to allow Cthulhu to enter (know him he would have destroyed that realm for disturbing him).

The ones called 'survivors', are fascinating! None, or few, are good people. Most are mentally broken, easy to toy with; others seem to be trying to fight for future only this 'prize' can provide.

When you caught the survivor known as 'perfumer', you felt pity for her but level of shame for the woman. To kill one's kin out of jealousy is an age old tale you are aware. You then found another named 'lawyer' who you are disgusted by. His greed and selfish caused the death and abandonment of a father and a daughter.

You are quite gentle with these humans compared to those like Night Watch or The Ripper, those too seem to feed on the fear of the humans being hunted. The one hunter you enjoy the space of is 'Geisha' or Michiko as she informed you. She does not get a thrill from killing others but she cannot help herself.

You do like this one survivor, he reminds you of your detective. Orpheus, you believe his name is. The meaning behind the name is not lost to you, it even adds to the charm. Hm, no there are others you like too. Priestess and Seer, for they seem to be the only ones to know you are no normal or limited hunter like the others. You do not kill for thrills, you chair them as per the rules. The conversations with them is quite amusing. Enchantress too, though she did attempt to stab you when she thought you a threat. Another you enjoy studying is 'Prisoner' his mind is mess but it holds many, many treasures of inventions.

Oh, it so hard to claim a favorite! You love to hold them close to your chest to feel their life close to your unreal one. Flesh and blood, a heartbeat, they are alive! Though you have been told but both Embalmer and Grave Keeper not to hold them in such an improper manner-- Though you do not like using the balloons to hold them up in the air, it seems rather silly.

#anon ask #reader insert #idv reader insert #idv x you #idv x reader #identity v x you #identity v x reader #identity v

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sofasoap · 8 months

Text

Love at first sight - life and death

Pairing: Rodolfo “Rudy” Parra x F!reader ( aka Mini MacTavish)

Summary: Life doesn't always play a fair game. Takes place after Epilogue of the main series.

Part I, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,Part 5,Part 6,Epilogue

Warning: M Rating. inaccuracies to medical and military related. discussion of injuries. ANGST.

A/N: Thanks @gamergirlbones helping me with Spanish phrases. and to @siilvan for putting up with me for breaking her heart. not beta nor properly proofread. sorry.

Part of RUDY FEST fic. Thank you @glitterypirateduck the wonderful CoD fanfic and fanart curator for organising another festival :D you are awesome. Prompt used: I'm not leaving you, You have to leave, your life's in danger

masterlist

How ironic.

The rescuer needs to be rescued.

Your ears are ringing, vision blurred with all the dust in the air. Without looking down, you know you are bleeding out.

Slowly turning towards your left, you can see two of your fellow medics lying motionless on the ground.

Are they still alive? If not…

Who are their next of kin? Oh, you need to retrieve their dog tags. The paper work..

Ouch. Why does it hurt so much? That’s right.. You are injured. But where?

“MINI! Stay with me!”

You know that voice. But where is he?

“Oh, hello love. There you are.” you replied, blinking your eyes a few times, trying to flush out the blood that is currently blurring your vision. Finally you spotted the owner of the voice.“ You shouldn’t be here.It’s not safe.” Bit of deja vu? Last time this happened, you were the one who was on the other side, trying frantically to save Rudy’s life. How the tables have turned.

“I am not leaving you.” Rudy replied adamantly, with a hint of panic as his eyes scanned your body, and the surroundings. “You are going to be ok, cariño, I promise. Stay with me. Please.” he pleaded as he started to open his emergency med kit, doing whatever he can to save his love from dying in front of him.

“Go. Don’t worry about me.” You tried to lift your arm, but you couldn’t. That’s when you notice half of your body and arm are pinned underneath the boulder and debris.

“Oh.That’s not good.” you try to laugh, but all you could manage was a shuddered breath. “You muppet, of course it’s not good.” A lower, grumpier voice joined in. “How can you still be laughing in this situation?”

“Oh, hello,Captain.” You slurred. It’s harder and harder to keep your speech and head straight. “You have to leave, your life's in danger. Take that man with you too, while you are there.” you jerked your head towards Rudy, who is currently radioing for medevac, causing a pounding headache. Everything is starting to hurt. It’s getting so hard to breathe. You thought.

“Tell Soap and the team I love them…” you wheezed as you tried to convey your last messages to Price. “Tell Soap I’m sorry I ate his chocolate cookies….” “Stop giving out your last words. Medevac is on their way.” he reassures you, or is he trying to reassure himself? The sadness you can see through his eyes, you know you are probably not going to get out of this.

“What.. is.. them…are my teammates ok?” you look at the two bodies again, worrying. “We can’t lose those two.. They are the best we got…” tears start to flow out. They are your brother and sister in arms, three of you have been through countless life and death situations. Is this where the three of you will partway?

“They are still breathing, last time we checked. We don’t want to move them. Worry about yourself first, cariño. Just concentrate on your breathing.” Rudy replied as he caressed your hair, soothing you. You always love his hand, how calming it is, how safe it makes you feel.

“Oh good.” you slowly close your eyes. At least someone will stay alive today.

“Come on, keep your eyes open for me, cariño, talk to me.” Rudy’s voice is getting desperate, trying to keep you awake until the medevac arrives. The help just doesn’t seem to come fast enough. He can’t lose you. Not here, not now, not for another long time to come.

“Hey Rudy.” “Yes love.”

“Do you remember the day we first met?”

“Of course cariño. How could I forget?”

“Hey Rudy.”

“Yes mi vida.”

“You love me??”

“Of course.Mi corazón late por ti”.

“....”

“Cariño?”

The last thing you heard before you sank into the complete darkness was the anguish cry of Rudy, screaming out for you.

Mi corazón late por ti : My heart beats for you.

NOTE: Sorry it's a short one. I am just so tired from work conferences and travelling. part 2 might not come out in time for end of Rudy fest :(

Tag list :

@jynxmirage, @siilvan

@glitterypirateduck, @homicidal-slvt

@sprout-fics @cumikering @preciouslittlecreature @crazymela

@liyanahelena @abbeyrjm-blog @alypink @devcica @nrdmssgs

@okayyadriana @caramlizedtomatoes @random-thot-generator @random0lover

@iwannabeinthesequalmrghostface

@nightingal3-tales, @deakyspuff

@deadbranch, @roosterr, @gamergirlbones, @b1rds3ye, @writeforfandoms @a-small-writer-in-a-big-world @onewattson6529

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quolafish · 1 year

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Place to Stay (Yandere!Shigaraki x Fem!Reader)

Warnings - SMUT to come, gentle? yandere, stalking, blood/wounds & sickness

Part 1 / ? PART 2

Shigaraki climbed up to a random roof. Flopping onto the rough tiles, pain wracked his body and pinned him down.

His clothes were wet, and the smell of iron filled his senses as he forced himself to sit up. He hissed, clutching his hand to his stomach, barely able to look down at his fingers. He saw the blood on them in his peripherals, hot and sticky. The smell of iron filled him, causing bile to rise to his throat and a horrible tension behind his bloodshot eyes.

Lolling his head to the side, he was met with his night-blurred reflection. Moonlight didn’t shine over monsters like him. Not that he really cared nor wanted to see himself bleeding out.

The cool air bit his open wounds. The man was no stranger to pain, but he let out a pitiful cry as the cold sank its teeth into him.

He couldn’t die like this.

Gasping, he tried to lug his broken, bleeding body over to the window. It stung. Each bone, muscle, screamed at him. His limps were lead as he rolled over on his belly. He tasted vomit when the rough asphalt rubbed against his bare wound. He rose on shaky knees, dragging himself across the shingles until his bloody hands stuck to the glass.

Pain hit him like a truck, stealing his balance and causing his pounding head to slam against the glass. He groaned. Bile swirled in his mouth as he spat, whimpering as he peeled his bloody cheek off the glass… only to bang his head against the glass once more.

Somebody…

He started to knock using his head, until his failures sparked a fire in him, a deep hatred for himself and he was too weak to scratch the itch. He started to bange his head against the window. Head-banging. He screwed his eyes shut once he started to see spots.

When he opened them, he was met with another pair of eyes staring back at him. He blinked blearily, before the window opened and he toppled forward.

((Hit with a numbing quirk why the window didn’t decay))

His face was pressed up against something soft and plush. A sent other than iron wafted his feverish sensors. Suddenly the man was a child again, pressed up against his mother, who’d hold him and protect and love him…

…if he hadn’t decayed her…

A tear slipped down his cheek as everything went black.

…

He woke up to the sound of sirens. Everything hurt. He saw a woman, applying pressure to his wounds, several bloody gauzes over eachother as she pressed another one down.

“Help is coming,” she said softly to him. “I called 911. Help is almost here.”

The man nodded slowly. 911..

911.

He choked on a gasp, struggling to get away from her. Her pressure loosened, before applying enough to make his head swirl.

“Hey..! Please, don’t panic, you’re in good hands, okay? Just—!”

“No cops,” he managed, speaking through his teeth.

“You need to go to the hospital—“

“No hospital!” He hissed, voice cracking. She nearly dropped another gauze at his breathless scream.

A loud, sound of sparking blaze erupted, hot light spilling into the open window. The sirens were silenced. Screams filled the air, as the smell of smoke began to replace the blue light.

Hands were placed over his wound. The bloody gnash on his stomach. He made a soundness cry, screwing his eyes tight so hard his face ached.

A warm feeling began to pour into him. His eyes slowly opened, as he watched with a soar neck the bloody flesh began to stich itself back together with a floating, golden thread. It vanished into the air, his skin stained with blood but his wounds no longer bleeding.

The warm feeling was stripped so fast he thought he was naked. Pain flooded him, filled him to the brim until he overflowed. Grimacing, he lurched to his side and threw up.

He flinched at the hand rubbing soothing circles into his back. The warm touch was nothing like the dead, palms and fingers of Father and the rest of his diseased kin. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, tasting blood. The man was surprised he had the strength. When you touched him, that warm feeling began to course through his blood. Uncanny and strange..

I can’t do anything, he said, starting at his bloody hand prints on the window. He touched glass with all five fingers and it hadn’t decayed. Damn you, Overhaul…

You looked at him. You were trembling nearly as bad as him. He was so sick… your eyes were so gentle…

He asked for a place to stay, when he was a villain and he could just take it… if he had his quirk. The man was feverish, his head pounding and his stomach churning.

You nodded slowly. God, you didn’t look much older but you reminded him of his…

You gently pried his wrists away from his neck. “Don’t scratch, it’ll only make it worse…”

He shut his eyes as he bent over, feeling sick again.

#shigaraki x reader #tomura x reader #yandere shigaraki #yandere tomura #yandere x reader #shigaraki smut #tomura smut #yandere shigaraki x reader #tenko x reader #yandere #shigaraki angst #mha yandere #mha x reader

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heyitsyn · 1 year

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Manager!Karasuno

a/n: oh dear. hello everyone. i am back, gigi is back and this is the newest installment of the manager series :))) i hope you guys like it and sending much love!!! <3

a/n: have fun :)

mm okay so this is a new series

or season?

the series is the managers and this is a new season because this is karasuno’s manager!!! :))))

everyone say hi!!!

she’s a wittle first year and shes a cute little thing but she got the energy of a rabid chihuahua

so this is how it you came to be

when mommy and daddy love each other very much-

hehe i kid i kid

but srsly, the whole bird and bees thing

and then boom, you were attending middle school in hyogo

you were a first year that was taken in by a pair of twins that were your neighbors

the miyas

miya osamu <3

and

miya atsumu >:3

they were what got you into volleyball in the first place even though you were more into soccer like your papa and even talked you into being their team’s manager

so here you were, freshly turned 12 (because you were the youngest of your entire grade) and suddenly responsible for a bunch of older kids

the coach helped you too of course but it was a lot of work and so when the twins left and you became a third year, you were practically a know-it-all with volleyball

flying receives?

jump serves?

you learned from the best B)

however,

when you were about 3 months into being in high school and as their current manager at inarizaki,

tragedy struck.

see, your parents were often out of town and tended to go overseas for business but when a plane that they were on crashed causing their death, you had no choice but to be taken in by your next of kin which was your uncle down in miyagi

he was your mom’s cousin but she practically saw him as her brother and you didnt really talk to him very much, apart from the times your mom called him and a few sentences of greetings were exchanged, but you knew who he was because your mom was close to him

duh, you were grieving and loss is such a hard thing to go through

the miya twins were there for you the whole time, even when they were busy

i mean like you lived at their house because you couldn’t stand being in the same home that you once shared with your parents

they didnt take it very well when you had to leave but they understood as long as you promised to come visit them soon so you get to see them play on the big stage

:’)

so here you were, on the train en route to miyagi where your uncle was supposed to be waiting for you

the time on your phone blared that it’s been nearly 5 hours and you’re supposed to be approaching the prefecture now

you’ve taken the train by yourself before but it still doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking because one, you’re alone and two, theres a lot of people

you didnt really do well with a lot of people nor the anxiety that bubbles in you whenever you stuck in a place for a very long time

it doesn’t help that the worst thing to ever happen has happened

eventually, the conductor went around and it was announced that you have arrived so you quickly grabbed your backpack and your duffel bag before rushing to grab the one large suitcase that was at the back of your compartment

the rest of your luggage and clothing was already taken to miyagi when your uncle drove all the way to hyogo to pick it up so you wouldn’t be inconvenienced during your way there

hes so sweet

you pulled the handle and gripped it, nerves eating you away and sleep pulling behind your eyes but you couldnt sleep

you didnt want to

the doors opened and you hurried out, getting past the many people and you saw the familiar hair of your uncle

his bleached hair was pulled back into a baby ponytail and his headband kept stray hairs from clouding his eyes

‘y/n-chan!’ he shouted and waved

you cringed at how zealous he was and the attention he was receiving from strangers so you hurried over to him

he rushed to give you a hug as if you didnt just see him a few days ago

‘oji’ you mumbled in greeting and he pulled back, giving you a wide grin

‘man! i can’t believe you’re as tall as my shoulders! before, you were still a tiny little baby that was smaller than my arm!’

you turned red and began to pull him to go home because he was attracting many stares from blushing ladies

sigh

you guys reached his cute yellow car and piled your suitcase and duffel bag in the back so the two of you could settle in the front seats

he started the car and drove off the parking lot and into the streets

wow, it doesnt look very different to hyogo

‘how are ya, y/n-chan?’

his tone was softer and you turn to look at him

he was focused on the road but it definitely sounded like his mind was somewhere else and he was trying to concentrate on talking to you

‘’m okay’ you mumbled

he was there during the funeral and the only one to attend since your grandfather and aunt was in the middle of recovering from their surgery and your other family members had other obligations

as if this wasn’t more important

but he was there and you couldn’t be more thankful enough

you were only 15

you don’t know how to plan a funeral and a burial by yourself

not to mention their will and the passing on of their estate

like bruh thats stuff that you have no idea on what to do with

so keishin was there to help you sort it out and meeting with legal attorneys and you were lucky that he always made sure that you understood what they were saying and making sure with you that whatever you decided is your choice and it shouldn’t be influenced by him or the lawyers

keishin is worried about you a lot since it happened and didn’t even want to go back to miyagi afterwards but his store needed to be opened and he doesn’t have anyone else to run it apart from his mother, who he really doesn’t want moving around since she also just got knee surgery

‘are you sure? you know i’m here when you need to talk. i lost her too so i understand most than anyone’

he quietly comforted you and your nose began to sting as a signal from the incoming tears but you looked out the window and to the trees that you passed by

‘i dont want to’ you whispered to him and keishin nodded

he won’t force you but just to let you know that he was there and will always be there

you two drove in a comfortable silence and you arrived at his family home where you will be staying

‘this is where your ma grew up. its a shame she never brought you or your pops down to visit but it can’t be helped. your grandma is in there sleeping right now so its best you keep the noise down a bit but im sure she’ll be excited to see you, kid’

you got settled into the house quickly and keishin’s mom who you could call as your aunt was very excited to see you and you smiled and hugged her and stuff

apparently your grandpa was helping some friend with his rice farm and such

sigh. you remember kita-senpai so that made you sad

since you just got there, they gave you some time to adjust like a month off of school

but you come to find out that you were enrolled in a nearby school, karasuno, which was somehow associated with your uncle

keishin attended there too when he was young and so did your mom but was now the volleyball team’s coach

you were a little >:\ because you wanted to stay in hyogo with the twins but you knew that you needed to be taken cared of right now

you were still young and even now, grieving is a process that would be easier with family

keishin got you all set for your first day and you had to hide a laugh at how excited he was when he gave you your uniform

‘its like sending off my own kid to school!’

gosh he gives such dad vibes now

your first day!!!!

of course keishin got you a little whiteboard that says first day of high school written on it and he told you to stand in front of the door so he could take a picture

even his ma was giggling behind him while you were red at the amount of attention he was giving to this entire ordeal

‘come on! here’s your lunch and some allowance to get something good at the vending machine. i would’ve sent you off myself but i got a delivery for the store. you remember how to get there right? if not, you got the directions in your notes?’

you rolled your eyes playfully

‘yes, oji. me gots it’

keishin actually walked you to the school a few days ago to teach you the way there and my gosh hes adorable

you tightened the straps of your backpack and hugged your grandma and grandpa before venturing out

it was so quiet

the neighborhood that you lived in was the kind where old people lived so there was no sound of students talking amongst themselves

but about 5 minutes into your walk, you found a pair of students, boys, who were going to the same direction you were in

one had his headphones over his ears and the other was talking to him like he didn’t see the headphones at all

you could only see the back of their heads and noticed that the one who was talking had dark green hair and was shorter than the one wearing the headphones, who was blonde and was really, really tall

the only person was omimi-senpai

and that dude had to be around his height

you had your earbuds in so you couldn’t exactly hear what they were saying but you were just walking along and absorbing the scenery instead of hurrying to class

then the tall blonde guy stopped walking but you were too busy at looking around you to notice that he stopped so you bumped into his back and made a noise of surprise

duh the first thing to come out of your mouth was an apology

‘sorry!’

