#so I'm trying not to have an issue with the weight in terms of the number | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morallyinept · 1 month

Text

ADORATION - A Joel Miller x Breast Cancer/Mastectomy F!Reader One Shot

Written as part of my B O D I E S Series 🤎

BODIES MASTERLIST

Summary: After some completely unexpected and devastating news, a long journey of loss and healing, Joel shows you how beautiful he still finds you.

Pairing: No Outbreak Joel Miller x Breast Cancer/Mastectomy F!Reader (No name or physical description of reader in terms of ethnicity, hair colour etc... However, Reader had breasts and hair before treatment. I've imagined Reader to be around a similar age as Joel, who is 56 when writing this, however Reader's age is not mentioned, so you can determine/imagine it's you, if you'd like to, bub.)

Word Count: 8.3k

Scoville Smut Rating:🌶️🌶️🌶️ “You tell me I'm doing well, and then, you try to kill me."

Check out my Scoville Smut Ratings here.

Triggers & warnings: Mentions of breast cancer/double mastectomy/surgery/grief/loss/depression/body issues/illness & recovery/fear/mentions of death. Established relationship/unprotected PIV (wrap up, folks)/breast worship/Joel loves on you hard.

NSFW. MINORS DNI! OVER 18’s ONLY. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU READ.☝🏻Don’t come at me; you’ve been plenty warned.

I write for me, and I share with you. If this story isn't to your taste, that's fine. Just slip quietly out the back door. No need to make a fuss. It's just a work of fiction.

Author’s Note: It's important to me that all types of readers are represented in my work, therefore this collection of stories is written for readers with REAL bodies. However, anyone can enjoy them. Whilst this story may not specifically represent your own personal journey, it is my hope that it resonates and offers comfort and enjoyment. The condition/disability mentioned in this story is not 'one size fits all' - everyone's journey is personal and unique, and I have undertaken as much research as I can to write accurately and respectfully. 🤎

MAIN MASTERLIST | JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST

Enjoy! 🖤

You’re whining, keening softly as your nose dusts the crown of greying curls resting just below your chin.

They tickle gently on the inside of your nostrils each time you inhale, smiling into the beam of sunlight that strobes onto the pillow, blinding you into a warm, balmy bliss.

Causing your body to spasm and jerk beneath him; little bursts of electricity soar with static, crackling down your spine. You arch your back, pushing your nipple further into his warm, wet mouth.

The insatiable pull around your nipple draws hisses from behind your teeth, eyes rolling back into the furthest reaches of your skull.

Your fingers press into the back of his cranium, cradling him close; losing yourself to the never-ending swirl of his tongue around that fleshy, hard bud as he tongues it, sucks it, nips it...

Hips grinding in a languid cadence against his crotch, a hard bulge catches on your clit as you grind against his cock; stiff and leaking into his faded, worn-out boxers.

Joel’s a self-confessed breast man. He likes pawing at your ass too on the very regular occasion, but he spends most of his foreplay time - and any time, really - latching onto your breasts like a hungry infant.

He likes to suck your nipples out of the puffy swell of your areolas on warm mornings when you wake nestled around him. Coax that stubborn left one out of it's invert with a probing, flickering tongue.

He loves to pinch the stiff, hardened peaks through your top when you're chilly to make you giggle and squirm against him. Feels closest to you when you sit together watching a rubbish film on Sunday evenings in his lap, and he casually has his hand up your shirt holding onto your breast like he would your hand.

It’s a comfort you both enjoy; a big, reassuring warmth holding onto you. He likes feeling the weight of them as they fill his palms, watching the bounce of them, mesmerized, as you ride on his cock vigorously.

Joel’s all up in your marvellous chest at any chance he can get. Sucking the pebbled teats between his lips, swirling his tongue around and around as you fist through his wavy locks and groan when he brings you to orgasm just by lavishing your breasts with his mouth - he loves how sensitive they are.

Especially the right one, it's almost as sensitive as your clit.

Just a few licks over it on this lazy weekend morning, has you panting and almost tearing the roots from his scalp as he squeezes the left one inside his deft fingers; flicking the nipple with his rough index pad and groping a lavish handful.

He’s rutting into you, on the cusp of just pulling his cock out of his boxers - that have seen better days - and slipping into his beautiful wife writhing underneath him; he can feel you seeping through the thin cotton against him.

Joel squeezes your breast again as he sucks at the other, humming at your moans. You croak out his name; each vowel rolling off your tongue with abject need.

Opening and closing his fist around the mound, grunting in rapture, he brushes his thumb along the underside, when he stops. Shiny nipple popping out of his wet mouth, with that furrowed brow pulling his face into a tight knot.

“Darlin’,” he says, with a pursed mouth; his heavy eyes falling to your breast, and his stubby thumb running under the obvious hardness of a lump. “Ya feel that?” He questions, gently.

You look down at him realising his pause.

“Why are you stopping?” You gasp, your hips still moving, slit making a sticky mess against his cottoned length.

You stop grinding, sitting up as you take your breast from him and squeeze all around it, slightly irritated at the interruption, until you find it for yourself.

You feel an unwelcome visitor nestled within the soft curve under your breast, inviting itself bluntly into yours and Joel’s lovemaking.

“God,” you say, his concerned eyes meeting yours.

A lump, no larger than a pea, yet heavy with the weight of uncertainty, that suddenly makes your blood run icy. Your heart pounds a frantic rhythm against your rib cage.

Fear, cold and unyielding, spreads poisoned rust through your veins as you trace its contours; your fingers lingering over the unfamiliar bobble of its terrain.

“It’s probably nothin’,” he reassures with a nod, with eyes so deep you could fall into them and never see light again.

"Yeah," you nod too, but your own eyes convey your trepidation.

And it’s enough to halt any chance of morning sex with your burly husband in its tracks, as you disappear quickly into the bathroom for a thorough inspection.

Disbelief, a fleeting hope that what your fingers trace is merely a figment of your imagination, or a cyst at best.

All weekend you fret and worry until you can call the doctor's office on Monday morning.

You can't count the number of times you touch it, prod at it. You tell yourself out loud that it’s probably nothing, like Joel suggests.

Yet, as reality sinks its claws into your rational thinking, fear takes root, gnawing away at the fragile threads of your composure.

Yeah. Probably a cyst.

Your breasts change all the time; lumpy and bumpy; they’re not as perky as they once were. Your monthly cycle sees them ache and weight heavy like granite blocks sometimes.

It’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about. You tell your weary reflection, but she has a hard time believing you as she stares back with unblinking eyes.

When Joel doesn't put his hand up your shirt as you nestle into him during your Sunday night film ritual, that's when the tears kick in.

Excusing yourself to the bathroom, you don’t cry in front of Joel, but he’s not so easy to convince that everything's fine, and it’s just allergies making your eyes red, when he knows it’s not allergy season. Or that you have any allergies.

“S’alright to be worried, darlin’. But ya gon’ be okay.” He tells you he’s coming to the doctor with you.

You argue that it’s fine, but he's insistent with his brooding frown and pursed lips like he’s constantly chewing on a wasp. He tells you he loves you no matter what, and you’ll be fine and that’s that, as he squeezes your hand.

He pulls you close as you watch the film together spread out on the sofa. Still no hand up your shirt. You see the colour moving on the screen, hear the dialogue and music, but none of it sinks in. You’re staring at the TV completely blank.

He excels at making you think clearly, challenges your fears and helps you confront them with simple questions and words to get you to think differently. It’s one of the main reasons you married him. He has a level head.

And you don’t realise how tense you are until Joel rubs your back and you melt fully into his chest.

With more soothing words and reassurances, eventually you believe him that you’re probably being irrational and panicking over nothing, because Joel has this knack of waving a magic wand and making everything okay.

But it isn’t okay, not this time.

Within two weeks you have a mammogram and a biopsy after the doctor murmurs hmms and huhs at you.

You’re told not to worry as there’s only a two per cent chance that it’ll be cancer, as you’re stripped bare before the prying eyes of medical professionals and the cold embrace of diagnostic tests.

The loss of control over your own physicality is so fast, leaving you feeling exposed and deprived of the autonomy you'd once taken for granted.

Unfamiliar hands groping and prodding on your breasts replace Joel’s warm, tender ones, and you try to hold it together inside the sterile walls.

You break the moment he has you in his arms outside in the long, lonely corridor of the hospital and asks you how it went.

Joel throws himself into work on the construction site, and you throw yourself into a sinking depression, clouded with worry and worst case scenarios.

You’re sent home with stitches and painkillers after the biopsy, and all you can do is wait.

The invasion of a hostile takeover of your once jaunty mood hovers thickly in the air between you both at home during that time.

