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softlyspector · 6 months

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Born lucky, under a bad star.

Summary: Joel has always been lucky, in the worst of ways.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~13k (sorry)

Warnings: game!Joel, major spoilers for tlou part 2, angst with a happy ending, major injuries and recovery, anxiety, depression, relationship healing, mentions of death, mentions of violence, suicidal ideation

Disclaimers and A/N: Though this fic was based around some events in tlou part 2, almost all of the canon after the divergence from the canon timeline is thrown out. This fic is also based entirely around game events, characterization, and canon. This is honestly one of the most difficult things I've ever written. It took months and many many drafts, but I'm very proud of her. I hope you love her too, she was a labor of love.

As always, thank you for reading! I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!

Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. - Kait Rokowski.

The lights of the clinic are so bright they’re blinding.

Your hands are still shaking, covered in Joel’s blood. It’s been hours since you returned to the safety of Jackson’s walls but there’s still a frantic, frenetic energy in the air. Everyone is shaken. It feels a little like a thousand year old tree has been felled, like a giant has been swung at and leveled, like something monstrous and infallible has been brought to its knees.

You’ve seen it happen before. Rebar right through his belly. It should have killed him. It would have killed anyone else. You’ve pulled more bullets out of Joel than you would care to count, and swaddled him in probably several football fields worth of bandages over the years.

Still, nothing like this.

Because Joel has always been lucky, even when he hadn’t wanted to be.

Lucky, in all the worst ways.

That fucking rebar, you think bitterly. It should have hit at least one organ, should have severed his fucking spine. But it didn’t. He walked it off, really, mostly, at the end of it all.

This though — to see him tortured, beaten, bleeding to death slowly—

Your edge of your vision tips black, like your mind is already refusing to go back to that room, like you’ll pass out if you think of it for too long.

A part of you wonders if maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you forgot to stick lavender in his pocket before he left that morning, like you always do.

Someone pushes the door open, snow swirls in against the tile. Voices, rising and falling. The cold that rolls through the tiny waiting room is frigid.

It’s still so red, his blood, even dried and crusted around your fingers and up your wrists.

Tommy is still bleeding and even Maria hasn’t been able to convince him to sit down and let someone look at him. No, all attention needs to be focused on his brother. Anyone with any medical know how, has to be with Joel.

You agree.

Tommy, you, anyone else—can fucking wait.

Ellie is sitting next to you, looking just as numb and shocked as you feel, her fingers twined with Dina’s.

The chatter reaches a crescendo. Something about the worsening storm, something about tracking folks with that big of a headstart through a storm like this one, something about the rapidly deepening darkness, night coming on, something about well who could do something like that anyway? Who the fuck would we even send?

The quiet that follows is painful.

Joel.

Joel is the one you send. Joel is the one that could get a job like this one done, the one that could track people through a blizzard with a dogged determinism, with pragmatism and infallibility.

“What did they want?” Someone asks the room at large. You aren’t sure who asks, you can’t make the shapes in the room resolve into people you know. “Why us? Why Joel? They wanted something right? Who were they?”

You and Tommy look at each other, Ellie makes a half muffled, pained sound beside you. Joel crossed a lot of people, maybe there wasn’t any sense in guessing.

No one answers. You look at your hands again and wonder if the crimson will ever fade.

Someone says your name and you look up. A coat is tugged over your shoulders. You didn’t realize you were shivering and you don’t know what happened to your own coat. One of the patrolmen is looking at you, his name slips your memory but Jesse is standing behind him, Maria on the other side.

You feel the ghost of Ellie’s hand against your arm. Odd, you think distantly, because she hates you. She has for a long time.

“What happened?”

You look around, but Tommy isn’t where he’d been standing just a moment ago. Did they ask him, too?

There’s a dark hole in your memory.

“I don’t know.”

And it’s the truth.

There’s no one more dedicated, more involved, in keeping Jackson safe, than Joel.

Aside from Tommy, maybe.

Joel is an effective killer, like an executioner with a mission. It’s the thing that scared Tommy the most about his brother, and it’s also the thing that had kept him alive long enough to get his second chance in Jackson. It’s the thing you have always loved most about Joel, the violence born of necessity.

And, you suppose, that’s what he’d been. Dispatcher, destroyer.

Protector.

At the heart of it all, the meat of it is, that it had always been that with Joel. It had always been in the name of protect, provide, survive. He never shied away from telling you of his days as a hunter, or, something close to a hunter. And even then, it was keep Tommy alive, it was survive until Boston, it was we needed fucking food.

Survive and provide and protect.

Joel.

Jackson had been wary of him, at first. The stories of his dealings with infected and raiders alike at odds with the way he moved in the commune, with kindness and a certain gentleness, a competency and dependability, with something so soft in his gaze when it came to that little girl he arrived with.

That reticence and worry had dissolved as quickly as it had come.

They describe him as quiet and funny, because he’s prone to good natured teasing. They describe him as fierce and short to anger, because no one can say a word about him or his. They describe him as wonderfully dependable, ask Joel for something on a supply run and you would have it in short order; sigh about the state of something in your home and it would be taken care of, fixed, the very next day.

Jackson loves Joel.

Especially that softened up, gentle creature that had emerged in the wake of everything that had happened between Boston and Jackson. Joel had always had a soft interior, trotted out in brief glimpses over the years, but the shell he wore had been so thick and sharp it was near impenetrable, nearly unknowable.

Ellie is around plenty in those first couple of weeks after. She even takes to sleeping on the living room couch. She doesn’t say much to you or Joel, hardly anything at all, but she’s there and you figure that’s what matters. It seems like she isn’t sure what to say, and desperate for the connection that nearly shattered.

The first few days when Joel comes home from the clinic, someone knocks on the front door every couple of hours and you open it and have the same conversation over and over and over again. It’s always people worriedly asking after Joel’s wellbeing, dropping off food, expressing their anger that something like this could happen to one of their own, that it could happen to someone so widely and wildly beloved.

When the knocks finally stop coming, and you can convince Tommy to go home to Maria, before Maria has to walk over and collect her husband again, you take the stairs slowly up.

You’re exhausted. You hardly sleep and when you do, you have nightmares of Joel. Formless, mind numbing dreams that you can never remember when you wake up gasping. You aren’t sure if Joel dreams of it, too. He’s always mumbled in his sleep, eyes flickering behind closed lids, so it’s hard to tell.

And he hasn’t really been coherent enough, awake enough, to ask, anyway.

“Hey,” Ellie says when you round the doorway into the bedroom, lowering the comic book in her hands. She’s beside Joel, sitting on your side of the bed, back against the headboard. “Sleeping again.”

“Was he awake?”

“A little. Drank some water.”

Despite the tension of the last few years, you know she’s thinking of another time that Joel had slept a lot, injured and only half alive.

Now isn’t like then, but in some ways, it’s worse.

You nod and take a seat at the edge of the bed by her feet. “That’s good,” you reassure her. “It’s a good thing that he’s sleeping. He needs it.”

Ellie just holds up the comic in her lap and then jerks her chin at the box on the bedside table, Joel’s glasses and book about space pushed aside. “I, uh, found them in the study.”

You shrug. “He always picked up any he found on supply runs.” You watch her from the corner of your eye and then shift your gaze to Joel. The slow rise and fall of his chest is reassuring in its steadiness, though you hate how still he is.

The skin by his temple is puckered and red, the stitches a neat little row up to his hairline. It still looks raw as a live nerve, the swelling extending to his eye, purple and shadowed in a dark bruise that trails down his cheek and jaw.

“He never said—” She stops and shakes her head. “So stupid.”

“Well,” you scoot closer and pat her extended leg. “You didn’t exactly want to talk then. We tried giving them to you, once. Left them outside your door. They got a little rained on.”

“Yeah,” she says, mouth twisting to the side. “Some of them are. . .can’t fucking peel the pages apart.” In that moment, she sounds like that little kid you left Boston with, being told not to touch something and doing it anyway.

That might have been when you fell in love with Ellie, watching her snap at Bill, and watching Joel react like any father would. It had come back to him so quickly, so naturally.

There’s a long pause in which Ellie flips rapidly through the comic book and doesn’t say anything, her fingers nervous. She looks how you feel — exhausted. “Why don’t you go get some sleep in your own bed?” You ask, reaching out to twitch a fallen lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “You’re just across the yard. If anything happens, you’ll know.”

She looks up at you, eyes flicking over your face. “I was fucking mad at you too, you know,” she whispers suddenly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You drop your hand and shake your head before looking back at Joel. He sleeps deeply now, deeper than you thought possible for someone like him, even drugged and injured.

There’s a knot tangled in your chest, that only tightens further with her question. “It wasn’t my place. He didn’t. . .he didn’t say anything to me about it for a long time, either. Wouldn’t explain what happened while we were separated. He told me the same lie. And you were going to be mad at me, too, no matter what. It had to be between the two of you.”

“And you think he was right,” she accuses hotly.

“And,” you level your eyes to hers, “I think he was right.” You dip your head. “I wouldn’t change anything, Ellie. I wouldn’t. You know Joel wouldn’t either. You matter more than that.”

Her bottom lip trembles for just a second. “Even knowing this happens?!” She gestures around the room, maybe just the situation at large.

Some of the tension knotting up your shoulders bleeds away. “He’s still here. It’s not too late.” She glances away and sucks in a harsh breath. You wait until she meets your eyes again. “And Ellie, it is not your fault. It’s not. None of it.”

“It almost was.” Her voice is strained. “Too late.”

You shrug. “He knows you care. Trust me, he does.”

She scrubs roughly at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “Yeah, uh, well, I’m still gonna sleep on the couch.”

“Why don’t you just stay right here, then? With Joel?” You ask and stand. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”

It is the ultimate admission of how scared she is, that she does not argue, doesn’t even try to.

For the first few weeks after the attack, Joel is in and out of consciousness. He sleeps much more than he’s awake.

And, it’s hard to tell, at first, why he’s sleeping so much. The pain medicine? That carefully doled out, nearly impossible to come by miracle drug — was it just knocking him out? Was he just sleeping because that’s what his body needed? Or, was it something deeper? Brain damage?

“He’s fucking. . .old!” Ellie says to you one morning around a mouthful of toast. It’s kind of odd, how easily she’s taken to old routines. And how weird the old routine is, because the third piece of your puzzle is missing, sleeping. “Old people take longer to heal, right?”

Right.

But he’s also Joel. And he isn’t that old.

It feels wrong, that he’s so still and silent.

“It’s not—” Her fist opens and closes. She sets down the toast in her other hand on the plate and turns, pacing the length of Joel’s kitchen, fidgeting with her fingers as she goes, white morning light slatting over her. You eye the toast. It’s hard to get her to eat, these days but you figure most of one piece is better than nothing. “His leg. It’s not infected or something, right? We’d know if it was.”

“It’s not infected,” you agree. When your own hands start to shake, you set down your mug, afraid to drop it or spill hot tea all over the floor, and make Ellie even more anxious in the process.

You don’t like to talk about it. You don’t like to think about it. The memories are like a hot brand.

The staircase creaks with the heavy thud of footsteps, before Tommy appears in the kitchen archway. You’ve always thought Tommy and Joel resembled each other, but now you see similarities in the kinds of expressions they make, too, the quirks in their movements that only siblings could share, and Tommy is sometimes a little hard to look at.

“Heading out?”

“Yeah, he’s, uh, sleepin’ again.” He leans against the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest.

Ellie doesn’t say anything, just slips past Tommy and heads up the steps. Tommy looks after her and then back at you. “She won’t say it but she doesn’t like leaving him alone,” you explain.

Tommy nods and then pushes away from the door to settle at the kitchen table. “Well, I don’t like the idea of it either. Good she’s with him.” He tips the chair onto its back legs and tilts his head. “How ya holdin’ up?”

“Probably about as good as you are.”

He huffs a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Maria told me you want off partols.”

You swallow and look away from him as you take the seat across from him at the table. “I - I know we’re down people already but I can’t. . .Tommy I can’t even look at the goddamn gate without feeling like—” You shake your head. “I just don’t think I can do it. I’d get somebody killed.”

“All right,” he says, not unkindly. “We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.”

A burn starts at the back of your eyes so you stand again and swipe your fingers against your cheeks. “You want coffee before you head out?”

“Nah, save that for Joel.” Then, “How you think this is gonna go? When he’s awake more?”

“I don’t know. You’d know better than me.”

Tommy laughs. The chair scrapes against the linoleum as he stands. He looks tired, and worried. It’s an odd look on him. It isn’t like Tommy at all. You and Tommy have always bonded over teasing Joel. There’s none of that now.

“Like hell. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with him, not me.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And you’re the love of his damn life.” He pauses and leans on the counter next to you.

That makes your mouth twitch, the pleasantly warm feeling in your chest consumed in the next second by a lancing pain that can only be an approximation of grief for someone and something that still breathed.

“I just can’t help worryin’,” he continues. “This might be enough for us, but not for him. If Joel can’t ever do anything again—”

“He just needs time, Tommy,” you cut him off quickly. Not able to stomach the thought. “We’ll figure it out. He’ll figure it out,” you say with more conviction than you feel. “We can probably figure something like a prosthetic out. People have been making them for thousands of years. We can do it. It’ll be fine. But it’s going to be different.”

Tommy’s right. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with Joel. You aren’t sure who you are without him anymore. You aren’t sure you know how to get along without him anymore. And you never want to have to find out. “He’s alive,” you finish with a nod. “Everything else, we can figure out.”

He nods. “You think we shoulda went after ‘em?”

“Maybe. But this is more important.”

Before he goes, Tommy wraps you in a hug. “So long as you and that girl stick around, it’ll be all right.”

“Ellie’s been playing the guitar up there,” you answer.

He nods and pulls back, one big hand clapping down on your shoulder. “See? Things might be all right yet. Always told Joel she’d come around eventually.” He releases you and heads toward the door then. “And get some sleep. Y’look terrible,” he calls over his shoulder. “Orders from Maria.”

For the first time in weeks, Joel wakes with some semblance of clarity. The bedroom is warm and dark, the tiniest pool of light washing over the form next to him from a little light plugged into the wall.

It’s the nightlight he found for Ellie when they first got to Jackson and her nightmares gave her more grief than she cared to admit to.

His whole body aches. He feels sick.

The sharpness of the pain is disorienting. He’s only been awake in brief, muddled flashes, the dulled fingers of drugged pain lancing through him and consuming most of his thoughts. He’d only been awake long enough to eat or drink or be helped to the bathroom like some kind of damn—

He remembers Tommy at his bedside. He hears the ghost notes of music in the air, your voice in his ear, the gentle slide of warm fingers over his skin. He remembers Ellie reading aloud, curled on her side next to him, like she used to do when she was younger, like when they’d stop for the night on the road.

That can’t be right, though. She hasn’t done that in years. She wouldn’t do something like that. Not anymore.

You’re next to him now, face tilted against the edge of his pillow. It’s hard to make you out in the dark, the shape and slope of your features hidden in the dim light.

When he says your name, you twitch, the slightest wrinkle to your nose, the tiniest spasm of your fingers against the sheets. “Darlin’,” he tries again. His voice grinds, catches and snags around his teeth. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in years.

He reaches for you and it’s agony, because his shoulder must be broken. His ribs contract painfully right, like the shrapnel of the bone is digging up into his lungs, piercing his heart. But your skin is soft and warm, pliant, beneath his fingers. It smells like you’ve been burning sage again. He wants to burrow his fingers beneath your skin, you’re so warm.

The cut of your cheekbones are sharper, the angle of your jaw reminds him of winter in the QZ, winter traveling with you and Ellie. Discolored circles line the space beneath your eyes like little hollows. You look exhausted, wan.

You blink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. “Joel?” Your voice is a whisper, like the dark is stealing it away.

Your fingers slide through the backs of his against your cheek when you shift closer, so careful about it, until you’re pressed to his side. “Joel,” you repeat, eyes sliding shut, forehead against the edge of his sore jaw.

He breathes you in, the warm scent of your skin, the smells of hearth and home, lavender and sage and woodsmoke. He closes his eyes for just a second when you shift up and tilt your forehead against his, breath whispering against his chin. “Joel.”

“You all right?” His voice still sounds rocky but clearing it doesn’t seem to help any.

Slowly, you sit up, hand still in his when you pull it away from your face. “You’re asking me that? You’re kidding, Joel,” your voice creaks. You’ve never really been a crier, but there’s a thickness in your mouth, softening out the vowels and snapping at the consonants. “Are you - We didn’t want you to be in pain. But you’ve been sleeping for so long, we gave you a lower dose so that—”

“I feel okay,” he interrupts your fretting, sweeping his thumb against the back of your hand. “Considerin’.”

You swallow and nod. “Hungry?” You glance at the window, where a gray, pale morning light is starting to leech into the room, the color of dirty snow.

“Yep.” He wishes you’d keep your eyes on him. “If you’ve got somethin’ ready.”

“We have anything you want,” you assure him. “Anything.”

Joel nods and attempts to push himself up next to you, chest and shoulder aching something awful. He bites back a groan but it still pushes past his teeth.

“Careful,” you say sharply. Before he can protest, you’re up and around the bed, one hand behind his back. “Your shoulder is broken in a million places.”

“A million?” He grunts.

“Three.”

“That ain’t a million.”

You don’t laugh and your hand doesn’t move from his back. “And broken ribs. Now lean back.” He does as you ask, real careful about it so you don’t worry.

An odd feeling creeps up inside his chest, dulled by the lighter dose of pain medicine coursing through his veins. It ain’t just a sick feeling, but something else. A helplessness, maybe. It feels wrong, in more ways than one.

Joel becomes acutely aware of what he already knows, every single injury, the graveness of them. He knows about the broken shoulder and ribs that had to be reset, torn skin that had to be stitched together, that he has internal bruising but by some miracle no internal bleeding. His face throbs suddenly, his temple tight with pain. He feels his heartbeat behind his eye and in the swelling in his cheek.

And, the worst of it, leg amputated to just above the knee. Sick crawls up the back of his throat. He doesn’t dare look.

The feeling in his chest swells until it chokes him.

Helpless, useless — something hard and fanged digs into his mind. It feels like grief, but what is he supposed to be mourning, exactly?

Everything, maybe.

His whole damn life.

“I’m fine,” he grunts suddenly. Sharply. “Quit fussin’.”

He feels like fucking crying.

“Just - shut up, Joel,” you snap back. “You almost fucking died.”

A fist curls around his throat, warm and tight. He almost can’t breathe through it. “Yeah,” he croaks, voice breaking the word in two.

“Yeah,” you snarl. “So shut up and let me fuss.”

You turn and leave before he can say anything else, footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. Voices trundle up, creased and folded, rising but muffled. You’ve always been mean when you got scared, ever since Joel can remember. You were mean as hell when he first met you, a hissing kind of frustrated, new to the QZ and new to trying your hand at smuggling.

You’ve softened up over the years. He hasn’t seen you like this in a long time, maybe not since you got separated in Salt Lake City.

More footsteps, this time heavy, stomping, coming upwards.

Ellie appears in the doorway a second later. Her hair is messy; her eyes are wild. She’s in sweatpants and a shirt that’s too big for her. She looks tired but unharmed. The knot tangled up around his lungs eases just a little. “Hey, kiddo.” He tries not to sound surprised.

Her eyes flick over him and then away. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave either. Instead she picks up a book from the corner of the dresser and settles in the chair across the room.

A firm but unyielding presence.

He closes his eyes, tips his head back against the wall, and tries to push down the feeling of failure rising in his throat like a tide.

Joel’s fingers are clumsy.

He can’t walk, can’t work, can’t do much of anything without irritating every ligament and tendon and bone in his body.

But even worse than that, he can’t remember how to play the guitar.

And nothing makes him feel so helpless as that.

Even after not playing for twenty odd years, the notes and the placement of his fingers on the strings and frets had come back easily to him, almost like he’d never stopped playing at all.

Now, it doesn’t.

In part his shoulder is to blame. Even nearly healed, it’s stiff. But the other part of it is that he can’t remember how to play. Every note seems wrong, and he can’t decide if he’s hearing it wrong, if there’s something wrong with his hearing, his perception, or if the note really is just wrong.

Ellie plays for him, instead.

It’s easier than talking. Neither of them are really good at that, anyway. He’s just glad she’s around at all.

He can’t help but think of that last conversation he’d had with her on the back porch, that she wants to try to forgive him, even if she thinks she might never be able to. He supposes this is her way of trying her hand at that.

Sometimes he wonders if it would be like this if he hadn’t almost died, if he wasn’t collecting sympathy from everyone like there was some kind of shortage. Maybe that conversation on the porch would have meant nothing, otherwise.

The thought hurts him, no matter how glad he is that she’s there.

One evening, pretty late, as snow peppers down through the early winter black that curtains the window, she stops playing.

The living room is quiet, aside from their breathing and the crackle of flames in the fireplace.

“I was going to invite you over to watch a movie.”

The metallic twang of the last note she plucked hangs in the air.

“I was - I was going to fucking ask you to watch a movie with me. That night. One of those dumb action movies you like. Like the ones we used to watch, remember? Curtis and Viper 2.”

She doesn’t look at him. She stares at her fingers, idly, nervously, twisting the tuning pegs of the guitar. “Think I saw that one before,” he answers, voice a little choked. “Pretty good.”

Ellie rolls her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Yeah, you would think so, old man,” she replies eventually but still doesn’t look up, her mouth twisting to the side. “I just - don’t want you to think I’m only here because you—” She shakes her head, and props the guitar against the wall before she stands and paces the room twice, toying with her fingers in that way she always has. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Even when I was really mad.”

“Ellie,” he says but she doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know.”

“Anyway, I meant what I said.”

“Ellie.”

“I wanted things to get better. I wanted to try. I was going to.”

“Ellie.”

She spins suddenly toward the front door, one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing awkwardly. “I gotta get going.”

“Kiddo.” This time she turns and finally looks at him. The scent of pine and smoke fills the room. The red of the flames flash across her face, so serious and anxious.

When they first came to Jackson, they spent a lot of nights on the couch together. His neck always ached the next morning from sleeping upright but he’d never complain about it. Then the distance between them had grown, and he doesn’t know when the last time something like that had happened.

But that same distance is slowly shrinking now, even if things might never, never be the same again.

So many times when he looks at her, he still sees that fourteen year old kid. He’d had the same problem with Sarah, looking at his twelve year old and seeing her at five and eight. It was just how it went, being a parent.

“I know, Ellie,” he reassures her. “I do. It’s all right. Even if you didn’t mean a word of it, it’s all right. I meant what I said, too.”

And even though she said she needed to leave, she nods and sits down again. She plucks a few notes out on the guitar when she pulls it back into her lap.

“D'ya still wanna watch it?”

She does.

Joel is whittling.

It is decidedly not going well.

He’s too distracted for it. He never realized how much pressure settled on his shoulder, how much it pulled at the muscle around his ribs, from doing something as simple as this, and he doesn’t like the nausea that comes with the pain.

But it’s something he can do, so he does it.

It’s snowing outside again, wind raking against the siding, rattling the window panes. There’s a thin stream of air coming in around the window’s frame, cold.

His hands are chapped and raw, blood pooling at the seams of his knuckles.

The fix would be easy enough, but everything he needs to do it is in the basement. And the basement is a near impossible location for him to reach, so he puts up with it, hands growing more frustrated by the second because he wants to fucking fix it.

You use the office, his work space, often enough, and it’s one thing for him to be cold and uncomfortable, but another thing entirely for you to feel that way.

But he can’t make it down to the living room without help these days, let alone down two flights of stairs to the basement, and then back up them, too.

“Joel?”

He glances over his shoulder to find you standing in the doorway. You have a pair of shears in your hands.

“Still want me to cut your hair?”

He wants to do it himself. But you’d offered earlier, because you’ve been doing it for him for a long time, for years and years now. And he’d always liked it because your hands are kind with it and you’re better at doing it, anyway. But now it just feels like one more thing he can’t do for himself, one more thing he’s relying on someone else for, and that makes guilt and shame choke him.

Joel can’t seem to do a damn thing, not for himself, but, worse, not for anyone else either.

“Joel?” You ask again when the silence stretches until it’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have to; you can do it yourself.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s all right, darlin’.” You start forward when he labors up from the chair, teeth gritted, but quickly stop when he meets your eyes, warning you away with a glance.