bro it wasn’t your fault that this dude just stopped out of nowhere

but this guy turned his head around at you and met your eyes

you shivered, scared at his glare at you

‘’m sorry’

you apologized again by bowing and walking around him to prevent anymore accidents

you weren’t gonna make a big deal about it because it was just an accident but you were afraid he was going to yell at you or something

instead of trying to have a peaceful walk, you were speed-walking to the school and even got lost once since you turned at a wrong street

but dw dw you just had to call keishin in a panic and after laughing, he helped you back to your destination

even google maps didn’t help you bruh

gigi fact: i went to dublin and was looking for nandos and we were walking but the gps thing didnt work correctly so we walked in circles around the city without ever finding nandos

in the end, gigi never got her nandos

anyways!

you went to the little office they got in the front of the school and you smiled at the lady

‘hi, ma name is l/n y/n’

she looked at you and nodded

‘new student?’

duh

but you nodded

‘id please?’

you fumbled in your bag and found your old inarizaki id because all of your other important ids were with keishin

lowkey kinda scary but maybe i just got trust issues

it seemed like it was good enough for her so she quickly typed something in the computer and after many clicks later, she got up to get something from the printer and returned with your schedule and what looks like a card

an id?

she noticed you staring at the identification card

‘it seems a relative of yours with the name of ukai keishin sent your information from inarizaki high, if im correct, and with it, your school picture so we just transferred it over to our database and printed your school id from there’

you let out a small sigh of relief that you dont gotta take a picture and you thanked her then grabbed your things

class 1-4 huh?

you wandered around and found out that the layout of the school was like inarizaki with the third floor being for first years and the second for the second years and so on

but you hate stairs

so you were kinda already dying when you made it up to your floor and by this time, students were already arriving

you obviously felt out of place and even when you started high school back in hyogo, you were already friends with some people in there and with the help of the twins, you were a bit well-known already

but here

you were a total stranger

a background character

an uneasy feeling crept into your stomach but you inhaled and exhaled before walking to the room that was labeled ‘1-4’

in an instant, several pairs of eyes were on you

everyone wasn’t there yet but enough that you wanted to crawl into a hole and die

who needed school anyways?

the twins already promised you a future where you don’t gotta work so it doesn’t matter

speaking of, they were messaging you now with how your phone was vibrating and you hurriedly ran to a chair in the back of the room to avoid any more attention

you pulled your phone out and stopped a smile from creeping into your face

it was mainly atsumu sending crying emojis while osamu was fussing over the fact that you only packed some sandwiches for lunch but you were quick to calm down his concerns by telling them that you were gonna get some snacks from the vending machine

sigh

you miss them

a lot

if you were back in hyogo, they would already be in your class, annoying the ever loving god outta you along with the other guy in osamu’s class, suna

atsumu is actually in a class higher than his brother and he continues to use that as a bragging thing

but you really do miss them

it feels like something is missing

but you weren’t allowed to be in your feels for too long because you felt someone looming over you to your right and looked up to see the tall guy from earlier, golden-brown eyes piercing straight to you

you didnt do the whole gasping thing like they do in mangas but you did freeze

he was definitely going to pick you up and throw you outta the window beside you bruh

pray for me

gigi: im praying for you sis

‘can i help ya?’ you asked because we aint here to be stuttering and stammering like little anime girls

but you were still scared lmao

he looked down at you with a cold glare

‘youre in my seat’

goddammit y/n

of course you were

just your luck

y/n things, you know?

but you looked at him dumbly

‘yer wha?’

maybe it was because you were scared of him that you didnt fully process his question

but he leaned down at you, glasses shining for effect

‘you’re in my seat, shorty’

he repeated but with an edge this time

yea no you clearly heard that

so you grabbed your bag and stood up, hurrying out of the room

maybe you can go back home and tell keishin you weren’t feeling good and you didnt wanna be here

that could work

so you were standing outside of your class, away from the windows because duh the entire class saw the whole thing and you didnt want them to watch you like thats so embarrassing lmao

your fingers were typing a message to keishin but before you could hit send, you hear someone stop in front of you

you looked up and was met with a man who was quite short but you could tell he was a teacher

god, if hes your homeroom teacher-

‘oh? are you the new student? i’m your homeroom teacher, takeda ittetsu’

the lord just aint on your side isn’t he?

you stared at him with this grim look in your face that his brows were furrowed with concern

‘are you okay?’

you nodded, swallowing and looking to the side

he just nodded along and gestured to enter the room

you cursed in your head but followed him, surprised that everyone was already there

did they just appear there out of thin air?

or were you really that out of it to notice people walking in

‘everyone, we have a new student today. she is a transfer from hyogo so if you could please, welcome her to our school. would you like to introduce yourself?’

if takeda-sensei didnt have such a nice look on his face, you woulda bolted outta there

but also, that would be embarrassing if you just ran out

so you nodded and looked ahead, remembering atsumu’s advice

just look at the wall and tune everything and everyone else out

‘’m l/n y/n and ‘m from inarizaki high school. let’s get along’

ugh, awkward introductions were never my thing nor have i ever transferred during a school year either so idk man

takeda directed you to a seat by the windows and was in the middle of the rows so you were ahead of the tall scary guy

but my god, you felt his stare the entire time

by the time lunch rolls around, you were already ready to go home

you were messaging the twins and suna of what was happening and they all petitioned for you to move back home and into the miya household

osamu: in favor of y/n moving and staying with us, say i

atsumu: Iiiii would like that

suna: *hand raising emoji* i

*cue tears forming in your eyes*

they were so cute

but you were distracted from your phone when a bunch of students started whispering around you and you looked up to see a really really pretty girl at the doorway of your classroom

and she was looking directly at you

aint no way

you havent been here but only a few hours

how have you already made beef with people?

she saw that you were looking at her and after a split-second eye contact, she was already walking towards you before stopping beside your desk

‘can i help ya?’ you asked again, feeling deja vu

man, pretty people were really freaking scary

then she smiled

small, but still a smile

‘i’m shimizu kiyoko, third year. i’m also the manager of the boys’ volleyball club’

ah! the club that your uncle coaches

so you felt a little better about that so you gave her a small smile back

‘o, ma uncle’s the coach. didja need’m?’

she shook her head and you could swear there were flowers radiating from her right now

‘actually, no. the third years would like to meet you and i was sent to collect you’

*cue the suspicious eye brow raise*

like we as the watchers know kiyoko is the absolute sweetest angel to ever exist but in a realistic point of view, this was still kinda sussy you know?

she saw the hesitation

‘the team wants to meet you but that might be a lot for you so we thought it was okay for the third years to meet you instead. if you would like, you could call your uncle and see if it’s okay’

nah, you werent taking any chances so you hurriedly whipped out your phone and pressed 1

since he was in your emergency contact :’)

‘oji, theres dis really pretty lady who says shes the manager of yer team’

‘mhm. mhm. shimizu kiyoko’

‘ahhh, okei okei.’

you ended the call and looked at her before standing up

‘lead the way’

she brought you down many stairs and into a secluded little hallway of the third year floor

you were a bit scared so you were walking a little bit behind her but saw 3 figures at the end, just talking and one leaning out of the open window

they saw the two of you and perked up

‘oh hey! you must be coach’s niece!’

the one with grey hair raised a hand

‘yo’ you timidly greeted

the one with the man bun understood your shyness and gave you a small smile

‘azumane asahi’ he extended a hand and you were surprised at how soft his voice was

‘i’m sugawara koshi but feel free to call me suga-senpai!’ he gave you a peace sign that initially made you cringe but quickly found endearing

he seemed really nice

then the last one with the short black hair gave you a smile

‘i’m the captain of the team. sawamura daichi’

ahhh so he was the captain

well, he was no kita-san but they had the same vibe

the same aura

that authoritative and leading aura

they were quick to ask you questions and get to know you better and such

then the bell rang and the older boys bid farewell to you guys while kiyoko was gonna walk you back to your class

not like you were completely lost or anything

but as you walked, she asked you a question

‘y/n, would you like to be a manager? i’m graduating next year and i worry that we won’t have a new one to replace me’

you looked at her in surprise

did someone say something about you being a manager in your old school?

you blinked

‘me?’

she nods, softly

‘you know our coach already and the third years too. it wouldn’t be too hard to be friends with the others but i do admit they’re quite rambunctious’

it might sound like shes complaining but you turn and see her with a smile

‘do ya think i can do it?’

theres that underlying fear

you werent very social and you werent outgoing enough to make friends with anyone and everyone

back home, you had the twins who weaseled you in to the team in middle school and high school

but now, you were completely alone and you had no one, essentially

so yea youre kinda scared lmao

she hums

‘would you like to see first? you dont have to do anything’

you still hesitate

but maybe you can just sit there and see how it goes

you could even walk home with your uncle afterwards and with him, you know you wouldnt get lost

so you nod and you were sent back to class which ended really quickly now that you got something to look forward to later

kiyoko picked you up from your classroom since she knew you werent sure where everything was and she asked you to wait outside a room while she got changed to her manager uniform

you were familiar of the manager uniforms since you had to wear it at junior high and high school too

you even still have your familiar red inarizaki jacket but you were too emotional to wear it nor did you want to wear another school’s jacket

kiyoko smiled when she saw you leaning against the wall after she came out and nudged you

‘follow me?’

you nodded, blinded by both her beauty and her striking white teeth

she made small talk with you along the way like how your first day was and if you liked miyagi

she also asked about where you were from and hyogo

‘i managed ma school’s volleyball team too’

her eyes widened at that revelation

‘did you really? then you know how to do these things then!’

you smiled at her but didnt really answer

the two of you were nearing the gym and could hear the squeaks of shoes against the floor and the balls that were smacking against the walls

hehe

she opened the door and you heard shouts of her name before they saw you based on their silence

you observed the gym and noticed many heads, including the tall scary guy from your class

your brows furrowed when your eyes landed on him but he only looked at you with a blank expression

the third years already knew you so they were giving you a smile

daichi, if you remember correctly, walked up to you and raised a hand

'hey, y/n! glad you could make it!'

you nodded

'shes just observing today, if thats okay?'

daichi lit up and clapped his hands

'of course! feel free to sit over there at the stage, y/n'

the gym wasnt like inarizaki where they had bleachers

it was just a metal box with a stage at the other side

but before you could go, 3 people bounded up to you

one with orange hair

one with a buzzcut

and another with a bleached fringe

omg tsumu?

they looked at you with wonder

daichi noticed them and quickly put an arm in front of you

'everyone! this is l/n y/n, shes coach's niece and shes simply observing today. please be kind to her'

he pointedly looked at the meme trio and they shrunk back with a pout

but you grinned and raised a peace sign

'yo'

they immediately introduced themselves to you with hinata, noya, and tanaka being the very outgoing ones and hinata being the one who was in your year while the other two were second years

you also met the quieter and softer second years: ennoshita, kinoshita, and narita who shot you apologetic smiles after they saw the surprised and overwhelmed look you got after the trio talked your ear off

‘sorry about them. they can be a handful’

ennoshita apologized but you waved a hand around

‘don’ mind! don’ mind!’

and you met the other first years

the tall scary guy was tsukishima kei and the one who was walking next to him with the green hair this morning was yamaguchi and was strikingly opposite to his best friend

he had freckles and an adorable smile

‘hi, i’m yamaguchi tadashi’

he introduced himself with a bashful smile

your heart exploded with how cute he was and nodded before sticking a hand out for him to shake

‘l/n y/n’

then the last team member you were introduced to was kageyama tobio

he is a first-year setter with dark blue hair and seemed to have a hobby of bickering the with the tangerine

he was kinda quiet and a bit awkward with introducing himself but it cant be helped that people were awkward you know?

in a way, he reminded you of sunarin

sigh

you miss them

but once you were introduced to everyone, you simply sat on the edge of the stage and watched them practice

duh, you just met them so you werent gonna have an automatic friendship with any of them but it didnt mean that you were a stranger to them

your uncle did eventually arrive and he already knew that you met kiyoko and the others but he wasnt really sure if you were gonna be there at practice so he was still surprised to see you

keishin would look at you often just to check if you were uncomfortable but he saw some sort of light in your expression, a sense of excitement and longing

he knew that you were a part of a volleyball club in hyogo too since he met the twins in the midst of moving your stuff

so he knew that you had a connection to volleyball

which is why he dropped the hint to the third years and shimizu about possibly recruiting you as a manager for the team

once nightfall breaks and it was finally dark, everyone clapped as a signal that practice was over

you felt bad just watching them clean up so you jumped off the stage to pick up the stray balls and helping them dismantle the net as much as you could

‘y/n, here’s the cart’

shimizu gently said and you smiled before pushing it yourself and dropping the balls in as you went

she watched you with a soft gaze and she was looking forward to training you

she feels that she made the right choice

keishin rounded them up as a meeting before leaving and announced to stop by the store to get some ice pops as a treat for their hardwork today

you connected to the meme trio since they had an energy that reminded you of your friends back home and how lively they were

hinata and you bounced off each other effortlessly and you animatedly spoke to him the entire walk to the store

did you know where you were going?

but you were just following along with everyone else

‘ah, now we got two shortys to worry about’

tsukishima remarked from behind you and both you and hinata gave him a glare

‘rude’

hinata huffed and you nodded

‘its like i can never escape ya, tsukishima. are ya stalkin me?’

you teased and he rolled his eyes before shoving your shoulder lightly

‘dont be so vain, shrimp. maybe its because we live in the same area and go to the same school. its just a maybe though’

okay, hes sarcastic

keishin opened the door to the store and you greeted your auntie who was looking after it for the time

hinata wanted to get some chips but you wanted a drink so you went to the fridges in the back causing kageyama to follow you too

you noticed him stand beside you, looking at the contents of the fridge and you gave him a sideways smile

kageyama turned his head a bit when he saw you and nodded stiffly before opening and reaching for his milk

how cute

you grabbed your f/d and met up with everyone at the front

the third years were fussing over the meme trio while the second years were watching with an amused smile

your uncle stood beside you and nudged your arm

‘so? you okay with this?’

you looked at him and smiled softly

‘its fun’

yea keishin hasnt really seen you smile like that and he felt a warmth surge in his chest

he wanted to make sure you could start over here and help you move on from what happened

this is the first step to doing so

daichi waved you over and suga patted your head as he began to talk to you

you met keishin’s eyes and he nodded

that night, you were on a group facetime with your friends

tsumu: oi, y/n! ya better not be replacin’ us!

osamu: oh, shaddup, tsumu. nothin’ wrong with making friends yanno

sunarin: how is it there? are you getting along with them? are they nice to you?

y/n: ‘m kinda scared to start over but i’ll do ma best

and thus, started your little adventures with karasuno volleyball team

for like a week, you followed kiyoko everywhere and just watched what she did

you found out that you needed to be in a club as a first year from your homeroom teacher who also coincidentally is the advisor for the team

he was so nice omg

as the days went past, you were quickly warming up to the boys and it was like you were back on the groove that you’ve lost

as a manager, you knew that you needed to be responsible while also being a friend to them

you helped kiyoko with the note taking and doing errands with her to ease the burden on her shoulders while also making plans to hang out with the people in the team

it helped that you were also skilled in doing some medical things so you would be on stand-by with the first aid kit just in case someone did something

but when kageyama and hinata start fighting, you just avert your eyes and pretend your didnt see anything

the third years love you since you were a quick learner and you already knew what to do and what to expect during practices and such

the second years were a bit scared that you would be like the meme trio but they found you were actually not that rowdy and they often stand by you to just talk

sigh, why must they always be benched bruh

you were close with them and because they were your senpais, they would also help you with your studies and tutor you

the meme trio thought of you as another goddess with their kiyoko-senpai but hinata and you just clicked so well together

i mean like yall make jokes and be the only ones that laugh at it

kageyama is more distant and reserved from you mainly because thats just how he is but he does start warming up to you in ways like asking if you would help bandage his fingers and such

and sometimes, you grab him his milk before going to school and surprise him with it

very very cute things

gosh, dont get me started on tadashi

you got permission to call him tadashi btw

he is so adorable like help he is so cute

like yall are in the same class and you both talk to each other a lot during lunch since you have now joined their little group (much to tsukishima’s dismay) and you guys get along with your similar interests

but gosh, now we get to tsukishima

this dude cannot seem to forget about your bumping into him and taking his seat during your first day

‘gosh, shorty. remember when-’

‘tsukishima, shaddup!’

he loves and i mean LOVES to tease the ever loving life outta you bro like you cannot seem to escape it

and during practices, he will make little remarks to anger you or tick you off

like when youre on your toes just to reach for something in the storage room, he would somehow know you were in trouble and would make a comment

‘it wouldnt be a problem if you werent so short, chibi’

you turn to him with a glare

‘are ya gonna stand there an’ jus’ keep yappin’ like a chihuahua or are ya gonna help me like a normal human bein’?’

he laughs before huffs and grabs the cone for you but not without accidentally dropping it on your head

‘ah, whoops’

‘yer such a bully, tsukishima’

these boys adore your accent!!!!!!

so it seems that they do have an accent here too but its so faded out and its like a normal tokyo accent but gosh, you were raised in hyogo and your kansai accent is strong asf

and unfortunately i do not speak japanese so i cant explain it directly but theres certain ways that you speak that they find so endearing

like you were rushing to the gym since you were late to their practice because obe-sensei held you up with some sort of issue with your assignment

you were huffing and puffing as you stumbled into the gym and they worriedly asked you where you were and if you were okay

but you were just grumbling since you were frustrated

‘obe-sensei was goin’ on an’ on ‘bout somethin’ so not related ta the homework like didja need ta tell me ‘bout yer dog?! ugh god get the hint why dontcha?!’

you were so cute

like hearing you rant was so adorable and they were blushing at how cute you sounded just now

then training camp starts and you, along with the others, meet nekoma

AHH it was intense and you met the rooster head and kenma too

kuroo looked at you intensely before he lit up, startling you while you were taking notes

‘can i help ya?’

you ask and he chuckled

‘thats where i saw you! youre the girl in suna’s phone!’

you turn red at the mention

help that was so random why did he just say that

‘wha?’

kuroo laughed

‘man! now i remember!’