You do the one thing you shouldn’t and Google fucking everything. Survival rates, post-op images, types of cancer and all the dread that your eyes can take in until you can take in no more.

You then switch tactics and try to stay occupied and distracted. You play Joel’s old country rock playlist full blast, deciding to turn the house upside down and clean and bleach the shit out of every nook and cranny of it, until Joel comes home, eyes stinging with the fumes, and asks if you’ve lost your damned mind.

You smell bleach on your fingers for days after and it reminds you bleakly of the smell in the hospital corridors.

You lay in bed side-by-side at night, awkwardly staring at the ceiling, recalling how most nights you can hardly get enough of one another. But Joel rolls over and mumbles an exhausted goodnight to you, and you try your hardest not to cry; but the tears slip silently out the creases of your eyes anyway.

You’re called to come in for your biopsy results almost a week later, and the car journey there is deathly silent as Joel and you stare out the windshield and don’t say anything the whole way there.

Joel glances at you and you feel the weight of his ginormous hand on your thigh, squeezing it, and you barely register the sensation at first, turning to him as he squints in the sunlight as he turns the wheel.

There’s no casual flirting, no animated discussions about supper; no singing along to Bennie And The Jets together on Rock FM.

You watch the town pass you by out the window like it’s a stranger, equal parts numb and terrified.

The specialist takes a seat opposite you both, their gaze never wavering as they speak in a soft voice laced delicate with empathy, and you immediately know from the look on their face.

“It’s gon’ be alright, darlin’.” He says.

Although you’re unsure if it’s for your benefit or his, as his eyes remain focused on the road and glaze over in their emptiness somehow.

"I wish there was an easier way to say this, but the results of your biopsy came back, and I'm afraid it's cancer..."

Your breath catches in your throat, your world dangerously spinning out of control as the weight of those words settle over you like a suffocating shroud.

"Cancer? Two per cent…" You whisper, your voice barely audible above the rush of blood in your ears.

The medical speak jumbles your brain. Triple-Negative. Faulty BRCA1. Aggressive…

The words fade out and so do you.

But when you come back, you're looking at Joel; at his profile as he speaks. Mouth moving at the specialist with questions fired behind stunned snarls.

You're not sure where you go, or for how long, it’s just all muffled and quiet. Like being underwater, it fills your ears completely as you sink. Peaceful in a way.

The first time in weeks you’ve had any peace inside the tornado of your mind. It all stills.

He’s so beautiful.

You think it’s odd how a man can be deemed beautiful, like it emasculates him somehow, but it's the right word, you think. Beautiful, with heavy features etched with concern, yet softened by an unwavering love that radiates from his soulful brown eyes.

In the opaque light filtering through the window, you notice the creases at the corners of his eyes, the remnants of countless laughter-filled moments you’ve shared; your mind reliving through all of them in a handmade scrapbook decorated with glitter glue.

You can hear that little breathy snuffle he makes as he chuckles at something you say, whether it’s genuinely funny or moronic. His eyes, once bright with hope and joy, now glisten with unshed tears filling round shiny scleras, reflecting the tumult of emotions churning within him.

He talks, asks all the right questions you can't even form into comprehensible words. And somewhere through the falling, the tumbling, you love him even more for it.

You spend a quiet moment tracing the prominent curve of his nose with your eyes down into the way his lips will quirk upwards in a playful, crooked grin that never fails to warm your heart.

Yet now, they’re drawn down into a thin pout of worry; a silent plea for reassurance amidst the uncertainty that looms over you both.

Joel's a practical man, hands on. He needs to know. He needs to have all the facts and weigh up all the options presented to him like a gloomy spread of cards on the desk before him.

You can’t help yourself, reaching your fingers out and tangling them in the soft tendrils of his hair as you brush them behind his ear.

But you're fixating on his hair, once a riot of chestnut curls that framed his face with youthful exuberance, now bear the distinguished marks of time - strands of silver threaded through the greying curls that fall in gentle waves around his temples.

It’s almost like they’re greying further in front of you as you watch him now.

When was the last time he got a haircut?

Your fingers brush against the fuzzy, silken stubble that adorns his jawline and top lip, a tactile reminder of the physicality of your love, recalling the way he rubs it against your face, your inner thighs...

His jaw clenches slightly, a reflexive response to the weight of your shared anguish, yet his grip on your hand remains steadfast.

Your eyes drop to the calloused knot of thick, squeezing tendons and bone crushing around your own.

The look in his coffee bean eyes as you advanced towards him, stacked chest puffed out; filled with love and pride that you were his. You remember his speech, how he choked around carefully thought out words relishing that he’ll get to spend every waking moment with his best friend.

The gleam of his wedding ring and the feel of the warm metal is no longer perfect in its circumference as you trace your finger over the tarnish of it. It’s flecked with tiny scratches from his work.

You remember how handsome he looked in his snug-fitting tux as he waited for you at the end of the aisle scattered with rose petals.

You squeeze your eyes shut as you picture him looking down into your coffin, wearing the same tux; red eyes and snot falling from his nose as he collapses, wailing your name in haunted howls, and it’s enough to have you fleeing from your chair, with a spine-chilling scrape against the floor, in search of the nearest bathroom as your stomach lurches.

You barely make it, spilling your insides into the toilet bowl uncontrollably.

No. No, no, no…

The harsh fluorescent lights flicker overhead, casting eerie shadows against the cold, tiled wall with you pressed up against it; your breaths coming in ragged gasps that echo in the hollow confines of the tiny bathroom.

Tears stream down your cheeks, hot and relentless, as the weight of the diagnosis presses down upon you like a suffocating lead blanket, threatening to engulf you in its darkness.

Panic claws at your chest, its icy fingers tightening with each heartbeat, squeezing the air from your lungs until you feel as though you’ll suffocate beneath its crushing weight.

You can't breathe as you fumble at your buttons on your shirt trying to loosen them.

"I got ya, darlin'. I got ya." He soothes. "It's okay. I got ya. Sssh. Just breathe. I got ya..."

It doesn’t take Joel long to find you at all. All tiny and cowering in the cubicle; sobbing wildly as you reach for him, and he pulls you to him and lets you shatter against his broad shoulders.

His voice is your anchor, pulling you back slowly.

It's not fair. You can’t leave him.

You slur something about fucking it all, you’re going to die anyway, right? Might as well go down swinging, before he takes the bottle from you, muttering fucks of his own, as he prods you back up to bed and wraps band-aids around your bleeding toes.

You don’t remember him picking you up and taking you home, or holding you all night.

You don’t remember him finding you in the kitchen at around two AM, drinking yourself stupid with broken glass around your feet, and his concerned tone asking you what the hell you’re doing.

You eventually fall asleep encased inside of his arms and inhaling the spiced scent of his skin, breathing it in deeply so you don’t forget it.

He makes you breakfast in the morning that you don’t eat, irons clothes for you that you don’t wear.

Buys you brightly coloured flowers, that he knows you love, to cheer you up. But you simply let them wilt and die on the counter top, not bothering to get a vase out for them.

You just sit and watch them die; their velvety petals shrivelling and curling before your eyes over the course of days.

Cancer just doesn't affect you, it affects the people closest to you, too.

That’s what the website says that you’ve been directed to. You realise this when you notice Joel and you haven't had sex since the day he discovered the lump.

You haven’t kissed either, not passionately anyway. Your breasts have been unloved and untouched by him, for what feels like weeks, when the man usually can’t bear to not grope or pinch them playfully when he holds onto you. Or sneaks up behind you when you're washing up the dishes, making you splash bubbles in his face.

In a bout of feverish desperation, you climb into his lap whilst he’s watching a game and nursing a bottle of beer on his day off, kissing him with wanton bites on his neck making him frown, as you push your chest towards his face.

It only kills you further when he shakes his head and tells you not like this, darlin’ before he lifts you off of him.

It creates an argument. You accuse him of not finding you attractive anymore, and he growls at you that you’re being ridiculous, before you yell even louder.

You don’t even know why you’re yelling or how you even got to this point. Nothing makes sense anymore.

And yet now, for the first time, you don’t know what he’s thinking behind that knot of muscles pulling his face taught; what he’s feeling, and it fucking terrifies you as you plead for him to talk to you.

You and Joel never fight like this. You always talk about things that bother you both. You've never heard Joel raise his voice in the whole entire time you've known him.

Honesty and open communication has always driven your relationship and come naturally between you both.

But instead, he leaves to let you cool off. You don’t know that he doesn’t go far at all. He just drives his truck round the corner and sits there in it, sobbing helplessly into his thick palms until it gets dark and he goes to a bar in town to drown his sorrows further.

You don't know that it kills him not being able to touch you; he wants to. Fuck, he wants nothing more than to ravish you, but he’s terrified he’ll hurt you, or will do something dumb that only his own mounting panic convinces him he’ll do.