You don’t say anything else, just back out the door and pad down the hall to the bathroom.

He isn’t sure if your feelings are hurt or not, all his focus directed on hauling himself upwards and then limping down the hall with one crutch under his arm. Feeble threads of pain lance up his leg, centering in his joints, the hinge of his knee. The space under his arm is sore too, from the crutch, even wrapped in cloth.

Joel is used to pain. He’s used to temporary aches, the sharp stab of healing wounds, the quick rip of a bullet or knife through skin, chronic pains from age and long healed injuries. On cold days, his side aches something fierce, like that rebar never really came out of him.

But this pain is different, without origin, and he’s having a hard time adjusting to it. Or maybe he’s just having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this is not a healable injury, at least, not in the way he wants it to be.

For the rest of his life, he will be disabled. He’ll never get back to himself, never be what he once was.

The bathroom light is gold. It washes his skin into a better color, not so pale and strained and pained looking.

He hates looking in the mirror now. Joel never considered himself particularly good looking, never thought about it much, really. And, for most of his life, looks haven’t really mattered anyway.

But seeing his reflection now is a reminder of his failures. It’s a reminder of everything he can’t do.

His whole body is nothing but reminders.

He is a patchwork quilt of scars.

He doesn’t know how you can stand to look at him. But you just brush your hands through his hair when he leans the crutch against the counter and sits heavily on the stool you dragged upstairs.

The bathroom is thick with the scent of lavender and earth. Every winter it turns into a makeshift greenhouse, all the plants that can’t survive the winter dragged inside for the season.

The feeling of your hands through his hair is soothing and the tension in his shoulders slides away.

“I can do it myself,” he grumbles, despite himself, and without conviction when you run a comb through his hair.

You hum under your breath, not really paying him any mind. You know he doesn’t really mean it. Even if he feels like a fucking burden for it, it’s something you’ve always done for him, so it’s a little easier for him to accept. “I know. I like to.” You tilt his chin up and Joel steadfastly avoids looking in the mirror. “Besides, I’m better at it. You take to it like it’s a hack job.”

The trim doesn’t take long, since he keeps his hair longer anyway. It’s mostly an excuse for you to rake your fingers through his hair.

“The window needs fixin’,” he says when you slide in front of him and set about trimming his beard without asking. That’s fine, too. “I know you been, uh, kinda cold in that room.”

“It’s not so bad,” you say when you finish with him, brushing your fingers against his cheeks and then through his hair. You smile, eyes crossing his face, tracing his features like a well known map, before you twitch a lock of hair away from his forehead. “You gonna fix it for me or what?”

“Mighty big ask of ya,” he grouses, irritation itching at the edge of his mind.

You’re still smiling faintly, touching his face, the curl of hair behind his ear, the scar along his hairline and then the one over his nose.

“I just can’t see how,” you say and Joel almost snaps. He wants to. He wants to say you don’t fucking get it, that you don’t want to get it, that it’s different now. He wants to say he’s not the man you’ve always known, that shit ain’t as easy as it’s always been. He can’t do shit for you, anymore, and isn’t that the reason you’ve stuck around all these years?

But then you continue. “I left that damn caulking gun on the side table three days ago.”

“You what?”

You shrug. “Thought you might have noticed it too. And I’ve always been so bad at that stuff.”

The guilt that settles in him is heavy, but familiar. The shape of it is different, but it's still like shrugging on an old coat, it’s so natural and intimate.

He must be destined for some kind of failure, born under a bad star, something.

Everything he touches falls apart, no matter what he does. Everyone he holds dear, leaves him, one way or another, somehow. His mama, Sarah, and then Tommy, and then Tess. Most recently Ellie, though maybe things there were being mended. Maybe you were next, soon as you came to your senses.

Joel has spent most of his life taking care of people. And when he wasn’t taking care of people, he was moving, working. He hardly ever sat still. He didn’t have time to sit still.

Not before the outbreak, and certainly not after.

Even in Jackson where the pace of the world is slower, he was always busy. If he wasn’t on patrol, he was on wall duty, looking after Jackson’s security. Or, he was fixing something for someone, building something, helping with the horses. If he wasn’t doing any of that, he was improving his house, he was working on a new carving, he was playing the guitar.

Healing up, it’s involved a whole lot of sitting still and feeling useless. It had involved a lot of other people fussing over him.

A lot of sitting still and feeling like he was failing everyone he knew. Like he had already failed everyone he knew. For all the effort he put into it, it would never be enough. He cares wrong, he loves wrong, and now he can’t even do that.

He fails you in this, too. Of wishing he could accuse you of all the things he thinks of himself.

Joel knows you think of it too, you just haven’t gotten frustrated enough with him to say it yet. You haven’t had the full weight of his broken, uselessness on you, yet.

That day will come. There’s no way it won’t, because he can’t do for you what he’s always done, what he was put on this god forsaken earth to do. The one thing he’s always been able to do. Not just for you, but for everyone. Ellie, Tommy and his family, Jackson at large.

It’s always been the thing he could point to and say look, this is why I am like this, this is why you need me, why I’m around. You survived because of me. Because I made sure you did.

So he’s not worth much now, really, and all the promises he made you and all the promises he made to himself, he can’t keep them anymore. And isn’t that why you stuck by him all these years? Despite all his shortcomings?

“Sorry, darlin’,” he cups your face in his hands, smoothes his thumbs over your cheeks, the hinge of your jaw. “I’ll get right on fixin’ that for you.”

“I know you will. Thank you, Joel.” The full weight of your head tips into his hands, and your eyes slide shut. His hands are large against your jaw, scarred and calloused, harsh. Reminders, maybe, of what he used to be. He looks at the hollows beneath your eyes, the raw, worried skin of your bottom lip.

You don’t sleep anymore and when you do you have nightmares. You hate to leave the house. And sometimes you flinch even when nothing is happening around you, like memories are snapping at your heels.

He did all that to you, too. Terrible gifts he’s given and can’t take back.

When he glances back up to your eyes, you’re staring at him, a worried, anxious kind of look lodged there that he absolutely hates.

“What?” He asks, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks and then the delicate hinge of your jaw.

“Nothing.” Your eyes shift away from his, and you twitch in his grasp. He already knows what you’re about to say, because you’ve never gotten better at saying it, just like him. He doesn’t need you to say it, but you do anyway, and he hates how much he likes hearing it. It’s like a ray of golden sun. “I love you, Joel,” you murmur and hook your hands around his wrists.

For a long time, you just look at him, the silence is heavy with unsaid words, but he isn’t sure which of you is the one not saying something. “That enough?” He eventually grunts. “For you?”

You frown. “Why wouldn’t it be? Do you think it’s not?”

It shouldn’t be. All those promises stack up in his mind again, everything he can’t keep.

“It shouldn’t be.”

You pull his hands away from your face with a shake of your head and lean in to kiss him. Your lips part softly against his, the hitch of your breath sweet against his mouth. The heat of you is so close and intoxicating, it’s something he never wants to have to give up, not when your thumbs are pressed to the pulse in his wrists, and not when you taste like apple, honey.

He shakes one of your hands away to wrap his arm around your back and pull you closer, until the warmth of your body is pressed securely to his chest. Your tongue slides against his, teeth nipping gently at his bottom lip. Something warm floods his cheeks and his chest goes tight.

When you pull back, you tug on a piece of his hair then touch the blush pinking on his face. “You look real handsome, Texas.”

He tucks his forehead against your collarbone, and you fold your hands against the back of his head. “It’s enough,” you say. “Always has been.”

The next day, he finds that most of his tools have been relocated upstairs, either to one of the cabinets in the living room, or to the office upstairs.

Either way, he no longer has to traverse two staircases down and back up.

He isn’t sure when you had the time to do it, or why he didn’t at least hear you doing it.

Joel’s chest swells with love for you, right alongside the guilt that does nothing but grow.

He fixes the window.

Some days are easier than others.

He has good days and bad, and some of the bad days are worse than others. He sows the feelings up inside himself, cocoons the bad away inside his chest. It’s easier that way. And it’s necessary now. It’s just another thing you’d have to deal with.

He’s never been good at saying the things that needed said, anyway.

He tries not to snap at you. He’s trying not to get mean, and he can’t just walk away like he used to be able to when his mind got messy. But he’s been failing because he wants you to fight with him, wants you to hate him.

Joel wants you to say that he fucking failed, that he’s been failing his whole life at the one thing he was supposed to be able to do. The one thing he’s really good for.

“Stop it,” Joel snarls one day in the spring, when you offer your hand down the steps to the living room.

He doesn’t mean to snap at you like that, but he doesn’t take it back either. He’s in too much pain. And he doesn’t want to admit it.

The smile slips off your face as you step back from him, a stoney expression sliding over your face instead. It’s routine, you helping him, and maybe that’s the problem. He grits his teeth, that look reminds him of Boston, reminds him of the time before you used to trust each other.

“I ain’t helpless.”

You raise your hands and take another step back, looking away from him as you do.

The breeze that comes in the landing’s open window is cool. It isn’t quite warm enough for the window to be open but the house needs airing out after such a long winter, such a hard winter. The air is crisp with the scent of pine and the lavender hung in dried clumps above each doorway.

“I know, Joel.”

When he looks at you, you visibly brace yourself.

A wave of self-hatred so hot it burns immediately follows the guilt. But it also doesn’t stop the angry, frustrated pulse beneath the surface of his skin, pressing against the back of his teeth.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just leave me there.” The words are bitter, poisonous. Accusatory. “You should have left me to fuckin’ die.”

Whatever you might be expecting him to say, it isn’t that. Your breath catches hard.

You can be cruel, too. He waits for your anger, the burn of words he deserves to hear, something mean and hateful but true.

But the words don’t come; your anger doesn’t come. You just look tired and empty, sad.

You pace the landing, the soft shush of your footsteps echoed by the creaking of the floorboards. Your silence pricks at him. He wants you to scream at him, blame him, for failing, for being so fucking stupid.

“What if it was me?”

Your voice is so low, he almost doesn’t catch your words.

The quiet of your footsteps come to a halt. “What if it had been me, Joel? It could have been. It could have easily been me. They knew who you were. We’ve done a lot of the same shit. We’ve made a lot of the same enemies over the years.”

Your hands are shaking, your breath comes in quick little pants. The acrid, bone aching feeling of cresting anxiety and panic floods the little landing. “Me and you and Tess, we were kind of a package fucking deal. So, what if it was me?”

The breeze sliding through the open window feels different now. Colder, older, more brutal.

“That’s fuckin’ different and y’know it,” he snarls.

“Why?” Anger floods your face, the curl of your fingers harsh against your arms when you cross them. “Why would that have been different? Because you think I always need to be taken care of?”

He doesn’t answer. He looks away from you, but he can’t go anywhere. He’s at your mercy and you both hate it.

Joel leans heavily against the wall, his right hand curling around his left wrist, a nervous, anxious tick he’s never been able to shake.

“Tell me,” you beg. “Say it, Joel. How is it different? Why?”

He shakes his head once, slowly, and doesn’t look up at you. “You can say it,” you continue, your voice eerily quiet. “You never trusted me to have your back.”

That ain’t it at all.

It’s not your failure. It’s his, in every single way. He doesn’t blame you or Tommy or Ellie or anyone else. He doesn’t believe for a second that you don’t know that.

It would have been better, probably, if he died.

He doesn’t understand the guilt you feel.

He can’t take care of you anymore, can’t protect you anymore.

Worse, he can’t do that for his kid.

If he’d died, maybe that final sacrifice would have been enough to make up for everything else. Maybe it would all just be done.

He’s the one breaking promises, not you, just like he always has been.

Sometimes, when he thinks of Sarah, he can only remember her final moments. He can’t think of anything else but her blood, how red it was in the dark. He can’t think of anything else than what could have been. He can only see the halo of that mounted flashlight glaring into his eyes, his own voice pleading. Please don’t.

If he’d just been shot, he would have died first, he wouldn’t have ever known how bad he failed in that moment. He would have died first, like a parent was supposed to. No good father should ever outlive his kid.

Maybe, this had been his second chance, to finally die first.

Born lucky, bad star, like always.

So, what would he do, if it had been you? He’d have taken care of you, just like you’re doing for him. But that is not anathema to him; that is just how things are supposed to go. It wouldn’t have been a failure.

He’s no use to you anymore, no use to anyone.

He doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, he nods.

“You’re right.” He shrugs and pain splinters across his shoulders. “It would have been different.”

Your expression flickers blank and you turn away. It would have been easier to stomach if you screamed at him, if you slammed a door.

But you’re just quiet.

Once, during the late autumn, when you were traveling with Joel and Ellie, you noticed Joel wasn’t eating.

Food was in short supply. None of the houses or buildings you looted turned up anything edible, and wild game had been elusive for weeks as the weather turned wetter and chillier.

You’d noticed him doing it a few times before, but nothing like then. Joel would dole out carefully rationed food and not allocate any to himself. The bags under his eyes deepened. His temper was shorter. He’d gotten pale and hollows appeared in his cheeks that meant he hadn’t been getting enough. Joel had always been huge, broad and strong and tall, with thick arms and thighs, but when he dropped weight, it always showed in those little hollows first.

Then, one evening, after clearing out a barn of infected, he’d stumbled, hand to his forehead, pale as you’d ever seen him. “Christ,” he’d mumbled.

“Joel?” Ellie’s voice had pitched up with worry. She’d looked at you, and said, “He hasn’t been eating.” The words were all a rush, accusatory and begging for you to do something.

“Ellie—” He’d growled.

“I know she’s right, Joel,” You’d interrupted with a snap. “You think we wouldn’t notice? You think I wouldn’t notice?”

He’d gotten pissed off and marched off into the woods to the stream to refill your canteens. You’d given him a wide berth for several hours, making the newly cleared barn into something livable for the night with Ellie. When dark had started to set in you went after him, boots crunching through frozen leaves.

He’d been sitting by the creek bed, an inscrutable expression on his face. “We ain’t got enough,” he’d said, not looking at you. “You and Ellie need it more. I’m fine.”

“But you're not. You can’t just not eat. You can’t take care of us if you aren’t okay, Joel.”

The air had smelled like earth and decaying leaves and stagnant water and ice. The scent reminded you of better times, of apple cider and cinnamon and new beginnings, of autumn fairs and coffee shops.

You’d sat behind him, pulled him against you for just a moment, chin on his shoulder, and said, “It’s all right to let me look after you, too.”

You figure that even with the change in circumstances, things are still like that with Joel. He’s always doing the metaphorical equivalent of making sure everyone else eats first, even if it means he’s starving.

He’s never been one to give up or give in or let go. When Tess was bitten, Joel hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d wanted to stay and fight. To fight a useless and unwinnable fight. That mindset was never going to fade.

You don’t speak for a few days. Guilt swallows the whole of your heart and leaves you dry and empty. Joel blames you, you think, even if he won’t say it.

He comes to you late one night.

It’s dark and the bedroom is overly warm. He sits heavily but without help at the edge of the bed. He’s getting better at that, even if he doesn’t think he is.

His hair is longer and it falls into his face when he leans over you, fingers against your forehead and temple and then your cheek.

“When I was real young,” he says. “My dad died. We didn’t have much money and my mama worked all the time.”

You turn on your back and try to make his face out but his expression is unreadable.

Joel hardly ever talks about his folks.

“I got my first job when I was fourteen, to help with the bills. Money was better on account of half of it not bein’ drank away, but we still needed the cash.” Joel pauses and you scoot over. It takes a minute for him to find a comfortable position with you but when he does, he continues. His voice echoes against your ear, the beat of his heart pounds against your cheek. His chin rubs against your forehead, one large hand splayed across your shoulders.

“Since she worked so much, I was always takin’ care of Tommy, of damn near everything else. And my mama, too, sometimes.” He swallows, and you feel the bob of his throat against your forehead. His chest is warm beneath your cheek, even through the two layers he always wears. “So I knew I was young when Sarah came along, but I didn’t really feel it. I took care of her and her mother, ‘til she went her own way. Just the way I always had.”

The rise and fall of his chest is steady. He cups his free hand around yours and tucks your palm against his heart.

“I know I’m not easy, in any sense of the word. I never have been.” A heavy tug of shame weighs his voice down. “Too mean and bitter, I guess.” There’s a long pause, and you want to protest but you’re sure if you interrupt, Joel won’t finish saying whatever it is he needs to.

“So anyway,” he continues. “I try to make up for it. By doin’ what I always have, even if it means I end up alone. I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t know what I’m good for if—” His hand slides up your spine, thick fingers resting at the base of your neck. “And I can’t do it anymore. Can’t take care of ya. So, it woulda been different, if it had been you. Because it’s you we’re talkin’ about.”

Joel goes quiet after that. His palm continues its nervous path over your spine. The bristles of his beard are soft against your temple. The rhythm of his breathing is still slow and even, but you feel the prickle of nerves in the way he touches you.

It isn’t easy for Joel to say the things he feels, even to you, even all these years later.

His body is so familiar to you, so warm and strong beneath you. Comfort, in short, in its purest form.

You aren’t expecting him to say any more, but he does. “Things. . .they always have a way of fallin’ apart, in the end.”

When you lift your head, he doesn’t look at you. You press a finger against the edge of his jaw, turning his head gently until his eyes meet yours. “Joel,” you touch your forehead to his. You aren’t good with words either, but you try. “You are more than that. More than what you can do for people.”

He’s quiet for a long time, eyes fluttering closed, his breath a calm pool against your mouth. “And I’m more than that? To you?”

“Joel, if I only wanted some guard dog, I would have gotten one that could listen better.”

He snorts, and a little of the tension melts away. “Yeah, I reckon you would have.”

The dark is a warm cocoon of things less easily said in the light.

“Yes,” you say quietly after a long, peaceful silence. “Joel. You’re so much more to me than that.”

It’s late spring again. The Wyoming air is mild, and heavy with the scent of blooming life.

Sage grows in dense clumps up in the mountains, deep between the ridges of the sharp peaks. The smell of it, earthy and crisp, chases itself on the breeze, all the way down to Jackson. It twines with the smell of flowers painstakingly planted along his front path.

Arrowleaf. Goldenrod.

Lavender, right by the mailbox, courtesy of some superstition held onto from before the outbreak.

It’s thick, cloying, pungent.

It’s overripe, rotting. It smells like death.

It’s making Joel fucking nauseous.

He squeezes your arm, a warning without words that he needs a break.

It’s the smell.

It’s the sun and the gentle breeze.

He tells himself the sick, crawling pain mixing sourly in his stomach has nothing at all to do with his newly fitted prosthetic leg.

Slowly, without a word, you turn and guide him back through his familiar backyard to the porch.

He sits heavily on the steps, just inside the cool pool of shade, and pulls in deep breaths that rattle in his lungs and do nothing to stave off the dizziness, or the pain.

Your hand slides up and down his back before your palm settles against the back of his neck and urges his head down between his knees.

Joel feels like a fucking kid. His hands are shaking.

“Damn thing is useless,” he growls after a minute when the nausea passes and he can lift his head, because it’s the only thing he can do, because it’s goddamn humiliating.

Everything is, these days.

You just bump your shoulder into his and hum low under your breath, used to his attitude, used to his bark that only sometimes has a bite.

You’re patient with him, but tough, not willing to indulge his foul moods. “It’s just something you have to get used to,” you assure him. “It’s not going to be like before.”

Joel doesn’t want to admit that he wants to take the prosthetic off. It’s like admitting defeat before he’s even gotten a chance to fight.

And he’s tired.

Exhausted, really.

“Hey,” you dig your nails into his wrist. He meets your eyes, pragmatic, practical, his match in everything. “We aren’t supposed to go at it so hard anyway, remember? You did really well.”

He doesn’t want to admit that, either, that your praise washes pink in his veins, that he likes to hear it, thrives on it. If he’s doing right by you, good in your eyes, things can’t be awful as they might seem.

That’s what he latches onto. Your pride. Your acceptance.

“This was just the first time, Joel,” you continue. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

He ain’t so sure about that, not with the way his leg aches. A leg that isn’t even there anymore, chopped off right above the knee, to save his life, apparently. It’s part of why it hurts so goddamn much. Feels like he’s pushing his calf into something it can’t fit in, like the long gone meat and bone are getting ground up into his thigh.

But if he gets the hang of it, then things will be better. He’ll at least be able to move on his own. He might be able to find some way to work again. Wall duty was looking pretty good, because all you really have to do is sit there and watch the horizon and be able to shoot pretty well.

There is hope in the future. There is hope in you reminding him of that, realistic to a fault, pragmatic to your core.

And unlike Joel, you’ve never had it in you to lie.

Joel tightens his hand on your forearm again, pressure on your sun warmed skin. It’s a poor substitute for the thank you that you deserve. You seem to get his meaning though. Your hand feathers through his hair again and the sun doesn’t feel so abrasive, and the smells of spring don’t seem so weighed down by death.

“Ellie’s coming for dinner,” you offer. “Said she’s got a movie or a game or something that she wants to show you.”

Yeah, so maybe the day ain’t so bleak as he thought it was.

“All right.”

You offer him a hand up, and slip your arm behind his back. He carefully drapes his arm around your shoulders, mindful, even now, of his weight against yours. “What a strong thing you are,” he comments, not able to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. You look so determined.

It’s the way you always look, when put to task.

You roll your eyes. “Lucky for you.”

“Lucky for me,” he says, soft about it.

The stairs are the worst part of getting back inside, but it's much easier than it had been before.

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch and take the prosthetic off. The phantom pains still ache and stretch painfully tight, like the skin is being pulled taut, like there was a knot that just needed massaged out. He grits his teeth and represses the urge to reach down and rub sore muscle that no longer exists.

It’s a relief to collapse into the couch, even if guilt punches him in the chest for it.

It’s an even bigger relief when you press yourself into the space next to him. He doesn’t know how you stand it sometimes. How you can look at him and still not hate him for every mistake he’s ever made.

“Knee always fuckin’ bothered me anyhow,” he comments, turning his head so his words brush against your temple. “Don’t gotta worry about it gettin’ stiff now, I reckon.”

You reward him with a snort, the scrape of your fingernails against his cheek, a kiss.

It’s easier to get around, with the prosthetic that he hates.

But he’s slow. Slower than he’s ever been in his whole life. And sometimes, most times, it frustrates him.

Being able to walk is one thing. It’s a fine thing. But he needs to be able to do more than that. Run, fight, shoot. A fucking pipe dream. But he’s back to building, carpentry, and that’s something at least. Something useful.

Joel has tried asking you about that day, because he doesn’t remember a whole lot besides the pain. But your chest goes fluttery with panic, the rise and fall of it unfamiliar to him. You don’t get nervous. You never have, not over anything.

But when he asks about that day, you mutter something about Tommy and blood, and he can’t get anything else out of you. Tommy does the same, eyes cast to the side, thumbs hooked in his belt, foot starting a nervous rhythm.

He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with either of you, what the goddamn problem is.

In some ways, Joel’s always thought you were tougher than him, a balance of brutal and rough and unforgiving with softened sweetness. Bash the skull of a hunter in with a metal pipe, then use your unsullied hand to stroke back Ellie’s hair, to offer help to strangers, to pat the nose of your horse gently.

He would never want to be on the other side of the wrath you kept wrapped up inside your heart.

But, now, you don’t leave Jackson anymore. You haven’t been outside Jackson’s walls since that day.

Tommy tells him you can’t even bear to take a shift on the wall, which mainly comprised of sitting at the top of the wall and doing a whole lot of nothing, looking at the horizon, shuffling your feet to keep warm.

It’s unlike you. You love to patrol, just like him.

That’s his fault, too. Your nightmares, your sleeplessness.

Ellie plays the guitar for him, even after he gets the hang of it again, even after he’s walking on his own again, the chords coming back to him easier and easier. They don’t have to talk much, that way.

She’s still mad, but he almost died, and she’s willing to try with him.

She comes over for dinner. She always brings a movie.

It gets easier.

And slowly, by the end of the summer, she smiles when she sees him.

He’s gotten the hang of walking again, which is never a sentiment he thought he’d have about himself. Joel always assumed he’d be killed before something like really old age could set in, or something like this, a disability he doesn’t want to learn to live with.

It’s rained recently and the yard smells like perchitor and the ever present mountain sage. The grass is just a little muddy from the many loops around the yard. “You’re going to fall and break your neck, old man.”