‘what’re ya sayin’, kuroo-san?’

you press on

‘kenma! come over here!’

he yelled for the bleached hair setter who cringed at the mention of his name and how loud it was yelled but still walked over, eyes glued to his phone

‘what is it?’ his soft voice fills the space

‘you remember the inarizaki trio right? the ones that bokubro brought to our last hang out?’

kenma looked up at kuroo with a furrowed brows

‘huh?’

kuroo rolled his eyes

‘you know, the training camp and how we met that one school in hyogo and we ended up hanging out after?’

‘ah, the twins’

‘same thing. anyways! you remember the middle blocker? i thought you had beef with him at first but you got along with him’

‘ah, suna’

‘yea him! y/n-chan is the girl on his lockscreen, right?’

kenma looked at you, eyes fixing itself on your face as if he was committing your face to his memory

‘uh, wha?’

you ask again

bruh youre the emoticon O.O

then he nodded

‘mhm’

you turned red, freezing and voices tuned out and your team was worriedly asking if you were okay but nah, not really

HAHA ENOUGH OF THAT

because of how young you are, the third years tend to treat you like you were a baby and at first it bothered you with how caring they were since you didnt really know them that well and they were already taking care of you

there was still some underlying trauma from your parents death that haunts you

the guys dont know what happened or anything like that because obviously that was your business and nobody else’s

all they know is that you were from hyogo and transferred over here to miyagi and now live with your uncle

one day, you got a phone call from the legal attorneys with them explaining that all of the stuff was being finalized and you were finally finished with the longest months of your life

it was during a school day and you needed absolute privacy so you were at the back of the gym since one, the rooftop had too many cliche stuff happen up there and there has to be someone that could go up there and two, the volleyball gym wasnt exactly a popular hangout spot for anyone and three, the back of it was rarely visited by any of your team members and most of them would be in class anyways so they wouldnt be here unless they were skipping

but anyways

you were pacing behind the gym with your phone pressed to your ear

‘if you have any other questions, ms. l/n, feel free to call us okay? again, we are very sorry for your loss and offer our utmost condolences. there is always light in the darkness’

‘yes, thank you. goodbye’

you mumbled before they hung up and you stopped, harshly biting your lips with tears brimming your eyes and fists clenched around your phone at your sides

this was it

everything was done

you should be relieved, there was no more issues or legalities left to worry about

so why do you feel so empty?

as messed up as it was, those stresses and problems were the last of what connected you to your parents

and now that it was finished, it felt like that connection was gone

you sucked in a breath harshly, trying to not cry and make yourself calm down but you couldnt, sobs escaping you

you harshly wiped your eyes and kept breathing in and out to stop yourself

‘l/n?’

someone’s voice called out to you from way in front of you so you looked up and saw

kageyama?

his eyebrows were furrowed like usual but there wasnt a trace of annoyance like there usually was

instead, there was concern

‘ah’

you mumbled before shakily sighing and breathing for a second before looking up at him

even with your puffy eyes and red face with tear tracks down your face, you still smiled at him

‘wha’s up, kageyama?’ you question and he sighed a bit

‘what happened? are you okay?’

he approached you cautiously but you nodded

‘yea, ‘m fine. really’

he didnt believe you but didnt say anything, continuing to look at you

your eyes glaze over and you looked down

‘please, don’ give me yer pity’

you whisper

kageyama’s eyes widens

‘huh?’

‘i don’ need pity, kageyama’

there was no malice or anger in your voice, just a little tone of embarrassment peaking through

kageyama understood

pride

he was the same way

he was prideful and would rather die than someone seeing him so vulnerable and much less, crying his heart out

especially to someone he knew personally

so he understood

and he also understood grief

no one knew anything about your past as their coach always remained tight-lipped about it

but he did hear from some gossip from his mother with the coaches in the area that the old coach ukai’s granddaughter died

were you somehow connected to that?

oh, the current coach ukai was your uncle so it had to be you

you looked at kageyama and you saw a flash of understanding

did he know?

kageyama turned to lean against the wall

‘would you like me to leave you alone? i promise i won’t say anything to anyone’

his gruff voice sounded gentle and you looked up at him

‘yer a good person, kageyama. but, ‘m okay’

there was definitely an odd aura in the gym today and you and the coach were acting weird but everyone didnt want to be involved in familial business so they left it alone

but kageyama was paying attention to you more than usual and running to you to be bandaged up

they were even shocked when he patted your head

trust me, kageyama shocked himself too

the entire time, the team were trying to make you laugh and doing more jokey things

they wanted to cheer you up and daichi suddenly remembered, in the midst of closing up and cleaning up

he got you a surprise before they were starting to do the interhighs and he ran to the storage room, everyone watching him intently

‘daich-san?’ you asked when he came out and walked towards you with his hands behind him

daichi smiled softly before presenting you a clothing

is that

‘welcome to karasuno high school volleyball club!’

they shouted and you looked at them with wide eyes, tears once again in your eyes but this time, they were kinda happy tears

you looked to the side to shimizu and she gave you a rare wide smile and your uncle too

what is this feeling

so familiar but so strange since you havent felt it in a very long time

‘thank you!’

you shouted with them and bowed to keep your tears hidden

you all went to your family’s convenience store to celebrate and when you and keishin got home, he pulled you to a hug

‘we’re here now, y/n. not just me, but the team too’

that night, you once again facetimed the trio and they saw how grinny you were

tsumu: ei, why’re ya lookin’ like that?

y/n: tsumu, rude!

osamu: yea, did somethin’ happen?

you shake your head

y/n: the volleyball team here is really nice

tsumu: ahhh, yer really replacin’ us now!!!! what would kita-san say hm?!

osamu: here ya go again with your jealousy

while the twins bickered, suna gave you a gentle smile

suna: something good happened right? i havent seen you smile like that in a while

y/n: yea. i just…

you trail off, eyes wandering to the black karasuno jacket hanging there beside your red inarizaki one

y/n: its not startin’ over. its jus’ startin’ a new part of ma life. and i think ‘m ready to do it.

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!! headcanons #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! imagines #haikyuu manager #haikyuu!! manager #karasuno #karasuno x reader #karasuno imagines #karasuno manager #karasuno headcanons #karasuno fluff #haikyuu fluff

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probssomethingorother · 1 month

Text

Next of Kin: A TLOU fanfic

This is really long and hopefully kinda sad. Don't look too close cause I got tired of editing and didn't get a beta.

Pre-Tlou, Sarah's birth story, big sad, canon compliant-ish

Sarah, Joel, Claire (OC)

Rating: Teen

“This is on you, boy. So you march back in there, you take the reins, and you do right by that child. You hear?” He only manages to nod his head, but Mr. Johnson finds it’s enough, and he is released with a final shove. In the silence that follows, a lifetime passes. He stops being a kid, walks back in, and tends to his child. ------- The day Joel becomes a dad and how he deals. Slight canon divergence where his wife dies instead of leaving.

ONE SHOT - Words: 15,929

Live laugh love, comment subscribe reblog - that's how it goes right??

Read on AO3 here or down below ⤵️

He becomes a dad on one of the worst days of his life.

July 20, 1989.

*** ʚїɞ ***

It’s a slow morning until it isn’t.

Soft light pours into their tiny bedroom through sheer polyester pom-pom studded blue curtains, relentlessly shining onto his face until finally, Joel cracks open his eyes. He inhales deeply, sucking in air against his pillow as he withdraws his arms from underneath and stretches until he takes up the entirety of the bed. It’s just a full - it’s not hard to fill the space, but usually, there is someone else keeping both his arms from hitting the sides.

Claire.

Head popping up as he blinks away the fuzziness of sleep, he catches the time on their bedside clock, and then promptly flops back down.

8:47 AM, Thursday - class.

She is halfway through some advanced design course right now, stuck in an architecture studio with a bunch of kids who don’t know how to hold a hammer.

“You’re voluntarily going to summer school?” he had teased, a mock frown puckering his forehead.

“You’re not going to be able to build ‘em, if I can’t design ‘em, buddy,” she shot back with a grin.

They don’t have many concrete plans, but they do have a little dream to start up their own building company - her designs with his construction, in-house everything from start to finish.

Several months ago, it looked like that dream was gone. He came home to her sobbing on the floor of his bathroom, clutching three positive pregnancy tests, blubbering about how it wasn’t supposed to happen, how her parents would be so upset, how her life was over, and how she didn’t think she could be a mom.

After the shock abated—the overwhelming drumming in his ears subsiding to a disconcerting tapping and his heart slowing to a crawl—he descended to the bathroom floor to be beside her. With a deep breath, he slid down the putrid yellow wall, intertwined his hand in hers, and exhaled every ounce of air in his lungs. Then, with a sweet peck to the top of her hand, breathlessly he told her, “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout kids….but I do know… if one’s gettin’ you for a mom - they’re goin’ to be pretty amazin’.”

Much to his chagrin, his words only brought on a fresh wave of tears and sobs. He didn’t know what part of what he just said was wrong, but he couldn’t handle seeing her cry. As he frantically scurried on the tile floor to sit in front of her, he missed the subtle shift in the way her shoulders shook, angst turning to something lighter.

Tenderly, he nestled her head in his hands, and hastily sputtered:

“No no no, please don’t - I didn’t mean - we can do this is all. Ain’t the end of the world. You’ll be a good mom - and I think maybe... I’ll be a good dad - teach him all sorts of stuff about buildin’, and football, and my abuela’s tamales...And he’ll... and I know we don’t got much right now, but that’s just right now - we can have ‘em -“

And then Claire let out a snot-soaked chuckle, mouth twitching up at the sides as she wiped her wet face against his arm, leaving a shiny residue.

“Him? What makes you so sure were havin’ a boy?”

With a sigh of relief, he sat back as her tears came to a trickle; and with a curt nod and a smile, he dropped his hands away from her face.

“Well yeah,” he drawled, “Miller’s only have boys - me, Tommy, all the primos- not a girl in the bunch.”

Two days later Claire met with her counselor, rearranged her course schedule, and made a plan to enroll in the summer semester, freeing up her fall for the arrival of the baby. At the start of term, she crossed her fingers and prayed to God that the little nugget would stay inside long enough for her to make it through to finals.

It’s her last week. So far the plan has worked.

Normally, he’s navigating the morning rush to drop her off at UT Austin before he heads to the relentless buzz of the construction site, but this morning he’s on the late crew. He has nowhere to be til noon, and the extra hours of sleep are nice, but he also would rather be working.

He had asked for more shifts to make extra money before the baby comes, but Asshole Andy didn’t take too kindly to the request and did the exact opposite - slashed his hours by six each week, snarkily advising him he could “probably use more time at home prepping from the arrival of the rugrat.”

He had brooded over the whole ordeal for a couple of weeks, but now it irks him less, especially since Claire has given him a laundry list of things to complete before the little man comes home - assembling the crib, buying a bottle warmer, installing his car seat, cleaning the kitchen, and the bathroom, and the floors, and the couch, and pretty much every surface in their dinky 700 square foot apartment.

The list starts its relentless nag on his mind right as the last dredges of sleep scurry away, and the morning light, now too bright for any more excuses, floods their matchbox of a bedroom. It leaves Joel with no choice but to begrudgingly abandon the comforts of their bed, and rolling to its edge, with a small groan he begins his day.

Shuffling out of their room, his feet catch and peel away from the warped parquet floor with a faint, sticky noise that echoes in the quiet morning. It's one of the many quirks of their aging apartment that they've come to accept- its "charm," as Claire loves to say. Their living space is a hodgepodge of second-hand furniture, DIY fixes, and cheap decor. They have tried to make it look better, but even with all of Claire’s design knowledge only so much can be done to distract from the place's age and size.

He flicks on the TV - an old set, the screen slightly too blue- and flips to Sport’s Center to catch the Astros’ game highlights.

Taking a few moments to himself, he plops down at the tiny table wedged in the corner of their kitchenette with a hefty bowl of frosted flakes before the day's duties demand his attention.

His spoon pauses mid-air, startled, as the front door swings open and bounces against the wall. He’s halfway through breakfast, but wasn’t keeping track of the time.

Claire comes barreling through, her presence like a sudden storm, backpack haphazardly dropping with a thud as she crosses the threshold. She’s always been a bit of a tornado, bouncy brown curls trailing her like a dust cloud as she whips up small messes in her wake.

“Need to pee!” She announces as she hurries past Joel, her movement more of a rapid wattle, one hand cradling her swollen belly. She’s three weeks out from her due date and feeling and looking like “Veruca J, Veruca!” - as she likes to lament to him at least once a week.

Despite the urgency, she tosses him a small smile as she slips inside the bathroom and shuts the door. With a small smile of his own, he gives his head a little shake and returns to his cereal.

“You eat?” He calls with a full mouth, attention on the screen in the far opposite corner, a little too enthralled watching the Astros get smashed by the Mets. The question is thrown casually over his shoulder, a formality really because he knows the answer. She never eats before class, opting to take the extra few minutes of sleep over fixing up something, but still, he has to go through the routine: he asks, she grumbles, he says the baby needs food, and then there is a slight pause before she crosses her arms and says he’s right.

But when its usual pattern unfolds with no reply, he lobs another question towards the bathroom, “Wan’me to pour you a bowl of this?”

And that’s when everything speeds up.

She emerges from the bathroom with stark panic etched across her face, its complexion losing color by the second. Her deep brown eyes, wide and unblinking, lock onto Joel's like a silent scream.

Her shorts are off, her underwear is red, and blood spreads down the tops of her inner thighs.

He’s on his feet in a fraction of a second. As he darts up, the table jostles violently, sending his breakfast airborne in a chaotic slew of cereal and milk, and the bowl slips off, splintering against the tile of the kitchen floor. The high-pitched clatter of it all is nothing compared to the sudden ringing now filling his head.

Tears begin to pucker her waterline as he rushes to Claire, his footsteps quick, his hands hovering before they gently, firmly, grasp her shoulders.

A thousand words are interchanged between them, but none break from either of their lips.

With a shared nod, they split—Joel to the chaos of their bedroom for clothes, Claire to the phone.

“Mom?… Momma? Can you n’Pop meet us at the hospital?” Her voice is shallow and cracky, but Joel can hear it as clear as day as he rushes to throw on a t-shirt and wriggle into a pair of jeans.

“No St. David’s ..” she chokes out, as he stumbles over his own feet as they enter his pant legs, leaving him to careen into the closet door. As he pops back up, he catches her trembling voice ending the call: “Okay, love you, see you soon.”

The phone crashes to the laminate countertop with a sharp clatter, clearly not rehooked, as he snatches his wallet from the dresser and scrambles to find his keys.

If he wasn’t fighting to suppress the panic quickly growing inside him, frustration over the search for the pesky things would have been all-consuming. He rummaged through three pairs of pants, and checked under the bed, in the couch cushion, in the kitchen, the bathroom, and pretty much every other inch of their apartment, before finally lifting Claire’s backpack strewn in the entry to see the car keys discarded beneath.

Within seconds of his eyes landing on them, they are out the door, and the worst and best day of Joel’s life begins.

*** ʚїɞ ***

“Joel?”

“Right here, baby, right here.”

“I - I- please, don’t let - we need to - now-”

“I know, I gotcha.”

Her fragmented pleas, broken by sharp intakes of breath and muffled by cascades of tears, repeat incessantly in his head—louder and more urgent with each echo. Joel can’t get it to stop - much like his leg moving in an equally incessant rhythm, bouncing up and down as he sits in the rigid chair. The compulsive movement is matched by his hand - right anxiously twisting his watch band back and forth, rubbing it deeper and deeper into the rawing skin of his left.

“There’s so much blood.”

“Just focus on breathe’n now, we’ll be there soon, alright?”

Dried remnants of it cling stubbornly to the crevices of his knuckles and dirty the spaces in between his fingers, staining them a brownish crimson. He could clean it off, but it’s a piece of her - and if he can’t see her, at least he can still look at this bit, no matter how gruesome.

Almost an hour has passed since he’s last seen her.

By the time they reached the ER, she was too dizzy to walk. She’s not much smaller than him, but Joel had scooped her up with urgency anyway and charged through the sliding doors. The muted blue walls of the hospital corridor blurred in his periphery as he zeroed in on the signs leading them there. As he burst through the doors, they rebounded off the walls with a loud slap, and the collective gaze of the waiting room pivoted toward them.

His arms burned from her weight, but he dug his grip in more, fingertips pushing into her thigh hard enough to bruise.

"Something’s wrong with her," he blurted out to the quiet room, his blown-wide eyes locking onto the woman’s at the admittance desk.

It took no time for the nurses to descend on them, ushering Joel out of the waiting room and back toward a bed he could finally let her down on.

Claire was barely coherent, face ashy, breathing labored.

“What’s her name, son?” A sweet older woman with box-dyed red hair asked, gently moving him aside to better attend to Claire.

“Claire,” She took his name officially a few months back, but he’s known her longer as - “Claire Johnson,” - it just flows right.

“Okay Claire, we’re going to take good care of you. How many weeks are you, hun?”

When her head lolled to the side, lips moving but no words coming out, he felt like someone was squeezing the air out of his lungs while simultaneously filling his head with cement.

He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t focus. His eyes bounced from her to the monitors, from the nurses to doctors, from the needle being pushed into her arm to the cross on the wall, from the strap being secured around her belly to her beautiful curls getting crunched beneath the oxygen mask, and then finally, to a calendar hanging crookedly above the corner sink -

His gaze had lingered there for a long moment.

Claire had put a magnet on the fridge to track the weeks, a little pink and blue calendar. He thought watching the time tick by was a little silly at first, but this week, when she flipped it to “3 weeks from baby!” he got a little flutter of something in his chest.

“37,” he muttered, brain distantly doing the mental math as a nurse dispensed a healthy glob of ultrasound jelly onto Claire, bottle squelching with the brute force of the squeeze.