For the first time in his life, Joel feels completely helpless.

It’s not fair. He can’t lose you.

“Let me see,” you prompt, and he drops the ice-pack to reveal a nasty black eye in the early stages of birth.

You find him in the kitchen late when he eventually comes back home, and making no effort to hide the fact he’s had a heavy drink.

He looks up at you, holding an ice-pack to his face and waiting for the tirade from you.

Red grazes orbit around his fist too, knuckle skin missing, you note. His eye is almost sealed shut with the swelling that’s a mix between blue and purple, in stark contrast to his golden face. Broken blood vessels litter the area, and he sniffs deeply before he speaks again.

“Ya should see the other guy,” Joel assures with a tight mouth.

He has a large dimple on the left side of his face when he smiles; an almost perfect, crescent like the moon in its waxing phase. But it’s hard to coax a smile out of him for it to be fully revealed these days; his mouth constantly twitches into a downward arch most of the time.

As you look at him, there’s an old man somewhere inside of his face; a burdened man, exhausted and on the verge of giving up entirely.

Cancer just doesn't affect you, it affects the people closest to you, too.

“What happened?” You query, tentatively as you dab at his knuckles.

“I lost my shit.” He replies stoically, as you tend and fuss over him whilst sighing.

You look up at him and as much as you want to be mad with him, you can’t - he’s hurting too.

Comprehension is a difficult task to begin to tackle. You ask so many whys - why me? Why is this happening? But fail to find an answer to any them.

Everything has been spun one-eighty and you’re still dizzy from the shock of your diagnosis.

Hours and soon days disappear from your life, like sand falling in an hourglass, as you try to fully understand what’s happening around you.

You feel as though meandering through a blur, your body robotically doing the things you're supposed to, but your mind not being fully coherent. Get up, eat, work, go to bed and so on. It ticks continuously whilst your limbs belong to that of a zombie.

Questions, thoughts and images... all blinking through you trying to piece it all together whilst you move stagnantly. But eventually the anxiety begins to chip into your mentality and inserts thoughts that you daren’t venture down.

The exact truth is staring you in the face, but try as you might to refute it, it’s plainly obvious and it begins to terrify you in ways that are new.

You have cancer.

It invades your dreams and deprives you of sleep. Tears make themselves acknowledged, at the most inconvenient of times too, like shopping in the grocery store, or typing at your computer at your desk at work, and trying to hide them from the prying world is a task in itself.

And you don’t realise it at the time, but Joel’s going through the same. Questioning, worrying, just as paranoid and stressed as you are.

And you both need to talk about it, you know you do, but yet neither of you can quite summon the courage to do so.

“M’sorry,” he says into your hair, as he pulls you in for a crushing cuddle against him.

“It’s okay,” you murmur, as quiet tears absorb into the plaid flannel pulled tight over his chest from your eyes.

But it's not okay. You have cancer.

Over the course of your discussions with the doctors, specialists and oncologists - and other medical professionals, whose names, faces and titles get lost in the swampy fog of your brain - the words ‘bilateral mastectomy’ are tossed around.

It’s clear the risks aren’t worth you keeping both of your breasts when they tell you you’re at high risk of it potentially coming back. To add another punch to the blow, they suggest removing your ovaries too, mumbling the words just in case.

Just in case…

You look at Joel, devastated. You’d both agreed that children were something you weren't both keen on having years ago, but it still feels like that choice of having an open dialogue about it is ripped from you.

When you agree it’s the best way forward, and he agrees too with a face that looks like he’s just had a lobotomy and doesn’t know where he is, a date is put in the diary for the surgeries and treatments, and it’s sooner than you think it will be.

There’s hardly any time to breathe and take it all in.

A day before the surgery and you’re sitting at the kitchen table with a face on as Joel comes in from work, sawdust caked in his hair and boots.

Your voice cracks as you explain that perhaps you should just call it time. Let him find someone else. You won’t be upset, you want him to be happy as you mutter incoherently about death and divorce, and death again, until he shakes his head defiantly and huffs loudly.

He reaches into the fridge for a cool beer and offers you one, but you don’t reply. He looks down at your face.

At the face that Joel affectionately calls butt face.

The beer fizzes over the top in a foamy eruption as he slams it down on the counter top.

“Ya really are an idiot, ain’t ya?” He says, slumping down heavily into the chair beside you.

“But,” you begin and he makes the butt face at you, with pushed out lips and squinted eyes. “You won’t want me anymore.” You whisper.

His face pulls serious as he drags your hand into his blistered ones. “I ain’t fuckin’ goin’ anywhere.” He grits. “And neither are you.”

“But-”

“Quit with the butt face, darlin’. In sickness and in health. Ain’t that what we promised?”

“Yeah, but-”

He shakes his head again, his stubby fingers finding their home on your face, catching renegade tears in the whorls of his fingerprints.

“What, ya think m’gonna not love ya anymore because ya ain’t gonna have any breasts, is that it?”

That’s exactly it, hit the nail on the head, and although you don’t say it, he knows. Damn it, he knows.

“Ya really think m’that shallow?” He clicks his tongue around his teeth.

“No, of course I don’t,” you shake your head. “I’m just… I’m scared, Joel. I'm really fucking scared.” You gulp.

“I know.” He says, pulling you into his lap and wrapping those big, strong arms around you. “M’gonna be right there, when ya wake up, okay? M’gonna bring ya home and we’ll get through this, together. You n’ me. One day at a time. Okay, butt face?”

It’s the first time in weeks you smile and the first time in weeks you kiss; a soft, but tentative peck against your lips, that still holds back somewhat.

Pushing your foreheads together you sigh out, unable to think about anything else.

Two operations, four and a half months of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiotherapy, and it takes months for your hair to grow back.

You remember recoiling in horror as it fell out in clumps a few weeks after the chemo started, until you decided to just be done with it, and had Joel shave it off for you.

He offered to do his own in solidarity with you, until you snatched the clippers from him.

“Don’t you dare!” You almost shrieked as you ran your fingers through his tufty curls, smiling. “You’re never getting a haircut ever again.” And he smirked at that.

“Yes, ma’am.” He'd said as he put them away.

You had woken, groggy and aching, to Joel's face smiling at you and pushing a water beaker to your lips. You looked down to see your chest covered in bandages and drains under your hospital issue nightgown.

It was an odd feeling, you didn't feel much of a difference in those first few, post-op days; weighted down by the drains and dressings, and in and out with the pain meds.

They shifted you out of hospital the next day to recover at home, and Joel took up the role of carer, doctor and home cook as he fussed and got you comfy on the couch in a suffocating fort of pillows and blankets.

After the ovarian surgery, you started taking aromatase inhibitors, which were an added nightmare as these treatments bring on an almost immediate menopause with your ovaries now gone.

No gradual decline - a full push over the fucking cliff, face first. You can’t bear for Joel to touch you when you’re burning up and sweating; soaking the sheets through completely that you fear you’ve wet the bed.

When you’re sick from the radiotherapy, he feels useless hearing you heave behind a locked door. All you can do is lay in bed for days, struggling to keep food down and sleep it off.

You're too weak and exhausted to climb the stairs sometimes, so Joel carries you in his arms up them, even though it kills his knees and makes him groan silently when it pulls on his back. But he still does it anyway.

There are more discussions as the treatments carry on. More options, more pills, more chemicals. More time spent feeling like sludge.

Your bandages and dressings finally come off and you see yourself for the first time in front of a mirror, and there are a few moments when you can’t feel anything. Like there’s no water left in your body to cry anymore.

You just stare at your reflection with the nurse hovering by your side.

They warned you you’d be left with scarring. The scars from the mastectomy extend across the skin of your chest either side and into your armpits where you had lymph nodes removed too. They’ll fade over time, but will never completely disappear.

They warned you they’ll also feel permanently numb. And they’re right, as you touch your mutilated body with shaky fingers, you feel… nothing.

It’s another loss to mourn, the loss of your femininity, of yourself.

And that’s the worst feeling of all as you stare at the mess of your chest that was once curved and bouncy and shapely like a woman ought to be.

Now you’re flat as a board and there’s nothing remotely feminine about your body now, you think.

You can feel the sensation of touch to some degree, but it’s nothing like before. No sensitivity, no prickly feeling that creates goosebumps, just completely numbed out.

And over the course of some weeks, you can feel odd sensations arise, like you’ll touch your chest and you’ll feel it under your armpit. Your body feels all out of sorts as it slowly heals.

You have options; you can have more surgery to build you a pair of breasts if you'd like, but that comes with more pain and recovery and you decide you’re done with that.

You can wear a padded or filled out bra, you can have a tattoo which you briefly consider to cover the scarring.