“Breakin’ my neck can’t be much worse than what it is right now. We ain’t goin’ around the yard anyhow. Now c’mon, put your shoes on, kiddo.”

“It’s still raining,” she complains.

“Means no one’s outside to see me humiliatin’ myself.”

Ellie only rolls her eyes but does it anyway. He doesn’t need a hand anymore, but he’s shaky sometimes and despite your best efforts he’s still refusing a cane. But he also hasn’t been using the track in the yard in weeks.

That, and he actually has somewhere to be these days, figuring out better security for Jackson, looking after the patrol teams, assessing who was ready to be put into rotation. Managing is what he should be calling it, though he doesn’t care for it. He and Maria butt heads too often for it to be anything close to enjoyable.

When they pass the mailbox, Ellie points to the lavender. “I never thought to ask about it before. It’s everywhere. Some nailed above the door and everything.”

“Some kinda thing about protectin’ the home,” Joel explains. “Far as I remember, it protects from bad energy. Somethin’ like that.”

“I thought that was sage?”

“Sage you burn,” he explains. “And we get plenty of that too. Whole damn house smells like it.”

“Seems like the kinda thing Dina would do,” she says and then seems to realize who she’s said it to. But she doesn’t change the subject. “Didn’t take her for the superstitious type. Doesn’t seem like it really works anyway.”

Joel shrugs. “She was before the outbreak, I guess.” He watches Ellie from the corner of his eye. She’s steadfastly not looking at him, but she also doesn’t usually say so much to him. “Didn’t have reason to think of it for a long time. Lavender wasn’t exactly in high supply in Boston.”

Ellie nods.

“She used to, uh, put some in your backpack when she knew you was goin’ out. Same with me, always put some in my pocket.”

There’s a long silence. Jackson’s streets are oddly empty in the pouring rain. Lights glow in the windows; inviting, homely. “She didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugs and his shoulder only aches a little for it. “It’s just the kinda thing parents do, even if it don’t make any damn sense.”

“Yeah,” Ellie agrees as the turn toward the center of Jackson. “You wanna stop in the Bison?”

“Sure,” he agrees. “For a minute.”

“Full schedule?” She teases. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your sunset years?”

“Well, gotta have something to fill up the days, kiddo. Maybe one day you’ll actually be able to keep up.”

She just scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

Joel tries not to smile.

Being mobile again, busy again, feels good.

It feels good, but it also means he’s in near constant pain.

He tells himself it’s good, that pain sharpens him, makes him better.

Until he’s slumped on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, heaving his guts up from the ache in his leg.

You find him there, sweaty and panting, with a glass of water in hand. Joel pushes himself upright against the wall with a sigh as you close the lid of the toilet and flush it before sitting beside him on the cool tile.

“You’re overdoing it again,” you say, not unkindly.

“I ain’t tryin’ to,” he mutters and takes the glass of water when you offer it to him.

“I know.” You cover his free hand with yours. “Wanna get up?”

You smell faintly of peppermint, burned incense.

When he shakes his head, you stretch to flip the light switch over your head. He’s plunged into darkness, alone, for just a moment, before you settle again. The warmth of your head against his shoulder feels stolen.

For a long time, neither of you say anything. He breathes through the pain still crawling around his knee, the phantom flesh of his calf.

“I was a goddamn fool,” he whispers into the silence. “You know what I was thinkin’ that day?” He’s not sure where the words come from, the confession. It feels a little like the words are being pulled up out of his body, yanked right from the center of his chest.

“Tell me,” your nose is warm when it bumps against his collarbone.

“‘Bout Ellie. How I’d want someone to help her, if she needed it. So I helped that girl. Almost got all of us fuckin’ killed.”

You don’t answer, not at first. But eventually, you lean into him and say, “If you want me to blame you, I won’t. I will never find fault in kindness.” Your thumb strokes his knuckles slowly. “Never. Especially not yours.”

He brushes his mouth along your hairline, skin silken against his mouth. “Y’know when we was on the road, I was sure you’d get us killed. But y’always knew when to trust someone. How much to trust ‘em.”

“I. . .” you start and then trail off, fingers squeezing around his. “I was always lucky, and I always knew I had you at my back. If I messed up, you were always there.”

His eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the bathroom, and when he meets your gaze, he can see the glaze of tears in your eyes. You suck in a shaking breath and clear your throat but don’t continue. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there the same way.”

“This ain’t on you,” he says. “Don’t think that. It’s me. It was a long time comin’ somethin’ would catch up to me.”

You settle in against him, one hand digging into the sore muscle of his thigh. The heat feels like, the flex of your gentle fingers even better. The pain that doesn’t exist fades just a little.

“And for the record, darlin’, you were there the same way.”

It’s autumn again when you go back onto the patrol rotation. There’s frost on the windows and on the spikes of overgrown grass in the front yard. He just got back from a night watch on the wall.

You’re taking his old routes with Tommy, and you don’t tell him about it until the morning of. Not a fucking soul breathed a word of it to him, and he’s the one figuring out the goddamned rotations.

And Joel realizes though he’d been worried about you not wanting to leave Jackson anymore, not even being able to go near the gates, he was glad you hadn’t wanted to. It meant you were safe. Even if he couldn’t keep you safe anymore, the walls of Jackson could.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” you say before you leave, pretending like he can’t clearly see your hands shaking before you walk out the door.

He follows you onto the porch. He can’t remember what he says, just that you look upset and then hurt, just that you don’t say goodbye when you walk away and that you probably don’t have lavender tucked into your pocket like he always did.

“Please.” A word he hardly ever says, a plea he never gives into.

He says it to your retreating back as you pass the mailbox, but you either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him.

Maybe he didn’t say it at all.

That day is hell. It’s long and pocketed with anger and anxiety. If something happens to you, he isn’t sure what he’ll do. He doesn’t like that you left him upset.

Maria doesn’t entertain his outburst about it when he finally corners her after looking for her all morning. “She was ready.”

“I didn’t even know we were considerin’ sendin’ her back out!”

Maria just levels him with a glare that could freeze hell over. “That isn’t up to just you. And why do you think she didn’t want to tell you?”

He’s at the stables with Ellie that evening when you come home, waiting. It’s cold and his leg is aching something bitter and awful but he doesn’t move and Ellie doesn’t suggest going back home because she knows he won’t hear it. Dina stops by and he listens to them talk. Ellie’s face softens when she looks at Dina, cheeks a soft pink in the fading light, ducking her head and fidgeting with her fingers.

Joel tries not to pay them any mind, but it's hard not to find endearing.

When you and Tommy get back, it’s full dark. He wants to throttle his brother for not telling him you were going back out on the trails, but it’s too cold for much of that. All thoughts of strangling Tommy fly from his head as soon as he sees you, because you have a smear of blood on your cheek and down your neck.

“Goddamn it, what happened?” He demands, hands against your face before you’ve even fully dismounted.

“I’m fine.”

“That ain’t what I asked,” he sweeps his thumb over your skin, flakes of red shifting to the ground. The knot in his chest tightens as he watches it flutter through the air. “What happened?” He growls again. “Tommy?”

“The usual, Joel,” you pull his attention back to you. “It was just cleanup. A couple of infected. Nothing.”

“Uh huh,” he tilts your face one way and then the other.

“Just some splatter.” You shrug and smile at him; your mouth twitches, and he realizes you’re teasing him.

“Splatter,” he repeats flatly. “That ain’t funny. You ain’t funny. C’mon, let’s go home.”

Ellie and Dina have disappeared with your arrival but they aren’t far; he can hear their chatter as they walk along the street toward the center of Jackson, the echoes of their voices reaching back towards him. “I’ll deal with you later,” he says to his brother.

Tommy just raises his hands and says he’ll stable the horses. But he’s grinning and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s been awhile since his brother has seemed himself. It’s been awhile since the two of you have given him grief together.

“Leave Tommy alone,” you say as you walk toward Rancher Street. You seem steadier than you had been that morning, more confident, more yourself. It isn’t a long walk back, even with his leg, though he limps worse than usual because of the cold. You wrap an arm around his waist, your fingers digging into his back pocket, body warm against his side. “We did good together today.”

“Mhm. I’m sure you did.”

“You mad at me?”

“I wish you’d tell me,” he murmurs. “When you’re goin’ off to do somethin’ stupid. I need you to talk to me. Worried the whole goddamn day. You ain’t exactly in practice out there anymore.”

You hum and then nudge closer to him. “Put your arm around me.”

“I’m fine,” he grunts, maybe a little harshly.

“Joel,” you laugh and nuzzle your face against his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m cold and I had a rough day. Put your arm around me.”

So, he does. And he leaves it there until you’re in the bathroom, sitting on the counter in front of him, lavender plants stacked in the sink behind you once again as the colder weather sets in.

This is better. So much fucking better, than the other way around. This is right.

He cleans the blood away, finds the swell of a bruise on your shoulder and a cut lengthways over your collarbone.

It’s easy enough to take care of. It isn’t as bad as what he’d been imagining all day long.

He’s well in practice for this sort of thing, for bandaging and assessing wounds.

“Sorry,” he says as he works. “For this mornin’.”

“Mhm.”

“I worried all day. Not much I can do now, if you get into a spot of trouble.”

“I handle myself fine. Tommy was there. He’s a good partner out there.”

Joel grunts, dabs rubbing alcohol along the cut. “He is,” he agrees reluctantly. He supposes if you had to go on patrol with anyone, he’d prefer you go with his brother.

You touch him as he works, fingers patting over his jacket, the collar of his flannel, the frayed edge of the t-shirt beneath that. “I had to go back out, Joel. You would have argued with me and I can’t be afraid and useless forever.”

“Useless,” he scoffs and unspools a length of bandage. “You don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“Joel,” you say softly, exasperated. “Baby, you don’t know what it was like that day. I thought you were already dead.” Your voice trembles and you have to swallow harshly before you can continue. “Helpless and useless doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt. What I still feel.” You shake your head and cup your fingers around his. “I dream about it every single night and I still don’t really remember what happened. That scares me a lot.”

He slides his thumb along the gauze, your eyes wide and worried when he meets them.“I’ll never be who I was, sweetheart.” His voice sounds mournful to his own ears.

“You’re exactly the same man, Joel. I’m just happy you’re here and alive and you’re worried you aren’t alive the right damn way.” You shake your head. “I can’t ask for much more than what I have. Than what we do. Me and you. Ellie back in our life. A home. Food. Family. You,” you touch his jaw and smile. “Still here. Still taking care of me.”

There’s a lump in his throat, hard as a stone. “Yep.” He coughs in an attempt to clear his voice but he sounds just as wrecked when he speaks. “Patrol musta been real good to y’today.”

You just laugh, and the sound of it is wet. “Yeah. It was. I thought it would be terrible but I missed it.”

“I know you did.”

“You should come on a ride with me sometime,” you say slyly. “I bet it’d feel good to be back in the saddle. You’ve always been a good shot from the back of a horse.”

He has.

Maybe he should.

💞 If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction

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glassrowboat · 19 days

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Daydream in a Nightmare

Authors note: I read a soulmate au where with dream sharing. Everytime you fall asleep you and your SM would meet in a world that would reflect your consciousness and who you were. So down below are the boys and what I think the places their dreams would depict.

Mondstadt

Diluc: The cathedral. His mom, back when she was alive, used to play during service and afterwards Diluc ran over greeting her with the biggest smile, asking her to play him one more song. She never failed to. Maybe that's why there's always a gentle melody playing whenever you see him as he rests his fingers over the same white tiles, simply trying to remember how to play.

Kaeya: The Dawn Winery. Or at least parts of it. Behind closed doors there's the scent of grass, of dirt, and the faintest smell of ash. He says it's simply the vineyard that in the real world would be right outside, but he knows well as he pulls your hand from the doorknob that it's ruins of a fallen nation haunting him right on the other side.

Albedo: Glass walls. A maze of mirrors and reflections. If you ever have stopped to bother to count between Albedo’s musings as he shares with you the secrets of the world, you'd notice that for some reason he always has more reflections in the walls around you than of your own figure. Like there's more of him than there is of you.

Venti: Old Mondstadt. Back before the revolution, back when there were people in the streets wishing their God weren't so unjust, but in his dreams that wall of spiraling wind is never there. A warped perception of a life he wished to have lived as he sits in your lap not as Venti the bard, but a wind sprite trying to bury into your clothes for warmth. Just don't call him pipsqueek or he'll try and bite your fingers. Playfully. You think.

Liyue

Zhongli: A place that no longer exists, one torn away by this world during the archon war. It's unlike him not to comment on a place, a trinket, an item, as you pick something up and fiddle with it, but this place he never goes into full detail on. However, he will tell you all about the artisanship of the table you two are sharing tea over.

Baizhu: His home back in Chenyu Vale, back before the illness hit his village, back before his parents passed away. Just a modest home that shows signs of being truly well lived in and loved. Mindlessly while you two talk he'll be cleaning the place, just the way he always does at the pharmacy. Though it does help give him something to fill the silence. It turns out he's a lot more used to Changsheng chiming in with comments than he thought. He just hopes you two get along when the time to meet in person finally comes about.

Ga ming: A festival. There's water kicking up at everyone's feet, up to everyones ankles as people with their face covered in all manner of masks walk you both by. Ga ming would pull you along from booth to booth, trying his best to win prizes despite the fact you both know they'll be gone by the time you wake.

Xiao: A Chinese pavilion in the sky. You walk among the clouds as you follow the path of the street, looking over the accents that seem somehow both rich in color and dull, muddied all at the same time. Something you've noticed from his dreams compared to yours, his always have a lingering black fog creeping in at the corner of your eyes. It makes you feel like someone else is in this world with you, like there's eyes waiting to do more than just watch.

Inazuma

Kazooha: A meadow. The wind passes you both by, stirring up pages of books you two sit reading in silence. You can't help but wonder if these are all books he's read before, especially the ones that wax poetry or something else. His thoughts, perhaps? Maybe Kazuha's very own writings? But that matters little as his head is resting on your shoulder as you try to catch words between the fluttering sheets of paper.

Itto: A kabuki play. It always ends up in you two hiding away in the back room where the performers would get ready before getting back out on stage for the next act. You would see the brightest of colors, richest of fabrics, and practiced movements so fine tuned that you can't understand why Itto is so focused on taking the makeup on the vanity in the back simply so he can paint your face with red marks just like his. To each their own you suppose, and who are you to complain when it means drawing hearts on his arm when Itto isn't paying attention?

Gorou: A tea house. It's a small place, simple, but certainly not lacking charm as Gorou pours you a cup. At first the fact you could actually taste the rich herbs on your tongue in this dreamscape threw you off, but now it's just another part of this odd reality. But saying that, the first time you spat out the drink he offered as soon as the bitter taste hit you. Apparently he never expected you to not already be used to green tea. The poor fella was apologizing for the rest of the night, ears laid flat on his head and tail tucked between his legs. It's okay though, you made it even by trying to give him dog treats. It was you having to beg for forgiveness then.

Thoma: It was different this time. No glowing blue flowers and a forest that you two would stroll through mindlessly while chatting for hours. No, this time Thoma was sitting on a wooden platform below a giant stone statue. Intriguing, yes, but mattered little compared to the rope burns around his wrist. He tried to tell you not to worry about it. That it was an accident. But that mattered little as your lips pressed to the red, irritated skin and he gave you a strained smile. You knew better than to ask about it more from there.

Ayato: It's ever changing. It's like he is constantly thinking of something whenever He falls asleep and it reflects in his dreams. Once it was a Japanese styled room the next it was some room in Fontaine's architecture. But it's always a bedroom. A place of relaxation as Ayato buries his head in your lap like it was a pillow. He'll whine about being overworked until you're tempted to pull on his hair just to make the man shut up for once, but last time you did that it led to the bed being used for a lot more than just rest. For now just pat his head and let him vent, the man needs it.

Sumeru

Kaveh: A sketch brought to life from his mothers blueprints. One he saw his mother sketching back when Kaveh was a boy and she would let him sit on her lap, let him comment on the drawings. She would always find some way to incorporate his addictions into the sketch. Nowadays he knows the building that was actually constructed in the end to be simpler, duller than the one his mother wanted, but in his dreams with you it stands tall and proud.

Al Haitham: An attic. It's dusty and it clearly had a hole in the roof that was covered over by some wooden planks and nails. A patch work job that needs to be fixed but if you ever take the time to bother with it while Al Haitham sits in an old rocking chair covered by a quilt reading the night away it will only be there the next dream cycle. It pisses you off. He pisses you off. All nonchalance and an apathetic look even as you plop yourself in his lap and take that book away. And what pisses you off even more? How he dares to call you needy as he holds you close. It's best to ignore the fact he started reading over your shoulder.

Tighnari: Pardis Dhyai. He'll sit on the walkway watching you kick the water of the ponds around, paying no mind to when you splash at him. Not anymore at least. He's learned quickly if he makes a snarky comment you'll give one back and it'll go on and on until somehow it ends in him getting dragged into the pond with you. Both dripping algae filled water as he wondered what gods made this numbskull his mate.

Cyno: Lambad's Tavern. Everytime he would come back from treks in the desert he would go there, get a drink, and play a round of cards with whoever was willing. It was a pattern. Work, work, rest, and more work. But now he didn't have to constantly be on work mode as he sat with you in the old booth shuffling cards as he tried to explain to you how TCG works. So far everytime you lose you've thrown those elemental dice and him, and with a smile he lets them hit him in the head despite being fully able to dodge them. His soulmate is such a sore loser.

Wanderer: Shakkei Pavilion. He hates it. Hates that this is the place his unconscious has chosen to sink onto so stubbornly. His wooden fingers would slide over the paintings depicting Scaramouche’s past that has now been severed from him in everyone's eyes but Nahida and the Traveler. If you knew, would you still hold his hand? Would you still trace the details of his joints and comment that you find his pretty face such a stark contrast to his sharp words? He's afraid to find out, the idea that you might be his fourth betrayal always lingering in the back of his mind.

Fontaine

Neuvillette: Under the water where the currents would carry stray bits of seaweed and fish swimming past. The first time you shared a dream with him here he had to calm you down as instinctively you held your breath, taking your hands in his and assuring you if he can talk like this, you can suck in air just as well. It took some time getting used to, but now he watches as you grab starfish off the ocean floor and bring them over to him like a prize to be presented. This is what humans must be like Neuvillette tells himself as you braid them into his hair.

Worcestershire sauce: A home. A nice one at that. Big, had decent furnishings, pictures of kids hung up on the wall. If you listened closely enough you could even hear children playing outside from the cracked open windows that showed the brightest sky outside. Wriothesly would walk behind you as you would watch the grass blowing in the wind, not saying a word as he rested his chin on top of your head. He never thought he'd be back here again. The very place made him feel sick to his stomach, but with you? It was bearable. Even as you tried to grab his handcuffs from him.

Snezhnaya

Childe: His childhood home. Back before the renovations he bought for the place with his money as a harbinger, back before the redecorating of rooms to fit more children, and back to what the house was like when he was just a boy yet to fall into the abyss. Back when everything was simpler. He would pick up toys that have gone missing, never to be seen again and stare in wonder how it all is exactly how he remembers it. It makes it so much easier to be Ajax with you, rather than Tartaglia.

Dottore: The hospital he was working in when trying to help Eleazar patients. For the life of him does he hate it, being back in the desert always having to tip his shoes out of sand that never seems to fully clear off. It doesn't help you try and pour sand down his shirt, but in a way he supposes it's better you two stay out here under that blistering sun than you going inside to be met with the smell of death. No, you don't need to know about that side of him just yet.

Pantalone: His office. It always makes it hard to tell at first if he's awake, not when the same scene greets him either way. You always joke about him being married to his work and you're the mistress in this relationship. At this point he counts on the comment as soon as his eyes flutter open and he's greeted with the sight of you sitting on the desk he's been using as a pillow. Still, he can never help the genuine smile at seeing you once again.

Captain: A flower field. The snowdrops peek out from under the fluffy blanket of white powder, crunching under every step he takes. Even in his dreams the cold of Snezhnaya is ever present, ever biting. It only makes sense you are shivering behind him even as he lets you steal his cloak that is more of a blanket on you than anything. This field, he knows it well, knows that what waters these flowers is more blood than anything else, but that matters little as he wraps his arms around you. Maybe he can find a way to dream you a proper jacket.

Pierro: A grand hall. It reminds you of the way ballrooms are described in romance stories as the couple depicted would dance the night away. Columns so high you have to tilt your head back just to see where they meet the ceiling covered in paintings you've never seen before. That is until Pierro steps into your view. He always offered his hand to you before you could ask, and as your fingers interlocked he would tell you about them. Always ready to answer your questions. It meant someone was curious about a part of his long lost nation. So, of course, he was always happy to share.

Scaramouche: A never ending fire. It's a small shack, engulfed by flames that never seem to dwindle or burn out the wood it feeds on. Like this place was stuck in time in his mind. He doesn't talk to you, not any more than a sharp shut up. The only time that glare he showed you disappeared is when you pulled your hand back from the curious fire with a hiss, not expecting it to actually hurt in this fake reality. For a moment you could have sworn he took a step towards you, but he never came any closer than that as he hissed at you to be careful. Dumb mortals should at least know not to burn themselves.

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mooshywrites · 1 month

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How to tell they’re falling for you

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

Masterlist

Art Commissions

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

Astarion ~

~ Astarion keeps his feelings so close to his chest that it’s difficult to realize when he’s slowly falling for you

~ If you play close enough attention, the little gifts he brings you would give away how he felt immediately

~ They start out mundane, practical things he gives you to help with the journey

~ Health potions when you’re getting low, expensive ale he found while rummaging, enchanted weapons that lent to your class

~ Ever so slightly, the gifts would get more personalized, more meaningful

~ A handkerchief with your initials embroidered in it, a book you had glanced over for a split second longer than the others

~ He always denies the idea that the things he gives you mean anything, too insecure of the thought of love

~ Even when he spent the morning trying to find your favorite flower, he refused to admit he was actually looking for it

~ “Don’t be silly, darling, it just happened to be in the field where I was looking for… something else.”

Halsin ~

~ With Halsin, it isn’t hard to notice he’s fallen hard for you at all

~ When you first met, though he was a bit flirtatious, it was nothing compared to the way he spoke to you when his feelings rose to the surface

~ He never missed an opportunity to compliment you, tease you, watch the blush rise in your cheeks at his affection

~ Every word he said was meaningful, it was almost like you had a walking poetry book following you around

~ He compared you to everything he found beautiful in nature, taking the time to pick out the blooming flowers that matched your eyes

~ Your other companions grew tired of it quite quickly, but nothing could stop your Druid from fawning over you

~ Soon, he was telling everyone else how enchanting he found you

~ No townsperson was safe from him spilling out all of the things he thought of yours truly

~ “You don’t understand. Silvanus couldn’t have gifted the world with a better person.”

Gale ~

~ The signs that the wizard is falling for you couldn’t be more… Gale-ish

~ You truly thought he had lost interest for a bit, all of his charms and flirting taking a back seat

~ That is, until you realized he was studying you

~ It started with books on a subject you had talked to him about, your special interests written out on the pages before him

~ The next time you talked, he proudly informed you that he had learned all about what you had told him, excited to talk about what you enjoyed

~ Then, he might has well have been reading a book all about you

~ He talked incessantly to you, trying to learn everything about you; your favorite things, the things you despised, down to your favorite shade of healing potion

~ The wizard worked all of this in to every day life, using his new knowledge to make every minute brighter

~ “I know you said you didn’t like this plant. Not to worry, I read all about it and how to avoid it.”

Wyll ~

~ It was hard to know when Wyll was falling for you or whether he was just being his charming self

~ It wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to go out of his way for someone after all

~ Perhaps it took you a while to notice, but as soon as you did, you saw it everywhere

~ He wanted to help you with everything

~ Whether it was getting a stubborn strap of your armor loose or guiding you away from a mud puddle, he was always wanting to assist

~ Gods forbid there was an area laden with traps, the Blade would spend hours making sure didn’t step on one if he could

~ You never had to open a door, climb a step unaided, he even insisted doing your laundry in the river with his own

~ Even if you asked, he refused to let you return the favors

~ “Now surely you dont think I could let someone so enchanting go out of their way for me?”