Only 37 seconds later, a decision was made: she needed surgery immediately. Her bed rails snapped up, she was disconnected from the machines that beeped and blinked with a detached urgency, and wheeled away swiftly. Someone tried to explain something about the placenta and an “abruption” and that she was losing more blood than her body could handle, but all Joel could focus on was keeping pace with the gurney so her hand wouldn’t slip from his.

But eventually, it did - had to.

She was pushed behind a set of doors he was not allowed to go, held back by a physician’s firm hand. “Take a seat, someone will come talk to you,” they said.

That was 37 minutes ago, and nobody has come to talk to him.

The flickering of the fluorescent light overhead is now the only thing keeping him sane. It mixes with some sun strips crossing the blue tile floor, and when everything hits right, it looks like beams of light dancing at the bottom of a swimming pool. He finds himself fixating on it, forcing himself to take a breath every time a glowy strip appears. Everything else around him just fades into the background, the ring of the hustle and bustle of the hospital becoming muted as if caught beneath the waterline.

Claire once told him blue is used to evoke calm, but surrounded by the hospital’s blue walls and blue floors, it only makes him feel more and more like he’s drowning underwater.

Claire loves the water.

She’s lived in a landlocked city her entire life, but give the girl a chance and she will talk about the ocean. She’s only been a handful of times to the coast- just Padre Island, yet, you would think she’s dipped her toe in each of the seven seas. Sand and sunshine, blue skies and blue sea - she could never get enough.

They had almost escaped there for the Fourth.

“Come on, J, one last hurrah,” she had pleaded, her eyes alight with the prospect, her voice threaded with excitement as she bounced around their small living room. “It’s called a babymoon - everyone’s doing it now,” she had tried to explain, doing her best to convince him to sit in the sand and watch fireworks explode in dazzling arrays over the Gulf.

But he had to say no. There was no time, no money, and his old car, which creaked and groaned even on short drives, would probably not survive a four-hour trek in the boiling Texas heat.

It’s a little silly - especially now - but all he can think about is her and him, and how they really should have just taken the goddam trip.

*** ʚїɞ ***

There is little to say to her parents when they arrive and find him waiting, his hands slick with sweat as they approach. He gulps hard and clears his throat, scrambling for words that refuse to form. But before he can try to speak, Mrs. Johnson pulls him in for a hug.

Her hand gently brushes the back of his head, and the precipice of any words dissolves into a shaky exhale into the crook of her neck. She smells like a blend of lavender and vanilla—just like his mom used to. When she breathes, "Oh honey," her voice cracks with maternal warmth, and for a moment, Claire’s mom is his mom, and he doesn’t want to let go. Arms, heavy and trembling, slowly rise around her, his body deflates, and for a flash of a second, he doesn’t feel like he’s stuck underwater.

But he only gets in one breath before he slips back under.

Claire’s father, a big burly man - an old-fashioned Texas rancher- interrupts the moment, hand going firmly to his wife’s shoulder. He tugs her back, guiding her to a nearby chair with a look of the eye and a twitch of the head.

Mrs. Johnson’s eyes, already weary and tinted red, spare Joel one final sympathetic look before taking her seat and turning to the ground.

Mr. Johnson takes his wife’s spot, leaning in close. His breath is hot and has the stench of musky cigars as it puffs into his face. “Nurse at the front told us what’s goin’ on,” he gruffs with a dagger-like glare, a look that Joel has only seen once before when he caught them one late night junior year fooling around in the back of his Tio’s truck.

If it hadn’t been for Claire coming between them—literally—Joel’s pretty sure Mr. Johnson would have killed him on the spot.

Unfortunately, he’s lacking her protection now.

On shaky knees, he sinks back down in his seat as Mr. Johnson takes his own next to his wife, who has already brought out her Rosary and begun the Litany.

For a long while, he watches her fingers glide across the beads. Her umber tone makes the milky cream of the tiny glass orbs and the gold-plated cross shine in her grip. Head bowed, her voice is hushed, a whispered prayer—delicate, but intentional.

He’s never taken much to religion, but it was important to his mother, so he never missed a Sunday. It was just a hollow obligation then, but in this moment, he can see why people are drawn to it.

There is a comfort in knowing what to do, what to pray, who to ask for help.

He follows along in his own head, punctuating her efforts with his own hard “Amens”. He pushes his anxiety into each prayer, hoping the Mary up there will take pity on them, see herself in Claire, and protect their son.

They only make it three decades deep.

Perhaps if they had finished it, things would be different.

He barely registers the doctor’s approach. When he slowly looks up, he can’t miss the hollow defeat that hangs heavily in the woman’s eyes as she comes into focus behind the Johnsons.

Time stops.

He goes rigid, fidgety anxiousness leaving his body as dread pushes in.

Seeing the change in Joel's expression, the Johnsons twist to face the doctor, their bodies stiffening as they stand. He tries to rise, but his legs betray him, and he remains half-seated, peering through the narrow gap between their shoulders. The doctor, flanked by the nurse from before with the coppery hair - “Judy” he remembers off a name tag - looks exhausted, face drawn tight, almost like a different person then who she was in the ER.

"I'm sorry," the physician offers, each word measured but heavy, carrying a weight that squeezes out all the little remaining air from the waiting area. "We did everything we could, but..."

The words that follow blend into the sterile air. Something about complications, a clot to the brain, a loss too great, a life gone as a new one gasped its first breath.

His knees buckle and he’s back in the uncomfortable seat once more. His fingers find the sides and wrap around, knuckles going white as he holds onto the plastic like it’s a preserver in rough waters. Every hair on his body stands to attention as a wave of goosebumps runs from his head to his toes. Saliva pools in his mouth and his throat constricts tight and his lungs feel like they are vacuumed sealed shut.

They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. What they don’t tell you is that it happens just the same when they die.

Claire.

She’s eleven years old, escorted into their church camp room, and placed in a seat next to him. He was dared by Freddy Bower to yank her ponytail so he gave the new girl a gentle tug. In return, she picked her nose and wiped it on his arm. Everyone teased him the rest of summer that she had given him her cooties.

She’s in his homeroom when school starts in the fall and the rivalry is instantaneous, competition whittling down to their days of birth - and of course, she’s three days ahead.

And then she’s thirteen and leaning across the circle, the tip of the soda bottle pointing towards him. Even though she unabashedly wiped him off her lips, he didn’t mind the way her strawberry chapstick lingered on his. He wanted to remember his first kiss with a girl, even if it was with her. At the same party the following year, they are stuffed in a closet for seven minutes in heaven, but they stay several inches apart - “Miller if you think I’m goi-” - “Oh, like I would even want you to.”

And then they are freshmen, and she’s not in any of his classes or clubs and he kind of misses her, but convinces himself it's just the competition that he craves, and has nothing to do with how she’s bubbly, and witty, and pretty, and fun.

And then it’s the summer and they are stuck in the back of a hardware store together, wearing neon green vests, racing to stock shelves, tallying who knows the most paint codes, and the competition is back and now he doesn’t want to let it go. So he doesn’t.

He makes her start to hate him less, and they get paired together in home-ec, and when they both get dragged to church by their parents they go to the pew in the back and fold all the hymnal pages into geometric patterns. They get close enough for his mom to start packing her a tamale in his lunch, teasing “para su amiga,” with a wiggle of her brow, and for Claire’s older brother to start snagging him packs of Marlboro Reds from the corner store on Park before away games, because “since you she fights with our Pops less.”

And even though she laughs in his face when he asks her to Junior year homecoming, it’s official - they are together - and they stay together.

She cries with him when his mom dies and he holds her tight when her brother meets the same fate five months later. She gets accepted to NYU, but decides to stay in Austin for school - “I’m not doing this for you - me and Tommy are buds now, can’t leave him.”

And although she lives in the dorms freshman year and he takes the couch at his Tio’s, they still make it work. When he saves enough to rent a place of his own, one night a week becomes several, and then she’s with him full-time. And she decorates the place with seashells and butterflies and they laugh and dance in the living room, and burn things on the stove, and watch marathons of shitty movies, and flood the bathroom trying to fix the sink. And he pops the question one silly night under the sheets, and puts a peach ring on her finger, and he’s in love, and they are making plans, and having dreams, and having a -

"Hun?" The gentle intrusion startles him as it slices through his life with her. Judy’s auburn hair flashes infront of his eyes before her kind gaze takes its place. He nods mechanically.

“Why don’t you go see your baby girl?” She chirps soft and smooth, as one of her wrinkly hands comes to his elbow while the other wiggles her fingers under his and unlocks his grip from the edge of the seat.

With another shaky nod, he forces himself to his feet, each step hesitant as he follows the Johnsons out of the waiting area.

Only once he’s at their backs do her words hit his brain, but by then he’s not sure he’s hearing anything right - hoping he’s not hearing anything right.

*** ʚїɞ ***

Things go a little hazy for a while, like wandering through a dream that both makes absolute sense and none at all.

Despite being behind the doctor, her parents set the pace- a quick stride, nipping at the physician’s heels, pushing her to lead them down the winding corridor at a speed Joel finds wholly unmanageable. He can’t quite put his finger on the feeling, but his brain is telling him that it’s strange to be rushing - inappropriate- to be speeding this along.

With every five tiles, he falls a step behind, his pace slowing incrementally until the echoes of their footsteps fade and he’s alone with nothing but the empty stretch of corridor to navigate.

Distance.

Minutes ago, he had wanted the space between them to disappear; now, he wishes the hallway would stretch a little longer, the doorway be a bit further - hell, if he could move her room to the other end of the hospital, that would be best.

Space is time, and he needs time before this moment finally catches up with the next. The next that’s tainted by a cruel reality waiting on the other side of that door.

When he finally steps in and sees her, color already gone from her face, he feels small, like a little kid - he is a kid - and she was a kid - and now they have -

He doesn’t remember walking over to the clear plastic bassinet, but then he is there looking down at the thing that took his first love from him.

Her tiny fists wave in the air - clearly a fighter from her first breath- and then her teeny nose wrinkles up as she lets out a piercing cry.

The shriek, is timed perfectly with a deep wail from Claire’s mother.

The sounds are like the gun at the start of a race, his feet moving before he thinks.

He has no control over his body as he rushes back into the hallway, his heart pounding, breaths shallow and quick. His chest feels like it’s on fire as he slides his body down the wall, sinking into the floor, much like he did several months back when Claire broke the news - although this is light years more jarring.

“Why don’t you go see your baby girl?” Plays back in his head like a cruel joke.

It’s a girl.

He should be happy that at least one of them made it out, but all is brain can grab a hold of is the fact that the one that did, is not his girl - not Claire.

The commingled cries leak under the door and waft into the hallway, giving him no reprieve. His hands slide over his ears as he tucks his knees into his chest and digs his forehead into the denim of his jeans.

He thought he knew what grief felt like. When his mom died, years ago now, it was like someone rearranged his insides and forgot to put his heart back into the right place, stuck somewhere near his stomach, perpetually sunk. And back then, he knew it was coming - a monster in the closet that would eventually come so he left the door ajar. He slowly grieved the loss of her for months and months before the cancer finally took her, and it hurt, but not like this.

This was different.

He wasn’t prepared for a monster to come and take everything, and certainly not on today of all days.

He thought they would rush to the hospital and get settled in a room and figured the worst thing that could go wrong was Claire squeezing his hand maybe a bit too hard - maybe even enough to break it, he had heard that could happen - and then after a few grueling hours, they would leave with arms cradling a boy, a strong little fella with Claire's bright eyes and his big’ole nose.

They would go home as three.

He knows there’s two of them now, but he feels like he’s just one.

He can’t do this.

With a clack on the tile, feet halt in front of him. Raising his head slightly off his knees, dark brown cowboy boots come to fill his view as they grind into the ground. With a firm hand - an angry clench that squeezes his bicep- Claire’s father hoists him up roughly, feet slipping on the smooth tile as he’s forced to stand and face him.

His eyes are all fire when they meet Joel’s and his grip intensifies as they bear into him. He’s heard stories about Mr. Johnson’s anger - never would touch a woman, but Claire’s told him about how he wouldn’t hold back on her brother Mike. For a moment, he’s sure he’s about to experience what he can do, but instead, he’s slammed against the wall.

“Stand up. Act like a damn man,” he growls, his voice a strident whisper.

It’s harsh, but expected. Her dad never liked him, thought he was derailing his daughter's future, and that was before getting her pregnant. Five years of pent-up anger and disdain are channeled into the vice grip on his arm. He winces, but he also knows he's fortunate it's only his arm taking the brunt of it.

“This is on you, boy. So you march back in there, you take the reins, and you do right by that child. You hear?”

He only manages to nod his head, but Mr. Johnson finds it’s enough, and he is released with a final shove.

In the silence that follows, a lifetime passes.

He stops being a kid, walks back in, and tends to his child.

His child: Sarah.

That’s the name they had picked after thumbing through a far too large book rented from the college library. Claire had wanted something with meaning, “classic, but strong,” and landed on Alexander and Sarah - a warrior and a princess.

He didn’t think they would be needing the girl's name - “Miller’s make men” he had begun to chime every time Claire’s eyes veered toward something pink or purple for the baby. But perhaps it was mother’s intuition because here she is.

Sarah

She was supposed to be their princess. Now, she’s just his, and that fact weighs his body down like an anchor, planting his feet next to her bassinet, forcing him to stare into her big brown eyes that go as deep as the ocean.

Claire would have loved her baby’s eyes.

A warm hand settles between his shoulder blades, and he pushes his gaze away from her, blinks rapidly to clear away the tears pooling in his waterline, and turns toward the source. A nurse with a yellow scrub cap that matches a tweedy bird pin clipped on her pink scrubs offers him a quaint but sullen smile and drops her hand away.

“You picked a name out for her yet, sugar?” She asks bending over the bassinet clipped to retrieve the name placard at the top of the small crib.

The powder pink card boasts “It’s a Girl!” in a cursive font with flowers and a cheery teddy bear with a bow. Beneath it, are all the important things, like “Mother: Johnson”, “Weight: 6lb 1oz,” “Length: 17 ⅛. In.” and “Time: 10:27am.”

The spot for the name is glaringly empty.

Joel nods with a sniffle.

“And what’s the winner then?” The clipboard in her grip swings around to her front, and she balances it in a crevice of her stomach as she uncaps a black felt tip marker with her teeth.

Mouth dry, he swallows hard. The last time his throat pushed out words was when he whispered “you’ll be okay” into Claire’s ear as she was pushed away from him through those doors off the ER bay. He hates that his last words to her were a lie, but that’s neither here nor there now.

“Sarah,” he says slowly, listening how it floats through the air.

“Middle?”

He knows what Claire wanted - what they had planned - but his eyes flick across the room and find her blanched face obscured by a tube and surrounded by monitors, and he just can’t go with it.

“I think it should-,” he pauses, pondering it again for a fraction of a second, “-Claire.” He nods, “Sarah. Claire. Miller.”

He hopes she doesn’t mind.

*** ʚїɞ ***

The hours begin to bleed together.

The mechanical whispers of the hospital - the soft beeps, the muted shuffles of footsteps, the low voices of doctors, and nurses, and administrators weaving in and out the dimly lit room - it all becomes one giant mush after a while.

Someone had offered to wheel Sarah away, and put her in the nursery with all the other newborns - “are you sure? fathers ain’t normally the ones watchin’ them like this” - but despite being utterly terrified, he shook his head at the offer. He planted himself in the corner of the room on a small maroon plastic couch, rolled her bassinet firmly in front of him, and kept her small form at his eye level.

People come in to evaluate Claire, but when nobody veers toward their own little space to check on them, he wonders if it’s the wrong decision. She seems perfectly fine, but his leg bounces nervously with the possibility that she isn’t - silently slipping away because he doesn’t know anything about babies.

His gaze rarely leaves her even as conversations swell around them, constant low-murmured discussions about what comes next.

They frame their words carefully, tiptoeing around the inevitable, trying to present things as if there are options to be made, but there aren’t options - there is just one option :

When to let her go.

She’s already gone in all the ways that matter. Her body is there, but her brain is not. She’s never going to wake up. She’s not going to go home and dance in their apartment, or wiggle her toes in the sand, or blow bubbles in her drink, or call him “Joel Michael Miller” when he tickles her too much.

And she is not going to hold her baby, or hear her giggle, or see her take her first steps cause Claire is not going to be stepping out of this hospital.

He knows it, but the Johnsons haven’t quite gotten there yet. So he just watches from the corner of the room as her parents ask all the same questions over and over again, yet hope for different answers.

Earlier, someone had tried to explain what happened was rare. That when the placenta detached her body kicked into overdrive, blood clotting excessively. As little Sarah was being pulled into the land of the living, Claire slipped the opposite way, a clot traveling up to her brain and cutting off blood supply for too long.

A one in a million chance.

“Exceedingly rare,” they had said repeatedly, and, “no way to know this would happen,” as though those two things could somehow soften the blow.

Soft enough to knead it into something it isn’t.

For her parents, “rare” became synonymous with special, and “no way to know” mutated into defying the odds, and both together turned into a false hope of an impossible reality.

“She just need’s some time - we’ll wait- our Claire - she’s a strong one - patience is a virtue.” her mother told the room, aiming the words at nobody in particular.

And waiting is what they have been doing. They hover by her bedside, chairs drawn close, bodies hunched over and slipping out, practically on their knees as they tightly grasp Claire’s hands and pray.

Their words to God fill the space between beeps and breaths, and he doesn’t really believe in Him like how they do, but part of him also want’s to get down on his knees and ask Him why.

When the hours tick by, they start to beg for a miracle.

And Joel doesn’t believe in that sort of stuff either, but the longer he spends with Sarah the more he thinks that God has already delivered. He could have taken them both, but he left one behind.

Wrapped snuggly in a hospital blanket, she stirs slightly, her tiny hands balling into fists against the underside of the blue and pink striped fabric. He holds his breath until she settles.

He’s been doing that a lot.

The door groans softly on its hinges, inching open just wide enough for someone to slide through. The Johnsons pivot toward the sound, and they nod in recognition, gesture returned politely by the nurse slipping through. She then shifts focus, surprisingly shuffling back toward Joel tucked away in the corner.