But you settle on remaining as you are for now. Overwhelmed by the options out there, when you truly believed there was nothing that could make you feel even remotely feminine again.

Maybe something pretty, like flowers…

And Joel nods at all of them as you ask for his input, but ultimately he just wants what you want.

You cover the scars up with layers. You sleep with long sleeved tops and no longer undress in front of Joel. You can't bear him to see you like this, not yet.

Each day you think will be the day when you garner enough bravery to show him, but don't.

It feels weird, like some days they’re still there, akin to a phantom limb. You find yourself checking your chest as you feel the familiar bounce of them as you run down the stairs, or go to grope them with the suds to clean in the shower and the loss devastates you all over again.

He reassures you, telling you that you're beautiful with sincere eyes, and there's nothing that you need to worry about. But it still niggles away.

That lone, renegade thought that he might not be attracted to you anymore when he sees them, suddenly becomes the loudest of all.

They say time is a healer. Patience, understanding. And Joel has been all these things and more.

He’s carried you above the surface of the muddy water when all you’ve wanted to do is drown at times. He’s the one who nudges you awake each morning with a nose in your cheek and reminds you to take your pills.

He’s the one who brought you a beautiful coloured scarf to wear on your head when you lost your hair. A gorgeous floral print that you admired with a smile at the intricate pattern of petals as you ran your fingers over the silk of it.

He’s the one who, despite working all the hours God sends, still comes home and makes you something to eat because he knows you might not have any energy to cook.

He’s the one who still tells you he loves you, no matter what’s going on under your tops and sweaters that swamp you in their bagginess.

It isn’t time that does it at all, it’s him.

You wake one morning, months after, as the sun pools in the bedroom, and look at Joel on his back, asleep and snoring gently.

Joel’s seen you at your absolute worst; your most vulnerable, and he’s still here. Resilient, strong. A man who puts others to shame.

A man that you still desire, and you want him to desire you, even if you’re not whole anymore.

You reach out and touch him, hand brushing over the swell of his golden belly to convince yourself he’s real. Soft, downy hairs around his belly button tickle your palm gently.

He stirs at your stroking, sleepy eyes looking down at you as he blinks, adjusting to the light.

“Ya alright?” Joel asks, and you nod with a smile.

“I love you.” You say to him and he blushes, like he always does at that. Pink capillaries coming to life in his cheeks.

“I love you, darlin’.” He confirms, clutching your hand and kissing across the knuckles gently.

His hair is a tousled mess, the greys on his chest seem more plentiful and it stirs something within you; something the intense and gruelling treatments haven't fully killed off.

You straddle him and lean over, kissing him, much to his surprise. Your hands roam over his soft belly, squeezing gently as he smirks around your lips, and yelps a little when you pinch a ticklish spot.

“Hey now,” he warns, as your tongue licks over his lips.

He hums out as his hands sweep up your back, cupping the back of your head as he slips his tongue inside your mouth.

To taste him again is divine as your body instantly relaxes onto him. He nips gently on your lip and you groan out as you feel how hard he gets underneath you.

You can’t help but subtly grind on him as he groans into your mouth.

You break the kiss to sit upright, heart thrumming in your chest as he looks up at you with those dark, molten eyes.

"I'm ready to show you." You say and he straightens up.

"Okay," he nods, thumbs stroking over your thighs gently.

Without hesitation, you lift up your top revealing the flat, scarred wasteland that is your chest now, that you haven’t had the courage to let him fully see.

For a moment, his face is completely unreadable and you consider reaching for your top to cover up again.

You hold your breath as his eyes wander over the puckered welts; you feel his fingers twitch against your hips.

He sits up on his elbows, eyes locked onto yours, licking over his lips slowly as his peepers follow the lines back and forth.

His eyes dip further down to the two, little dimpled scars from where your ovaries were removed, either side of your tummy.

“Don’t ya dare,” he says, as if able to read your mind.

And you realise that he can, in his own way. He’s always been able to see you even though you try to hide sometimes. He just has the patience to wait until you're ready.

He never pushes, he just waits, because he knows that eventually, you’ll crawl out from whatever hole you need to hide in for a while to deal, to process - whatever it is you need to do. Then you’ll come back to him.

And he’ll always be there aith open arms when you do.

Joel takes you in his arms, twists you so you’re laying on your back and he kisses you there without hesitation. Kisses gently where your breasts once were in the same way that he used to.

Runs his mouth delicately over the numbed skin, dragging lips and leaving wet tracks with open mouthed kisses.

You gasp out as your eyes fill with water, your fingers finding their rightful place, raking through his curls as he glides his tongue over every creased line of your scars.

“Joel,” you whimper, cradling him as you feel his hardness press up against your centre.

You can feel a tingle of the warmth from his lips on your skin kissing gently as your eyes pool. He looks up to see you crying.

“Baby, baby. Does it hurt?” He asks, worried.

You shake your head. “No. No, I can feel you.” You gasp, shaking. “It’s weird, but I can.”

“Where?” He asks.

“There, kind of,” you say, as he brushes his lips over the spot where your right nipple used to be.

He kisses you there and runs his tongue gently over the area making you shudder, and you feel the tingles again, strangely in your armpit.

It makes you giggle at how your nerves have patched themselves up all wonky, and he smiles at you, chuckling as he licks and tests all places that might have an ebb of feeling, with little kisses and watching your reaction to each one.

All the tension leaves your body, muscles relaxing beneath his gentle ministrations; breath steadying as you surrender to the intimacy of this moment.

Reaching down, you cup his swollen cock over his boxers, with the fraying elastic tickling your wrist.

“We really need to get you some new underwear,” you titter at the state of them.

He simply shrugs with a smirk. “I could just simply take ‘em off.”

You nod eagerly and he pushes them down over his hips as you stroke him; your palm sticky with him as he leaks undeniably into it.

“Ya sure?” He queries gently as you swipe him against your folds.

"Mmm, Joel." You groan at the feel of him as you pump him. "God, I want you."

It feels so good to have him touching you, so close. The weight of his body pressed into yours, crushing you again. How warm he feels against your skin.

“I fucking want you, Joel.” You plead, as you clutch his face in your other hand. His warm breath breathes life into your tired bones. “I don’t want you to be gentle either. I need you to fuck me, hard.”

“Ya so fuckin’ beautiful, darlin’,” he grunts as he pushes his thick cock head against your drenched hole.

You both groan out as he fills you, stretching you wide around him and pumping into you gently as you acclimatise to his girth - it's been a while.

You wrap your legs around his waist as he mouths at your neck; tongue trailing down to your chest and finding that spot again.

“Snug as a bug in a rug... damn.” Joel quips, his tongue running over his teeth and then shaking his hips from side-to-side, making you feel all those little movements as he furrows up so tightly in there.

He flexes his groin and begins moving back and forth inside of you, pressing on that sweetly, pinchy spot deep inside; slightly uncomfy and yet incredibly good at the same time.

“Fuck me, Joel,” you plead, gripping onto his arm skin, “fuck me hard, please…” You whine as he sets to ploughing you like you command and demand of him.

You’re so wet that the sounds coming out of your pussy are almost farcical, making you giggle and him grunt as they squeak and soak him. He slips out a few times trying to gain his momentum - it’s like a damn slip n’ slide.

Joel presses down on your knee, bearing his weight on it so you can’t shut your legs. Making you endure it - to ride that full gigantic wave smashing into your pussy and rising up through your body.

“Ya so fuckin’ wet, ya drenched.” He’s panting, beside himself with the state you're in. “Gushing for me already, huh, darlin’?”

Your eyes roll back into your head and he smirks as he fucks hard into you like you want.

“Like this? This how ya want it?”

“Yeah, Joel. Don’t stop!” You wail.

“Ain’t gon’ stop til’ ya come for me, baby.”

He only slows to lean in and kiss you as he pistons in deeper, winding those hips of his into you further.

“Joel…” you drone. It feels so good as he grinds, so deep.

“Darlin’ ya feel too good. Fuck, m’not gon’ last like this…” he whines with a panting smirk.

“Slow it down,” you moan as he grips a hold of your thighs and brings you back onto him slower, deeper.

He licks over your mouth clumsily, tongue swiping across your nostrils, grunting out loud as your pussy clenches around him as you shudder underneath him.

He watches with a smile, lighting up the contours of his heavy set brow as you come around him.

And it’s like staring at the sun for too long; his smile brands itself into the back of your eyelids - a permanent scorch that you never want to forget.

And you feel every inch of him like this. He fucks into you slowly; your breaths hitching and falling from your chest quicker as you both work to build you up again.

“Joel!”

He reaches forward, stroking his thick fingers over the marred scars; feeling the smoothness of healing skin juxtaposed with the slight roughness of the scar tissue.