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

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nkogneatho · 1 month

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𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐖𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐂

—a/n: if you are seeing this, i hope you read this. this is the most beautiful thing i have written in a while and i want you to witness it. please share your thoughts <3

The candle's orange scent filled the room this lovely evening and Satoru's fingers mindlessly brushed against your feet on his lap. He was holding one of his old poetry book in the other, glass frame hanging low, a little nudge and you were sure it will fall.

"and I wish to be the nothing, but a mosaic of the parts of you, you think to be flawed. Gojo Satoru, 2017," he read.

"That was...my god. Beautiful," you gazed in his eyes, still lost in his words. "You are a better writer than me."

"What? You feelin' competitive now?" He borrowed your hand. "Threatened that I might steal your spotlight, darling?" He kissed your knuckles, an act of love he often portrayed.

"Not at all. In fact, I am happy" you sit up, but feet still on his lap.

"Mhm? Why so if I may ask?"

"Because the better you write about me, the more loved I am. To be included in your poetry is an honor, honey." You ruffled his hair glinting orange in the warm lamplight.

"Silly you. You're not just an inclusion in my poetry. You are the poetry. You are every word, every sentence, every page and my every thought." His cold hands pulled you closer by your cheeks. "I am the honored one to not only ever witness you but have you as mine. I must write about you so even if I die, my love for you will be eternal." He planted a peck on your forehead before kissing your lips.

It's been 20 years and he is not here anymore. The room is not warm anymore, it's cold blue. But there is drawer full of things he wrote, just about you. Just you. You hold the handle to open and it's warmer than the room. Almost like someone's been holding it. You touch the other handles to check but they're all stone cold. You open it to find not just poetries but a mosaic of him with every picture you thought was your ugliest. You tear up. He was right. His love really is eternal.

#repost because idk where the old one got lost i can't find it #gojo x reader #gojo fluff #writeblr #gojo angst #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #writers #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jjk x reader #jjk fluff #jjk angst #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x you #gojo x y/n

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daytaker · 2 months

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The Gang React to You Giving Them Chocolates on Valentine's Day

And other Valentine's Day miscellanea. I'm going with MC giving store-bought chocolates. I know in some places, it's more common to give homemade chocolates, but I for one do not have any idea how that is done and it's not something that's common where I live, so I'm going to go with what I know, which is very little. Enjoy! (Mostly below the cut.)

The length of these varies. Some are quite short. I just wanted to put out some sort of Valentine's Day themed Thing, even if I'm almost two days late.

Lucifer

"How thoughtful. I don't suppose there's anything deeper I'm meant to read into here?"

He's so smug. Unreasonably so. More than you would expect. Yeah, guys, he got chocolates from MC. But his pride doesn't allow him to flaunt the fact. He has to just hope and pray people actively ask him whether he's gotten anything or where those not-so-discreetly placed chocolates sitting on his desk happened to come from.

Lucifer is very traditional in his treatment of you. When it comes to events like this, he's almost painfully predictable. He'll certainly have roses for you, and depending on your relationship, he might reserve dinner for two at a high end restaurant. And if your relationship is at a certain level, you can expect a trail of rose petals leading to the bed. It's kind of cringeworthy but he means well.

Mammon

"O-oh... Ahem... Is it Valentine's Day? Ha! I thought I was forgettin' somethin'. Heh, uh... thanks, human."

Obviously he didn't forget; he's been stressing over this day for the past week. He needs to get you something, but it can't be anything that's too cheesy or anything that makes him look cheap, so he's probably broken the bank to get you some sort of jewelry that he'll spend the next century paying off, but it's worth it.

When he gets chocolates from you, he plays it off like it's no big deal, but actually, he's so excited to reciprocate that before he has time to think it over, he's acting like he just so happened to have this expensive piece of jewelry on his person so you might as well take it for him. He spends the rest of the day kicking himself because now how in the world are you supposed to know that this was actually a very tactful and expensive gift from the greatest demon in the Devildom?

That, and he'll probably spend the entire day glaring at his brothers and the dateables from the corner as they shower you with gifts and attention.

Leviathan

"Wh...? For me? This isn't a prank, right? Because I'm not gonna forgive you if this box is full of tide pods!"

It's not full of tide pods, so all is well. He's so embarrassed to have doubted you that he tries to just shove his gift into your hands and push you out of his room, but it won't take too much persistence to get him to back down.

His gift is some sort of merch relating to an anime, manga, or game the two of you have particularly enjoyed together. Preferably something cute and evocative of the holiday. He doesn't know. He's never done this before. Why would he? Nobody would ever think to give him anything on Valentine's Day, so why would he bother with gifts? You do remember that nobody likes him, right? He doesn't like them either, so it's fine, but---

Let's just thank him for our gift before he falls too far down the self-hate spiral.

Satan

"I had hoped I might receive something from you today."

Satan is glad to get something from you, no matter what it is, but to be honest, chocolates probably aren't the best choice for him. He'd rather have something a little more heart-felt, that seems like you picked it out with him in mind. Literally anything cat-themed, or a book of some sort (bonus if it's a romance novel).

He's probably gone and done something stupidly romantic like buy you flowers and a book of poetry with certain parts highlighted.

But don't be fooled. Satan's favorite part of Valentine's Day is talking about its gruesome history, from the martyrdom of St. Valentine to a whole host of brutal murders that have taken place on the day. Catch him trying to figure out how to shoehorn the Chicago St. Valentine's Day Massacre into a casual conversation.

Asmodeus

"Oh, for meeee? You're such a sweetheart!"

He adds it to his enormous pile of chocolates, cards, flowers, and love letters. But of course, it's special, because it's from you.

He loves it, but... he's another one who would probably prefer something a little more personalized. Being who he is, he's a very popular demon on Valentine's Day, so seeing you put in a little effort to get him something with a bit of Asmo-flair would thrill him.

Beelzebub

"Chocolates...? This is the best thing I could have asked for. They'll taste even better knowing they're from you."

Well, obviously he loves them. He probably tried to get you chocolates too, but it doesn't matter how much he loves you. Beel's gonna Beel. The box is empty. He's shocked. He was sure he left some.

Belphegor

"...Wait, it's...? ...Thanks, MC. They look really good."

Belphie stares down at the chocolates in his hands, looking tired and mellow, while he internally panics because holy shit, it's already February 14? When did that happen? He doesn't have anything for you. He hates Valentine's Day. Why does it have to exist and lay bare all his inadequacies, like being a procrastinator and forgetting to prepare for things in advance even to the slightest degree?

Diavolo

"Ah, for Valentine's Day! It's a delight to receive this in person!"

Diavolo probably gets plenty of Valentine's Day presents from admirers (and suck-ups) around the Devildom, but most of them come in the mail or are otherwise delivered in an impersonal manner. So when you approach him directly to give him some chocolates, he's reminded why you're everyone's favorite human (himself included).

Also, you'd better clear out your schedule, because Diavolo booked out all of Ristorante Six for a dinner date tonight. Yes, the entire thing. Yes, on Valentine's Day. No, he's not worried about the dozens of disappointed couples who had probably been hoping to eat there.

Barbatos

"Any gift from you is satisfactory in my eyes."

It's kind of embarrassing to give regular old chocolates to someone like Barbatos who's a complete whiz in the kitchen, especially when it comes to sweets. But you figure he'd appreciate the gesture, and you'd be right. Of course, he will turn around and present you with a variety of immaculate, handcrafted artisan chocolates, tailor made to your personal taste. But sure, those store-bought candies you got in the heart-shaped box are completely fine, so stop stressing out about it.

Solomon

"Aw, thank you, my adorable apprentice! I have some homemade chocolates for you! What? Aren't you going to try some?"

Solomon tries to kill you on Valentine's Day...with love, obviously! But seriously, aren't you going to try the chocolates? He put his whole heart into them. And the hearts of several unique Devildom species. They're not toxic, stop worrying.

Simeon

"The fact that you thought of me means more than you realize."

And he means it. The fact that you thought about him, and when thinking about him, made the active decision to buy him something for Valentine's Day makes him stupidly happy.

Simeon strikes me as a flowers kind of guy. He got you flowers. Maybe some homemade treats too, but definitely flowers.

Luke

"Thanks! I got you something too. Happy Valentine's Day!"

Luke made cookies. They're delicious. Befriending this kid is the smartest thing you ever did.

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itsonlydana · 2 months

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"Flower On My Skin" | hobbit

pairing: Thranduil x human fem!reader 👑

Thranduil gets his hair braided and thinks too much.

warnings/tags: bittersweet, more fluff tho, swf, King Thranduil needs a break

words: 1,9k

an: this is a gift for the lovely @tigereyesf who always comments on my posts on ao3 🤍 the lyrics are from Noah Kahans song "Your needs, my needs'

+ masterlist +

🌿 reposts and comments are appreciated, they motivate me a lot and keep me writing <3

Thranduil understands that permitting you to be near him might not be wise. It could very well rank among the least advisable decisions he's made in ages.

But he did, he invited you again and again, sending horses and carriages to transport you ever since he found out you traveled all the way from Dale by yourself whenever he sent a letter.

Until he didn't need to anymore.

Not because you wouldn't come, but because you didn't leave.

Never in a million years would anyone have guessed that the stoic Elvenking would invite a human to his palace on more occasions than his own kind and surely no one would have ever thought that he would start courting them.

Yet here he was, sitting in one of his many blooming gardens, swatting away the hand that was currently trying to gather his hair.

"Stop this," Thranduil's stern voice would've had any other shiver in fear of losing their head, though it only makes you giggle.

"Please, let me braid it again," you stable yourself with your hands on his shoulders and lean over, chest pressed against his strong back.

"No, you little nuisance. I shall not! You know of the meeting I will attend later, we do not have the time."

Even though he can't see your face, he knows you roll your eyes at him, he can feel it in the huff you let out before letting go of him. The warmth of your body disappears as you stand up from the bench and throw one challenging look over your shoulder.

Thranduil watches how you lift the skirts of the gown you're wearing, the finest of silks that you've adorned with little handmade bows from the village, and flop down into the grass. There is not one care on your face that the hems will surely stain and that there are perfectly suitable marmor benches all over the garden and only one of those occupied by Thranduil himself.

You seem to ignore them every time you two spend time out here, he noticed you are much more content with your naked feet buried in the high grass and your hair intertwined with the flowers that grow here.

At first, he couldn't understand the fascination you harbored with nature.

Of course, he had a deep appreciation for the forest surrounding his kingdom, the strong resistance of the trees had been an inspiration for the winding halls, the water flowing through the roots and gifting life and the ever so steady wind reminded someone who lived a thousand years that some things, though they change, never completely disappear.

You, on the other hand, could not be separated from nature in any way whatsoever. There had been the flowers, first only on your side of the bed when he'd invited you to sleep next to him, and one day he woke up to find a vase filled with Astilbe flowers on his nightstand and on his vanity as well.

You also spend most of your day either wandering through the woods (which left him restless and worried until you accepted the sword he had his blacksmith forge for you) or meeting him here in the gardens. He would never tell you but before you, he hadn't walked or maker-forbid, sat there for decades.

Now, he found himself soaking sunshine more days than not, reading Elvish poetry to you while you rested curled into his side with one of his hands brushing your hair, or, chasing you on his Elk through the forest, following the sound of your horse and your laughter.

Your infatuation with nature and the stubbornness of pulling him along made him fall for you, deeply and most ardently and he knew that one day he would need to survive the sight of forests and gardens and flowers without the urge to burn them to the ground for outliving you.

As he watches you examine the colorful flowers and gather them in your lap, he isn't sure if he will be able to contain that anger against the gods if the time comes.

You are oblivious to the dark clouds hanging onto his thoughts, he makes sure that you'll never see the heartbreak he lives through while loving you because he knows, he knows that you would do everything in your power to make him happy.

This is who you are, a human that lives and loves and pours all that you are into those around you, he sees it in the gentleness of your hands cupping the flowers before plucking them, in the way your tongue learned a new language for you wouldn't accept not studying it for an answer if you lived here.

You live to love and love to live.

Thranduil shifts, forgetting that there are guards stationed around the gardens who could see their King doing the unthinkable but he doesn't care.

Not with you sitting a few feet away from him, your dress spilled around you, a full smile on your face as you collect the flowers growing there for you, their little heads turning to you as if you are the sun for them as well, and not just for Thranduil.

If you notice him standing up, you give no sign, you don't even stop humming, and the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth at this stubbornness is far too strong to stop it.

"Melethril nîn," he says quietly and his shadow falls over your body. The symbolism and fear of him taking away the sun from you has him clench his jaw. His pain is impatient as if it doesn't know he's going to live longer than he wants to and that it has all the time to break him down.

He quickly shuts those thoughts away behind the sight of you tipping your head back to smirk at him.

This is not the time to dwell on the future, not if he can exist in the moments he shares with you instead of fearing the time when he'll have to think back on them.

"Don't tell me you missed me," you tease.

He scoffs and –surprising you enough to let out a squeak– lowers himself onto his knees next to you.

Eye to eye, he feels much more comfortable, despite the stains that he knows now graze his robes.

"You know," he starts and lets his gaze wander over the flowers in your lap, however, you managed to collect this many of them in such a short time awes him, "the meeting can wait."

You catch onto the meaning instantly, your eyes lightening up even more. The golden rays of the setting sun reflect in them and he reaches forward to cup your face in the palm of his hand and gently leans towards you, capturing your lips in a long kiss that has you gasping.

"Now," Thranduil swipes his thumb over your lower lip, as you separate, tugging playfully at it and giving into another kiss before he continues, "Have your way with my hair, my love. I know you did not collect those flowers for any other reason."

You gasp ingeniously. "You are by far the wisest Elf I've ever met," you say and scoot –maker, he makes a note to get another dress just like this made because surely this will be ruined by the time you leave the gardens– behind his back.

While you gather his hair in your hands, this time without him trying to stop you but relaxing into the soft tugging, you mumble: "So wise, they should make you King."

He chuckles at that. "Ah, but I would need a Queen by my side. Do you know where one could find on–ahhh," his teasing words get swallowed by a sigh as your fingers collect some fine hairs on the side of his head and surely completely on accident run over the shell of his ear to the delicate tip.

"Ooops," you sing and just as his body calms, you repeat the action, even have the gall to scratch the skin with your nails and he melts into a puddle.

His ears burn, not just the one your breath hits but the other one as well and he can feel the blood shoot into his face as well, crumbling the stoic and straight-laced composure of the King who is already on his knees.

"You witch," he presses out between his clenched teeth and hears you giggle. "I should have never told you about that," he murmurs more to himself, trying to regulate his heart beating inside his chest like a wild rabbit on the loose.

You laugh once, a "Pah!" while you tug on his hair, "You didn't tell me," you say and he feels something get pushed inside the braid you are working on, "I found out all by myself."

Thinking back to the night that started this completely outrageous behavior trait of you fiddling with his ears whenever he doesn't pay you enough attention or he says something that teases you a bit too much, he can't tell if you are right or him.

A few years ago he would have shut you down completely because the King would never be wrong but now he grumbles under his breath, agreeing that you must be correct.

Then again, there are many new things that you brought into his life.

He laughs more freely, and not just out of spite of viciously.

He cares more, for you, for his son, for nature and sometimes even for the dwarfs he trades with.

He is formed by you, shaped by your untamable ways of never letting a rainy day ruin your mood.

He is nothing but wax in your hands.

Here, sitting in the gardens and letting you weave flowers in his precious hair, he is no King, he is just a soul yearning for your touch, a flower reaching to bloom in your golden light.

Thranduil's eyes flutter shut as you braid and weave and run your hands over his scalp and through his hair.

He may have fallen asleep, lulled into a trance by the warm sun caressing his face and your voice humming a melody as sweet as any words that you speak, because when you let go of the delicate braids and let them fall into the rest of his hair, he opens his eyes to a pink and purple sunset.

The birds sing their last song and the trees rustle, shaking their branches and leaves as if they would ready themselves for the animals coming to rest in them.

There is a pleasantly chilled breeze that comes with nightfall, one that brings the smell of flowers and grass.

"There," you press a gentle kiss to the skin right behind his left ear, "all done."

For a moment Thranduil is disappointed that you are finished but then he turns to find your smile and all is right.

"Thank you, meldanya," he says, already closing in to express his gratitude with a soft kiss.

You nudge your nose against his, eyes shut in contentment. "Thank you, for letting me. Le ni meleth," you say quietly.

"Always," Thranduil's gaze wanders over you, bathed in rosé and golden hues, the cheeks flushed from the air, your hair wild and untamed, and flowers all over your lap. He grabs a few of them, inspecting the stems and probing them with his sharp nails.

"Let me repay the favor," he effortlessly lifts you, smiling wide at the laugh bursting out of you as he sets you between his legs and onto his robes.

"I want my Queen to wear a fitting crown."

#thranduil fanfiction #thranduil x reader #thranduil x you #the hobbit fanfiction #the hobbit x reader #the hobbit x you #lotr fanfiction #lotr x reader #lotr x you

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roosterforme · 16 days

Text

Covering the Classics Part 6 | Bob Floyd x OC

Summary: In the aftermath of the kiss, Bob and Anna try to process their feelings. Bob works on more of his poetry while Anna hides from her friends, but neither of them can get past their attraction. When another man arrives during a night out, all Bob feels is jealousy.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, adult language, masturbation, eventually 18+

Length: 5100 words

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Female OC (this story is part of the Beer Boy/Sugar and Jake/Jessica universe)

Covering the Classics masterlist. Check my masterlist for more! Thank you to @mak-32 for the beautiful banner!

Taking Anna to Chippy's was a mistake, because Bob was falling harder by the minute. She was cute and smart. Witty and reserved. And the fact that she was a little tipsy after one drink just made her more endearing. Jessica could drink more Sam Adams than anyone he'd ever seen before, and Bradshaw's wife could probably play beer pong professionally, but not Anna. She was giggling and demanding he not download a dating app. She was smiling nonstop and touching him. And he wasn't even allowed to have a chance with her.

She only lived a mile or so from campus, which was a shame, because Bob would have liked to spend more time with her. He played with the radio dials in his old truck as he drove, trying to keep his hands busy. And that's when he swore he heard Anna whisper a line from his poem.

"What did you just say?" he asked, eyeing her closely.

"Nothing," she told him as the car behind his truck honked, and Bob tapped the accelerator when he realized the light was green. He must have been mistaken. There was no way anyone actually read the stuff he posted online, let alone Anna. He just did it for a way to help him release his emotions and thoughts.

But he wanted to make sure. When he parked at the curb in front of her building, he turned toward her with curious eyes and whispered, "I thought you said-"

He was instantly distracted by the way she kept her eyes on his as her chest rose and fell a little faster. She unbuckled her seatbelt and scooted closer to him along the seat, and he froze as she leaned in and kissed him. Her lips found his like it was the most natural thing in the world. When she made a soft sound, he raised his hand up to touch her cheek, something he'd been dying to do for weeks and weeks. Her skin felt silky soft as she nibbled gently on his lip, and then he remembered everything that she'd said to him. He couldn't start down this path just to have her put up another roadblock.

He forced himself away from her. "Anna. I don't think this is something friends do," he croaked, praying that by some twist of face, she'd end up in his arms.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped, hauling herself back across the seat and throwing the door open. "I'm so sorry, Bob." He watched her climb down and grab her tote bag, barely glancing back at him as she slammed the door and ran inside the building.

He was going to offer to walk her to her door. He wanted to make sure she got inside safely. He wanted to do a lot of things that would hopefully come across in a friendly way. This was decidedly not how he imagined his night would end, staring at the spot where she disappeared inside and wondering if she regretted kissing him. She really ran away from him at top speed without any clarification.

"Damn it, Bob," he whispered as he put his truck in gear. But he didn't know what he could have done differently. He just wished he didn't know how fucking good it felt to have Anna's lips on his, because it would probably never happen again. He wanted to ask her why she kissed him in the first place. Then an even more devastating thought occurred to him. What if she didn't want to be his friend after this?

He really needed Nat to come home from her deployment, because he knew he couldn't mention this to Jessica at D&D. What would he even tell her? That Anna kissed him exactly once and then ran away faster than an olympic sprinter?

Then he parked in front of his house and saw the text that made him shove his phone into his pocket and not look at it again until morning.

Anna Webber: I'm sorry. That was a mistake. Please forgive me.

--------------------------

Anna was curled up in her sad bed trying not to cry. Bob would probably never want to talk to her again now. What kind of person told a man they just wanted to be friends and then kissed him like the words meant nothing? Anna, apparently. But it felt so nice. No. Better than that. Kissing Bob felt necessary.

Before she could change her mind, she texted him and then turned off her phone. I'm sorry. That was a mistake. Please forgive me.

She rolled onto her back and started to cry. Not for the first time, she thought about calling Kevin and screaming at him for ruining everything. She should feel a sense of freedom by now after finally leaving him in New Jersey with Alyssa, but she just didn't. It wasn't fair that Anna had no control over what Kevin did when he still seemed to dictate what she was allowed to do. But she knew she had to be a better person than him.

When she reached down to the floor, her fingers found the stack of books she was currently reading for work and for entertainment. She picked up the Vonnegut from Bob, because it wasn't even really that late, and she was in a mood now anyway. Then she took the time to find the note from him. Her new bookmark. She read through her tears until they stopped. She didn't dog ear a single page. She used his note to save her spot, and then she fell asleep with the book pressed to her chest.

She felt awful on Friday at work. When she gave her first lecture, it felt forced instead of insightful, and her notes seemed to blur on the pages in front of her. She didn't have an appetite, which was fine since she had no money for food and forgot to pack a lunch. Instead of going to the weird tree and the nicest women she'd ever met, she sat in her office and cried with her head resting on her folded arms.

Bob didn't text her back, but she figured he wouldn't. There was really nothing else to say. She already decided she wasn't going to mention the kiss to Advanced Calculus or Advanced Physics, but perhaps she should tell them it would be a good thing after all if Bob went on a dating app. He deserved to be happy. Someone else would make him happy.

As Anna was packing up everything she would need for the weekend, there was a knock on her office door. It was late, and her stomach was growling loudly, but she called out, "Come in!"

The room was so small, Bradley Bradshaw and his wife barely fit on the opposite side of her desk when standing side by side, and Anna watched him shuffle around so he was standing partially behind her. "What's up, Anna?" he rasped with a grin, and she had no difficulty imagining him ten years younger in a loud fraternity house.

"Hi," she replied, clasping her hands together. "What are you both doing here? I was just about to catch the bus and go home."

"You never came to lunch today!" her friend complained. "And you didn't text me back. I was starting to get nervous that the creeper from the sociology department got to you or something."

"No," Anna replied with a soft laugh. "I'm fine."

Two pairs of eyes bored into her, and then Bradley and his wife both blurted out, "How was Chippy's?"

"Did Bob make a move?" Bradley asked, his hands caressing his wife through her tweed blazer.

Anna swallowed a huge lump of guilt. "We're just friends," she managed to say.

"Yeah, yeah," he said with an eye roll. "Sure. But did he? Because I've been being a dick all week about getting him on a dating app even though I know he's not into the idea. Jake and I thought it might help."

"Are you serious right now?" his wife gasped, smacking at his hands while Anna rubbed her temples with her fingertips. "I told you not to interfere," she hissed.

"We're just friends," Anna repeated a little louder over the two of them arguing. "Chippy's was great. Amazing peanuts. Sticky floors. Grouchy bartender. It was like being back in undergrad."

Just as Bradley was raising his hand, about to speak again, he took an elbow to the side that seemed to make him think better of it as his wife asked, "Then you won't mind going back on Wednesday? To surprise Jessica for her birthday?"

"It's her birthday?" Anna asked, excited by the idea of being invited to a celebration even though Bob would definitely be there as well.

"Yes. I texted you about it when you skipped out on us at lunchtime."

"Right," she replied, knowing she'd only been checking her phone occasionally on purpose. "I'll be there on Wednesday. Of course I will." She was going to have to suck up her embarrassment over everyone trying to push her and Bob together, but at least they didn't know about the kiss she ran away from. "Anything for Jess."

"And are you coming to the Hard Deck tonight?" her friend asked as her husband's hands crept back into place on her body.

"I have a lot of work to do. Midterms are just around the corner," she replied lamely. "So, probably not."