It’s Judy again - that nurse from the ER who seems to be trailing them throughout the hospital. She pauses beside him, her gaze softening as she looks down at Sarah, and then back to him.

“May I?” Her voice is a hushed whisper as she gestures to the cramped couch that has become his home for the last several hours.

Anxiously his hands had been wedged beneath his thighs, but he slides them out, and scoots an inch to the right, making room for Judy to settle in beside him.

“I know I’m not one of the gals in pink, but I thought I would come and check on ya’ll.” She adjusts her sea foam green scrub top, smoothing out some wrinkles, and untangling her hanging ID badge that’s gotten caught in the chain of her glasses draped around her neck.

She’s so nonchalant about it all, it's a little strange, but also a little comforting hearing someone talk to him like normal.

"How are we holdin’ up?" she asks her voice a gentle coo. Joel pauses, caught off-guard, unsure if her words are meant for him or the baby nestled in front of them. He goes with the former, but manages only a shrug, expression a bit hollow.

“Well, that’s expected,” she murmurs back.

“I don’t know what to do,” he confesses, his whisper barely audible as he brushes his palms back and forth against his thighs.

He’s been thinking it for hours, hasn’t dared to utter it outloud, but something about Judy has him spilling his secrets.

“Do?” She angles toward him, her brow bunched together in a soft frown.

“With her. I don’t know what I am supposed to be doin’.”

A reassuring touch lands on his knee. “Oh hun, nobody really does at first. But you’ll get there,” she encourages. With a hopeful tilt of her head she suggests, “Why don’t you start by holding her?”

Joel balks, his voice stuttering. “No I don’t - I don’t -,”

He’s thought about it, but she’s a tiny little thing - swears he’s seen potatoes at the county fair bigger - and he’s petrified of someone how smushing her. He’s fairly certain his hands will cause more harm than good the second he reaches for her.

He hasn’t, so he won’t.

“ - I can’t,” he begins, but Judy halts his efforts with a raised hand.

“Nonsense,” she dismisses as she stands, couch squawking with the change in pressure. Her hands are cool as they touch his arms, sending goosebumps up his skin the moment she bends and positions them. The reaction has nothing to do with the iciness of her touch though; his heart bounces into his throat before settling back into his chest and hammering against his ribs.

“Yep there ya’go,” she softly assures as they become a cradle. Silently, he shakes his head - every part of his body telling him he shouldn’t do it, but Judy pays no mind.

"It’ll feel more natural than you think.”

Staying petrifyingly still, his eyes acutely track her as she turns towards the bassinet and slips her hands under Sarah’s small form. “Hand under her head now, like where mine’s at,” she instructs, catching Joel’s nervous eyes and waiting for him to return a nod before proceeding.

He’s not ready, but he doesn’t think Judy would let him stop even if he asked; he suspects her bright red hair matches her personality in that regard.

He bites down on the inside of his cheek and gives her a curt confirmation.

He’s going to have to be ready.

Sarah's tiny head fits into the crook of his elbow, and for a moment, he's too afraid to breathe. Her weight settles against his chest, and although a rush of warmth floods through his heart, physically he can’t seem to meet the feeling halfway, body clenched up tight.

Filled with apprehension his eyes flick up to Judy. She’s giving him a hearty smile, the crow's feet at the corner of her eyes turning into deep valleys as they crinkle up.

When Sarah begins to squirm and fuss, it has his heart starting to beat nervously fast. He didn’t realize he could be any more tense, but his body constricts even more, shoulders darting to his ears, spine curling, feet pushing hard into the ground; it's all in a futile hope that if he stops moving, she will too.

He holds his breath.

“Relax, she’s a baby, not a brick,” Judy whispers, careful not to aggravate Sarah anymore as she bends in close. “She feels what you’re feelin’ honey just -” Her hand settles on his upper arm and brushes down it.

He forces himself to take a breath, urging his body to comply with Judy’s coaching. Slowly, his shoulders come away from his ears and his chest sinks back against Sarah, and he lets out a shaky, but unburdening breath.

Sarah settles too.

When he looks up to show Judy, he discovers she has retreated several feet, busying herself with something on the back countertop. His heart catapults into his throat again as he realizes he’s holding her alone. His eyes widen with concern as they snap down to Sarah. He gulps hard, adam’s apple pushing down to the bottom of his neck and then climbing back up. His muscles are threatening to constrict again, but he tries to keep all that at bay.

Relax, relax, relax

The anxious flutter only settles when he sees Judy returning.

“Chart says she’s fit as a fiddle, and due for another feed soon. Did the nurse show you how to give her a bottle?” she inquires, peering at him over her purple glasses.

Joel shakes his head.

“They show you anything?” she presses, her tone gentle as she moves her readers and sticks them into her bushy hair.

Again, he shakes his head, and then at the same time both their attention moves toward the Johnsons, still ensconced in their silent prayer at Claire’s bedside. A mutual understanding passes between them then, both knowing that other things have taken precedence in this room besides teaching a new dad how to be just that.

“Well, I ain’t no labor and delivery nurse, but I’ve had five of my own. Reckon I can get you sorted,” she declares, settling back onto the couch. With practiced ease, she adjusts Joel’s hold on Sarah, her hands confident and caring. Unprompted, she continues, “You remind me of my youngest - and I’m not going to ask you where your mama’s at - but if my little one was havin’ his own little one, and I wasn’t there for some reason, I’d hope that somebody would have some mercy on that clueless kid and step’n for me.”

It’s true, he is a clueless kid.

He doesn’t know how to hold her, or feed her, or change a diaper, and he’s not sure what cry is fine and what sound should have him racing to find a nurse.

Not to mention any of the parts about her being a girl and what to do with that. He might have been able to push through if life with this child was going to be mud and dinosaurs and football and little boy things, but he has no idea about pink and princesses and dance class and being a girl.

And part of him knows he still wouldn’t know any of this stuff if Claire was sitting next to him, but at least she’s made for this.

Was made for this.

He’s not.

Yet, as if reading his mind, Judy offers: “You’ll figure it out.”

Sarah’s small lips pucker and then croak out the faintest yawn, before flattening into a little smile.

“See, she like’s when you hold’er,” Judy chimes while playfully bumping her shoulder into his.

Goosebumps cascade down his body again, but this time they are warm—soft and bright, like Sarah's smile. The fear still lingers, rattling in his chest, but he can’t help but mirror her expression. His mouth twitches, the corners lifting into a smile of his own.

The longer he looks, the more he realizes he’s seen that grin before.

Lost in the moment, he looks up to show Claire.

*** ʚїɞ ***

“No reason to keep her here, you’re all set to leave,” the pediatrician tells him as he unhooks his stethoscope from his ears and gently places Sarah’s blanket back in place.

His tone is light and optimistic, but his volume is hushed, matching the somber ambiance of the room. Everyone’s been quite cognizant to keep quiet with the Johnsons holding vigil at the other end.

“Leave? To another room?” Joel whispers, swaying on the balls of his feet, hands crossed tightly over his chest.

With a small snort and shake of his head, the doctor tries again, “No no, your baby is being discharged, you can go home.” There is a beat of silence and then he adds, “get out of ..here.. for a bit, get a break from this, son.”

Joel’s eyes drift over to Claire’s parents, and a weight that’s been looming in the background suddenly settles on his shoulders. He rakes his hands down his face and they settle in front of his mouth, palms touching like prayer hands.

He knew this would come, but he hadn’t let himself consider how it would play out. A shiver slips down his spine and he drags in a long breath.

He’s not sure he can do this part, but then again, he didn’t think he could do any other parts of the day either.

“Talk with ‘em, but I think it’d be best if she goes home tonight,” the physician encourages as he departs, giving his shoulder a small squeeze before smiling back at Sarah and taking his exit.

The talk is a mess.

It’s a charged volley of raised voices and differing views.

They can’t believe he is considering leaving, but the doctor is right, there is no reason to stay lingering by and waiting in a place seeped in gloom and dread when Sarah’s life should start with something much brighter.

They tell him a mother and child aren’t supposed to be separated.

They aren’t wrong, but they aren’t right. He holds his tongue to what he could say, and the conversation pivots, anyway.

He asks them to revisit what the doctors said, that she will not be waking up. Gently, he tries to convince them that Claire wouldn’t want to live as a shell hooked to monitors and breathing by way of an air tank -that this isn’t what she would want - that this isn’t her.

But they don’t get it. They tell him God can work in mysterious ways, that He will choose if she goes.

He tells them that God made his choice, and now it’s their choice - his choice, he corrects. He has let them take charge this entire time, but their ceremony at the courthouse in March makes this his responsibility.

It was just a little thing with a borrowed suit and a white dress from the thrift store, and a Clerk named Alvin as their witness, but he wants to uphold the vows he swore to her that day.

With a scoff, they tell him that it wasn’t before God, that it wasn’t in a church, that it might have well have been two kids playing dress up.

They say she’s still their responsibility. And he knows “responsibility” for them is really “she’s our baby,” - and he now has a glimpse of what that means - but still, he can face what they can’t.

He tells them they are making her suffer.

They tell him he’s going to hell.

He doesn’t necessarily disagree with them.

*** ʚїɞ ***

When he shakily thumbs through some paperwork - meaningless words on a page that don’t stick in his brain - and then signs his name at the bottom, he somehow feels too young and too old at the same time.

His signature is a janky mess that anyone would be hard-pressed to decipher if it came from the trembling hand of an eighty-year-old or a fourth-grader learning cursive for the first time.

Her dad had told him to be a man.

It hurts, but that’s what he’s trying to do.

*** ʚїɞ ***

When the nighttime air hits his face, he takes a breath, dragging it in slowly through his nose and holding it until his lungs beg for mercy. He thought a few moments away would feel good, but it just seems to have highlighted a new type of anxiety that’s prodding at his insides.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind tells him he’s forgotten something, but he knows it isn’t true.

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, it whispers.

He tries to picture exactly where she is, tucked safely in the hospital minded by nurses, but the nagging feeling stubbornly remains.

Anxiously, he twirls a pair of borrowed scissors in his fingers as he walks across the parking lot toward his car. Every step further elicits one more repetition of her name, louder and louder.

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.

He pauses halfway across the parking lot, the urge to go back stopping his stride. As he drums the blade of the scissors against his palm, he considers it for a moment. He wants to have her where he can see her, but shaking his head, he dismisses the idea and continues on.

It’s strange how they’ve only been together for a few hours, and already he can’t seem to let her go—not even when he tries. He hopes that’s normal.

His keys twist into the back lock and the trunk pops open with a loud click, catapulting open and up as soon as it's unlatched. Having seen far better days, the ‘78 Wagoneer is chronically temperamental. He’s normally fluent in its weird behaviors, but he’s not on the ball today.

A second too slow at catching it, the edge nails him in the face as it comes up. It doesn’t hurt all that much, but it’s embarrassing, and he quickly turns his head around the parking lot to check if anyone’s noticed. But the only thing staring back at him is the washed-out face of a smiling baby plastering the side of the car seat box in his trunk.

It was bought over the weekend from Walmart, but hasn’t been touched since. Getting it sorted before the baby was born was supposed to be on the list of things for him to do.

Obviously that didn’t happen.

With a hefty sigh, he drags it closer and flicks open the scissors to slice at the packaging tape. Every inch of the orange handles and silver blades are heavily plastered in sharpie with “Nurse Stat. 7” to an absurd degree.

Asking for them wasn’t easy.

His request was simple at first: “Ma’am, do y’all have a pair of scissors or somethin’ I could borrow?” The woman at the large, curved desk glanced up, giving him her full attention. He probably didn’t need to say more, but her direct gaze made him nervous, and he found himself rambling.

And that’s when things got hard.

“We just had - I just had -” he stuttered before stopping in his tracks, trying to find the words that felt right to explain what had happened that day.

They did just have a baby, but they weren’t a “we” anymore, yet saying “I” felt dishonest—he hadn’t done anything. She had done everything. Gave everything.

And he knew the other half of his “we” was gone. He knew it, but verbalizing that reality outside the confines of her hospital room felt like he was spreading a lie, leaving a bitter, acidic taste in his mouth. So he decided to omit it—“if you have nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all,” he reminded himself, as though he was a kid back on the schoolyard, stopping a pesky rumor from spreading.

He wished it was just that.

With his hands buried in his pockets to hide their shaking, he instead managed, “My baby came a bit early and were gettin’ ready to go, but they say she needs a car seat, and her’s is still packed up in the back of my trunk.” The words came out awkward and uneven, voice cracking as if he was just a kid.

She was light on the sympathy when she handed the scissors over, slapping them into his palm with clear directions not to run off with them as if she’d heard his story several times before.

Maybe she has.

He dumps the pieces out haphazardly and arranges the array of lightweight muted grey awkwardly shaped plastic parts across the flatbed. The only bits he can definitively identify are a curved handle, a lightly padded fabric liner in blue, and two thin woven nylon straps for her seatbelt. Frustration comes on quickly as he fails to snap together two parts that look like they should fit, finds nothing that seems to anchor another, and every time he looks at the pieces scattered about, it feels like the pile has doubled in size. The minutes start to tick by quickly, and he’s no further in the process than when he started.

The little voice in his head is getting louder and louder screaming Sarah, Sarah Sarah!

He’s not really an impatient person but he can’t take it.

With an exasperated breath, an unlucky piece flies from his hand, arcs through the air, and crashes against the interior of the trunk, ultimately landing back among the sea of discarded parts.

Leaning heavily against the back bumper, his clenched fists dig into the rusty metal, knuckles going white. His chin hits his chest, defeated. Of all the things to make him unravel today, he can’t believe the goddamn car seat is somehow a fighting contender.

He thought he would be good at this - capable of building something - it’s what he does day in and day out, but this is a puzzle, not a construction project. He can build a house, but he has no idea what fits where in a seat that doesn’t even look like it would hold a toy doll, much less a living breathing child.

His gaze lifts reluctantly to the box, and with a deep sigh, he straightens. Dragging one hand through his hair the other plunges back into the box and retrieves a small white instruction booklet that mocks his competence. He slams the trunk shut with a dissatisfied breath.

Coming around front, the window slips down a healthy inch as he forces his car door open with the usual two hearty tugs. The leather of the seats are cracked and chipped, and whenever he slides into the driver’s side, his jeans always snag as he gets settled. Today is no different.

The car smells like her - sweet and floral with a hint of salt from that spray she likes to put in her hair. Claire always said it was to help with her curls but knowing her, Joel thinks it was just to smell a little like her favorite place.

He leaves the door open, allowing the nighttime air to cycle through the cabin and chisel away at one of the last remnants of her.

Lingering in any memory of her for longer than a heartbeat hurts far too much.

He cranes and contorts his body to catch a sliver of light, but it helps little. Even the big bold letters on the front - “Joy Ride Infant Seat Manual” - fade into the darkness and when he flips to the first page, squinting does nothing to help decipher the instructions.

With a sigh, he tosses the booklet into the passenger seat and moves his keys from the cup holder to the ignition. The clunker sputters to life, and Joel slams his door shut, the window pane sneaking down another half inch as the metal frame rocks with force. He drives it up two spaces, putting it under the white light of the parking lot pole lamp, and then gets out, and tries again.

The instructions do wonders for making progress.

The seat begins to take shape, but its frame is lighter and more fragile than he wants it to be. Each piece snaps and clicks into place with an unsettling ease that doesn't inspire confidence in the slightest. His hands grow clammy as he flips back and forth through the instruction booklet, doubting each step.

"Right?” he asks with skepticism to the air, picturing how it should look, glancing at the flimsy thing, and then back to the box and booklet. Truthfully, he had been worried about the quality even before putting it together:

“It’ll be fine, we didn’t even have them when we were kids, and look - we made it through,” she had tried to assuage his fears as they waited in line with it by the register on Saturday. Doubt about their choice started settling in when he picked up the suspiciously light box and it rattled with the sounds of several small pieces.

Several pieces that are now somehow a car seat.

“Right,” he mutters reluctantly, shaking his head at the final product. It hardly looks like it will keep her safe, but he’s pretty sure that is the result of choosing the cheaper option - of being two kids on a shoestring budget - and not his poor assembly skills.

He was always the worrier, Claire was always the one to talk him down.

“Go with the motion of the ocean, dude” she would always kid, dropping her voice low and slow, pretending to be some surfer boy Kyle from San Diego.

He wonders if she would stay as cool about 'the motion of the ocean' if she saw the seat's concerning sway, despite being securely fastened into the backseat during the short drive through the hospital parking lot. His ears can’t help but to zero in on the sound of its rocking as he maneuvers the Wagoneer from the dimly lit lot to the harsh fluorescent light under the hospital’s awning.

Coming to a stop, the engine idles with a rhythmic purr that mixes with the steady blink of his hazards, and for a moment, it feels nice - just him alone.

But it doesn’t last long. Alone makes him feel guilty.

Sarah! The voice in his head screams again.

As he reaches to turn off the car, his fingers brush against his keychain, causing the baubles to jingle. He pauses, the sound drawing his attention to the beaded orange and black monarch and a tiny bleached conch that knocks softly against the other keys.

Claire had "spruced them up" one afternoon, hoping to get a funny rise out of his coworkers at the construction site. After the teasing, he took off most of the other girly keychains and pink ribbon, but he kept around the butterfly and small sea shell.

He wishes he kept all of it now.

With a deep breath, he retrieves the scissors from the dash and goes to collect his daughter.

She is fussy and more squirmy than he thought a baby should be when he eases her down into it. Her tiny limbs flail against the stiff plastic sides and each time he tries to snug her in, she wriggles, face scrunching in displeasure. The straps are working against him too, twisting up as he fumbles with the buckles.

His hands tremble as he attempts to adjust the plastic chest piece, sliding it up, then down, never quite finding the right spot. He knows he’s doing something wrong, but he’s not exactly sure what - other than maybe being too gentle, but he’s not sure how to change that either because he’s determined to keep his touch feather light with her; keep it all soft and gentle so he doesn’t scare her more than she already looks to be.

He glances back at the assembly booklet, but the part about actually putting your child inside is light on details - just one page out of a hundred.