He strokes up to your neck, pulling you upright gently as you cry out when his cock hits so deep.

“Like that, darlin’...” he croons, as he winds further into you. “Mmm, fuck!”

You tremble and shake uncontrollably as he brings you to another orgasm.

“There ya are, baby. There ya are…” Joel smiles, kissing over your nose and cheeks. "So fuckin' beautiful, ain't ya?"

And he’s right there with you, head pressed into yours, watching; feeling as you squeeze and contract. Feeling you tremble and shake.

Watching as your eyes water and you gasp; your hands squeeze around his biceps, nails digging in.

You claw at him. Pulling him closer as he whimpers. A ragged cry escapes from his throat as he drives his hips deeper and struggles to contain himself.

You feel his teeth on your shoulder, grazing and desperate to bite down through the flesh. Your nails rake through his scalp, twisting and pulling as you pant and groan.

He watches in awe at you shaking on the end of his thick cock, rattling about as he turns you out and finally has his way with his gorgeous wife again.

His eyes fall over your chest and he looks at you adoringly, tongue weaving across the scars again without hesitation. Planting kisses and mouthing over the scars.

“Oh God! Oh Fuck!” You holler.

Making you feel every thick, beastly inch of him, as he pounds up into your insides like a boxer taking his fury out on the bag.

Joel pulls you by the hips upright, as he rolls onto his back, so you’re now on top of him. Everything’s fluid, swift and in a blur.

He anchors you down by your waist, making you sit on him; making you unable to escape him.

“Holy shit, oh shit-shit! Joel!” You exclaim as you gasp and struggle to swallow as the frantic intakes of breath choke you. “Oh my God!”

“Ya can take it… ya can do it, that’s it. Ride it.” Joel encourages. “So fuckin’ beautiful when ya take my cock like this, darlin’. God damn."

He just keeps coming at you; powering and thundering through you, without any hesitation in letting up anytime soon. He’s a powerhouse of sweat and grunts, breathing like he’s dying; small, quick rasps and wheezes gurgle in the back of his throat.

You find your pace, pressing palms into his broad chest and letting your hips bounce, and it feels so damn good as the curve of his cock rubs in all the sweet spots deep inside.

You reach down and stroke your clit, groaning at the feel of it tingling wildly under your fingertips.

“Stroke that pretty clit for me,” Joel croons, hammering up into you.

You stroke and rub the sticky nub, and then bring your digits up towards your mouth, sucking and teasing your lips with your fingers, and he watches enthralled.

“Suck those fingers, darlin’.” Joel hisses. “Tell me how good ya taste.”

“So good,” you smirk. You push your fingers to his lips, and he sucks them too.

"Yeah, ya do. Taste so fuckin' good."

You feel his thumb circle over your clit bringing you closer and closer with each swish of his pad against it.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes. YES!” You pant, as he grips around your waist tighter.

“Ya want me to fill ya up, hmm?”

“I want all of you, Joel.” You whine, desperate for him.

“That’s it, grind on my cock. Just like that.” He coos; his lip caught between his teeth as he cranks you around, holding onto your hips.

Your head flops onto his shoulder, your hand gripping onto the other as your lower half powers through.

“Mmm, Joel... please!” You groan, feeling your body tighten and clench again.

“Ya close again, baby?” He wheezes in your ear. "Gonna come for me?"

“Mhm… so close.”

“Come all over my cock.” He encourages. “Soak it, I want it all.”

“Oh God!” You whine.

“So damn good, fuck,” he grunts as you move around and around, your back tensing. He rubs it fondly with his big hands. “Right there, that’s it. Oh fuck, that’s so sweet, darlin’.” He groans. “M’gonna come so deep inside of ya.”

You cry out; your body shuddering and trembling on top of him, and you feel him tense and grunt out on a long, satisfied sigh.

You come, your head expanding and your body floating; your cunt clenching around him as you milk him completely dry. Tingles flood your body, your back arches and you can see the sun burning behind your eyes again.

Unable to think or say anything, Joel kisses you; silencing you before you have the chance to ruin this moment by shrinking back or wrapping yourself back up and hiding your body away from him.

For one millisecond, he’s weak; just a sweaty mess of bewildered man meat beneath you. Joel loses himself inside the holistic spiral of your irises for a moment, unable to get out or find his way through the maze of them.

And part of him wants to stay lost in them forever.

He trembles as he rocks slowly, feeling himself empty and deflate with a final grunt of your name, and his shoulders sag in unison into the mattress.

You wrap your arms around him and finally collapse upon him and lay there for a few minutes, listening to nothing but his heartbeat thrumming in your ears, eventually slowing its pace back to its normal rhythm.

Joel looks down at you as you run your fingers across his scalp and it makes him shiver; goosebumps travelling down his spine at breakneck speeds.

You stop winding the curls, shifting and resting your head up against his as you catch your breath.

He holds you, kissing you gently over your eyelashes and cheeks.

“Ya more fuckin’ beautiful to me than you’ve ever been, ya know that?” He murmurs into your face.

"They made 'em neater than I thought they'd be." He says.

You feel his knuckles sweep over your chest gently, unafraid to touch you at all, and you feel like a weight as been lifted as he does it.

You watch as he traces the ridge of the scars delicately.

"Yeah." You nod. You lift your arm up so he can see them run into your pit.

"Do ya feel much pain still? I didn't hurt ya, did I?"

You smile and shake your head. "No. It's just mostly numb. Just feels different. I'm really happy that I could feel something when you kissed me. Even if it was in my armpit," you chuckle.

"Ya still fuckin' beautiful," he smiles, and kisses inside your armpit.

You smile bashfully, headbutting his chin gently as you try not to let the tears water your eyes.

“Look at me, darlin’.” His fingers tip your chin up to him. Thumbs smearing away any tears. “I mean it. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known. Fuckin’ balls on ya are bigger than mine.”

“I don’t know about that,” you say, reaching down to cup and stroke the soft swell of his between your fingers.

He groans, biting on his lip before his mouth finds yours again. "Ya tryin' to kill me?" He slips his tongue inside and tastes you all over again, his hands slipping down your back and groping your ass. “Ya so fuckin' sexy."

"You think so?" You smile.

"Oh, I know so. Ya always have been. Don't hide from me anymore, okay?"

"Okay." You breathe.

"Want ya sleepin' naked next to me again." He thinks for a moment. "Why don't I take ya out to dinner tonight? Anywhere ya want. If ya feelin' up for it?"

"You taking me out on a date, hmm?"

"Yeah. I am. Maybe put one of them nice dresses ya got on. I'll put on that shirt ya like. The green plaid one. Spruce myself up for ya."

"That's my favourite." You agree.

"Ya deserve to feel good, darlin'. Wanna take ya out. Show the world how fuckin' lucky I am."

You smile into his face. "What did I do to deserve you, Mr Miller?"

He kisses you again. Soft lips brushing against yours. "M’gonna keep loving ya. You n’ ya stupid butt face. Ya hear me, Mrs Miller?”

You nod, chuckling, safe in his arms; a place where you can feel safe and heal, and begin to feel like yourself again.

“I hear you.” You smile, as he pelts your face with swamping kisses in the warm sunlit bedroom. "I love you."

He smiles and he's never looked more beautiful.

“I love ya too, butt face.” Joel hums, as he crushes you to his chest and never lets you go.

I really hope you enjoyed reading this story with Joel, and welcome your comments/thoughts. I'd appreciate a re-blog if you liked it so others can find it on their dash to read and enjoy too - thank you very much! 🖤

BODIES MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

JOEL MILLER MASTERLIST

427 notes · View notes

yamujiburo · 3 months

Note

1. You are INCREDIBLY patient when replying to asks. You always politely link them to your FAQ or to your master post. For the bad faith asks, you always are kind in your responses. I wanted to give you kudos. Even though you are well within your right to ignore/skip these asks, you still put thought into your responses. I'm giving you some kind words because I just KNOW it would be draining getting the same messages all the time.

2. I'm a fat person, and I've got a whole host of body issues, but your Jessie really helps with my self confidence. She still sees herself as sexy, and Delia still sees her as sexy (probably sexier lol). I also loved your logic behind the character design: sometimes healing and stability bring weight gain. That in itself has made me feel a bit better about myself. Not trying to treat you as a therapist. I just want you to know the impact your Jessie can have. It's so rare that we see fat characters in a positive light! I do hate how many people have a problem with your design though. :(

3. Aroace James also makes me feel seen. I am coming to terms with the fact I may be aroace myself, and it's been hard. I've always loved James, and I'm grateful you've spun him into a character I can relate to. I'm always all over your blog looking for more James crumbs lol.