With a sigh, her friend nodded once and said, "Please don't skip lunch next week. We missed you."

Bradley said, "I'll make extra hummus," before his wife started pushing him to the door.

The confirmation that the hummus was in fact homemade left Anna feeling slightly jealous. That feeling only grew as she watched her friend take Bradley's chin in her hand and softly say, "Oh, Beer Boy. I don't even want to know what kind of a monstrosity of a dating profile you'd make for Bob."

He smiled and waved at Anna before he looked at his wife and said, "I just want all of my friends to be as happy as I am."

She grabbed him by his khaki belt and said, "Let's stop by the library."

Anna desperately wanted to be that happy, too.

---------------------------

"What's your problem, man?" Mickey asked as he drove Bob home from Dungeons & Dragons. "You were weird all night."

"Just tired," Bob replied, and he was being at least partially honest. He'd been staying up later than usual, working on some poetry and reading the books Anna recommended. He enjoyed all of them; she seemed to know exactly how to reach his innermost hidden thoughts and ideas. She somehow understood him, and that was more exciting than he wanted it to be right now. But when he and Anna had to be together in person again, he knew it was going to be a different story. He was almost relieved she didn't show up at the Hard Deck earlier, because he had no idea how to act around her now.

She knew he had feelings for her, and that kiss had roughed him up a bit. Even a couple days afterwards, he thought he could still feel the pressure of her lips on his and smell her shampoo.

"Are you still hung up on Anna?"

Mickey's words made Bob laugh. "More than ever before."

"You know what I think you should do?" his friend asked as he zipped along in his sports car.

Bob cradled his forehead and said, "I'd love to hear it," even though he was pretty sure it would annoy him.

"You should tell her that you don't want to be just friends. And then kiss her."

Bob turned and looked at Mickey as the passing street lights illuminated him and then left him in darkness over and over again. "I'm not going to do that. All I can do is hope she changes her mind." He didn't mention the fact that they had already kissed; he was sure she was too embarrassed by it to want it to become public knowledge.

As Mickey pulled up to Bob's house, he said, "Well whatever you're doing right now, it's not working."

Bob sighed and said, "Thanks. That's really helpful. See you on Monday. Oh, and don't forget about the surprise party thing on Wednesday."

"Yeah, I won't forget. Hard Deck at seven o'clock."

"Chippy's!" Bob called out as he pulled away. Sometimes he felt like the most organized one out of all of his friends, and it was honestly amazing that Mickey even managed to get to work on time. At least Suzanne's lights were off as Bob walked up to his porch and let himself inside. He didn't have the energy to deal with anyone else tonight.

He stripped down to his underwear and got ready for bed, but he took his computer with him. He was ridiculous for doing it, but he looked at the notes he'd typed up last night and started writing. It was never as beautiful or eloquent as the things he read from others, but posting his poetry online felt like he was at least taking ownership of something he created. This poem, however, he didn't know if he'd be able to post it at all. He found himself writing about red hair when he realized it would warrant a mature rating label if he ever did decide to post it. Then he started to think about all the things he wanted to do with Anna and her red hair.

Bob grunted and set his computer aside. She was giving him mixed signals, and he wasn't sure she'd ever change her mind about being with him, but that didn't stop his body from responding as he imagined her beautiful hair spread out on his pillow. He'd take fistfuls of it and press his nose to it. He'd tug gently on it and tell her that she was beautiful. He would press kisses to the coppery strands and then guide her lower on his body as he grasped a little harder.

"Shit," Bob panted, kicking off his covers and pulling himself free from his gray boxer briefs. He jerked off to the idea of Anna and him together. She'd kiss his hips and thighs and laugh softly before licking along his length. His name would sound like the most beautiful poetry on her lips. Her freckles would stand out in the soft lamplight. He'd guide her along with his fingers wrapped around her hair as she teased him.

He stroked himself with his eyes closed, panting softly and whispering some of his own poetry, and he wasn't even surprised when he came all over his flat abs. When he adjusted his glasses with his clean hand, he thought he'd much prefer to see Anna in his bed with him.

--------------------------

Anna was starved for conversation with another human being by the time Monday morning arrived. Forcing herself to be a recluse as a means to distract herself from her plethora of issues was clearly not the answer. Not when she'd actually managed to make some friends in San Diego. She arrived on campus early and stopped in the lounge for a donut only to find nobody else from her department was really around. Then when she gave her first lecture, half of her students looked like they were still asleep. She tucked her new bookmark of sorts into Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and counted down the hours until she could meet her friends for lunch.

Jessica seemed none the wiser about her upcoming surprise party, but that was the whole point of the thing. Anna started bracing herself to spend some more time around Bob, hoping her kiss was so forgettable that he'd already moved on. Honestly, that was a pretty good possibility. She hadn't really considered that before, but it made a lot of sense. She was boring. After another day or two, he'd have probably forgotten all about it.

This helped Anna push herself through the week. On Wednesday, she took the bus home to change, and she knew she'd never make it to Chippy's on time in her sundress and denim jacket unless she took an Uber to the bar. So she gritted her teeth and paid for the ride, wishing for so many reasons that she hadn't kissed Bob so that she could have asked him to pick her up. But when she got to Chippy's, Bob wasn't even there. And Anna was met with a different issue in the form of a very attractive man with dark hair and dark eyes.

She felt his gaze on her as soon as she arrived, surprised he was looking at her of all people. But in her rush to get to Chippy's on time, all she really got to do was say hi to Jake and Bradley before they got her into position for the surprise. It looked like the bar had been reserved just for Jessica tonight, and that made Anna inexplicably happy and sad at the same time. Even that old bartender looked excited to celebrate. Even Dr. Rosenthal showed up.

Then Bob rushed in wearing jeans, a snug fitting tee shirt and a worried expression. His hair looked damp, and he was straightening out his glasses as he glanced around and asked, "Did I make it in time?" Anna felt like someone knocked the wind out of her as he got closer.

"Barely," Bradley replied, checking his watch. "Sugar and Jess should be here any minute. Where the fuck were you?"

Bob's cheeks turned a little pink as he muttered, "I had to help Suzanne with her car. She had a flat tire. And then she insisted I come inside for a few minutes so she could thank me properly. I lost track of time."

Anna crossed her arms and pressed her lips together as Bob came to stand right next to her. When he softly said hello, she just nodded and tried to give him a smile, but she was too overwhelmed with too many different feelings. He smelled like soap, and she knew his body was warm without him even touching her. She didn't know who Suzanne was, but she was automatically a little jealous, which was ridiculous. But now she felt like that kiss last week was as forgettable as she both hoped and feared.

Anna wanted to cry, but even her tears had to take a backseat at the moment as the door to Chippy's opened up and both of her friends walked inside. "Happy birthday!" everyone shouted, and Anna tried her best to look enthusiastic for the occasion.

"No!" Jessica called out, shoving at the other woman's arm as she realized it was her birthday party. "You're sneaky! You lied to me about getting just one birthday beer!" Then she rushed forward in her adorable suit and high heels, heading straight for Jake's arms. But the second person she reached out to hug was Anna.

"Happy birthday, Advanced Physics," she said with a stifled laugh.

"I'm so happy you're here," Jessica gushed, and Anna felt a lot better as she returned the hug.

But all too soon, she was left on her own. At least all of the tables were covered in dishes of peanuts. Jake was paying for Sam Adams for everyone, but Anna knew she shouldn't drink. Not again. Not after she got tipsy with Bob.

She could still feel those dark eyes on her as she broke open a peanut and enjoyed the perfectly salty taste. Who was that guy? His arms were wrapped around Jessica's waist, and Jake looked like he was about to go through the roof as his girlfriend laughed. Then he made his way over to Bradshaw's wife and gave her the same treatment. But Bradley looked completely unfazed when she kissed the other man on the cheek and smiled. They whispered something back and forth, and he met Anna's eyes with a wink. She quickly looked away, hoping to avoid a conversation. Bob was sipping a beer and smashing open his own peanuts, and she knew if she couldn't be with him, she didn't want to be with anyone else either.

Too late. "Hi, are you Anna?" came an unfamiliar voice followed by the spicy scent of too much cologne.

"I am," she answered, looking down at the extended hand of this handsome stranger. "Are you a friend of Jessica's?"

He laughed as their hands met. "Sure," he replied smoothly. "But it's really Bradshaw and I that go way back. I'm Dev. Dev Borah."

"Oh," she said, still shaking his hand and trying to make sense of things. Why was she so awkward? She finally released him and said, "It's... nice to meet you. Um, how do you know Bradley?"

"Virginia. Undergrad. I graduated with the two of them, actually. Nearly died of shock last year when I heard they were both out in San Diego and getting married. Can I get you a drink, Beautiful? Something other than Sam Adams?"

"Oh," Anna gasped as she looked up at him in surprise. "Um... I don't really drink much."

Dev moaned and gripped at his chest dramatically. "You're killing me. I own a brewery!"

Anna could barely tell one type of beer from another, but she wasn't about to tell him that. And quite honestly, talking about making beer sounded interesting enough; she loved learning about new things. But he just called her beautiful. She was flustered and too hot, and then she saw Bob standing off to the side with Mickey, and his expression was one of great displeasure.

"A brewery?" she asked, trying to force her attention back to Dev.

"Beta Brewing," he said proudly. "We're currently working on a two million dollar expansion project. It's kind of a construction zone, but if you ever want to come up to sample the goods, I'd love to have you."

Anna's eyes went wide. That sounded like an innuendo, but Dev's face was calm as he sipped his pint. Anna figured he must be okay if he was friends with all of these people, but she was never going to go there without the girls. "Maybe if everyone else wanted to go, I could tag along?"

Dev laughed and said, "Bradshaw makes the drive frequently enough. I'm sure we'll see each other again. But just to be sure... I could give you my personal number."

----------------------------

Bob was seething. He'd met Dev Borah exactly one time before, and while he'd had pretty neutral feelings about him prior to tonight, now he hated the sight of him. He'd persuaded Anna to have a beer even though Bob heard her say she didn't really want one, and now he was typing something into Anna's phone. He was giving her his number, just like Bob had done so many weeks ago.

"Stop torturing yourself, man," Mickey said, handing Bob some more peanuts.

"You think she likes him?" Bob asked, voice tight as he grabbed the bowl in his shaky hand.

Mickey shrugged next to him. "What's not to like?"

Bob tossed the bowl onto one of the tables. "You're not helping." He walked away to find someone else, anyone else, to talk to. He should have kissed Anna for as long as he could when he had the chance, because it was all he could think about now. It was all he wanted. She kept looking at him; if she was going to talk to Dev all night and say that kissing Bob was a mistake, then why was she looking at him?

He needed to get out of here and go home, but he knew his friends would be disappointed. Even Suzanne would shake her head. Honestly, he'd be annoyed with himself, too. But his mood was something so unfamiliar, he was ready to force himself to talk to the woman standing next to Anna who he thought was from the science department just so he wouldn't feel like a joke.

"You know," Bradley said as he slung his arm around Bob's shoulders, "I had no idea Dev liked redheads so much. But then again, he never was too discerning back in the day."

"What do you want, Rooster?" he asked with a grunt.

"I just wanted to make sure you're having fun at Jess's little shindig."

Bob let Bradley slap him obnoxiously on the back as he asked, "Did you invite Dev? Is he going to give Anna a hard time or anything?" His eyes trailed back over to where Dev was still talking her ear off.

Bradley chuckled. "I invited him to get Jake riled up, but I had no idea you'd be collateral damage." He finally released Bob as he said, "And nah, Dev's harmless."

What Bob wouldn't give to have Natasha back. He missed her terribly, and all the guys seemed to be better behaved when she was around. But she'd take one look at Anna and probably embarrass him in front of her even more.

"I think I'm actually going to head home," came Anna's voice filtering over to Bob as she finally cut Dev off. "It was nice to meet you."

"Let me drive you," he replied immediately, and Bob could already picture him getting Anna settled into his Mercedes-Benz, his fingers grazing her bare thigh.

"No, that's okay," she told Dev as she backed away from him. "I'm just going to say goodbye to Jessica, and then I'll get an Uber."

She made her escape to the table next to where Bob stood, and Jessica gave her a big hug. "Happy birthday," Anna told her once again, followed softly by, "I'm glad we're friends."

Jessica squealed and hugged her tighter. "Me too."

"I'm going to call an Uber and head out," Anna was saying, but Jessica was already looking around.

"No way. It's dark out, and someone here can drive you home. Hey, Bob? Can you drive Anna home?"

He knew he was going to say yes even though part of him didn't want to. And there was another part of him that assumed she'd just say Dev offered to take her. But when Anna looked up at him, he nodded and immediately said, "Of course."

To his surprise, Anna looked a little relieved as she took a step closer. "Are you sure you don't mind?" she asked him with a little wince.

"Not one bit. I was planning on heading home, and it's on the way."

Bob accepted a sloppy kiss on the cheek from Jessica who was well on her way to being drunk. Then he dug his keys from his pocket and nodded toward the door. Anna followed closely next to him, but unlike the last time they were at Chippy's, he didn't touch her. When Bob held the door open, he looked back over his shoulder at Dev who raised his pint glass with a smile of defeat, but he didn't really care about anyone except Anna.

"Thanks," she muttered, walking out into the cool, night air.

"Did you have a good time?" Bob asked, putting a little more space between them as he pointed up the block toward his truck.

Anna laughed, but the sound was tight and forced. "It was okay. I think Jessica was having fun, which is the most important thing, you know?"

"Yeah," he agreed, squeezing his key in his hand as all of the images of their kisses returned. Everything he thought about when he wrote new poetry and touched himself to completion. He swallowed hard; even being around Anna was a lot for his senses. He couldn't blame Dev for trying, but their interactions made him jealous. "Did you get Dev's number?"

Anna stumbled a bit on the sidewalk as she looked up at him, but he kept his eyes focused straight ahead. "I didn't ask for it. He just kind of gave it to me," she said softly. "He invited me up to his brewery to try some beers. When I told him I'm not much of a beer drinker, he said he'd really enjoy teaching me about the process."

"I'm sure he would," Bob muttered, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

When he reached his truck, he wrenched the passenger door open for Anna, and she glowed softly in the dim, orange interior lighting. "He's a bit much," she said, looking up at him.

Bob nodded once, but she didn't make a move to climb in. "I don't know him very well, but I know he likes to hear himself talk." When she still didn't move, Bob asked, "Are you going to call him? Give him the opportunity?"

"I already told you..." she said firmly. "I can't be in a relationship right now, so I wouldn't want to encourage Dev. And I'm really, really sorry about last week, Bob." She fidgeted with her hands and added, "But if I were in a place where I wanted to start something, I wouldn't pick him."

"Really?" Bob asked as his heart pounded. The most depraved part of him wanted to hear her say she liked him more than Dev. More than anyone.

"Really," she whispered, placing her hand on the seat. "I like old trucks better than fancy sports cars."

That was enough confirmation for Bob. His skin was tingling with anticipation he knew he couldn't quench, but he didn't mind as much now as he did ten minutes ago. "Yeah... you could do way better than a multi millionaire anyway."

Anna's laughter in response was so genuine, Bob laughed, too. The drive to her place was quiet but not as strained as he was afraid it would be, and when he was about a block away, she took her phone out and started messing around with it. "Thanks, Bob," she said as he pulled up to the curb.

He cleared his throat. "You know how you told me you didn't think I should use the dating app? Because I didn't need it?"

"Yeah?" she asked, reaching for the door handle but looking at him.

He squeezed the steering wheel tight in both hands and said, "Well, I don't think you need Dev's phone number." He watched her jump down and turn to glance his way, and then she smiled.

"I already deleted it. Thanks again for the ride. Maybe I'll see you this weekend?"

He nodded once before she closed the door. As she walked inside, he said, "I hope so."

----------------------------

Oh. Oh, okay. She prefers you, Bob! Now get ready for action. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls. And thanks @attapullman for all the underwear discussions.

PART 7

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sassypossumm · 7 days

Text

Finally

Art cred: mao0047 on X (they're really so good...)

FINALLY getting around to cleaning out my inbox, to the lovie that requested Professor!Miguel x Student this one's for you (made reader a TA grad student) MDNI TW: smut,brief mention of child's death, infidelity, P in V,degredation

"Professor? You in here?" Knocking on the heavy door, you frowned when you got no response.

He always did this.

Miguel O'Hara, stodgy genetics prof that he was, had a bad habit of falling down research rabbit holes. And when he did, you might as well have been dealing with the absent minded professor.

Sighing, you shoved open the door and stepped inside, immediately taken aback by the musty smell and horribly dim light. As your eyes adjusted to the light, your heart squeezed at the sight.

When you'd first started this TA program, you'd dreaded your assignment. Genetics?! You'd balked. What on earth did you know about genetics?!

Then you'd met your assigned professor.

Miguel O'Hara, genetics 101 prof. The man was a giant, disheveled, socially awkward, cerebral...teddy bear.

There was no other way to put it. One look at those wide, tired, gorgeous brown eyes and you knew you were sunk. Now, leaning against thr door frame, watching his hulking frame dwarf the dingy hole of an office, you couldn't stop the thundering of your heart.

You cleared your throat, and Miguel's head shot up. You stifled a smile at the way his glasses slid down his nose, and made note of the sheer exhaustion etched into his features. He looked far beyond his 38 years, in fact, he looked ready to be carved into the side of Mount Rushmore alongside the stony faced founding fathers.

"How long you been in here, Professor?" At your concerned tone, Miguel leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. Stepping into the space, you struggled to not let your eyes wander to the way his frame practically swallowed his chair as he man spread.

Sitting across from him, you busied yourself with papers as he ran a hand through his hair and groaned. You rubbed your thighs together, trying not to imagine what those gorgeous thighs of his might feel like braced on either side of you as you-

"Y/N?"

"Huh?" The sound of his voice shot through you, bringing you back to the present. Looking up, you met his eyes, and took in his expectant stare. Clearly he'd been trying to get your attention. Your cheeks heated at your foolish thoughts. Blinking hard, you pushed down the unrealistic notions.

There was no way a man like Miguel O'Hara would ever be interested in you. After all, hadn't you been throwing out hints half the semester.... and after that last poetry session you'd both attended...maybe Hobie was right...you were reading more into the lingering stares than was actually there.

"Yes, professor," You cleared your throat. "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening." Miguel gave you a tired smile and pulled off his bifocals.

"It's okay, Y/N. I remember my last week of finals before I received my PHD."

"Did you get your PHD before or after Fred Flinstone received his?" His eyes creased at the corners at your light banter.

"Before, you smart ass, who do you think tutored him?" He said with a conspiratorial grin. Of all the things you'd done and accomplished in thr past year, this was what you'd miss thr most.

The easy familiarity you and Miguel had slipped into. After papers were graded, and everything was organized, you'd occasionally relax and just... talk. Over a cup of coffee, and even at his house once or twice, you'd just talk.

It was crazy to think just how familiar you'd become with his life. Over the past several months, he'd begun opening up more and more. About his first girlfriend, how he'd left her for his brother's girlfriend. You'd been struck at the thought of the Miguel you knew cheating on anybody...it seemed such an alien idea.

Then he'd shown you the pictures of his daughter, Gabi. The daughter who'd been cruelly taken from him in a car accident. Your heart had broke. To have something so tragic happen, and then to top it off, his wife blamed him for the whole thing.

Youd tried to assure him that it clearly hadn't been his fault, but he'd stiffened and shook off your attempts. On thst one, you'd backed down. He'd put up a clear boundary, and you hadn't wanted to push him away.

Miguel, however, had no qualms about dragging his ex wife through the verbal mud, and venomously at that. From the way he spoke, it was obvious he had no remaining good will for the woman who'd blamed him for his daughters death, and insulted him at every turn for his supposed 'giving up' when he'd begun gaining weight.

Your blood still boiled when you thought about it. The woman was hurting, but that hadn't given her thr right to hurt Miguel. Righteous indignation burned in your belly as you looked at the tured, beautiful man across from you.

He deserved the world.

"Professor,"

"Please, Miguel, we're practically colleagues." He said, stretching his arms above his head.

Now that was odd...

Miguel had always been very strict about remaining professional. Come to think of it, he'd been calling you by your first name since you'd entered... maybe...

"Professor, I don't think that's very," he cut you off with a pointed look.

"Next fall you'll be just as much a professor as I am."

"Shakespearean Poetry and the Romantics can hardly be considered of equal value to genetics." You balk, but not for long. Miguel leaned forward and looked at you intently.

"Poetry is just as valuable as genetics, if not more so." You opened your mouth to argue, but the look in his eyes quieted you. The eyes were thr same, that visible exhaustion seemed a permanent addition to his features, but there was something...something different.

There was an unfamiliar intensity dancing in those deep pools of brown you'd fallen for. Before, you'd adoring thought of his eyes like those of a big puppy, but now...now the only phrase that came to mind was 'bedroom eyes'. You shivered at both the thought, and the electricity you felt growing between you.

On your end, you'd always known that draw existed,but youd never dreamt this giant teddy bear felt the same.

"Professor," Your tone was breathy. His brow raised slightly.

"Miguel." He instructed simply. Your tongue stuck to the rood of your mouth, and your skin grew warmer.

"Miguel." You murmured. He hummed, and you felt a thrill of pride run of your spine at the idea that you'd pleased him. "What, um, what is, what are we," He silenced you with another seerimg look.

"I'm socially awkward, Y/N," he gave you a warm smile. "But not entirely oblivious." Sliding his hand across the table, he grazed your fingers with his thumb. "I'd have to be entirely ignorant to ignore this...spark, if you will, that exists between us."

You shuddered at the contact, your eyes fluttering shut at his husky tone. A deep rumble went through his chest and he raised your fingers to his lips.

"Why wait so long?" You chanced a look at him, and felt your breathing shallow. He smiled against your fingers, and drew your thumb into his mouth, sucking softly, before withdrawing it, nipping the tip teasingly.

Where on earth did this man come from, and what had he done with your Miguel?

"For one thing, it hardly seemed prudent to risk either of our positions for something that was so clearly more than a one time fuck." He said calmly, turning over your hand to kiss thr inside of your wrist. You shuddered at his calculated tone and bit back a sound.

"You don't want to fuck me?" Your voice wavered, the words no more than a breath. Miguel's eyes darkened, and a predatory grin slowly morphed his features from placid genetics teacher to something...lewder.

"Oh, I want to fuck you, hermosa." He purred, sucking at your fluttering pulse point. "But I also want to make love to you, decadently." His lips dance up your arm. "Voraciously."

He stands, leaning over the table to dwarf you completely, pressing delicate kisses along your shoulder and up your neck. "Over. And over. And over again." His voice rumbles low in your ear, sending tendrils of arousal straight to your core.

Your head falls to the side, invitingly. You're not entirely certain what's come over him, but you're not about to question it. A whimper escapes your mouth as he finally turns your face up towards his with a firm hand on your jaw.

"For another thing," he breathed against your lips. "I wanted to see who'd break first."

"You." His lips quirk momentarily at your quip.

"Si, nena. You prove to be quite stubborn." He growls the final word before capturing your lips with his. You moan softly, and when his tongue brushes against yours, you surrender completely.

Whining desperately, you rake your fingers through his hair and tug wantonly at his shirt as his tongue expertly coaxed a litenty of primal praises from your throat. His hand slid down your jaw to enclose gently around your throat, and he groaned as your moans and whimpers sent vibrations through his fingers.

You trid tugging him across the desk, but Miguel simply grunted, tearing his mouth away from yours to press bruising sucks and kisses down the column of your throat. You whined at began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Ah-ah" Miguel growled, catching your hand in his. Biting down on your collar bone, he pulled back and looked at you. "Greedy little thing... we do this my way."

His way meant bending you over the desk, wrists held behind your back in one of his large hands as he took you mercilessly from behind.

"Th-this the fucking you mentioned?" You panted between thrusts, groaning when the base of his cock grazed your clit. Miguel hissed at the way your walls fluttered in response to the stimulation and slowed his pace, wrapping his free hand around the back of your neck, pushing your further into the desks surface.

"Callarse la boca." He grunted, picking up his speed. Miguel's hips slapped against your ass, accompanied by his occasional moan and your profuse broken sounds of pleasure. The erotic sounds seemed to spur him on, and his grip on your neck tightened as he released your wrists to slap your ass soundly. You cried out, clenching around his deliciously hard cock.