Sarah’s cries escalate, echoing in the backseat and slipping out to fill the air in the hospital entry.

His heart races as he imagines the eyes of every passerby on them, judging his clumsy attempts. A car honks loudly, startling him, and he pops his head up just in time to catch the driver shaking their head in disapproval as he swerves past.

“Work with me Sarah, come’on baby girl.”

He holds his breath as he hears the sound of the sliding doors behind him, and his hands still as he bears down and waits for someone to yell at him to get a move on.

He steals a quick glance over his shoulder, catches the eye of the woman coming through, gives her a pleasant but curt nod and then turns back toward Sarah in the car. He hopes the gesture will stave off the inevitable complaint heading his way.

“Excuse me.”

He sucks in a breath but doesn’t reply, unsure of what to say. He knows he’s been at this too long, he doesn’t need a stranger reminding him of it too.

A gentle hand lands on his shoulder.

"Need some help with that?" she asks.

His face must convey his answer, cause she doesn’t wait for his reply, pushing in next to him. Part of him wants to resist the help, too proud to need it, but the better part of him lets his hands back away and hers take his place.

“First time’s always hard with these things,” she tells him as her hands untangle and unclip the twisted straps. Her nails are painted purple like Claire’s before - like Sarah’s mom’s that morning - and that’s all his brain can seem to focus on as she moves things around. He almost misses her undoing the straps completely and resetting them- apparently he anchored those upside down when he put the thing together.

With a final click of a buckle, she’s gone as quickly as she came, giving him a pat on the back before climbing into the car that honked at him just moments ago.

He didn’t get the chance to say thank you.

*** ʚїɞ ***

It’s a short drive home, but it's a spotty blur of lights in the dark - some greens and reds, but mostly whites - bright headlights that burn into his retinas from the rearview as he takes far too many long and hard glances toward Sarah in the back seat.

With every mile, his grip on the wheel tightens and his arms stiffen, and by the time he’s pulling into the apartment complex he might as well be a statue in the front seat. And even though it prolongs the stiffness even more, he takes the curve into the apartment complex at a crawl and keeps the speedometer unreadable as he glides gently into his parking space.

His foot moves slowly as it eases off the break, car bobbing back ever so slightly. His hands release the steering wheel, knuckles aching as they straighten and flood back to color. His right-hand drifts stiffly down, fingers curling around the ignition key. With a deep breath, he pauses, gaze going to the top of Sarah’s car seat just visible in the corner rearview, and then with a decisive twist, the rickety engine that had been her lullaby shudders to a halt.

Mercifully, she doesn’t wake.

He exhales a long breath as the car settles into the stillness - quiet, yet far from peaceful.

Drawing another breath in feels like inhaling sludge, oxygen to thick to gulp. Suddenly his body is feeling again, bringing out every worry and fear that he pushed down in their drive home. They are trying to crawl out of his stomach, digging into the sides of his throat as they climb their way up and out.

He can’t breathe.

The car is totally stopped, but he feels like any move he makes now will somehow send them into a tailspin, he won’t be able to steer them out of it, and they will crash, and Sarah will end up in the same place as Claire.

She’s home safe and sound - “home safe”, he repeats over and over in his head - but he can’t get his brain and body to sync up.

He knows it's all irrational, but he feels lightyears away from safe.

His fingers grip the top of his thighs, pressing down hard and deep as his breaths come in choppy and labored through his nose, jaw clenched up tight.

He knows what’s happening, but it makes little difference in stopping it. His mother used to call it "emociones fuertes" when he was a child, but he hasn’t had a true one in years - really not since living with Claire.

“Stop it Miller, Stop it.” He grates, trying to find something to focus on to push away the feelings of overwhelm. His eyes land on the only thing in view, the parking sign at the head of his spot, and he traces the number 12 over and over again with his eyes.

Down, around, across, over. Down, around, across, over.

Failing to find relief, he takes a long breath in and collapses forward, forehead pushing into the top of the wheel as he closes his eyes hoping the sparkly specks and blurry colors behind them will be a better distraction. Instead, his mom’s voice comes drifting through his head, a brief vision of her flashing behind his eyelids: "Mira, mira, mijo, mira a mí. Inspira - uno, dos. Suelta - uno, dos."

He does what she says.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

He repeats over and over again.

When he peels himself up and away after an undeterminable amount of minutes, his eyes first go to his rearview mirror and catch Sarah’s car seat, and then go to his dashboard and land on the green numbers of the clock. It reads 10:27, just like the placard on her bassinet at the hospital - a strange coincidence that has his anxiety twitching, threatening to come back in full for no apparent reason.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

He cracks open his car door, but almost slams it shut - a roaring sound of buzzing cicadas wafting into the car. He holds his breath and pauses, hand not even off the door handle. He waits and waits for her to start fussing and crying -bugs should make babies cry right?- but Sarah stays quiet, blissfully asleep.

And she remains that way by some small miracle as he detaches her car seat and locks the car with a loud resonant chirp.

The flight of stairs up to the apartment is taken at a sloth's pace, anchoring both of his feet into each concrete step and pausing before moving on to the next, all while holding the car seat fiercely level with two hands as if the slightest dip will have her slipping out.

When he reaches his front door, he does everything in his power to minimize the sway of her seat as he shifts to hold her with one hand and muffle the jingle of the keys as he unlocks it, petrified of waking her.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

With a creak, it falls open and an unexpected, staticky voice from a distance halts him on the threshold. His eyes track the sound to a very faint blue glow in the far corner and the realization hits harder than it should - TV’s still on, left unattended in the rush this morning.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

Shaking his head, Joel sighs heavily and steps inside. His gaze flits to the light switch but then back to his hands glued firmly to the car seat, and decides not to engage with it, forgoing the juggle it would take to get them turned on. The door closes with a push of his heel, and the apartment entry plunges into darkness.

A jolt of panic rips up through him as he stumbles, feet tripping up on something on the floor. He catches himself in a rush of awkward steps, and looks back to see the culprit. Squinting against the dark the outline of Claire’s backpack comes into view.

Swallowing hard, he tears his gaze away, focusing on getting Sarah settled.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

Embarrassingly, his arms are already aching, and that makes his heart pound with worry, fearing somehow they will just give out without his permission. It’s maybe only ten steps, but it feels like he is crossing the entire length of the small apartment as he rushes to put her down.

But then she’s on the coffee table and he finally lets out a real breath.

Fumbling in the dark, he attempts to flip down the car seat handle, hands blindly feeling out the button, but he can’t get it to budge. “Okay, baby girl, okay,” he coos in a whisper as Sarah begins to let out the tiniest mewls as her resting place is disturbed. Promptly, he removes his hands holding them up until she settles.

He steps back, pauses, then scrambles to find the remote control and flips off the TV, pushing the space into stark silence.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

With a deep sigh, he sinks into the couch in front of her. A sliver from a street light outside slips through a small opening in a window curtain, hitting her car seat at just the right angle. The orange hue brightens up the darkness just enough for Joel to see her small little face as she settles back into sleep.

It should make him feel better, being able to see her, but the more he stares, the more anxiety fills his body.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

He isn’t supposed to be doing this alone.

Twisting his watch band back and forth, his mind races with all the things he doesn’t know, all the things he’s going to have to learn, and everything he has to do. He grates his molars together as the list grows and grows.

He’s going to fail at this.

He is going to fail her.

His chest is feeling tight again, and his breaths are coming in choppy no matter how many times he tries to coach himself into breathing. Desperate for relief, his hand leaves his watch and goes to rub it against his sternum. It’s an unseasonably cool day by Austin standards for July, but the apartment is starting to feel unbearably hot and all too small. His shirt is growing wet, sweat making it uncomfortably cling to his body, and he wants to just rip off the constricting material and get out of this too-small space, and run away.

But that idea hurts his heart more than helps. An image of her alone in the dark stabs at his insides and aggravates all the dread swirling inside him.

He stands abruptly and crosses to the window, bats at the curtain to push it aside, and cracks it open to let in some of the night's cooler air.

The sounds of the city at night drift in - a car alarm in the distance, the low hum of traffic, and of course, the buzz of the summertime cicadas. He leans against the wall next to the window, allowing the slight breeze to cool his face as he listens.

He didn’t realize how suffocating the silence was until his heart rate slowed and his lungs grew lighter as he basked in the distant rumble of Austin. Back in the hospital, there had always been a constant backdrop of sounds—machines beeping, footsteps, conversations - all a distraction for his brain to digest instead. When it’s too quiet there is nothing to keep his anxious thoughts at bay.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

He could stay standing in the spot all night long- fall asleep upright - but his heart is tugging him in a different direction after just a couple of minutes. Feeling more steady, he pushes off the wall and goes back over to Sarah, already worried he’s done something wrong by taking his eyes off her for just a few moments.

When he settles in next to her this time, it's on the floor beside the coffee table, wanting to be as close as possible. He leans his head on the wood table top as he gently reaches inside her car seat and lays his hand atop her stomach.

Feeling every one of her tiny inhales and exhales calms some of his nerves, but doesn’t wash away all his fears. He pushes himself to match her breathing.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

*** ʚїɞ ***

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. And he certainly doesn’t remember moving off the scratchy rug on the floor to the old green tweed couch, but he has.

His eyes snap open as the sound of her wails jolt him awake, body jerking and almost tumbling off the side, back to the floor where he thought he had been.

Still dark, his eyes take a long moment to adjust, only seeing the outline of her car seat and her squirmy body, while his brain also races to catch up with his sudden awakening.

But then her small little body emerges from the dark, pushing against the confines of her seat, and he’s dropping to his knees infront of the coffee table in an instant. His hands make quick work of unclipping her buckles, but come to a slow as they reach inside for her - making sure his big clumsy hands are delicate and careful with her as they slip under her tiny arms and around her back, pointer fingers nestling at the base of her head as Judy had aptly shown him.

The moment she is free, her body curls into a tight ball, knees drawn to her chest. Her face mirrors, scrunched tightly as she cries, eyes squeezed shut and mouth wide open, her tiny chin trembling with each wail.

"Shh, baby girl, I got ya," he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep and laden with worry. Carefully, he draws her close against his chest, rocking gently as he kneels on the floor. His hand sweeps down her back in a soft caress, followed by a tender pat, repeating the process in a rhythmic lull. But it does nothing to soothe her.

Her cries continue to pierce through the silence of the apartment, and each sob compounding the worry and anxiousness filling up his gut.

One of them is shaking - he’s really not sure which one - but as her cries persist and stab into his ears, he thinks it might be him more than her.

“C’mon, Sarah, tell me what’s wrong,” he pleads softly as he slowly rises to stand with her.

Pacing the room, he rocks her gently, his lips pressed to her forehead in a silent plea for calm. "Shhh, it's alright, nothing to cry about," he murmurs, the words meant as much for himself as for her.

It’s a little startling how easily her tears have triggered his own. They slip down his face in one hot wet line, and he feels horrible for allowing them to drip onto the crown of her head, but he can’t move his hands away from holding her to brush them out of his eyes and off his face.

“Please stop cryin’.”

The cries only swell.

The ring and echo in his ears, muddling his thoughts into a desperate slurry of “please stop.” He hates himself for it, but he places her back in the car seat, digs the heels of his hands against his eyes the moment they are unburdened, and groans hard in frustration.

“Wet, hungry, tired. That’s all you got to figure out, capiche?” Judy had told him.

He repeats it now, despite his doubts about the simplicity: “Wet, hungry, tired.”

Gritting his teeth, he wipes the back of his hand to his eyes, clearing away the tears, and carries her to the kitchen - not exactly sure why, it just feels right.

The tiles are cool under his bare feet and the overhead sconce flickers before coming alive and bathing the space in a soft yellow light.

He pauses with her in the carrier, looking at the mess of spilled breakfast still on the table, and the minuscule space of countertop that barely can fit a pan on a good day. He taps his hand against his thigh as he thinks about his options, but her cries are like a timer pushing him to make a decision.

They hadn’t gotten around to setting up her crib yet or a changing station of some sort, and the space seems the only feasible option for them right now.

So the floor it is.

He drops to the ground with her, tugging down two dish towels looped over the oven handle as he descends. A faint odor of rancid milk and soggy cereal wafts up from the tiles, leading his gaze to the shards of a broken bowl scattered beneath the table, remnants of this morning's chaos. He contemplates moving, but her cries are growing louder. Wincing, he pushes the stench to the back of his mind, and then with an exacerbated exhale that puffs out his cheeks, he wipes his forearm across the floor, checking for bits of bowl. When he feels none, he lays out the two towels atop each other like a little mat, hoping to provide her some comfort.

“Please stop cryin’, please Sarah I'm tryin’,” he whispers as he finds the snaps on her onesie - a powder pink and thin cotton thing given from the hospital, plain as can be. “Please baby girl I'm tryin’,” he begs softly against her hard cries that echo and bounce off the tiny kitchen, growing in strength each time they ricochet into his ears.

But his quick work is all for nothing, cause he straightens up on his knees and realizes he has forgotten the most crucial bit - a diaper.

His heart sinks and he lets out a dejected rumble at the realization of where it’s at. The hospital had handed him a 'goody bag for dad,' as one nurse had cheerfully put it, filled with enough supplies to last until he could make a proper store run. Grateful, he had nonetheless tossed it onto the floor of the passenger seat, his mind too preoccupied with other things to pay it any attention, until now.

Sitting back on his haunches, he contemplates a quick dash to retrieve it, but the thought of leaving her alone, even for a minute, claws at him.

With a resigned sigh, he bundles her back into the car seat - forgoing her onesie - it’s warm, it will just be a minute. Cursing under his breath, he heads to the car with her in tow.

The journey downstairs and back is torturous, each step deliberate, trying not to jostle her too much and worsen her cries. The thud of his heart pounds in his ears, synchronizing with each of her sobs.

He’s not sure if it's just the contrast of sounds, but it seems quieter out than before, and he wonders how late into the night or how early into the morning it actually is. He bites his lip with a grimace as they pass the neighbor’s door, Sarah of course letting out a particularly loud wail right in front, certainly disturbing their sleep. If he wasn’t already feeling guilty, that surely sealed it. He makes a mental note to send them an apology, as he come back inside to the apartment and drop the bag onto the kitchen floor.

With a deep breath, he resets, and begins the process again.

It’s his second time ever changing a diaper and it’s no better than the first horrid attempt at the hospital. Somehow the sticky side wings bunch up together and pulling them apart ruins the whole thing, tearing at the materials and making it wholly unusable. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes at the mistake, chucking the collateral damage of his inexperience far across the kitchen as she continues to cry and cry.

Things bode better with the second diaper, satisfaction flicking across Joel’s face as he fastens up the last snap of her onesie and her cries recede.

But the quiet is short-lived, gone before he can even sigh in relief. She starts to whimper and then they escalate into another bout of full-on cries, face scrunching up in discomfort.

She really does have a set of lungs on her.

"Alright, not wet, then. Hungry, huh?" He asks scooping her up into his arms as he debates what to do. He eyes the carrier and then settles Sarah back into it, standing with her in the middle of the kitchen for a long moment. It seems like the only safe place to have her when he’s up and moving.

“Hungry, we can fix that, just we gotta -,” he narrates as he takes a long stride forward to the counter. He attempts to place her on it, but the top of her carrier hits the underside and cabinet, preventing him from doing so.

Shit.

He fumbles momentarily, trying to figure out where to put her, to finally deciding on the sink. The stainless steel double bowled sink was something they used to make fun of, size out of place in the rest of the tiny apartment, but he’s never been more thankful for it now. Her carrier balances perfectly on one of the sides, resting atop like a colander would.

He lets his hands go from it hesitantly, murmuring, “Okay, just stay there,” as he slowly backs away to retrieve the brown bag of supplies from the floor.

“We’ll get you a bottle then,” he tells her, throwing the words over his shoulder as if she can understand. Her reply is only more piercing sobs.

His hands are shaky as he pulls out the formula and a bottle and he can’t help but stare at them with wide eyes as they linger in the palms of his hands. The transfixion breaks at the sound of a particularly rattled shriek that claws up from her throat.

He carries the supplies back to the counter and instinctively reaches into his pocket. Relief washes over him as he finds the small piece of paper he stashed there hours ago still safe. Carefully, he pulls it out and smooths the crinkled paper against the countertop edge.

“Can I write this down?”

“Sure thing, let’s um - here,” Judy offered, ripping out a blank form from a chart, flipping it over to a blank white back, and passing it to him with a click of a pen.

It’s his writing, but it’s barely recognizable chicken scratch.

Reading the instructions aloud to himself, his voice is hesitant and shaky, but he tries to ground himself in the steps, eyes casting over to Sarah every other second.

Her face is red and glistens, soaked in tears.

He can’t help but tell her, “workin’ as fast as I can baby,” as he lowers his head down to the bottle and makes sure he is pouring the exact amount of water into the measuring line. The formula tin opens with a scratchy metallic sound as he tears away the top. His fingers dig inside for the scoop - he made a note that Judy said it likes to hide - and when they find reach it he quickly uses the plastic shovel to ladle the powder into the tiny bottle.

It’s not a particularly clean process - rushing, excess powder spills onto the counter every time he taps the scoop to the lid of the bottle to get the formula in. He probably should be more careful with it, but Sarah’s screaming for him to hurry.

He slides infront of her as he shakes the bottle, using his free hand to wipe away the tears drenching her cheeks.

“Almost there, almost there,” he coos half to Sarah, half to himself, as he clings to small talk as if the words could bridge the gap between panic and calm while gently rocking her seat.

Raising the bottle toward the ceiling, he uses the light to check the formula is all dispersed and seeing it is, he turns quickly to offer it to her, and the nipple grazes her mouth her pulls it back quickly.

He forgot to warm it.

Quickly, he flips the faucet handle up and over, hot as it can go, and holds the bottle under the stream. The heat begins to sting his hand, but he holds it steady and waits for the warmth to seep into the milk.

Sarah’s cries lull to a sputter, and her tense expression eases into a prolonged frown.

There is only one thing that’s changed:

“You like the water huh?” he asks glancing back and forth between the tap and her face.