I appreciate it! I like to assume the best in people and always answer in good faith. While I wasn’t super vocal at the time, I’ve had my fair share of bad takes on the internet and I feel like those who responded to me with patience and understanding had a longer lasting impression on me and led me to change my mind later. Gave me much to think about. Not everyone’s entitled to that patience but I think there is merit to handling things with kindness sometimes. You never know who’s on the other side of the screen and what they’re saying could just be out of genuine ignorance. Sometimes someone putting it in a gentle way is just the push you need. A lot of the time, I think people just want to be heard and are also willing to listen if they don’t feel immediately shut down.

I’m glad you think so! I love seeing fat characters and I love seeing fat characters who love themselves. Fat is beautiful, fat is cute, fat is hot

Hahaha I should do more with him! Aroace James makes a lot of sense to me given his background. I try not to write ABOUT the experiences of identities outside of my own but I think it’s important to at least show it!

#ask yam

303 notes · View notes

spockandawe · 1 year

Text

Here we go! I have some smaller books to share as well, but I've been absolutely VIBRATING with excitement to share a BIG one, and I'm going to indulge myself and post that today, then figure out words for the rest. Because I bound a new cnovel. Check it out, guys, I bound jwqs/clear and muddy loss of love :D

Let me indulge myself and backtrack a little! First, these are quarto books, so they're short. But I think these average a little under 500 pages each, and jwqs is a LONG book (my beloved), and this adds up to a total eleven inches of lesbians. More like twelve once they're in their cases. It's over a million characters in Chinese and I think the English translation comes in somewhere around 890k, it's HUGE

Making these books was SO FUN, I hadn't read jwqs and still haven't, and will probably read on my phone when I do. I don't have any exciting photos of the typesetting, but I knew this was an imperial succession story, and that made me nervous, those stories don't always click for me. Well, the process of typesetting and adding footnotes for this beast definitely confirmed that I'm going to have a good time with this thing when I have the time to read it, but there was also so much going on that only the vaguest of spoilers sank in. I went into an absolute FRENZY of typesetting, and after I printed, cut and folded it, well. That was one afternoon of sewing. You're looking at the reason I'm scrambling to make up a few hours of missed work, hahaha

After that, I needed cases. At the very beginning of march, I received a shipment of some FASCINATING bookcloth. It's called Duo, and it's made by layering a thin gauzy fabric of one color over paper of a different color. Depending on the combos, you get a really cool range of color-shifting effects. And they've gone out of production! But I was part of a group order to get some of the goods, and hadn't yet finished a new project. Reader, I went for it.

That purple and green is bananas!!!! It's so hard to photograph, this midnight picture of a few cases is one of my most successful attempts to capture the full range up close. Originally I'd been thinking of trying to evoke imperial gold, but I figured this was still the kind of drama and luxury suited the book, and also something something the hidden colors suited Qi Yan's character. I tied it back a little to the imperial gold with the endpapers, then titled them in silver foil, since the endpapers had silver in them.

But once the books were made, I felt like it wanted something... more. Something like a BOX!

And me, I chase novelty. A set this large would be tricky for anything clamshell, but a slipcase for all seven would leave books tipping all over if it was wide open, but putting walls between slots would be demanding in terms of precision and would risk similarly-sized books getting stuck in the wrong slots. Then I remembered learning about slipcases where you could put in a little insert to support the weight of the text block, and the concept SNAPPED into place.

Colors aren't going to photograph well at midnight, but I made the supports using the scraps and off-cuts from my endpapers, to tie it back into the bindings. The back of the case is lined in more of the duo, and the walls are lined with a faux leather bookcloth I like a lot, it feels buttery smooth and seemed like a good neutral material to tie the papers and bookcloth together. I listened to some of the DEEPEST layers from the nine-hour conspiracy theory iceberg video while I was working on this, haha, it was a TRIP.

And in the end, each of the supports is sized to comfortably sit in the smallest of the volumes, and evenly spaced, so I believe it will take the books in any order with no problems. It's easy to grab the books without having to cut notches into the walls to grab them from. And even though weight is less of an issue for quarto sizing, the books in here have their weight supported no matter what angle the box is at! I'm so, so pleased with how this concept worked out and definitely plan to do more with it in the future.

So there we are! Jing Wei Qing Shang! I had such a fabulous time with this project, and I'm so excited to get to share it with all of you. The story was fun to work with, the bindings and box were fun to make, and everything here came together just as well as I could possibly have hoped. I'm so proud of this, and incredibly, incredibly excited to show it to you!

#crafts #bookbinding #box making #oh boy what is this story tagged #jwqs #jing wei qing shang #clear and muddy loss of love #I'll pick one to stick with later 😂#long post/#so proud of this one!

1K notes · View notes

thoughtfullyrainynightmare · 10 months

Note

Hello, I'd like to request for fuegoleon, William, nozel, zora and Nacht where they hurt their s/O's feelings and make her cry? And just how guilty they feel, how they make it up, comfort their s/o and apologize. You can choose whatever they couldve said or done to make her cry I love anything you write they're all so good

If 5 characters is too much then just fuego, nozel and nacht would be fine please and thankyou❤️

Hello! Some hurt comfort is on the menu it seems, and I'm happy to oblige ^^ This ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated, but I hope it's worth the wait ^^

Pairings: Fuegoleon x f!reader, William x f!reader, Nozel x f!reader, Zora x f!reader, Nacht x f!reader

Fanfic type: Headcanons

Genre: Hurt-comfort

Length: about 0.75k each, 3.9k total

Warnings: Generally hurt-comfort, the guys snap at reader, all for reasons of their own, in Nozel's scenario the reader doesn't really know what kind of a person Nozel's dad is, Zora addresses reader as "babydoll", Zora calls himself as a "jerk ass", reader cries and the guys try to comfort in their own ways

Fuegoleon

He had had very taxing couple of months. The adverse the country was facing seemed to have no end in sight, and it felt that in terms of politics and finances the country was being pushed further and further into a corner, which took an immense toll on him emotionally.

And though a part of him wished that he could simply take a vacation and not worry about any of it, he knew it to be senseless. Quite simply because the same issues would wait him as he returned, and they would have further piled up, so taking a vacation would be counterproductive. But still he felt that his nerves were hanging by a thin thread, even if he considered himself as a patient man.

As he sat by his desk, you came through the door with a paper in hand.

“I made us a reservation to a restaurant,” you told him. “I thought we could take a nice evening off, have a date and just enjoy life,” you smiled, while presenting the reservation information to him.

“No thank you,” he said without looking up from the documents in front of him.

“But you need to have some time off as well,” you insisted while placing your hand onto his arm and tugging him slightly. “So I planned us a day where we can just do something w-“

“I can’t take a day off!” He snapped. “Surely a moment of peace and quiet would be pleasant, but there is too much to take care of for me to quite simply ‘take a day off’,” he continued.

And you… lifted your hand off of his arm, and took a step back.

You had intended to do something nice for him, because you had seen how strained he was and now he… wasn’t… feeling the sentiment. A part of you wanted to blame yourself because you had failed to read him and what he’d wish correctly, because wasn’t a spouse supposed to be able to do that?

There were a lot of emotions swirling around in you, but none of them were pleasant. And with it, tears begun climbing to your eyes with a burning sensation, only to roll down your cheeks.

Fuegoleon looked at you, and there was a gnawing, pricking ocean of guilt in his chest, because he knew that you had meant well. You had wanted to do something nice for him and make the situation at least a little bit more bearable.

“My love I’m…” he reached forward for you. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you, but … I…” his gaze fell to the side as he spoke, feeling the weight of his words, spoken carelessly.

You didn’t shy away from him as he tried to get close to you again, because it wasn’t… that you didn’t understand him, and you could see the sincere apology and regret in his eyes.

“I’ll… I’ll try to take the day off…” he promised with something that sounded almost like a sigh, but really it was because he knew what it’d mean.

And you knew what it’d mean too. It’d mean sleepless nights, having less time during the next week or two for you two to spend together regularly, in place of that one day. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make, but it wouldn’t be worth it. You’d rather see him a little each day than not at all.

“No,” you shook your head with a faint tone while mirroring his movements and reaching for him. “We can… just have a moment, a short moment, in the evening to ourselves,” you said through your drying tears.

His eyes gathered that gentle undertone that was too beautiful for this world, as he placed his hand onto your cheek and brushed away your tears. “If that is what you wish,” he said with gratitude in his voice before he pressed a kiss onto your forehead.

You nodded as a reply, even if only faintly.