"You like that?" He growled, slapping your ass again. "You like being fucked like a slut?" Your eyes squeezed shut and you moaned. He reased your neck and gripped your hair, turning your face roughly as he continued steadily pounding into you.

"Answer me." He hissed, slapping your ass again. You like being fucked like this? Like my own personal cock sleeve?" Your breathing was labored and you moaned weakly. You could feel the veins of his cock as he brushed passed your g-spot with ever thrust.

"I, Uh-huh, so good, Miggy...." He groaned at your needy tone. "Please, need, need it, so bad..." You whimpered, thrumming and flushed, teetering on the edge of climax.

"Shhh. I got you, bebita. I'll give you what you need." He shushed you, pressing a tender kiss to your temple before grabbing your hips and pulling you back into his thrusts. You cried out as his cock bullied your clit and pussy with quick rhythmic thrusts.

"I'm gonna, Migs," You babbled, scrambling for purchase on anything to cling to. Folding himself over you, Miguel laced his hands over yours and murmured nonsensical praises in your ear, not letting up on his punishing pace.

"Let go, I got you."

With those words, you toppled over the edge, twitching and shuddering as you came all over his cock, and went boneless against the desks surface, lost in a haze of white hot pleasure as your walls clamped around his cock like a vice. Miguel groaned and his hips stuttered before his cock twitched, and he came soon after you, filling the condom with his cum.

Sighing heavily, Miguel scooped you into his arms before flopping back in his chair. Cleanup and damage control would be a job for later. Right now, you were sat, warm and sated in his arms.

And that was enough for him.

#miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x you #miguel x reader #atsv miguel #miguel imagine #miguel o'hara smut #miguel o'hara x y/n #Professor Miguel #Sassy requests

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14thgalerie · 6 months

Text

i peeled my orange today

• pairing: james potter x reader

• now playing:

• word count: 1.3k

• genre: angst

— a short one that i did last night. peeling fruits had always been something that shows the tenderness of humans to me. that one poetry reading about oranges made my heart clench at the thought that came to me of best friend!reader who has always pined for james and the bittersweetness of being too late.

There he was standing by the edge of the lake, his slender silhouette illuminated by the pale blue moonlight. At the crunch of stray leaves, he turns to look at you, his expression containing surprise.

In hushed communion, you stood in silence beside him, opting to fix your gaze on the languid current of the water before you. Capturing a mental photograph of the delicate interplay of the light as it hits the dancing small waves deep into your mind, ingraining the image to a corner that you could visit now and then when you forget the laughter that bounced against the corridors.

For a while, you chose to linger in the sound of the rusting trees surrounding the castle that casts a melody for you. You were in no rush to speak your mind, not when there was a clear understanding that he would stand sentinel for a thousand years should you want to.

17 years of friendship told you that. Threads of shared laughter and silent conversations. Tales that were shared with no urgency.

And so, in the fragile and sacred lull of the moment, you reveled in the comfortable silence. If the years it took to be freed from your heart was to be likened, it would be a while before he could fathom to be in the same space as you.

“James.” You call. Slowly, you turn your head to face him, only to discover that his attention is transfixed on you already.

Finding that gaze studying you; flickering ever so slightly across the features that painted your face— perhaps he already knew the words that were poised to slip out of you. After all, he did know the twists and turns of your soul much more intimately than any other. Those pretty eyes mirrored the waters in front of you with the light hitting the silvers on his waterline.

The 15-year-old kid within you felt enraged to see the swarm of emotions that drowned you in those eyes.

A tempest of desire, and longing, woven with heaps of frustration, and guilt. It was something that held you captive and consumed you for longer than you dare admit, threatening to swallow you whole. As you stand before him, your brain struggles to recall how exactly you escaped it.

Reaching out the hand closest to him to grab his warm hands, missing the way it enveloped your shivering ones. You couldn’t help the fluster of memories that came rushing back and the instinctive way your tear ducts activated.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, a tremor infused in the last syllable.

“For what?” You ask, brushing aside tears with a subtle flutter of your lashes. Thumbs caressing the skin on the back of his hand, moving with a patterned path. You didn’t notice it but he did and that realisation added to the weight to the lump that blocked his airways.

“I just stand here and yet I still manage to upset you.” He says, a hesitant exhale lingering between the words.

“What made you think that?” You press.

“If the past year wasn’t enough proof of that, then I don’t think I even know you as well as I would like.”

The words hung in the air like a storm cloud threatening to explode. His lungs relax as he realises how he held his breath when you moved your eyes away.

The combination of his emotions, adding the ones he still couldn’t pinpoint, left him staggering in his stance. If it weren’t for the way his knees locked from his many years of quidditch, he would be beside you on his knees.

Every second that passed felt like a sharp blade. The pain was hollow yet deep, striking the centre of his heart and reaching throughout every nerve in his body. And it was only a deep, and unending sense of devastation left in him.

He knew what was coming, a somber revelation that loomed over his head for several weeks already. Yet, he resisted the need to acknowledge it, not when your own countenance showed no obvious indication of it. Thus he indulged himself in this false pretense, allowing himself that at least. Alas, the days kept getting shorter, and the hours were swift in their passage and he was left gripped by a sinking fear as you kept getting further and further away from him even though your physical body remained next to him.

As you always did from the ungraceful encounter on the path to the Hogwarts Express when he was 11, your faces meeting the stone cold ground with a huff.

He couldn’t accept that this would be the culmination of a slow, painful unravelling and elimination of all he knew that defined his every day.

His soul was incredibly and seamlessly intertwined with yours, so intimately bound that he trembled at the thought of the scissors you wield, deadly afraid that they would sever it when he least expected it, leaving behind a scorching mark upon his very essence.

“I peeled my orange today.”

In the hushed atmosphere, your words hung in the air, an admission that crushed you to admit out loud. But from the anguished expression of the man opposite you, you could easily surmise that his emotions far surpassed yours and were nowhere near the ones that hit him at such a mundane divulgence.

The lake’s tranquil waves lapped against the shore in a rhythmic pattern. The serene waters played a soothing contrast to the tempestuous tide swirling in the recesses of his mind. He didn’t say anything for a while, the silence between you was heavy with unspoken shared vulnerability.

However, for you, surprising as it was, it was nothing but a statement now. The words transcended meaning except for a mere reflection of a newfound learning. Something you were proud of enough that you shared the thought with him.

At last, he spoke, his voice filled with subtle remorse that is obscured by a quirk of tenderness that he kept reserved for you. “You did? You didn’t spill the juice all over your hands?”

James was surprised at himself for the unexpected eloquence that flowed from within him, a symphony of words that were likened to a normal conversation between the two of you. Astonished at the way his voice remained unnervingly steady and held no tremors. It seemed as if the invincible, vice-like grip that threatened to crush his vocal chords vanished.

You cast your gaze upon him again, your eyes directly looking at his own. In that silent exchange, his vulnerability was laid bare, accompanied by a sense of helplessness in them.

Because unlike you, that sentence meant a lot more to him. Because for him, it meant that he could no longer tell you how much he loved you when he couldn’t peel oranges for you anymore.

Your impatient self wouldn’t be hovering next to him as his hands tenderly tore apart the tough skin of the citrus until the soft flesh of the fruit was revealed. The scent of sweet citrus filling the air and the twinkle in your eyes at the pleasing aroma as he splits it apart. The calloused flesh on his fingers that were a stark contrast to the way the figures were so gentle in separating each slice.

It meant that he could no longer ignore the pout that formed when you noticed how he gave you the better half.

James’ heart ached and throbbed in the worst ways possible at that bitter realisation.

“I love you.”

So despite knowing it was too late, he summoned the courage to tell you in the way you’ve always yearned for in the sidelines.

In reply, you whispered “I love you too.” accompanied by a genuine smile that felt natural.

He just didn’t expect your hurt to feel like this.

masterlist

#harry potter #marauders #james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter fluff #james potter angst #james potter imagine #james potter fanfic #james potter fanfiction #the marauders

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silverflqmes · 1 month

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agszc and the WAY THEY SAY I LOVE YOU CAUSE I'M STILL SCREAMING OVER CLOUD'S DATING HCS YOU MADE SNSKDJKD

໒⦂ ( 𝐒𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 ) 𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔.

notes. you might be confused with the use of parenthesis but it’s exactly what you think.. not all of them ACTUALLY say those words.. read and see🫡

genre. fluff + angst ( sephiroth’s )

for @melukonova <3

ft. sephiroth, cloud strife, zack fair, genesis rhapsodos, angeal hewley

disclaimer. ok, poetry IS NOT my strong suit, from time to time i experiment with it but i am not the best at it so keep criticism tame please..

gender neutral! reader.

➫ 𝓢𝗘𝗣𝗛𝗜𝗥𝗢𝗧𝗛 ୨୧ ˎˊ˗

⌗ sephiroth’s confession would be something that requires patience. he doesn’t have much experience with love, as he wasn’t exposed to it much throughout his life.

⌗ it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of feeling it, rather, it’s a matter of him truly realizing those feelings he has and how deep they run. now the way those words come out.. would likely be influenced by heightened emotions.

a beat of silence passed before the the silver haired hero closed the door, turning to face you with an expression you weren’t certain his features were even capable of making. “what were you thinking??”

he was distressed, brows knitted together as you watched his chest rise and fall unevenly, each breath more irregular than the last. you assumed it was anxiety — something you’d never associated with sephiroth.. until now, that was. “i was doing my job, an injury or few is unavoidable at times, you know that.” came your mumble, feeling your own brows furrow.

of course he knew that, the top hero knew that better than anyone.. but this. “there are other ways to get things done, what you did today was completely reckless — as though you had no care whatsoever for your life.” he argued, moonlight bangs swishing from right to left when his head shook. “you could have died!”

now it was your turn to get frustrated as you stood up from your place despite your aching muscles, walking up to his broad frame. “and that’s suddenly an issue now? our line of work demands for us to risk our lives everyday no matter the mission! we both knew this going into our relationship, so why are you suddenly so worked up over this??” you matched his tone, not fond of the approach he’d taken in addressing you.

“because i nearly lost you!” he shouted, overcome with emotions so powerful, he couldn’t even stop the onyx, gloved hands that flew to your shoulders, clinging desperately to something.. something even he didn’t know of.

his breath stuttered as he lowered his head, trembling in his place. “i can’t.. i-i can’t have you leave me, too…” the first class SOLDIER whispered in a voice so broken, so defeated, you had to remind yourself that behind this towering, imposing powerhouse.. was a human being, with feelings of his own, no matter how well he hid them. a human that knew loss, and an unwelcomed amount of it.. and feared more of it.

unsure of what to do, you pulled him down into a hug, feeling your anger fade into nothingness as you allowed your eyes to close. “i won’t, not ever.”

➫ 𝓒𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗗 𝓢𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗙𝗘 ୨୧ ˎˊ˗

⌗ he says get help but he’s the one that needs help.. bro just, he can’t say it — he’s too embarrassed and he just doesn’t rlly know how to bring it across properly..

⌗ in the end, he opts for a more subtle method that aerith had once told him about. it required minimal speech on his end, and called for actions to take the reigns — perfectly up his alley.. as long as you got the memo.

“cloud?” you called out in surprise, turning to find a familiar spiky haired blond with an ivory colored flower in between his gloved fingers.

his lightly tanned cheeks were dusted with a tint of pink, seemingly reddening as he held out his hand, averting his gaze. “you said you wanted me to bring you something back from my delivery in sector five.. figured i’d bring something you don’t find everyday here.”

your knowledge of flowers was minimal, as midgar.. wasn’t exactly filled with them. you only rarely saw them from a distance, and on the occasions that you had, normally they were too pricey to purchase.

somehow, however, the owner of strife delivery services seemed to have gotten his hands on one singular flower. when you’d ask for a small souvenir from his travels, it had been a joke, simply you joshing like you normally had with him.. though it appeared this time, that he had taken it seriously.

you cleared your throat, letting out a sheepish laugh. “you didn’t have to do that, but thank you — i’ve.. never received a flower before, much less held one..” you confessed in a soft tone, taking the bloom from his grasp as you brought it close to your face.

even without leaning in to take in its scent, the sweetness greeted your senses as a smile etched itself onto your lips. “aah~ it smells wonderful, what kind of flower is it??”

he rubbed his neck at the question, feeling himself grow more nervous by the second. “it’s um.. it’s called gardenia. aerith’s mom insisted i took one back with me, since they were the newest edition to her garden.. said something about it having a deeper meaning, too.” cloud spoke up, finally lifting his mako-azure eyes to meet yours.

you lowered the flower in your hands, tilting your head. “deeper meaning? i didn’t think flowers were so complex.” you snickered into your free hand before grinning brightly at him. “but, go on. i’m curious!”

the tips of his ears seemed to burn with red as his lips parted before he turned his back to you, folding his arms. “o-on second thought, i forgot..”

“WHAT?? no way, it must be good if you won’t say! come on cloud!” you urged him, moving in front of him to see his face, but all you caught was the faintest smile as he continued to turn away. so cryptic!

➫ 𝓩𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝓕𝗔𝗜𝗥 ୨୧ ˎˊ˗

⌗ zack uh- as we can tell, he isn’t exactly the ‘think before you speak’ kinda guy — whatever comes out, comes out.. with no regard to how blunt or sudden it might end up sounding.

⌗ now how would that apply to a confession? well, i think he would just say it without even thinking of the impact behind his words. it would just come out naturally, casually.. and you would end up staring like- did he fr just say that??

a sigh left your lips as you turned the page of the newest issue you’d picked up of shinra’s very own magazine, because what didn’t the prestigious electric company have to their name?

meanwhile zack was busying himself with yet another set of squats, clearly antsy. missions had been quiet as of late, mundane even. at the moment, you were both occupying the second class floor, waiting for orders.. but nothing came.

a groan left the nicknamed puppy’s lips as he halted his movements before draping finally himself onto the spot on the couch you hadn’t occupied. “man i bet the firsts are out kicking ass! they really don’t have anything for us to do here??”

you licked your thumb to flip to the next spread, humming. “unless you feel like getting involved with professor hojo’s questionable ass tasks, i’d rather sit here in boredom.” you confessed, missing the grimace on his face since your eyes remained on the passage you had been reading.

“i guess you have a point.. but still.” he pouted, leaning into your face as a means of getting your attention. “can’t we go ask lazard?? he’s gotta have something by now for us, right?!”

a laugh seemed to leave your lips at his complaints as you lifted your eyes at last to meet his zircon ones, a smile stretching across your lips. “and, what? have him tell us no for the fifth time in the last two hours?”

his appendages seemed to part in protest before they jutted out once more. “w-well! for all we know a mission could have popped up on that computer of his right now! with angeal and them gone, they’re bound to ask us! i’m sure of it!” the second class SOLDIER insisted, clenching his fists in determination. “come on, y/n! it beats reading whatever propaganda you’re reading!”

it was partly true, shinra’s magazine went on and on about sephiroth’s feats if it wasn’t already in the daily paper or news. and one look at those puppy eyes had you crumbling. damn him for that effortlessly adorable face..

“fine, we’ll ask one last time.. but if he says no, you owe me a drink from the vending machine since i paid last time!” you huffed out, tossing your copy back on the the coffee table as you stood up with your hands on your hips.

as though sparkles had appeared in his eyes, zack hopped to his feet before engulfing you in a tight hug. “for real?? you’re the best, y/n!! i love you! i love you! i love you!!”

➫ 𝓖𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗦 𝓡𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗢𝗦 ୨୧ ˎˊ˗

⌗ ah, the romantic and the one that does too much because everyone else ain’t doing enough ( his words ) — genesis. you can expect a very enigmatic brain scratching confession..

⌗ or in other words, the cheesiest kind of confession that involves poetry, some form of incorporation with loveless, and just some frivolous display of his affections for you in case you don’t pick up on the hints..

“y/n, my dear! won’t you hang back awhile? our work is done for today.. perhaps you’ll indulge me in a piece i worked on, hm?” the redhead spoke up, causing you to pause in your tracks as you blinked over at him.

a piece? “you mean.. poetry?” you inquired for certainty, surprised that he had the spare time to be writing something. “i’m not the best at deciphering metaphors and whatnot.. but i’d be willing to hear what you have.” you smiled, eager to see what he had been working on in his free time.

“not to worry!” he waved you off, pulling out a small notebook from his long coat. “even the foolish and emotionally unintelligent, like our beloved sephiroth could understand!” genesis laughed out, fearless of his friend — or in his eyes, rival — as usual.

you let out a nervous chuckle as you pulled up a chair to hear what he’d prepared, praying that your silver haired friend did not hear.. not that he would care, anyway. just genesis being genesis.. “well um, i’ll do my best to somewhat comprehend what you wrote.” you offered, anyway, placing your hands on your lap as a means of resting them.

the male dressed in crimson took it as a sign to commence, lifting his fist up to clear his throat before holding up his poem. “in a bed of asters, the tears of the goddess.. blossoms a favored one amidst a world or filth and endless disasters — a beauty that wears star formed petals for a bodice..and adorns droplet shaped blades of which its creator once wept.” genesis paused, trailing a finger down to the next line. “one day, a new flower would emerge — tall, scarlet, and proud.. tenderly well kept, and yet.. as sorrowed as a rain cloud.”

you almost wanted to question why, curiosity overtaking you despite the urge to giggle at a few.. choice of words he made. how couldn’t you when it was so reminiscent of the usual reciting he did of his most favorite work of literature.

compelled by your zealousness, you fed into your inquisitiveness. “why was it sorrowed?”

a soft chuckle tumbled past his lips at the awe in your voice as he closed the book with a low hum. “for it was loveless, without its starry accomplice.. that bloomed on a path far away enough to diverge.” he finished gently before sliding a hand to your cheek. “nevertheless, that is but fiction.. as our paths will remain entwined, and my heart shall not bleed with my beloved star around.”

➫ 𝓐𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗔𝗟 𝓗𝗘𝗪𝗟𝗘𝗬 ୨୧ ˎˊ˗

⌗ ah, yes, the confession of his love.. yet another unspoken way of proclaiming his feelings for you, although i believe his method may just be a little more meaningful.. but just a little.

⌗ however, what would call for the confession exactly, and the realization of his feelings? personally, i believe it’d have either been something in the heat of the moment — in other words, you being in danger, or perhaps.. an inquiry, in regards to the buster sword glued to his back.

“earlier..” your began, eyeing your lover with a curious gaze. “that was the first i’d ever seen you draw the buster sword.. for the longest time, i convinced myself it was decorative, or something.. but there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

the rag in angeal’s hand came to a pause at the question, a soft chuckle leaving his lips. “i remember zack asking me that several times before and i still haven’t presented him with a proper answer.” he mused, eyes softening as he gazed upon his weapon. “growing up, my family was not one for riches. we had enough to get by, thankfully, but making money was hard work on my parents — specifically my father.”

a breeze passed through the few strands of hair that frames his face as he gazed upon the sky. “still, he had wanted to gift me something for passing the SOLDIER exam, and had this forged for me.” he smiled gently, closing his eyes. “it took him a very long time to recover financially for his debts in having this buster made, so long that it cost him his very life in the end..” the first class SOLDIER spoke up, allowing his eyes to lower back down to the blade in his hands. “and so, i do my best to avoid bringing any wear, tear or rust upon it.. as it represents not only my dreams and honor, but the efforts and sacrifice for its creation.” he finished steadily, finally meeting your stare. “but for you, i would draw it without a second thought.”

your boyfriend was already impressive to begin with- the most humble and noble person you had come to know.. but this? it had left you in complete awe to know how sentimental he truly was, despite his stoic demeanor. and for him to have used his beloved weapon to shield you from harm — what did that mean? that he.. held you in higher regard than it..?

“you.. you would do that for me?” your inquiry was stupid, as he had done it once already, earlier in fact.. but angeal nodded, regardless, the small smile on his lips expanding, even if it was just a pinch wider.

“if it guarantees your safety.. in a heartbeat.” he answered with little delay, a fondness in his mako tinted eyes — one that he only ever really showed to you.

notes. zack being the only one who actually says i love you verbatim.. meanwhile the others are cryptic and expect you to guess ( cloud.. genesis.. ) or say it without needing to say those three words.. crazy tbh

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kneelingshadowsalome · 2 months

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Hello!! I just started reading your works recently and I think it's safe to say that I have fallen in love with them <3 the way you write both the cod guys and the reader feels so real and poetic that I just, eat it up everytime. I read your Barbarian! König post and it got me thinking about something.

König and Ghost are kinda opposites when it comes to their darlings. König likes darlings fiesty and snippy but Ghost likes his darlings as more agreeable or soft but not weak, ykwim??

And it got me thinking about Barbarian! Ghost. Whereas König got his darling bc he killed her husband and she was there when it happened, I see Ghost as going to take one girl originally but then the darling steps in front of said girl and says to take her instead, saving the girl and sacrificing herself. Idk but I think he would be very attracted to that, and unlike König who gently picks you up and puts you upon his horse while you kick and bite him, Ghost grabs you and lays you stomach first against his horse harshly, keeping a sturdy hand on your back as he rides away.

Sorry if this is weird or ooc!! But it was just a thought that came to me!

Oh Barbarian!Ghost would be sooo disinterested on the outside. He only saves her ass discreetly, but saves it more than enough times to spark her curiosity.

Why does he come to her rescue and then abandons her to her own devices?

CW: Minor violence (bruises), noncon groping, fear of SA, blood, cuddling & snuggling, Ghost being a complex PTSD weirdo who has a fascination towards bones.

It’s actually she who approaches him first, not the other way around. He allows her to seek protection by staying near him and thus get the others off her back: he might even throw her a piece of roasted lamb as if she were some stray cat, lurking about his campfire. But there’s not much more than that on offer for her: only a few sideways glances that tell her he regards her mostly as a nuisance and a liability, accompanied by a few scrap bones that luckily have some meat and fat still on them.

He shows her how to snap the bigger ones in half to get to the life saving marrow, and that’s when she realizes he regards her a bit dumb, some pretty royal girl who doesn’t know how to survive without a man.

And who’s to blame for all that? Clever men who have forced her to learn poetry and songs, pluck chords and recite philosophers from memory. No one ever even taught her how to ride a horse, the only things she can do is chat about the latest political turns and whether it’s old-fashioned to style your hair Southern style.

Now she’s supposed to strike a conversation with a barbarian who dresses in furs and wool, who collects the knuckles of his fallen enemies and looks at her like she’s the uncivilized one here. He probably plays dice with those bones, and she’s never seen him force a woman under him; she’s never seen him take a woman at all.

He’s probably half dead already, some ghoul raised to ravage this earth. But everytime she gets drooled over or spat upon, groped or squeezed or slapped on the soft flesh of her butt, she makes her way to him and only him. To become one with the shadows too, or to disappear, perhaps.

He gives her his biggest, thickest pelt to wrap around her shoulders, to cover those assets that make these wartorn men so crazy. Or then he doesn’t want to find her frozen to death at dawn... Dark, vast eyes look at her in the early morning fog, up from above from the highest heights, as if asking why she overslept again.

A rabbit is thrown at her feet, but she doesn’t know what to do with it: she knows he wants her to skin it, yes, but how? Even with the knife he provides her, she can only stare at the soft creature helplessly, lick her dry, creaky lips until he sighs and comes to wrench the blade away, taking the hare before it turns too stiff.

She’s almost certain he’s not even interested in women until one day, someone goes a bit too far and grabs a handful of her to squeeze. The spitting, jerking and screaming turn into a whole fistfight until she gets drawn to her knees by her hair. He’s about to rip her scalp off, of that she is sure from how much it burns.

Tears stream down her face from pure pain alone, but this time, the bone marrow man doesn’t only save her. He walks to the scene like a shadow, yanks her gropers head back, and slits his throat right then and there. The others take a few steps back, mist rises from their gaping mouths as he lets go of the bleeding slump, looking at the pulsing, open vein as if he intends to drink from it. But it seems he only wanted to confirm that the dead stay dead because his interest in this man fades as quickly as it was aroused.

She rises to her feet, only to get swept off them as he dives for her hips and raises her to a crude carry, mainly meant for wheat sacks and sheep.