As he holds it under, the redness in her face fades begins to fade, and a tentative smile begins to form on Joel's lips. "You know, your momma loved the water," he distantly murmurs, watching her visibly relax.

With the rush of the faucet filling her ears, Sarah stops crying abates, and he slips the bottle out from under it.

“You get that from her.”

It’s a melancholy whisper that he knows she can’t understand, but he hopes it somehow it roots in her heart like his. Catching a glimpse of Claire in her - getting a reminder that she still is her daughter too, and not just his, has a certain type of flutter kicking in his heart.

He tests the temperature on his wrist like Judy showed and, then hesitantly takes a sip himself just to double check—it’s lukewarm at best, but it will have to do. He keeps the soothing rush of the tap on for her as he gently slips the bottle into her mouth. When she takes it without protest, his shoulders droop, relief washing over him. He watches her drink, the soft rhythmic sounds of her sucking mixing in with the white noise of the water beside her.

"There you go, baby girl. That’s it," he murmurs, a smile blooming full into his cheeks.

He’s not sure what does, but suddenly he’s feeling like nothing can go wrong.

As she takes the bottle at a chug, her plump cheeks rise and fall, appearing even fuller and irresistibly adorable. Her long eyelashes, mirroring the rich brown mop of hair atop her head, flutter gently as she settles more comfortably. And even after crying her little head off, remnants of her screams and tears still clearly on her face, he can’t help but think that she is one of the most beautiful babies out there.

Which isn’t a surprise cause she looks like Claire and she was one of the most beautiful people out there.

"We can do this," he whispers.

*** ʚїɞ ***

“3 weeks from baby!”

The small little calendar magnet stares him down. His eyes are glassy and bloodshot from a night gone without sleep, but he holds its gaze harshly. Gently swaying, Sarah rest against his chest, her tiny form curled securely in his grasp.

He’s not sure what to do with it.

Never once has he changed it - it was Claire’s thing - and it still feels like her thing- but the morning light peaking through the crusty blinds in the kitchen is hitting it perfectly, spotlighting it in a warm glow, and it just feels like the world is telling him to fix it.

He stops his sway, coming to a slow as he heaves a sigh. With one hand, he carefully removes the magnet, flips it to the last page, jostles it in the air as the thin pages catch on the cheap spiral binding, and slaps it back onto the fridge.

“Baby is here!”

It’s up for all of three seconds before it flies across the kitchen.

It clangs against the metal sink, sliding down with a scrape, and settling ominously at the bottom drain.

Fixed somehow feels infinitely worse than wrong.

Sarah stirs, a soft whimper breaking through as she senses his tension. He exhales slowly, relaxing his clenched jaw, and resumes his gentle sway, hoping to soothe both her and himself.

Now, the black fridge door hosts only a lone neon butterfly magnet, its wings pinning a small card beneath them - a phone number, an address, and an army insignia.

His heart moves from somewhere beneath Sarah to the floor.

Tommy.

He had been gone most of the summer at basic training, and at the start of his ten weeks, Claire had put up the address to make sure she knew where to send his letters. They were two kindred spirits, the same type of recklessness and bubble - her little brother just as much as his.

He never asked what was in the letters she sent, but he’s certain Claire was keeping Tommy up to date with her pregnancy, especially because in his own letters from Tommy, he would be nagged about not buying Claire enough chocolate-covered pretzels and salt n’ vinegar chips- her two favorite snack cravings.

He deserves to know.

Plucking the card from the fridge, Joel shuffles over to the wall-mounted phone, the cord stretching and coiling like a reluctant snake. He sinks into a kitchen chair, cradling Sarah more snugly as he dials the number, each press of the button sharper than necessary. Calling during training isn’t really a thing - “only write me” Tommy had explained once, but this isn’t something that could wait. After an agonizing series of redirects and brief conversations with faceless operators, his brother’s familiar voice finally crackles through the speaker.

“Joel? Everythin’ alright?” He asks immediately.

His eyes are on Sarah, balanced in his arm supported up by a bent leg in a figure four. His foot is wiggling anxiously, but she seems to like the motion as it vibrates up his leg. “She’s here” is what is at the tip of his tongue, fighting to come out, but that’s barely half the truth.

The feeling like he is about to spread a lie is back, guilt settling heavily in his chest. He can’t find the words to say Claire is gone.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

“Joel? You there brother?” Tommy presses again.

His eyes drift up to the butterfly on the fridge and suddenly the truth is tumbling out in a hurried stream, details of the past day pouring out so quickly he barely catches his breath. He’s not even sure he says it all in the right order, and he knows the sprinkles of things the doctor said, and mentions of Claire’s parents, as well as his laments about not having anything ready, probably don’t help with clarity either. By the time he finishes, the phone is pressed hard against his ear, digging into the cartilage to an uncomfortable extent and the acidic taste from yesterday is peaking into his mouth from the top of his throat.

For a long moment there is only the echo of Joel’s winded breath.

In - one, two. Out - one, two.

“Hermano,” Tommy sighs, breathy air pushing into the phone and transmitting as a loud crackle in Joel’s ear. The static subsides back into silence, and both are unsure of what to say.

“Brother I’m s -,” he begins, only to stop to shush some ruckus in the background of his line, “I’m goin’ to request some leave - come home, be there by day after next.”

“That ain’t -“ Joel begins to protest, but Tommy cuts him off.

“-don’t start with that, I’m comin’, this is family.”

His eyes wander down to the bundle in his arms, and immediately they well up with tears. He sniffs them away - no time for that, he chastises himself - and nods his head before letting it fall back, gaze turning up toward the blotchy ceiling, letting gravity take care of the rest of the water pooling in his eyes.

“Joel?” Tommy asks against the prolonged quiet, voice tugging him back from the brink of tears. He comes back to attention, clearing away the tightness growing in his throat with a closed-mouth cough.

“Yeah sorry.. I’ll see ya’ day after tomorrow then.”

“Day after tomorrow,” Tommy parrots, almost absently, trailing off with another despondent sigh. “Howaw is he?”

“He?” Joel pauses, confusion wrinkling his brow.

“Your son.”

“Oh,” Joel says with a small snort, a hint of a smile forming. He wedges the phone into the space between his ear and shoulder, and holds it firm in place as he readjusts Sarah. She’s starting to wake, lips twitching up and little eyes fluttering. He gently brushes his pinky down her soft cheek.

“Well you ain’t goin’ to believe this, but he’s a she.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah, a girl…Sarah.”

Sarah who looks like Claire with beautiful brown eyes and thick hair, and loves the water like her mama. Sarah who has a sweet little gurgle but cries like a coyote cause she’s strong and knows what she wants. Sarah who has been with him topside less then a day, but has already made his heart grow two sizes bigger.

“Well I’ll be dammed..baby girl Miller...ain’t that somethin’.”

She is. She really is.

#tlou #the last of us #tlou fic #tipsy bison #ao3 fanfic #joel miller #joel and sarah #sarah miller #oc #Claire Miller #tommy miller #Joel becomes a dad #Dad Joel #my fic #my writing #Next of Kin #sad stories #sad shit #single parent Joel

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likeahorribledream · 2 years

Text

Not Good Enough

SUMMARY: It doesn't take long before you and Lee get close, but an overheard comment ruins everything.

PAIRING: Lee x Reader

WORD COUNT: 6.6k

WARNINGS: Fluff, angst.

REQUEST: You and Lee work together and become close friends. You're both secretly in love with each other but you think it's unrequited so neither of you purse it.

NOTES: This was written over six months ago and I don't have the courage to read it, so hopefully it's not too bad.

18+. Minors DNI.

ᴍᴀɪɴ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

Lee Bodecker is a tough man to please, both at work and in life. He is very peculiar with the way he runs things in his station and his employees often find him to be a major pain in the ass, but they can't deny that the man knows how to do his job and he does it damn well. As a sheriff from a small town he knows everyone and everyone knows everyone. There's a familiarity amongst townsfolk that forces him to be tough if he wants people to listen to him and respect him when he gives orders otherwise it'll be absolute chaos in the streets of Knockemstiff.

He doesn't hire people because he knows them or because they're someone's kin, he hires people based on their skill sets. That's how it's always been and he never makes an exception.

As the sheriff he is constantly busy and needs an assistant to help lighten up his workload as much as possible. He takes a lot of time training his assistant because she needs to work the same way he does. They need to be perfectly in sync so that it looks like one person did it all. Not because he wants to take credit for all the work that is done, but to make sure that the work that's put out is always constant and flawless.

Training someone takes a lot of time, energy and money.

Hence why he almost lost it when his newest assistant that he just spent 3 weeks training with quit without warning. Apparently she's leaving town to pursue her acting career or whatever else nonsense that Lee doesn't listen to or cares to know.

He needs to find someone to replace her and quickly. Except Lee can't seem to find a single woman in town that's willing to leave the house and work.

"I got someone for you, Sheriff." Matt, one of Lee's deputies, says one morning after hearing his boss curse up a storm in his office. "I got a cousin my age that moved into town a few days ago. She knows how to work the phone and everythin'. Real nice girl, too."

Lee shakes his head. "I don't hire other people's kin."

Matt shrugs. "Suit yo'self, Sheriff. It's a shame 'cause she'd do a great job, cousin or not."

Not even five minutes after walking out of Lee's office, Matt hears his name being called out from the office.

"Have her come down tomorrow morning at 7. Not one minute later."

"She'll be there!"

On his way home, Matt stops at your house to let you know that he might have found you a job.

"You need to be at the station at 7 tomorrow morning. Don't be late, the Sheriff hates when people are late."

"You know, I'm always on time!" You nudge him out of your small apartment. "Thank you for helping me." You smile at your cousin. "I promise I won't get you in trouble."

"I know you won't, otherwise I wouldn't have said a thing about you." He laughs as he leaves and you close the door.

You look through your boxes, as you've only moved two days ago and you aren't completely done unpacking, you need to find a proper outfit. You really need this job which means you really need to make a great first impression. You've heard Matt talk about Sheriff Bodecker many times, you know he's a tough boss and he's hard to please. You pick out a white blouse and a black skirt with a pair of black flats, heels would only slow you down and make your feet hurt.

You lay everything out for tomorrow morning and quickly finish eating your dinner that Matt had interrupted so that you can take a shower and go to bed early.

You wake up early the next morning to make sure you aren't going to be late.

It's 6:45 when you walk into the station where you are greeted by a woman clearly at the end of her night shift mending the front desk.

"Good morning." You say softly with a smile, you have a feeling she wouldn't enjoy an over the top kind of energy at this instant.

"Mornin', what can I do for you?"

"I'm supposed to meet with Sheriff Bodecker at 7."

The woman looks down at the time and back up at you. "You're early."

"My mama used to say that if you're right on time, then you're late."

She forces a smile, clearly not caring about what you have to say. "Have a seat, I'll let him know you're here."

"Thank you." You'd smile at her but you have a feeling that it'll only irritate her, instead you go sit where she tells you to and wait.

You watch as the woman leaves the front desk and comes back a few minutes later. "Follow me." She gestures for you to get up.

You hurry up and follow her through the station, all the way in the back to an office. She knocks quickly on the door and opens it without waiting for permission.

"Go on, I don't have all day." She nods her head to the inside of the office and as soon as you walk in, she closes the door behind you.

"Matt's cousin?" Lee asks without looking up from his desk.

"Yes, sir." You stay close to the door, unsure of what to do. For a small town, people aren't that friendly.

"Sit." He gestures to the empty chair in front of his desk. "I'm almost done here." He keeps looking through his paperwork, he still hasn't even looked at you.

As you walk over to the chair and sit, you aren't so sure if you're going to like it in this town. You're not used to this cold and detached attitude that everyone here seems to have. You're used to the warmth and cheerfulness of your hometown, but after your mama passed not long ago you decided to move closer to Matt as he's the only family you've got left. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea.

You look down and nervously smooth out your skirt while you wait for the sheriff to look at you.

‘’Alright.’’ Lee finally looks up and almost loses his composure when he sees you. You look cute as a button.

You look up at the sound of his voice and smile at him once your eyes meet. The most beautiful shade of blue you’ve ever seen. While you’re busy admiring the blue of his eyes, you miss the way Lee’s breath hitches in his throat when you smiled at him.

The sheriff clears his throat and sits straighter in his chair. ‘’Your cousin told me you can answer the phone?’’

You nod. ‘’That’s right.’’

‘’Can you type?’’

‘’Yes.’’

‘’How do you feel about long hours?’’ He crosses his arms over his chest.

‘’I don’t mind.’’ You smile again and Lee almost has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling too.

‘’Your boyfriend is ok with you working?’’ He furrows his brows. ‘’Last thing I need is a pissed off guy walking in here and messing with my station.’’

‘’I don’t have a boyfriend.’’

‘’Husband then.’’

You shrug and look down, slightly embarrassed. ‘’Don’t have one of those either.’’

‘’You’re not missing out on anything, I promise you.’’

You look up and smile, appreciating his effort to comfort you.

‘’Can you start today? Right now?’’

You nod enthusiastically. ‘’I’d love to.’’

‘’Great. You’re hired. Just know that you won’t be getting any special treatment because Matt is your cousin.’’

‘’I wouldn’t want any special treatment. I’m more than capable of proving myself.’’

Lee stands up and walks around his desk, toward his door. ‘’Follow me, sweetheart.’’ He opens the door and stops right outside next to an empty desk. He waits for you to join him before talking. ‘’This is gonna be your desk. You will have to keep people out of my office sometimes when I’m real busy or meeting with someone. You gotta keep them out unless it’s an emergency. You won’t be spending much time here while I train you, you’ll mostly be in my office and following me around so I can show you how I want things done.’’

‘’You got it.’’

He grabs a notepad and a pen from the desk and hands them to you. ‘’Take notes because I don’t have time to repeat myself.’’

You take them quickly and follow Lee around as he shows you around the station, taking notes about the important things.

‘’The girls at the front desk can be a little bit mean, don’t take it personally. The guys are assholes sometimes, don’t be scared to put them in their place. I can be an asshole too but I’m your boss so there’s nothing you can do about it.’’ He winks. ‘’You might have to go grab me lunch from time to time, do you have a car?’’ You shake your head no. ‘’You’ll take mine then.’’

You keep following him around until you’ve seen the entire station, then Lee takes you back to his office and closes the door behind the two of you. He sits back in his chair and invites you to do the same.

He explains to you in great detail how he wants things done in his office. Where files and folders go, how he wants the phone to be answered and how to filter his calls.

‘’A lot of people around here call me directly when a deputy could easily do the job, they think my office number is better than 911 so you gotta filter the calls and redirect them. I don’t have enough time to take care of every crisis in Knockemstiff.’’

You nod, writing everything down. Just as you look up, Lee’s phone starts to ring.

‘’Want to give it a try?’’

‘’Yes!’’ You get up and walk around his desk to stand next to him. You clear your throat and pick up the receiver. ‘’Sheriff Bodecker’s office, how may I help you?’’ … ‘’I’m sorry but the sheriff is in a meeting right now. What are you calling about? We have a station full of capable officers and deputies, I’m sure there’s at least one of them here that can help you.’’ … ‘’Yes, you definitely need to take him to the hospital.’’ … ‘’No ma’am, I’m no doctor but if his finger isn’t attached to the hand anymore he will need medical attention.’’ … ‘’Alright, good luck.’’ You hang up and go back to sit in your chair.

‘’Mrs. Larson?’’ Lee asks, looking at you curiously.

‘’Yes. Mr. Larson seems to have had an accident with a knife and she wanted to ask you if she should take him to the hospital or not.’’

‘’She calls at least once every two days.’’

‘’Good to know.’’ You write it down.

‘’You did a good job handling her.’’ He flashes you a small smile, if you had blinked you would have missed it.

‘’Thank you, sheriff.’’

For the rest of the morning, Lee keeps explaining how everything works until lunchtime. At exactly noon, Lee stops what he’s doing and stands up. ‘’We have an hour, starting now. We can’t waste a minute, we don’t know when an emergency is gonna come up.’’ He explains as he puts on his leather jacket. ‘’Did you bring your lunch?’’

You stand from the chair and follow him out of his office. You put down your notepad and pen on your desk as you stop walking. ‘’No, I didn’t think you’d hire me on the spot but that’s ok I had a good breakfast. I’ll just wait for you here.’’

‘’Yeah, that ain’t gonna work for me sweetheart. Come on, I’m heading to the diner.’’

You shake your head. ‘’I can’t really afford to eat out right now.’’ Heat creeps up to your cheeks, embarrassed once again at how messy your life is. Not married, not even dating and barely a cent to your name.

‘’My treat. As a thank you for starting right away and for doing a great job already. C’mon.’’ He gestures for you to follow him and you can see in his eyes that there’s no arguing with him.

‘’Thank you.’’ You follow him outside. ‘’You can take it out of my pay.’’

Lee chuckles and opens the passenger door of his cruiser, holding it open for you. ‘’That ain’t gonna happen. Go on.’’ He nods to the passenger seat and shuts the door once you’re seated. He walks around the cruiser, his belt and everything on it clinking together with every step he takes. The car dips a bit under his weight and he slams the door shut, making you jump a little which makes him laugh.

‘’Sorry, sweetness, the door sticks a little.’’ He starts the car and rolls down his window. ‘’It’s hot as hell today.’’ He groans, driving out of the station’s parking lot.

You roll down your own window to let more air in and hopefully help him cool down.

Lee notices that you didn’t react when he said hell and makes a mental note to ask you about that later.

It only takes a few minutes to get to the diner and Lee parks right next to the door, then turns off the car. He sees you’re about to roll the window back up but he stops you.

‘’Leave it, hopefully by the time we come back it won’t feel like a damn oven in here.’’ He opens his door, quickly getting out. He takes off his leather jacket and throws it in the backseat with his hat.

He opens the diner’s door and holds it open, stepping aside to let you walk in first.

‘’Such a gentleman, thank you.’’ You smile as you walk in and let him guide you to his table.

Lee can’t help but laugh when he hears you call him a gentleman. ‘’I’m no gentleman sweetness, everyone here can attest to that.’’ He sits down in his usual booth.