“I am sorry, my beloved,” he still repeated. “You’re the most important person in my life, and I don’t wish to impose any-“

“No, no,” you shook your head. “I get it. There’s a lot on your plate and I should have talked about your schedule with you before making reservations…”

“But your heart was in the right place,” he told you while placing his hand under your chin. “And that’s one of the reasons why I love you,” he admitted while lifting your chin, and placing another kiss onto your lips, warm, gentle and caressing, which washed away any shadow of doubt of his sentiments that might have been there.

William

The days had grown long, because of everything that was going on in the kingdom. And with the disappearance of Julius, it had gotten him thinking about what had happened after the whole ordeal with the elves. Which had made… something about the whole state of the kingdom hit too close to home with him.

Perhaps he was questioning being pardoned altogether, since it seemed that the one to pardon him, had taken a run for it. Or perhaps something more dire.

But if the only person to be willing to pardon him was someone like him, willing to look the other way when the kingdom was falling to its knees then…

It filled him with various emotions, all swirling and twisting and turning until he felt all of them trying to bubble to the surface, but he didn’t know which to let out first. How to let them out. Instead it felt like they were all stuck in his throat, just building, building, building up pressure so much that he might-

“Hey honey!” You greeted while entering through the door of his office, only to see him hunching over his own desk. “Oh did you eat something bad, or-“ you placed your hand onto his shoulder.

But he pushed it away. “Don’t touch me!” He ordered without as much as looking at you. And from his tone, you heard nothing but pain, hurt, and… you could have sworn… disgust… underlying it all… You could have sworn there to be contempt… in there…

You took a step back, pulling your hand to you and holding it with the other. As you couldn’t… imagine why… why would he have… Your sweet William…

His chest was heaving, and as his eyes lifted from the desk to you, the most prominent feelings you could se were fear and pain. The way they flickered, his purple eyes that were so gentle, flickered around as tears lined the corners of his eyes.

“Forgive me…” he whispered as his eyes turned to the side. “I didn’t… I just… Why did he pardon me? Some… solidarity from a villain to another?” His head swayed from side to side, as if trying to comprehend, but failed to do so.

“You’re… not a villain, Will…” you tried, because his reaction had… made sense. It wasn’t you he was trying to shoo away, it was his own emotions, but you sounded anything but convinced. Tears climbed to your own eyes.

You buried your face into your hands, and wept, from the shock of what had happened, his words, but also because you had understood where it came from. Because he was pained from the guilt of his past actions, and you felt his pain too.

He turned to look at you again, as he heard your sobs, and got up from the chair to make his way to you from the other side of the desk.

“I’m sorry… so, so sorry my little song bird…” he wrapped his arms around you, and pressed his head against yours, as his tears rolled down his cheeks, and onto you. “I’ll… make it up to you…” he pleaded. “Just don’t… please don’t… hate me, I… didn’t… wasn’t… I didn’t mean to….” His voice was faint, broken and defeated, and he swayed in place with you in his arms.

It sounded like he was repenting. Praying for forgiveness.

“I don’t hate you… Will,” you told him while wrapping your own arms around him. He was a broken man, and he had acted out of distress. Without intent to hurt you. Without intent to push you away.

He pressed a kiss onto your head as his embrace grew tighter. “I’m sorry,” he still whispered.

You nudged his head with yours, and whispered against his skin “we’ll make it through.”

Because you would. The two of you would. He wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t a villain. It was simply that the guilt he felt got overbearing sometimes, which had caused him to call out in fear of what he thought about himself.

But he loved you, and you loved him. So, you could heal, together. You were certain about it, as you stood there, holding onto each other.

Nozel

Nozel had learned to deal with his family situation from a young age. Though ‘dealing with it’ had turned into something that seemed more like survival. Not that you could see it from the surface. Because, while looking from afar, without seeing into his eyes, his emotions, he was a calm sea. Vast and serene. Though something, someone to be revered and respected, because there was also harshness in the oceans.

But if you had the opportunity to peek under the surface, you’d see a twisting, turning vortex of guilt, pain, sorrow… fear… A lot of emotions one might deem ugly.

‘Unsightly’ he would describe them in himself. Because he couldn’t be any of those things. The Captain of the Silver Eagles, the First Born Son of the Royal House of Silva, couldn’t be any of those things. And thus… to him, in him, they were unsightly.

He didn’t talk about his childhood either. He didn’t talk about his parents, aside of his mother. Which, given the circumstances of her parting, made sense. He would talk about her more because of the fate she had faced.

You had been thinking about starting a family with him. You had talked about it in passing. And as you sat in the living room, him staring out of the window, deep in thought. You talked about how lovely it’d be. “I’m sure you’d be a great father,” you thought out loud, meaning just it, and nothing else. “Just like yours.”

His head begun to turn to you with a slow motion, as if mechanic, and his eyes were wide open. It wasn’t even a glare, but a mad stare.

“I will never be like that bastard!” He shouted, making you press against your seat out of the sheer force in which the words were pushed, spat out of his mouth.

His body started to shake, and the stare turned into a look of horror as his eyes fell down to the floor. Because…. Because… though his father had been horrid, spewed poisonous words in a whole different way than shouting… maybe you had been right and… he was on his way becoming just like his father. Which was among the last things he’d want.

But you… you didn’t quite understand where it had come from. Sure, he hadn’t talked about his father, but you hadn’t thought that there’d be this level of hatred and contempt for him from Nozel. Though you had gathered that Older Lord Silva wasn’t a well liked man, but… surely he… would have been… kinder to his… own children, right?

Right…?

There were a lot of emotions turning within you. Partly from the force of Nozel’s words, and partly from guilt of having failed to see through his silence. Through the things he didn’t want to talk about, and… as you leaned forward, your elbows on your knees and buried your face into your hands, you cried. You cried and you cried and you… didn’t know what to do. What to say?

You felt a weight right next to you on the couch, as a pair of arms wrapped around you.

“Nozel I…” you tried while pushing against his chest with a faint motion.

“Don’t…” he started as his hold of you grew more firm. “Look at me…” he continued as his voice broke, and something… as if a droplet, landed onto your shoulder.

The words sounded like a plea. Plea filled with shame and the broken pieces of his soul that he wasn’t eager to show you.

But you did as he wished, and settled into his embrace.

“I’m… sorry, my dear,” he whispered with that same broken tone while placing his hand to the back of your head. “I’ll… be better, than him. I will…” you couldn’t tell if he was trying to tell that to you or to himself.

But whatever his father must’ve been like in reality, you could already tell that Nozel was far better of a man than his father had ever been. He was. Because the man who held you in the soft, gentle, secure embrace felt so very deeply about you and the ones close to him.

He really was like an ocean of secrets.

“I love you,” he professed through another whisper, but while the tone was silent, the proclamation was loud as ever. “I love you…” he repeated, just to make sure that you heard him.

And as you buried your face into his shoulder, and the scent of his haircare products flowed to you, it was as if your tears had disappeared into thin air.

Nozel might not have been the best with words, but he was there, when you needed him the most.

Zora

Zora had had to raise himself for a good portion of his childhood. Though Zara had given him good tools to life, and a lot of wonderful memories, it didn’t mean that Zora wouldn’t have had to toughen up.

His accomplishments, his skills and tenacity were all a result of him having a keen eye for details, while also having had to, quite bluntly, tell himself to do better. Pay attention to his own shortcomings and fix the issue.

But… it had also resulted in him being blunt with others. Though it was all for the sake of betterment, for growth and development of skills, the way he delivered the words were harsh more often than not. Which was something he was trying to fix, when it came to some people, at least.

You knew that he was like that. And you knew that he wasn’t the type of a guy to just sit around and expect you to do all the housework, but it didn’t mean that you didn’t like cooking from time to time. Actually, maybe it was the idea that you didn’t need to cook, because he’d be more than alright with cooking if you asked him to, but rather that you could.

But today the dish wasn’t… cutting it. You had tried to taste it many times and there was something in the seasoning that wasn’t just… doing it for you. But you couldn’t really place your finger on what was wrong with it. Or not… wrong wrong per se, but it certainly could be better.

You leaned against the stove, and sighed to yourself, as the gears in your head tried to turn. But came up empty.

A drawer was opened, and closed. There was a sound of metal clicking against metal and steps coming closer, accompanied by a hum from a certain, masked, someone.

Zora dipped his spoon into the food and took a bite to test the taste. And after he had, he sighed, sounding disappointed before making his way to the spice cabinet and laying thme out onto the table.

“The balance is all wrong,” he said. “It’s mainly salty while you want there to be some sweetness to it for the contrast as well. A bit of acid would do wonders, but the real issue is that the spices aren’t complimenting each other,” he explained while taking the spoon and adding one spice after another along with other ingredients.

And you… took a step back and let him do it. Because if it was ‘all wrong’, why should you have interjected?

In all honesty, it made you feel unappreciated. Like you couldn’t even cook right. If I can’t even cook right, then why is he with me….? You found yourself thinking.