With a wide palm resting on her butt, he hauls her back to his fire, further away from the open field, and she doesn’t dare to utter a word. He doesn’t squeeze her, he doesn’t grope or slap or force her, but he does throw the fur away from her shoulders to check her body for bruises. She stays silent for the whole inspection as he moves her joints and limbs to check if anything’s broken, carefully like she indeed was only a little lamb. Brushes the pads of his fingers across the darkening spots that tell a story of violence, and it makes her shiver.

They’re just bruises, but they’re also evidence that her body is not her own anymore. Still, this clinical inspection feels far more intimate and warm than the rough hands and demanding mouths from before: it’s not just the intention behind the touch, it’s his presence.

You’ve never felt so thoroughly seen.

A low rumble rises in agreement to you taking his probing so well, and you kind of wish he would hold you tonight.

Just… Hold you.

When he withdraws, content with finding you relatively intact after the attempted assault, you grab his wrist. His head snaps back instantly, but he doesn’t pry himself away from your insolent little fingers. If anything, he’s curious.

You don’t know his words, and he doesn’t know yours, so you decide it’s best not to speak at all.

Pulling his palm back, you bring it to your hip, then further up to your waist, trying to make it clear that it’s only closeness and body warmth you seek. You leave it there, and it stays there, out of its own free will. A thumb brushes over your ribs, explorative. His eyes travel, they move down the line of your neck and try to decide what you might want from him, but then you see the fathomless depths he’s been hiding. His eyes come alive, and there’s such darkness there, an unquenchable well of want that shoots fear straight down your stomach.

You were wrong about him, so wrong…

He’s not disinterested, he’s just been holding back a tide as if it’s no big deal to fight back the very gods on his own.

His palm feels like fire, but he doesn’t move, only battles with his demons for a while. You lie there before him, feeling utterly idiotic for thinking he’s different from the rest of the men.

But then… The fur gets drawn over your half naked body. Slowly, deliberately. He’s not reverent: he only knows the consequences of his actions, and this is a path he does not wish to take.

It doesn’t prevent him from laying himself down to sleep next to you, however.

It doesn’t prevent you from slowly reaching an arm around him, the rigid form that slowly, so slowly turns lax. You risk to curl against him: not safe, only warm. A stray royal cat and a ghoul who collects bones, you think, but then the ghoul sighs and turns. You should feel rejected from the way he presents his back to you, but you suspect that it has something to do with him coming alive downstairs.

And you cling to him.

He doesn’t rip you off of him as you slip a hand under his arm and bend against him, like a river otter who just found a fat clam. His solemn breaths lull you to sleep, and he stays still for you: all night until the birds start to sing and the sun warms your face, the whole heap of you two.

Like a big pile of snow, melting on a summer’s day…

#writing for Ghost is like #trying to start an engine that was forgotten outside for the whole fucking winter ://

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bethanydelleman · 4 months

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New Year's Resolutions for Jane Austen Characters (mid-novel)

Emma Woodhouse: Find a new man for Harriet Smith No more matchmaking! Admit Knightley (and his brother) were right. Meet Frank Churchill, finally.

George Knightley: Just feeling thankful for everything I have. I don't think my life needs to change.

Mr. Woodhouse: Finally convince Isabella to live at Hartfield instead of with her husband. Poor Isabella!

Harriet Smith: Marry Mr. Elton 💗💗💗 *unable to read tear-stained writing*

John Knightley: Spend more time at home with my beloved wife. Why do people invite us places???

Elinor Dashwood: Find a way to get over the most perfect man I've ever met.

Edward Ferrars: Find an honourable way to get out of the engagement with Lucy (same resolution he's had for three years now)

Robert Ferrars: Build a magnificent cottage

Marianne Dashwood: Marry the most perfect man to grace this earth with his beautiful presence, John Willoughby. Also, read more poetry.

Colonel Brandon: *stares at the paper in despair because he cannot bear to give form to his ambitions which seem already impossible*

Elizabeth Bennet: I don't really think there's anything I need to improve about myself. I'm really a great judge of character.

Fitzwilliam Darcy: Remember that duty comes before ephemeral feelings of affection.

Jane Bennet: Find a way to get over the most perfect man I've ever met.

Charles Bingley: Buy an estate (resolution submitted by Caroline & Louisa)

Caroline Bingley: Encourage Charles to finally buy an estate (not in Hertfordshire), get Charles and Georgiana Darcy engaged, get engaged to Mr. Darcy, attend a party with at least three members of the nobility... (too many goals to record here)

Mrs. Bennet: MARRY OFF AT LEAST ONE OF THESE DARN DAUGHTERS

Anne Elliot: find a way to be less awkward around Captain Wentworth... Prepare myself for Captain Wentworth to marry Louisa... Try to endure Bath with a smile

Captain Wentworth: Get out of the obligation to marry Louisa Musgrove by any fair means. PLEASE GOD I AM BEGGING YOU

Captain Benwick: Mourn Fanny for eternity Marry Louisa Musgrove

Catherine Morland: Henry Tilney 💗💗💗💗 Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey 💗💗💗💗 Henry Tilney & Mrs. Catherine Tilney 💗💗💗 *doodles ideas for wedding gowns*

Eleanor Tilney: Marry the love of my life (same goal for the past three years)

Henry Tilney: Keep being awesome

Frederick Tilney: Keep being awesome

General Tilney: Have all my children disposed in marriage to wealthy individuals (goal since Frederick turned 21)

Mrs. Allen: Purchase some very fine lace

Fanny Price: marry edmund Be as unnoticed as possible

Edmund Bertram: Marry Miss Crawford

Mary Crawford: Marry Edmund Bertram

Henry Crawford: Promote William Price, marry Fanny Price. Rub my excellent treatment of Fanny in the Bertram's faces.

Tom Bertram: *never wrote anything down, never does his years are always awesome*

Mr. Yates: Finally put on a production of Lovers' Vows third times the charm!

Mrs. Norris: Save more money than last year by furthering economy. Keep Fanny in her place. Become more necessary to the Bertrams.

Lady Bertram: sew a cute little jacket for Pug

Lady Susan: Keep being the best Gaslight Girlboss *kisses paper*

(if Christmas happened within novel, I tried to place the resolutions around it. If not, I made up a time)

#new year's resolution #happy new year!#jane austen #mansfield park #pride and prejudice #northanger abbey #sense and sensibility #emma #persuasion #lady susan

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jake-g-lockley · 1 year

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Only for You (Steven Grant x reader)

Masterlist | Playlist

Warnings: MDNI, Smut, fingering, oral (fem receiving), protected p in v, popping someone’s cherry, dirty language, swearing.

Word count: 3.8k worth of filth and fluff, yay

A/N: I wanna lay on his chest fr (also his fucking hands just-) I’m fucking sorry but I just realized that I have never written Steven Grant smut, holy shit. Here it is, soft, first-time sex with Steven <3

☾ .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. “Don’t laugh Steven! I'm not scared of sex, I’m just saying that there are other things that I want in a relationship too.” you pout, elbowing Steven square in the stomach.

“It's not like I know how good sex is anyway.” You grumble as Steven chuckled.

You and Steven were curled up on the couch, a forgotten movie playing softly on your laptop. Your head was settled comfortably on his chest, a fluffy blanket over the both of you. If anyone had walked into Steven’s flat then, they would see the picture of your perfect version of a couple.

Except, well, you and Steven weren’t together.

You and him had been watching a movie when a particularly sexy scene came about and you moved to bury your face into Steven’s chest in embarrassment. Part of you had just wanted to stay there, all warm and comfortable but Steven had started to laugh, and is now prodding you slightly about your abstinence from the act of fornication.

He also had been nagging you about how you ditched your Tinder date to instead come to Steven’s flat bearing gifts of wine and chocolates.

“What are the other things you’d want then?” your best friend pushed on, sitting up slightly to close the laptop and place it on the coffee table before gazing down at you.

You shrunk slightly under his gaze, suddenly feeling shy.

Despite being the sweetest human being on the planet, sometimes when he was really into a conversation, Steven would have a sparkle in his eyes that made you feel slightly intoxicated. The first time that happened, you were surprised with the way your body reacted to him, in a fluid way, as if it was totally in tune with the nature that he had presented to you.

Forget sex. You had never been in a romantic relationship. In fact, Steven’s probably the first person in this big blue world who has been this close to you. You cherished him and held him oh so close to your heart, but that made you fall so incredibly hard for him.

But Steven was older, more mature and probably had more experience than you could ever uncover. Why would he want someone as inexperienced and young as you?

Instead you choose to avoid his eyes, staring at your hands that fisted the fluffy blanket.

“You’d think it's stupid.” you mumbled.

“Now, love, I never in a million years would think that. Come on, let's hear it then.” he urged, his hand finding yours for comfort.

You hold his hand in both of yours by his fingers, his hand comically bigger than yours. The weight of his hand in yours was reassuring and safe. You found yourself tracing his life line as you stared into space.

“I’d want them to dance with me in the rain even if both of us have two left feet. I’d want to go on long walks with them and talk about the stupidest things in the world. I’d want to hold their hand and run errands. I’d want them to sing me soft, made up songs, or read me poetry. I’d want them to make me smile even during my darkest days. I’d want them to just hold me in their arms and whisper sweet fluffy things. I’d want them to be my safe place, my comfort person. I’d want someone who can heal me, Steven.” your voice breaking a little when you got to the end of your list.

The both of you sat in silence for a while. You turned your focus entirely to the beat of Steven’s heart and the way his body was pressed to yours. You continued to toy with his fingers, brushing your thumb over a small scar over and over. You’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t want him to fulfill all that you had just said.

“Is that too much to ask for, or am I going to end up being an eternal virgin, eternally alone?” you laughed a little as you said it.

“Would you like me to try?” Steven whispered suddenly, the words spilling out of him in one breath.

At that very moment, you froze. You felt as if the world ceased to exist at the sound of his words.

Steven took a deep breath before continuing.

“You have already given me the opportunity to know you, in the best way possible, as your best friend. Darling, I’ll let you step on my feet while we dance in the rain. I’ll be your book of stupid facts while we walk around London aimlessly. I’ll never let go of your hand and I’ll sing you songs of my love for you and read you poetry about your pure beauty. I’ll make sure that beautiful smile doesn’t leave your face and I’m not a doctor, but I swear to you, on my life, that I’ll do my best to heal you.” He says as his free hand lightly runs up and down your arm.

“And I hate to be so frank, but I’m already holding you in my arms and I’m trying my best to whisper sweet things to you. Besides, if you didn’t feel safe, I doubt you’d still be slotted next to me holding my hand in yours.” He simply stated, as if he was proving a point.

You didn’t realize you were breathing rapidly until your eyes caught the movement of your chest. You licked your lips, attempting to say something back to Steven.

“Fuck.” was all that you managed instead.

“I could do that very well too if you like.” Steven said without missing a beat.

“YOU COCKY BASTARD!” You wriggled away from him and laughed, sitting up slightly to watch as a smile bloomed on his rosy face.

“You’d do that for me?” you whispered, the second the laughter died down.

“I’ll do anything for you, only for you.” He reassured as his eyes searched yours, bringing a hand up to cup your face. “I want to be the constant in your life, so, my darling, would you like me to try?”

“Yes, please.” You closed your eyes and leaned into his hand, before feeling yourself pulled close to him.

Your eyes fluttered open and you found yourself staring into dark orbs that you had constantly found yourself lost in on a daily basis.

“Can I kiss you and show you how hard I’ll try then?” Steven whispered, his eyes drowning you in his own sanctuary.

“Yes, Steven.” was the last thing you heard yourself say before you lost yourself in him.

Steven’s lips were soft and forgiving against yours as your mind scrambled to comprehend that you were having your first kiss. Your hand shook as you tried to find purchase, settling to grab Steven’s t-shirt. His nose slotted perfectly against yours and you could smell his aftershave and feel his stubble against your skin.

You could tell Steven was trying hard to take it slow but as you straddle his lap, he brought his hand to your hip to push you further into him. The friction made you gasp, allowing Steven to lick into your mouth, creating a symphony of sounds from the both of you.

The both of you stopped for air, but you couldn’t pull yourself away from him, choosing to breathe the air that he heavily breathed out.

“How was that?” Steven asked, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ears.

“For my first? I couldn’t have asked for more.” you hissed slightly as Steven still kept an iron grip on your hip to push you against him, feeling the dynamic shift between the two of you.

You kissed Steven with all your last might and you could hear and feel a deep groan erupt from him as you pressed yourself against him, the wine you had edging you on. He kissed you back with equal fervor, as if he couldn’t get enough of you by the second. You ran your hands through his curls tugging them slightly causing him to whimper. You pressed yourself down on him, hard, realizing that you relished in the sound he made when you tugged on his hair. You could feel him, hard against you and a part of you felt absolutely victorious but the other part that was unsure slowly started to win over.

“I’ve never done this before, Steven.” you whisper as Steven moans, and you could tell that he was holding back from rutting his hips against you.

“That’s alright, love. Do you want to stop?” Steven says with a worried tone in his voice.

You gazed at Steven, at the state that you had put him in. His curls were astray and his lips were parted. Lust had blown his pupils wide open and you swear you could see a galaxy in them from your vantage point.

“No, I don’t want to stop. Not with you. Could you show me?” you plead.

“Let's take things slow,” Steven soothed you, slowly lifting you off him and laying you on your back. “I’m going to eat you out, love, but I need you to promise me that you’ll stop me if it gets too much for you.” he said while his large fingers hooked the waistband of the sweats that you stole from him.

Your face burned furiously at his words, not expecting the forwardness. You wanted to cross your legs and pull away but this was Steven. Your Steven. He would keep you safe.

“I promise.” You whispered back, your heart thumping in your chest.

Steven kissed your inner thigh, pushing your thighs apart to reveal your clothed cunt as you propped yourself onto your elbows to watch him make a mess of you. Your legs hung limp on either side of him, and you felt like a rag doll, absolutely powerless.

He started lightly marking your inner thighs, his tongue soothing out the evidence of his ministrations everytime your moans got a little too out of control. You swirl your hips, not content that your cunt wasn’t getting what it had been initially promised. Feeling a little bolder, your hands flew to his curls as you tried to direct him to what you really needed.

You felt yourself go dizzy as Steven’s fingers suddenly pushed your panties to the side, feeling your already dripping slit.

“Gods, you’re already so wet for me, darling. Such a shame that no one else will get to see how pretty this pussy is now that it's mine.” he mumbled as he trained his eyes to your core.

Blood rushed simultaneously to your face and clit, making you cry out loud at Steven’s lewd commentary.

“Steven, I-” you try saying but you choke on your words as he catches you off guard by pushing a digit into you, pumping it in and out at a slow pace, a vulgar squelching sound reaching your ears. He curls the finger without a hint of sorrow, hitting that one special spot that makes your legs turn into pure jelly, enlisting a shaky moan from you.

“You feel so soft, my love.” he says almost darkly, taking the finger out of you and inserting it into his mouth, eyes not leaving yours and your eyes widen, taking in every square inch of what you were seeing in front of you.

He lowers his head to you until his nose brushes harshly against your clit, sending a shock through your body. Your back arches back as you bring his face closer to you by his hair. Steven didn’t seem to be bothered by the way you were literally suffocating him, instead he lapped a broad stroke along your slit, tasting your juices straight from its source. Your knee jerk reaction to the pleasure you were having was to clamp your thighs together, but Steven was faster than you, holding your thighs open with light pressure, as he pushed his tongue inside you. You felt like you were drowning in a pool of delight as Steven continued to absolutely devour you.

“So much for going slow, Mr. Grant.” You thought as your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

You loved it. Nothing you’ve tried on yourself has felt anything like this. You could tell Steven was studying the pattern of your pleasure, choosing to change tactics when your moans were more hollow and sticking to what he was doing when you wailed and pushed yourself against him. His name rolled off your tongue like a prayer more than a plea and Steven relished the way you spoke it under the change of circumstance.

“Bloody hell, baby, keep saying my name like that. Make everyone know that I’m yours.” Steven groaned into your core as he paused for a breath.

Without meeting much resistance, he pushes two thick fingers into you, covering your clit with his mouth and starts to pump at a steady pace. You brought a hand up to your mouth to stifle your cries of pleasure, only for the hand to be pulled back down by Steven. The steady stimulation of his tongue instantly pushes you up and over your breaking point. You felt yourself clench around his fingers as his tongue runs soothing circles around your clit.

“Gods, I can feel you squeezing my fingers. You like that, angel? Trust me, you’re going to like my cock more.” he says, directing his filthy words into your cunt.

You came with his name echoing in your screams, your body convulsing uncontrollably as Steven helped you to ride out your high. After cleaning out the remnants of the first orgasm that he gave you with his tongue, Steven kissed your thighs softly as you bathed in its afterglow. Your eyes focused on his face, a shy smile encapsulating his wet lips as a soft shade of pink danced over his cheeks and nose.

“That was amazing, Steven. Thank you.” You stretched your arms out for him and he obliged, letting you grab him by the t-shirt and pull him down for a kiss as you wrapped your legs around his torso.

You pulled him further down with your legs so that his body was flush to you, only to have his clothed bulge grind into your sensitive clit making you gasp.

“Shit! Sorry, love!” Steven groaned as he tried to pull himself off you.

You were having none of it. You kept him down and grinded upwards, grinning at the look that passed his face.

“Are you sure, darling? I just don’t want you to be overwhelmed.” he breathed as you ducked your head into the crook of his neck to kiss him.

He smelled like sandalwood and papyrus, twisting your brain with a desire you never knew you had in you.

“I know you’ll be gentle, I can take it.” you said clearly, wanting him to realize that you wanted to see and feel his pleasure too.

Steven searched your eyes only to have you stare back, full of silent determination, before cradling you close to him and lifting you up as he stood from the couch, as if you weighed like a sack of potatoes. Steven’s strength never failed to surprise you. You remembered the time he helped you move into your new apartment, how he lifted several heavy boxes at once without breaking a sweat.

He settled you down on his bed softly, and you knew from that moment on that he was dead set on being gentle with you. He smoothed your hair on the pillow and kissed your forehead before sitting down beside you.

“Can I take your top off, darling?” he asked, his large palm kneading your hip as you smiled up at him.

“Yes, please, bra too.” you said as Steven raised his eyebrows at your shy demand.

He did as he was told and wasted no time in absolutely worshiping you.

“You’re fucking beautiful. Why didn’t we do this sooner?” Steven groaned, letting his hands roam your bare body as his eyes sparkled like a teenage boy.

His mouth and tongue traced patterns on your skin that made you start whimpering. You could feel your arousal grow between your legs again as Steven captured one of your nipples in his mouth and sucked softly, releasing them with a pop, only to knead at your breast with his large hands.

“Need you inside me.” you breathed as he sucked soft hickeys onto your skin, hickeys that only he could have an access to.

He moaned at your words and looked at you with hooded eyes, before proceeding to take off his clothes one by one. Your eyes widened as Steven pulled his boxers off and grabbed a hold of his length. You’ve obviously watched porn before and you’ve never seen a more beautiful cock in your life. He looked absolutely perfect to you, soft trimmed curls boarding the hilt of his long and girthy length with a pink head that was leaking pre-cum.

Your breathing quickened as you watched him pump himself a few times before rolling a condom on. Kneeling in front of you, he grabbed the bottle of lube from his bedside and coated his palm before stroking himself again.

“Steven, you’re a god.” you heard yourself saying as you scanned his body that was literally sculpted to perfection.

“Fuck, Y/N, don’t say that, I’m not gonna fucking last with your words.” He says as he rubbed the tip of his cock along your slit, catching your clit and making you throw your head back against the pillow.

“In, now.” you punctuated as Steven tried to take his time with you.

With the help of the lube and your slick, Steven slid inside of you with relative ease, shocking you and himself with how fast he bottomed out. There was a sharp pain as Steven stretched you out, followed by the sweet sensation of pleasure that made you whimper with ecstasy. You had never felt this full in your life and Steven’s cock was pressing deliciously in all of the spots you had never thought you had. His hands held you down with bruising strength, allowing you to adjust to his length, and only started moving when you started to grind your hips impatiently.

He showered you with praises as he moved with slow fluid movement, his hand inching towards you for you to grab onto. Instead of lacing your fingers together with him, Steven pulled your hand towards him and pressed it gently at the lower part of your belly. You moaned at the feeling of his cock inside of you, the tip bulging through your skin. He pressed down slightly harder, getting off at the feeling of your hand massaging his cock from the outside.

“Steven, you’re too good to me. Feels so good.” you slur as he pushed on slightly harder and deeper.

Tears started to flow from your eyes as your free hand gripped at Steven’s biceps, your nails leaving crescent shapes in his skin as he started to speed up his thrusts. His hand on your belly leaves yours, only for his fingertips to end up on your clit, the action causing you to shake. From the extra stimulation and the way his cock speared you, your second release came faster than your first, blinding you yet again with its powerful waves.

You could feel Steven’s movements start to stutter the second you came, his thrusts getting sloppier as he chased his release. He folded his body over yours and with a few more solid thrusts to your cunt, he groaned into your neck as he spilled thick ropes of cum into the condom.

It took the both of you a few minutes of heavy breathing to gather your thoughts. Steven came to his senses first, slowly pulling himself out of you before taking off the condom and discarding it. He then slowly stroked your hair as your breathing became more labored before taking a bottle of geranium oil from his bedside and dripping it all over your spent body.

You smiled at Steven as he massaged the fragrant oil into your skin. He focused on the points of your body that were sure to be sore tomorrow and silently pressed out all of the tension you had in you. Your body felt warm and you had a buzz running through you as if you had just ran a marathon. He massaged a silent thanks into you with every squeeze of his hand and you just laid there and stared at the man before you, wondering what kind of miracle had allowed you to get to this point. You looked past him and squinted into his apartment, giggling slightly at where your underwear had ended up.

“Hmm, am I really that funny, baby?” Steven said before following your line of sight and gasping at the sight of your underwear draped ungracefully over Gus’s fish tank.

“Oops, sorry Gus, mate.” He said sheepishly, his face turning red. “It's alright, darling, he won’t remember it.”

Steven flipped you over gently and started massaging your back, pulling small hisses and moans out of you. He kneads your lower back with his knuckles, providing you with stronger precision that knocks the wind out of your lungs with pleasure as you sink further into the mattress. He skims over the globes of your ass, making you giggle again. Flipping you onto your back, Steven pulls you into his lap as he settles himself against the headboard, covering the both of you up with a blanket to provide you with some privacy. You cuddle close to him, feeling safe in the small cocoon that he had created.

“Do you always end … it with a massage?” you asked suddenly, the question creeping up into your fluffy thoughts.

“No, actually.” Steven says, sitting up a little. “This was the first. I remember how you would say that massages were your favourites and that you would get a weekly massage if you had some disposable income.”

You blink up at him, realizing that he had been listening to you all along. Your heart swelled with the awareness that you had found your perfect man way before you had even comprehended it.

“Thank you, Steven. I love you.” you say before you could stop yourself as an unknown emotion settled upon Steven’s face.

Horror pulsed through you, your cock-dumb brain still too foggy for you to think anything coherent.

“Shit, sorry, I mean we only just had sex a few minutes ago. This is so uncool-” you stutter before Steven places a finger to your lips.

“I love you too, Y/N.” Steven says, genuinely as a chuckle reverberates through him and into your heart.

You calmed down immediately with his confession, your face blazing as you kissed him, finally feeling at ease with everything around you.

“Told you I can fuck really well.”

“FUCK OFF, STEVEN!”

Tagging: @romanarose @mintpurplemnm

Reblogs are appreciated <3 love you all so so much *muah*

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arabellasleopardcoat · 7 months

Text

Bouquet of Violets (Aemond Targaryen x Reader)

Summary: You are happy in your marriage, even if your husband can be quite hellish. It all starts to go wrong when a secret admirer shows up.

Warnings: Angst! Fluff! All the feelings! And yeah, mature language and topics. Canon character death (Not Aemond)

A/N: Hopelessly romantic (delusional) reader! meets Aemond. Based on a song I grew up listening. The girls that get it, get it.

Aemond, unlike you, remembers the first time the two of you met. You wore your hair down, back then. It cascaded down your back in the ways girl's hair often did before they flowered, unstyled and wild.

You must have been nine, or ten years old. He was twelve and having a temper tantrum, hiding in the corners near the throne room. Your father was in an audience with King Viserys, while you and your mother explored the Red Keep. Aemond had never found out what the meeting was about, nor did he care.