You sit across from him at the table. ‘’I’m sure your wife would agree with me. Florence, right? I babysat my niece so that Matt and his wife could go to your wedding a few years back.’’ You smile at the memory of spending an entire day with your niece who was barely one at the time.

Lee’s mood turns sour at the mention of Florence, he leans back in his seat and extends one of his hands on the table hitting it rhythmically with the tip of his index finger. ‘’Florence left me 10 months after we got married.’’

‘’Oh.’’ Guilt fills your eyes. ‘’I’m so sorry, sheriff. I didn’t know.’’ You instinctively reach over to his hand and give it a comforting squeeze before letting it go. ‘’I’m a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. Some things hurt more than others but that just means that whatever’s gonna happen next will be great, y’know?’’

Lee rolls his eyes. ‘’God’s plan?’’

You shake your head. ‘’No one said anything about God. It’s the universe, fate.’’

Lee frowns. ‘’You don’t believe in God?’’

You grab a menu from the table and open it. ‘’I believe in sleeping in on Sunday mornings.’’ You look over all the options from the menu, missing the way Lee smiles.

‘’We’re going to get along just fine you and me.’’ He nods to himself and takes the other menu. ‘’Order whatever you want, sweetness.’’

A waitress comes over, from her looks she can’t be older than 30, ready to take your order. ‘’Sheriff Bodecker.’’ She greets him with a fake smile. ‘’Ready to order?’’

He doesn’t even bother smiling back and hands her his menu. ‘’Same as usual.’’

She takes the menu from him and turns her attention to you. ‘’What about you, doll?’’

‘’The chicken wrap and some french fries, please.’’ You give her back your menu and you don’t miss the way she looks at Lee to check for permission.

‘’What are you looking at me for? You heard her.’’ He stares until she turns around and leaves.

‘’Thank you for lunch, and for giving me a job. I didn’t think I’d find one so quickly after moving here.’’

Lee brushes it off like it’s no big deal. ‘’What brings you here anyway?’’ He asks, curiously.

‘’My mama passed two months ago and Matt is the only family I’ve got left so I thought I’d move closer. My niece is already 3 and my nephew is almost 1. It feels like I’ve missed all the big milestones. I didn’t want to miss more.’’

‘’I’m sorry to hear that.’’ Now he feels guilty from bringing that up.

‘’Thank you.’’ You smile but it’s a sad smile, it has nothing to do with the bright smiles from this morning. ‘’She was real sick at the end, I feel relieved that she’s gone. I know it sounds horrible but I couldn’t handle seeing her suffer so much.’’

‘’I get it. I was a teenager when my ma died but even at that age I wanted her pain to stop.’’

For the entire lunch hour, you and Lee eat and ask questions to each other while trying to avoid any sensitive subjects.

Before you realize, your first week of training is done and then the second one. In the blink of an eye, an entire month has gone by.

Lee is usually a cold, distant man but to everyone’s surprise, especially his own, you manage to pull him out of his shell. He’s a lot more carefree around you. Just around you. Most officers haven't seen Lee laugh and smile since before his divorce, it's a nice change of pace because even if he acts all nice and sweet only with you he has softened up a tiny bit with the others. He now tends to let things go or turn a blind eye when he normally wouldn't.

Every Monday and Friday morning you would come in early with a basket of freshly made baked goods that you would leave in the break room for everyone to enjoy with their coffee. You always separate them into two batches; one for the night shift who are about to leave and one for the day shift who are starting their day.

Needless to say both shifts appreciate having a little something to either start or finish their day on a good note.

Even if you think you're being subtle, everyone knows that almost every day you have a little something special for Lee. You've heard him make comments here and there about his shape and the way he looked, even if you think he is perfect the way that he is you know that it's not enough to change his mind. Instead you bring him homemade lunches, he doesn't have the time nor the energy to cook for himself and by bringing him his lunch he doesn't have to eat at the diner.

He tries to play it cool, he pretends like it's not a big deal but you can see a difference in his mood and confidence. There's a twinkle in his eyes that didn't used to be there and you hope he never loses it again.

"Sweetness, you need to stop bringing me food." He looks at you as you walk into his office with a very familiar brown paper bag in your hand.

"Are you gonna start bringing yourself food?" You arch a brow, knowing the answer before he even says it.

"... You know I don't have the time."

"Then I won't stop bringing you food." You put the paper bag on his desk.

He shakes his head and tries to give it back but you don't take it. "Just say thank you, sheriff."

He sighs and gives up. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." You smile brightly at him before leaving his office and closing his door.

It's the same fight every day and you win, every day.

Your cousin has noticed how close you and the sheriff have gotten and he's not sure how he feels about it. He's known you your entire life so he recognizes the look in your eyes whenever Lee's around. You like Lee and there's no denying it.

He makes you laugh and he's always sweet to you. You've become close friends and it's not rare for people to see you out and about with him. They can gossip all they want neither of you care. Your friendship is more important than the opinion of the bored housewives of Knockemstiff.

As the eternal optimist that you are, you've let yourself think that maybe, just maybe, Lee could like you too. It's hard to tell because he's so closed off but there are times you think he might have feelings for you.

You're never going to tell him how you feel because you don't want to lose your friend or your job. Deep down you hope that Lee will wake up one day and realize that he likes you too, and decides to do something about it.

You mentally chastise yourself for staying hopeful but that's what keeps you going.

Until your hopes are completely crushed.

Every night before leaving you find Lee to ask if he needs you to do anything else before leaving and to say goodnight.

He's not in his office so you go look for him in the break room. Lee and one of the officers are standing next to the table, drinking coffee and eating whatever's left from the baked goods you brought before leaving for the weekend.

You're about to call out to him but the subject of their conversation stops you.

They're talking about you.

"Aren't you glad Matt suggested her for the job?"

"Yeah. She does a great job and she learns fast."

"She's cute and she cooks on top of everything else she does for you. Did Sheriff Bodecker find wife number two?" The officer chuckles at his own words, not knowing that you can hear everything and that your heart is pounding in your chest as you wait for Lee's answer.

You don't expect to become his wife but depending on his reaction you might be able to tell if he likes you in the same way that you do.

The way Lee scoffs doesn't announce anything good.

"Are you out of your mind? Her?" He shakes his head and laughs. "Like that's ever gonna happen. Keep your stupid ideas to yourself and get back to work." He rolls his eyes and turns toward the door, feeling like someone was there but there's no one.

It hurts. You've known that something is wrong with you because no man wants to marry you but to hear it like this, like marrying you is the dumbest thing any man could do, and from someone you thought was your friend, hurt.

You've been fooling yourself about your friendship with him because Lee's tone and words were laced with so much disdain that there is no way he respects you enough to be your friend.

You want to run out of the station but you don't want to look suspicious so you walk out calmly, wishing everyone a good weekend and then you leave without another word, heading straight to your apartment.

Lee is surprised to see your desk empty as you normally always say good night before leaving. You're probably walking around, looking for him. He goes back to his desk but leaves the door open, to see you when you'll walk back to your desk.

An entire hour goes by before Lee comes to the conclusion that you've left. Without saying goodbye which is highly unusual for you.

Every Friday afternoon you find Lee, ask if he needs you to stay longer, make plans with him for the weekend and then you'd leave.

He has a bad feeling but he just shakes it off, he'll see you tomorrow like every Saturday.

The whole weekend goes by without him hearing a peep from you. He doesn't even leave the house to make sure he doesn't miss your phone call, but nothing.

On Monday morning he gets to the station a little earlier than usual to make sure he's there when you arrive.

You come into the station empty handed which disappoints every employee. No baked goods and no lunch for Lee.

You don't go into his office to wish him good morning, instead you sit at your desk and start working right away.

The pit in Lee's stomach keeps growing.

"Can you come in here, please?" He speaks loud enough for you to hear as you're right outside his door.

You stand up, grab your notepad and pen, then walk into Lee's office and stand behind the chair you usually sit on to tell him about something funny or to listen to him talk about whatever is currently pissing him off.

"You need something, Sheriff Bodecker?" You barely look up and it makes Lee frown. You never call him Sheriff Bodecker. At least not seriously. It's always Lee or, if you're teasing, sometimes you'll still call him Sheriff but it's always playful.

This was not.

"Somethin' wrong, sweetness?"

"Everything is fine. What do you need?"

Your eyes finally meet but there's no warmth in yours. They are cold and… empty.

"Nothing, for now. You left without saying goodbye on Friday and I haven't seen you all weekend. Just wanted to catch up is all."

You stop yourself from rolling your eyes and you bite back whatever you were about to say. You know what he really thinks of you and you hate that he pretends to care.

"Call me when you need something, then." You walk out of his office and sit back behind your desk to keep working.

Lee comes out of his office for lunch and stops in front of your desk on his way out. "I'm going to the diner. Wanna come?" He looks down, trying to decipher what's going on in that head of yours.

"No, thank you."

For the entire week all you do is come in, work, go home. You don't talk to anyone but Matt, you don't bring anything for anyone, there's no smile, no kind words, nothing. It's like you're an entirely different person and no one knows why or what happened.

On Friday afternoon Lee can't take it anymore and he orders you into his office, shutting the door once you're inside.

He sits back in his chair and leans back, staring at you.

"Look, I don't know what's been going on with you but everyone is worried about you. Clearly something happened but you won't talk to me about it and I don't know why you're shutting down like this."

You can't help but roll your eyes at his words, which Lee doesn't miss.

"Ok. Enough. What's wrong?" He sits up, getting angry.

"Nothing is wrong." You cross your arms in front of you.

"Then what's with the attitude?!"

"No one is worried about me. You just want me to start bringing you food again. Tell everyone that I'll bring food on Monday."

You turn to leave but Lee's loud voice tells you to stop.

"We're not done here."

You sigh and turn around.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" He stands up behind his desk, leaning forward and holding himself up with his hands laid flat on the top of his desk. "You don't talk to your boss that way and certainly not to your friend. You owe me respect."

"You mean the same kind of respect you gave me when you talked about me with one of your officers in the break room last week?"

He frowns, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Are you out of your mind? Her? Like that's ever gonna happen. Keep your stupid ideas to yourself and get back to work." You repeat word for word what he said about you, making sure to use the same disgusted tone he did.

Lee's eyes widen as he finally understands. There had been someone there like he thought. You.

"Sweetness-"

You cut him off. "The only reason I'm still here is because I need this job. I am looking for a new job, hopefully with a boss that won't be disgusted by me. You should start looking for my replacement." You walk out of his office, stopping long enough to grab your things then leaving without another word.

Lee falls back into his chair, staring into nothing.

He's so angry with himself. He was trying so hard to pretend that he wasn't falling for you and hiding his feelings, he never thought that he could hurt you. Without meaning to, he played right into your insecurities and made it sound like something was wrong with you, that someone wanting to marry you is insane, and you heard everything.

Lee has had a crush on you from the moment he looked up from his desk and saw you for the first time. He's almost embarrassed by the fact that he, a grown man, has a crush like a hormonal teenager because before you, he's pretty sure the last time he had a crush on someone was in high school.

It's only been a little over a month since you started working at the station, though it feels like he's known you his entire life.

He adores you in every possible way and he's grown to love you with every moment you've spent together. You spend at least 8 hours a day together from Monday through Friday and then you spend more time together on his days off. If he could, he'd spend every single minute of his day with you without ever getting tired of you.

If he is being honest what you overheard was true, that's exactly how he felt but not because of you, because of him.

Why in the world would an amazing, kind and sweet woman like you want to be with him, marry him? There's no chance in hell that he's good enough for you, to be yours. Plus, he's your boss. It's not like he could hit on you. Well, he could but he didn't want to seem like a creep. He wants to be perfect for you and the general consensus around town is that Lee Bodecker is everything but perfect.

He made that stupid comment in the break room because he didn't want rumors going around that he liked you, he didn't want to jeopardize your friendship. He ended up doing even worse, he ruined and broke it.

He realized he was in love with you two weeks ago when Matt hosted a dinner at his house. Lee almost died from a heart attack when he first saw you in your cute summer dress looking as beautiful as ever. Then he watched as you played with your niece and he saw how much you loved her. For the first time in his life, Lee wanted children. He wanted children and he wanted them with you.

It became clear as day in his mind that he was in love with you, that he'd love nothing more than to make you his. Put the prettiest ring around your finger, buy you the house of your dreams and give you as many babies as you want.

He has never felt like this before, not even with Florence, and truthfully it terrifies him. Especially now that he has ruined everything. He has no idea how he's going to fix this mess but he sure as hell is going to try.

Lee is pulling a double today so he can't even run after you, he's stuck at the station and it's driving him crazy.

His officers quickly realize that the honeymoon phase is over and that Lee's bad mood and short temper are back in full force, they make sure to avoid him as much as physically possible.

His shift ends at 6 on Saturday morning and at 6:01 Lee is walking out of his office. He gets into his cruiser and drives to your apartment. He doesn't care if he wakes you up, he needs to fix it and he needs to fix it now.

He parks on the street in front of your door and slams his door shut before hurrying to your front door. Even as he knocks, he doesn't know what he's going to say. Hopefully, he won't make things worse.

You are startled awake by someone pounding on your door, you look at your alarm clock to find that it's not even 6:15 am and it's Saturday morning, why is someone pounding on your door at this hour?

You throw the covers at the foot of your bed and hurry out of bed, you grab your robe on your way out of your room and put it on before opening the front door. The last person you expected to see was Lee, yet here he stands in front of you.

You should have checked the peephole before opening the door.

Lee's heart painfully clenches when he sees the hurt and sadness settle in your eyes at the sight of him. He opens his mouth and closes it a few times without making any sound, he has so much to say yet nothing feels right.

He wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you into his chest, crashing his lips onto yours. Lee sighs with relief when he feels you kissing him back almost right away. He uses his free hand to cup your cheek, stroking your skin with his thumb while also putting just enough pressure to make you tilt your head back to have better access to your lips.

Your heart has never beaten this fast before and as you wrap your arms around his neck to pull yourself closer to him, you can't help but to think that he has to be feeling your heartbeat against his chest.

Breathless, Lee breaks the kiss but barely moves an inch away from you. He opens his eyes and rests his forehead against yours, breathing deeply to get some oxygen back into his lungs.

Once you've managed to pull yourself out of the kissing haze you got lost into, you remember the situation that led to Lee showing up at your door at this hour. You let go of him, unwrapping your arms from around his neck but his arm around your waist stops you from going anywhere.

"I'm sorry for being such an asshole, sweetness." He finally says, speaking softly before leaning back to be able to look at you. "What you heard, I meant it."

You shake your head and try to get out of his grip but he doesn't let you go, if anything he tightens his hold on your waist.

"I meant it but not in the way you heard it. I meant that a girl like you would never go for a guy like me."

He looks into your eyes, trying to guess how you're feeling.

"I don't want you to quit. I want to keep seeing you every day at work. I need to see you every day at work. I'm so crazy about you, it's almost embarrassing but I don't care anymore. I don't care who knows it and what people are going to say about it. I don't care how cliché it is that I fell in love with my assistant because you make me happy." He tucks a strand of your messy bed hair behind your ear.

"Lee…" You sigh, not knowing what to say or how to act. Lee is your boss but most importantly he's your best friend and you fell in love with him. How could you not? Lee is perfect, for you at least others might disagree, and there's nothing you'd love more than to be with him but you can't get the conversation you overheard out of your head. One, amazing, kiss won't make you forget. You try to pull away and this time he lets you. You take a few steps back into your apartment and tighten your robe around you. "What you said, how you said it… it hurt me."

"I'm so sorry." He watches you, fear written all across his face at the thought that maybe there is no fixing his mess. "I was just trying to protect myself, and you, from the rumors and gossip. I shouldn't have said what I said and for that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting you but I'm not sorry for trying to protect you and our friendship." He says seriously. "What do I have to do for you to forgive me and give me a chance?" He takes a step forward, standing in the doorway. "You love me just as much as I love you, I felt it in the kiss. Tell me, what do you need from me? Do you want me to beg? Because for you baby I'll get on my knees right now."

Lee doesn't even give you a chance to talk. He walks into your apartment and stands right in front of you before getting on both knees, looking up at you. "I'm beyond sorry and I'll apologize everyday for the rest of my life if I need to." He puts his hands on your hips and squeezes gently.

You hold back a gasp at the sight of Lee kneeling down in front of you. The sheriff Bodecker who is feared amongst all is on his knees and begging in your apartment where he can easily be seen by anyone who walks by.

You look down at him and lift up a hand, stroking his short hair on the top of his head as you feel him getting anxious.

"I forgive you." You say quietly, scared that he might make you regret how quickly you forgave him.

His eyes completely light up and he pulls you closer to him, pressing kisses on your stomach on top of your robe from his excitement. He gets up as fast as he can and grabs your cheeks, smiling down at you.

"Don't make me regret forgiving you, Lee Bodecker."

Lee can see a hint of a playful glimmer back into your eyes and it makes his heart skip a beat.

"No ma'am." He kisses your forehead, nose and lips. "Next time I'm getting down on my knees, it'll be to put a ring on your finger." He says confidently.

"Is that so?" You arch a brow, smiling.

He nods. "Definitely. How do you feel about being future Mrs. Lee Bodecker, mh?"

You pretend to think about it and shrug. "Guess you'll have to ask to find out."

He pulls you into another kiss, this time he can't stop smiling even when his lips are pressed to yours.

For the first time since his divorce Lee feels happy again. He sees a future for himself that doesn't revolve around work or a bottle of whiskey and he can't wait to go through everything with you. The good and the bad, as long as you're standing next to him and holding his hand there's nothing he can't do.

For now Lee closes your front door and follows you back into your room, stripping down to his underwear before getting into bed with you, for you to finish your night of sleep and for him to finally have a chance to sleep.

For the next couple of days, it'll be just you and Lee with the entire world outside forgotten. Of course there will be talk around town of the Sheriff's cruiser being parked in front of your apartment for the entire weekend without moving once but you will deal with it all on Monday morning when you're ready to face the world again.

For now all that matters is you and Lee, the rest is a problem for another day.

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