Your mother was dressed in brightly colored robes, matching your father’s. You were still dressed in the frocks of childhood. Your small, bony shoulder, had hit him right on the ribs as your mother walked you down the hallway, and Aemond had been ready to give you the tongue lashing of your life. Yet, something had halted him.

When you had bumped into him, you had raised your gaze, to meet his. Back then, he didn’t wear the eye patch, the scar tissue too raised to do so. Instead of flinching back at the gruesome sight of the marred flesh, as most people did, you had offered him a kind smile.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to.” Your sweet smile lit up your whole face. You were not the prettiest girl he had ever seen, all awkward limbs and missing a tooth. But you were the kindest. As you fell back into step with your mother, clutching your doll, Aemond could not help but be charmed by you.

So many years have passed that Aemond does not recall what your mother and you were talking about. What he does recall are another two things: First, that you were sheltered. You referred to a pet of some sorts as your friend. Second, you were clearly hung up on the notion of marriage.

Later, he would realize that The Stranger had not touched your family yet. While you might have been familiar with the notion of death, as many children were, but had not fully grasped the troubles of mortality. That was why you were concerned over the thought of what would happen to your pet when you married.

Your mother replied something along the lines of them going with you, but the doubt was clear in her tone. She was uncertain about the prolonged longevity of your childhood companion.

Sometimes Aemond thinks of how much you must have wept when they passed. The idea of you being so distraught over something you loved makes his heart ache in a weird way.

Darkly, he thinks of how you will react once he is dead. He knows his chance of surviving this are low, especially now. Will he merit as many tears as your pet did?

The words your mother last spoke before the two of you disappeared down the hallway were forever etched in his memory.

“The man who loves you will respect everything you love and hold dear. Remember that.”

You came to him with no pet. But he would have taken in an entire farm if you had.

The next time the two of you had crossed paths, Aemond had liked you even more. You were beautiful. Having long left behind the styles of childhood, your hair was worn up as a proper lady. It made it easier to admire your eyes, magnetizing and intelligent.

You were fond of reading and writing. When he saw you again, your nose was buried into a book. It was not philosophy, or history, or any useful subject, really. You read love stories, fairy stories and all sorts of things. Literature and poetry and children’s tales all rolled into one.

It was your mother, who encouraged that passion of yours. Despite being married to a man who was much older than her, and less educated, she had found happiness in him. She looked at the world in a rather unique way. One you had inherited.

You had been taught to read at an early age. According to your mother, education was the greatest equalizer between men and women, even if she didn’t voice it around your father. He didn’t know his letters very well, and so, had little clue about what books you choose to bury your nose in. If he had known, he would have disapproved.

Most men would have, truly. No one wanted young maidens to get unrealistic ideas about how marriage was supposed to go. Yet, when Aemond himself had the chance to put a stop to it, he found himself unable to.

If Aemond was to be honest with himself, he would have said he enjoyed it. The way your face would get all dreamy, your sighs so sweet, as you progressed on your reading and imagined a love like the ones in your books. Perhaps it had been the reason, in some misguided attempt to appeal to that side of you, he started doing this.

Your second meeting, which you thought had been the first, had not been due to chance. When Aemond was told it was time to marry, the choice came to your family or the Baratheons. He had never been one to protest his duties, no matter how opposed he was to it. But on this, he put forth his own selfish conditions. Aemond would marry you and no one else.

His mother had had to insist to your parents, unwilling to give up their precious daughter in times of political unrest. It was no secret to anybody that upon the death of King Viserys, things could turn ugly. It made your family wary of marrying you to Aemond.

Never before had he cursed his parentage so much. By then, Aemond had not seen you in years, but he knew you were the only choice for him. Kind and unafraid at ten, you could have only grown into a wonder.

And you did. The more he gazed at you, during that second encounter, the more he discovered. Unfortunately, Aemond had not been taught how to speak with maidens, much less one he wanted so badly.

Unused as his lips were to speaking kind words or flowery speech, he found himself in absolute terror of doing or saying the wrong thing. When he had wanted something in the past, he simply commanded it. Aemond was not used to wanting to keep a woman, but he guessed it took more effort than that.

His mother berated him all the way home. In his fear of his words upsetting, he had ended up not saying anything at all.

“You picked her yourself, Aemond, and barely showed excitement over it. The poor girl must think you hate her.”

And you probably did. Aemond could tell that you felt your encounters were awkward, but you slowly started getting used to him. What charmed him the most had been that never once you were afraid.

It ended up becoming a routine. Sort of a play date, but for adults. Set up by your hopeful parents, you would meet each other weekly and sit in silence. Each time, you would walk in with a pep in your step, wearing pretty gowns and smiling.

You would try to engage him in conversation, but he felt too self-conscious for it. It didn't phase you. You suffered through exactly two rounds of awkward conversation before starting to bring books. Sometimes, they were two, one for him and one for you. But his favorite times were when you brought only one and read aloud to him.

You had a very pleasing voice. You pronounced your words carefully, and in an even tone. And you would always ask for his opinions on the chapter when you finished. It made conversation much easier.

Any other woman would feel unhappy at having to go through such efforts. Astoundingly, not you. Overall, you seemed happy, and it puzzled Aemond to no end. Asking you had not proven very enlightening either.

“Of course I am happy.” And you had given him a smile so bright, he was convinced you were not actually your parent's daughter, but rather, the daughter of some old god of the light. “We are a good match. We like books. And you are a Prince, good with the sword, and very learned. Why wouldn't I be happy?”

Practical. No matter how romantic the books you read, or how magic the stories you enjoyed, your answer had been purely practical. You deserved more. A loud love story, like the ones in your books, and not a quiet life, spent in the shadows of a man who could barely pay her a compliment.

You gave a little spin, awed at the way your skirt moved and spread. It was the softest cloth you had ever felt, in cream and gold. Queen Alicent had gifted it to you along with many other pieces for your trousseau. You were to marry a Prince, and so, no expense was spared in updating your garments and linens.

What an honor it was, to have such a caring mother-in-law. Having witnessed the poor relationship between your mother and grandmother, you were thrilled over it. You had heard Queen Alicent had asked for you specifically, believing your temper to be a good match for her son. Since the announcement of the betrothal, she had been nothing but doting, if a bit overly worried about his treatment of you.

And Prince Aemond. You truly had no complaints. He was a tad too stoic for your liking, but he was never unkind to you. Despite the rumors about his fearsome character, you had found him to be very handsome.

Your first impression of Aemond was that he was tall. He was all long vertical lines in black and white. A study in contrasts, if you wish. One that, were you an artist, would have your hands itching for some coal. The only pop of color was his eye, a pale blue that shone on his handsome face.

He lacked the boyishly handsome features most men your age had. Instead, much like art, he was divisive. The eye patch that should lessen his appearance, only contributed to his uniqueness. There was something in the way he smiled, too. Something that hinted to something darker, dormant under the surface.

It was both attractive and intimidating. His stoic, aloof nature reminded you a lot of the leading men of the books you read. Your knowledge of that sort of man, through literature and observation, hinted to you that your betrothed must be more than met the eye.

What sort of passions and secrets must be hiding under his cool facade? You could not wait to find out. You imagined growing old with him, slowly learning his secrets and tells, just like your mother had done with your father.

The story of your parents' betrothal and marriage was one you knew well. As a child, you asked to hear it every night before bed. Your mother had been engaged to him being quite young, while he was already a man. He had been patient with her, but not very affectionate. Slowly, she had worn down his defenses, and gained his trust. It had taken years, with your father being a very gruff man. But they were the most loving couple you had ever met.

You yearned for something like that. A love that was built on mutual respect and trust, something that grew with you and filled your house with children and laughter. And with Aemond, you could not help but think that it would be possible. Wasn't he, too, a cold man who treated his bride kindly but never with affection?

You smiled at your reflection. You made a lovely bride if you said so yourself. Eyes full of hopes and expectations for your future marriage and the family that you would soon start, face glowing in happiness. One day, you said to yourself, as your Lord Father came to escort you towards the Sept, I will tell this story to my daughter.

Prince Aemond waited for you at the altar. It was a small gathering, your wedding. There were his siblings, mother, and grandfather and your parents. Your stomach tightened up in nervousness and excitement. You hoped he found you as beautiful as you found him.

When his eyes met yours, he gave you a small little smile. Secret, and barely there. You felt tears starting to well up in your eyes. You were so nervous, but so happy. This was the beginning of your new life, you could feel it.

You finally reached him. Aemond seemed startled at your tears, his hands coming to clasp yours almost in instinct. You gave him a bright smile. How kind, your betrothed was. He might have trouble expressing it, but for this, no words were needed.

You could see your nerves reflected on his face. Your hands squeezed harder. Aemond mimicked the gesture. There was a sense of understatement there that had previously been absent from your encounters. During the whole ceremony, neither of you let go or stopped looking at the other. As he leaned in to kiss you, you met him halfway.

This kiss had featured in your dreams for quite a while. As a young girl, when your lessons with your Septa got particularly boring, you daydreamed about the day you would marry. In your head, it was always perfect, and the kiss felt magical. You were a bit embarrassed to admit it, but once you met Aemond, your daydreams turned a bit less innocent.

The kiss fulfilled one of your fantasies, and left the other lacking. Aemond gently cradled your face in his hands and kissed you, very tenderly. His lips felt slightly dry, but he kept his motions gentle and sweet. It was a perfect as your childhood self had imagined, with the guests even clapping at the end. Unfortunately, it was just as innocent.

Considering that, and the fact that Aemond had demanded there not to be a bedding ceremony, you had correctly guessed your wedding night would be spent on your own.

The consummation of your marriage would be a challenge in itself. Aemond didn’t seem too keen on touching you with a ten-foot pole, and you weren’t sure of how one should bring up the topic.

Despite it, you were happy. Your only task was hanging on his arm at important feasts, which were few and far in between. His father’s declining health meant there was little to celebrate.

Your days often went without even seeing your husband, but you were never lonely. There were gardens to be walked, and books to be read. There were even tiny, blonde children, that you could chase around in the gardens and tickle. They were not yours, but Princess Helaena's and Prince Aegon's, yet they shared the striking silver hair your husband had. Looking at them, tiny sticky hands and still smelling like babies, you could imagine the future with your husband.

You could spend hours playing with them, or having tea with the Queen. You enjoyed trailing after her, she was always very kind. Frequently, you wondered how she and Aemond could be so alike yet so different.

The only thing that broke your routine were the times Aemond requested your presence.

“Milady.” Your handmaid said, stepping lightly inside your chambers. “The Prince has requested that you go to him.”

Instantly, dread and excitement pooled in your stomach. As a young lady, you were both fearful of the act and excited by it. Too often, you had heard it was something hurtful, but that it marked the change into womanhood. When Aemond called, you couldn’t help but wonder if this was the night he made you a woman.

You rushed to take out a nightshirt from your trousseau. You had separated them into three categories. There were ones that you wore nightly, others that were slightly bigger that were saved for an eventual pregnancy, and the ones that were for Aemond. Those were the prettier ones that your Lady Mother had purchased to help you entice your husband.

It was always one of the latter that was chosen. You hated not being prepared, so you always made sure to look pretty and be clean. Just in case. It had not happened yet, but it didn't mean it never would.

Your handmaid aided you to put your robe on, followed by your slippers and a thick cloak. The Red Keep, despite being inhabited by dragons, was always cold. Your handmaid always walked you to his chambers, and this night was not the exception.

She left you at his door, after you were announced. Aemond himself opened his door, welcoming you inside.

You had gotten better at not staring at him. Despite his state of undress, in only sleep pants and his hair down for once, he was a delight for the eyes.

“My lady.” He kissed your cheek. The door closed after you. He aided you out of your cloak. “I was hoping you would read for me tonight.”

You tried not to let your disappointment show on your face. Aemond, as if sensing your mood, merely shoved a book in your hands. He didn’t even offer you a seat, but you took one on the bed anyway. By the weight of the book, you would be here a while.

“On a far away land, whose name I am unable to recall…” Aemond settled down on the bed next to you, eye closed. You didn’t understand why he did this sort of thing, but you weren’t bothered by it either. It was a small price to pay for all the luxuries you got to enjoy.

Despite ending up with a sore throat, it was fun too. He picked the books now, in a stark contrast to the days when you had been a couple courting. And as a man, Aemond had access to many more books than you had. You had recently started making your way through some chivalry tales, with a lot more blood than you were used to.

It was enough for you. Perhaps he was not very affectionate, but he clearly enjoyed your company. Why else would he keep summoning for something as menial as reading books?

You settled into a comfortable routine, grounded by the rhythms of court life. For a while, everything was extraordinarily normal. It was not until you were three months into marriage with the Prince that things started to get weird.

It was the ninth day of the tenth moon of the year, and the date felt slightly ominous. There was a restless energy in the air, something unusual. Perhaps, it was you. As of late, you had been feeling a bit blue. The lack of letters from your family and the twins starting their lessons had left you with more spare time than you thought you would have.

Deciding to go have a bath to try to shake that restless energy from you, you headed toward your rooms. When you entered, the first thing you noticed was the smell. It was strong and floral like, permeating the surrounding air. Your maids used sweeter smells for your rooms, on the Queen’s advice. They were the sort of smells that Aemond favored, and so, she had hoped surrounding you with them would endear you to him.

Then, you saw them. It was a big bouquet of violets, laying on top of your bed. Delighted, you ran towards them. You were unable to resist the urge to smell them, breathing in their scent. This close, you noticed they were slightly bluer, closer to dark blue than purple.

You toyed with their petals, wondering where they could have come from. Perhaps your husband? Aemond was not very inclined towards romantic gestures, but there was no other explanation for it.

You were nearly bursting in excitement to see him. The flowers had been such a kind gesture, you could not help but feel a wave of affection. But no matter how much you wished for it, you had seen nor hide nor hair of Aemond.

Denying it was stupid on his part. Aemond will not protest against it. But what else could have he done? He had panicked. It's not like he meant to do so.

His mother held a weekly meal with all her children, and had taken to including you. Having often berated him about his treatment of you, it was not surprising that she had decided to take you under her wing.

Aemond did feel a bit guilty over his own coldness, but he wasn't really sure how he ought to behave. Apart from his sister and uncle, he had not seen many loving pairs during his life, and anyone would agree that Rhaenyra and Daemon should never be held up as examples of anything.

You were lonely, as of late. The twins had gotten old enough for lessons, and so, they had limited time to play with you in the gardens. You were far enough from home that the letters took a few days to reach you, too. As a young woman, almost too young to be forced to leave everything you knew behind, isolation must have been taking its toll.

Let's not forget you were not only two years his junior, but also a woman. You were of a fragile disposition, with your constant daydreaming and romantic thoughts. Aemond ought to have been paying more attention, but his mind had been busy elsewhere.

His father looked more and more close to death with each day that passed. His grandisre was constantly plotting. Without needing to be a seer, Aemond knew that things were not looking good. There would not be a peaceful reign for Rhaenyra.

He had been so caught up on his worries and duties, that Aemond had forgotten to take care of his woman. Aemond had not summoned you to his rooms that week, too wired to project the calm you would need in the days that would come. You would not do well if a war broke out.

Aemond had been quite lacking on his duty of taking care of you. Pretty little flower that you were, he could almost see you starting to wilt. You spent more time indoors, and stopped your daily walks in the gardens.

Despite fairness being regarded as a desirable trait for a lady, Aemond did not like the way your skin had lost its sun kissed glow. It just didn't fit you. Blue was more of his thing than yours, gorgeous golden woman that you were.

Hence, the flowers. Choosing the violets was an impulse. Aemond liked the colors and the smell was tolerable yet distinctive. He would know immediately when you received them, being able to smell them on your hair and clothes.

Sweet natured as you were, you had thanked him for them. The fact that you had liked them and associated them with him had been enough to warm his heart. The fact that you had decided to do so during the dinner with his siblings, enough to stomp on it.

It had not been quiet enough.

“Aemond?” Aegon frowned. “Aemond gave you flowers?”

Knowing his brother as he did, Aemond knew he was struggling hard to contain his laughter. He had been the butt of the joke too many times to confirm or deny anything. He would rather not be embarrassed in front of you.

But in truth, the idea of being weak, of being mocked, was not one that scared him. He had been humiliated many times during his childhood. What bothered him more was the thought of his feelings for you being exposed in such a manner. He was not prone to sudden bursts of affection, or doing thoughtful things for those he loved.

Aemond preferred to love in silence. There was no need for grandiloquence, or big gestures. Marriage was a sacred thing, between husband and wife. It was not something that had to be shared loudly. His love was spoken quietly, in the same way he had been taught to.

His mother loved quietly. His grandsire did, too. Their eyes spoke when their lips did not, their love a discordance with the words out of their mouths. Aemond had grown like that, loved but never told, learning it as a secret language that tied them all.

The flowers, though. The flowers had been a betrayal of their code. Something they would not understand because while everyone in the Red Keep was fluent in the art of loving and not saying a word, you were not. You were a foreigner, with your tales of romance and princess from a far away land.

This had been Aemond, clumsily speaking your language. Shy about it, as many people were when speaking one that was not theirs for the first time. It was hard. It was private, and certainly not something he wanted to be outed in front of Aegon, who would not know love for his wife if it hit him in the face.

His expression must have been deadly because Aegon had started squirming on his seat like his pants were on fire. Your face had fallen, turning into a terrible, sad thing, that made something funny to his heart.

“It wasn’t you. Of course.” Your voice was softer still. Aemond continued eating his dinner without a word. Because really, what could he say? Anything that he did now would be mocked by Aegon.

The way your face had fallen, brows pinching together in a sad little frown, had haunted him later. He wanted to fix things, but was unsure how. You were not used to his brusque manner and speech. Aemond felt it might do more harm than good, if he were to speak with you. He might end up offending you more without noticing.

Besides, how did one even start to explain that he had denied tacitly to gifting you flowers fearing not being understood and mocked? He would sound like a fool.

Instead, he had penned you a note. Instead of apologizing, Aemond had hoped to butter you up with a few compliments. You must have realized it, then, because you had walked the whole day as if floating in a cloud.

Come the ninth day of the next moon, you had nearly forgotten all about the incident. You had thrown away the flowers before they even had a chance to wilt, and the note had been burned to a crisp in your fireplace. You had convinced yourself having a secret admirer was improper for a married woman, and refused to give it more thought.

It was a bit strange, that your husband was not angered by it. Yet, at the same time, you supposed he was thankful for your discretion over the entire affair. Aemond was very sensible and smart, so it was logical he wouldn't blame you.

Aemond had kept summoning you to his chambers, be either for you to read to him or just to sit in silence. Your happiness persisted. Until your breakfast’s tray was set on your vanity.

You noticed it when you were sipping at your tea. Groggily, and confused, you found a piece of paper under your napkin. On a neat handwriting, there was a quote from one of the poetry books you favored.

You gave a tiny gasp. Your hands clenched on the paper, your cheeks heating up. The penmanship was not one you recognized, but the words made your knees nearly buckle. No one had written you sonnets before.

Ninth day, you realize. Same as the flowers. If not your husband, then who? The idea of the secret admirer came back, stronger this time. The dates could not be a coincidence, this had to be the same person. Ninth day of the ninth moon, then ninth day of the ten.

You started over analyzing each interaction you had with men. When the knights opened the doors for you, your eyes would linger on theirs. When a Lord would greet you, you would try to remind if he had something to do with violets.

You found yourself daydreaming of this man. Would he be an older man? Would he be prone to smiling, or would he share the stoic nature of your Prince? How would his hands feel on your skin? All the daydreaming made you feel guilty, for fantasizing about a man who was not your husband. Yet, at the same time, you knew that you would not act on it. You loved Aemond too much.

It was flattering, to be wanted in such a manner. You liked the idea of it because it was different from the love you were used to. But you would rather not meet the admirer, knowing you would have to reject him. You enjoyed the attention, not the person it came from.

There was only one person in Westeros that you wished would lavish you with attention and love. And you knew already he was not your secret admirer.

Secretly, sometimes, you thought of telling Aemond. What would his reaction be? The thought made butterflies flutter in your stomach. Would he get jealous? Would he turn more affectionate? You imagined he would want to claim you in some way.

Alone, at night, you pictured his eye, narrowed in anger. Those hands, gripping harshly at your hips, leaving bruises. His body over yours, his lips on your throat, your chest, your stomach. Your hands would follow the path that the imaginary Aemond's hands would take, caressing and groping until they reached their destination. You would arouse and tease yourself until you reached your peak, a scream of his name dying in your throat.

The wondering does not last to meet a third moon. No, because King Viserys passes away and Prince Aegon is crowned King. The whole Red Keep is in a state of disarray, and you feel oddly fearful, watching the constant movement the family seems to be in.

Even Queen Alicent, usually so kind and calm, is on edge. She seems on the verge of a neurotic episode, pacing frantically around the halls, muttering to herself. You can't help but feel something bad is about to happen.

Your husband is in a terrible mood. He seems to have a constant headache, and so, you have taken to being even more kind to him. Some nights, he will summon you to his chambers. He keeps asking you to read to him, but you can tell his mind is far away.

You try grounding him, placing your hand on his thigh or shoulder every chance you get. If you were more confident, you would try something more bold. Aemond seems to enjoy your touch, but he doesn't encourage you to do it. His face remains unmoved, and he keeps telling you to keep reading.

His only tell is that he always reciprocates. If your hand is on his shoulder, his goes to your hip. If you touch his back, Aemond caresses your hair.

It leaves you feeling a bit out of balance. It's entirely innocent, as if you were two children discovering love. Yet at the same time, you can't help but feel like you are burning up in your need for him.

He starts requesting for you to stay the night with him. Aemond never touches you beyond holding you to him, body pressed close to yours in a long, vertical line. Sometimes, you wake up to his manhood prodding you from behind, but he promptly excuses himself out of the bed you share. It makes your thighs clench up in need.

It's unbearable. You feel like you are going insane, your center pulsating in need each time you are near him. The simplest touches can set you on fire. You decide to be bolder, soon. You can't keep this state of affairs.

Before you can explore this new side of your connection, Aemond is pulled away. A mission for the King, he explains. You stay behind, feeling restless. Not having been told what his mission involved, nor where he was going, you can't help but worry. Aemond had taken Vhagar, and that, at least, gives you a slight sense of safety. You were familiar enough with his mount to know she could be his fiercest protector if she felt someone was threatening.

You spend your hours praying for his safe return, along with the Queen. While not part of the Small Council formed around Aegon, but you imagine quite well what they discussed. Alicent is as scared as you are.

You go to bed late that night. With Aemond away, you can't sleep, already used to his body pressing against yours. You had hoped exhaustion would help you overcome that problem.

It's even later when heavy footsteps and the slamming of a door rise you. In the dark, you can barely make out a silhouette. A tall man, holding a dagger.

You scream. The man grabs you roughly by the shoulders and pushes you to lay down on the bed. This close, you can feel that his clothes are strangely humid, as if dried in a rush. You had not considered it before, but the letters and violets do not seem so romantic anymore. Instead, they scare you. You find yourself faced with the possibility that this man might this be your secret admirer. Has he felt encouraged by your happiness? Is he dangerous?

There is a heavy candleholder on your nightstand. You reach for it in the dark, and swing at his head. The man yelps. You start to struggle against him. His tone is familiar to you.

“Seven Hells.” He curses. It's then that it hits you. This is Aemond. Aemond is back. You don't get to rejoice on it, or pull him to you, though. He keeps speaking, in a confused tone. “You… I… I made a mistake.”

Aemond gets up and away from you. His clothes still reek of humidity and sadness. You remain there, laying on your stomach, as you feel an uncontrollable urge to cry. There is something inside you that has been rattled until it broke, something that tells you that this Aemond is not your Aemond.

The next morning, you find out he has killed Lucerys Velaryon. Instead of going to his mother or grandsire, he had come straight for you. Aemond had been trying to forget on your skin, lose himself in you.

When you see the violets covering every inch of your room, bouquets over your bed, on your vanity and even the windowsill, your eyes sting. It's bittersweet to realize that, now that you look at them, their color is surprisingly close to a sapphire.

Dividers by yours truly. Por supuesto que la canción era Ramito de Violetas. Grande Zalo Reyes.

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