Before you knew it, your eyes had turned to the floor and you were grinding your molars together as tears started climbing to your eyes. And eventually, they ran down your cheeks as you were still immersed into your own thoughts, in how you didn’t think that you could do a simple task correct. Because surely Zora wanted someone by his side who could contribute as much as he did. Surely. So why was he-

“Hey babydoll?”

You looked up, and saw him standing there, having placed his hand onto your shoulder.

His eyes were deep, calm blue. Clear and yet deep blue. And there was worry in them. That was when you realized that you were crying and looked away while wrapping your arms around yourself.

He sighed, and rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry about the tone,” he said. “Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and… I’m happy to eat whatever you make,” he tried but the consolation fell short, given how he had started cooking in your place.

You curled around yourself a bit more, without really meaning to, but you did. In any case.

“Come here,” he said while pulling you into an embrace.

Seconds ticked away for a while as he just held you, and the dinner was slowly cooking on the stove.

“If you want me to stay out of it, you need to just tell me, y’know? I know that I can be too harsh, and… And… I try to not be.”

He was trying to help you get better. But he could be a wee bit of a jerk about it at times.

“We both know I can be a real ass jerk,” he said with a hint of amusement, trying to make you laugh.

And it worked. “But you’re my jerk,” you replied with a hint of a giggle in your tone.

“That I am,” he replied. “And I hope you never need to get sick of me,” he continued while pulling away just enough to wipe your tears away.

You gave him a small smile as a reply to his careful one, and went back to cooking, together.

Nacht

Nacht had been a loner for most of his life. Someone who travelled down his own path without caring what everyone else thought. And it had made him someone who spoke directly about anything and everything he deemed to be topical to say.

Though he could also be harsh. Granted that he was the harshest to himself, but still. His directness could be harsh, and you both knew it.

He tried not to be, to you. He tried to treat you with the kindness that you deserved. He tried to treat you with the respect that you ought to be treated with. But sometimes, he failed.

Though watching him scold the Bulls for their shenanigans yet again, you didn’t think that he was trying all that hard to be constructive. Maybe he just wanted them to be efficient during missions, because that would drive the squad forward the best. ‘Not to be wasteful of energy’, or something like that.

“You could try going easier on them,” you told him later on when it was just the two of you. “Be kinder.”

“Kindness is a weakness,” he scoffed. “And Yami has let them slack off enough already which will get them killed. Only a fool would go easy on them.”

You stopped, thinking about what he had just said. Because you were going easy with the rest of the Bulls. You were kind to them. And Nacht. So… so.

You couldn’t help but think that Nacht had, there and then, revealed what he really thought of you. Though it wasn’t directed at you, he had been, still, indirectly talking about you too. Basically he had called you weak and stupid.

Basically.

Which made your eyes turn to the ground as you bit down your molars and tried to will away the tears that were climbing to your eyes. Because you shouldn’t have taken such an off-hand comment that wasn’t even said to you, to the heart in such a way but… But. It had struck a nerve in you.

“Hm? What is it?” He asked, having stopped and turned around to look at you, as if he hadn’t realized what he had said.

“So you think that I’m dumb and weak?” You asked with bitterness lacing your tone as the tears finally glazed over your eyes, but didn’t roll down quite yet.

“That isn’t what I said,” he argued, now facing you fully and taking a few steps closer to you.

“But I am letting them off easier and I am being kind to them. So. If being kind and letting them have a breather is-“

“You’re not responsible for them.”

“Neither are you!” Now tears ran, but you didn’t look at him.

You didn’t look, and he said nothing.

Surely, he could have argued that as a vice captain he was more or less responsible, but not to the same extent as Yami. And at the end of the day, all the Bulls were responsible for themselves. So, he didn’t need to care about what they did with their time. Really.

“You are not weak and stupid,” he said while taking you by the hand. “Quite the contrary,” he admitted. “And I shouldn’t have spoken so carelessly.”

He sounded like he was speaking out a ready made dialogue of a noble man that he used to be. But you supposed that he hadn’t needed to comfort anyone lately either. If ever. If he had ever needed to comfort anyone. Even himself, since he had denied such a thing from himself.

But he could see how the ready made dialogue wasn’t doing it. The words might have been there, but the sentiment wasn’t.

“Darling?” He whispered, while moving again a little bit closer to you. “I’m sorry,” he said while summoning his shadows and tugging you, as if to ask to come along with him. To which you nodded, and he transported you both to your bedroom.

As you stood there, in the sanctity of the room with the door closed, he finally wrapped his arms around you and held you close. “You are not weak. Or stupid,” he repeated. This time the tone was one that sounded genuine, caring, insisting. “I’m sorry for insinuating it.”

You nodded and returned the embrace.

“It’s simply that… not being prepared can get people killed…” there was a reason, in there, why he would remind you of such a thing.

“But people need to live too.” And there was no arguing over it. Because life was meant to be lived.

Not even he could deny it. “They do…” he admitted while holding you closer in his arms.

And it was in that embrace that you could feel his heartbeat, his remorse and regret. But most importantly, you could feel how he did love you. Because he did. With his entire heart and soul.

#black clover fanfiction #black clover headcanons #black clover x reader #fuegoleon x reader #fuegoleon vermillion x reader #william x reader #william vangeance x reader #nozel x reader #nozel silva x reader #zora x reader #zora ideale x reader #nacht faust x reader #nacht x reader #fuegoleon vermillion #william vangeance #nozel silva #zora ideale #nacht faust

866 notes · View notes

accessible-art · 24 days

Note

I hope this doesn't come off as a strange or rude question but as an artist I wonder who are the descriptors for? If it was for the blind 'blue' and 'warm' and visual descriptors of textures would only be useful to those who have lost their sight. Most descriptions feels like putting words and interpretations onto something that doesn't have them (like calling a nuanced expression on a character 'angry'). Poetry or a journal excerpt from the artist feels like it would carry the feeling of the piece more. It hurts a little when a piece that emotionally resonates with me is boiled down to a sentence, but I am autistic and are thus probably too overly empathetic to inanimate pieces.

I ask this question in order to understand why image descriptors are important. Any stories on how the descriptors have helped people would also be nice. I hope the question doesn't offend anyone. I hope you all have a good day!

Hi there! Descriptions are for all kinds of people. First of all, not everyone who is visually impaired has 0 vision. Many have some level of blurry/cloudy vision. Even someone fully blind from birth benefits from image descriptions. "Warm" and "cool" are relative, and so are colors! Color language can help understand the mood, the artist's intention, and the "vibe" of the piece. Even without seeing the colors, the general intent and understanding behind color language can be understood. I hope that makes sense? Sorry, I'm not great with words. I guess what it all comes down to is giving more information about the image so it can be better 'seen' and understood.

It may be difficult to see art that resonates with you be reduced to a text description, but would you rather that person not be able to experience it at all? Descriptions make it so more people can experience a work of art. Including a journal or poetry entry may carry more emotional weight, but that still leaves the original artwork inaccessible. Would you rather someone show you a painting, or give you a journal entry and say "this is what this painting means" without having any context of what the painting looks like?

In terms of expressions and the like specifically, I have definitely had an issue with assigning an emotion to an expression instead of describing it in a more objective way. I struggle with finding the words to describe each facial feature individually, so I fall back on emotion descriptors instead. That's something I'm trying very hard to remedy lately! Even so, an imperfect image description is better than none! Without one, it may as well be a blank post.

Ultimately, the goal is making it so more people are able to enjoy it! It can be helpful for visually impaired people, anyone using a screen reader, people with bad internet (for when the image wont load), and anyone who may have trouble discerning what the artwork depicts. I hope this was somewhat helpful! Feel free to follow up if you have anymore questions or anything.

- Mod Batz

#not art #mod batz #ask #hope this helps and wasnt too scattered!

139 notes · View notes

ashleyloob · 10 months

Note

Hi!

From someone who is disorganized and discouraged, I would love advice on weight-lifting/building muscle. Would you share your understanding of building muscle and the breakdown of diet?

If possible, could you share how you apply what you know to yourself? If you use any tools to help you?

Struggled with working out, gaining weight, and eating my whole life. Thanks!

prefacing this with some important info for fellow disorganized scatterbrains!!!!

the main reason why ppl have trouble sticking to a lifestyle change is because they try to make very drastic changes too quick, and you get overwhelmed and it becomes unsustainable. this is especially an issue for neurodivergent folks, and since it's Tumblr I assume a good chunk of y'all are (me too dw)

DON'T immediately overhaul ur diet and hit the gym 5x a week from day 1!!! hitting tiny goals consistently is also more rewarding than working towards one very large arbitrary goal that you might not reach, esp when it comes to working out. start veeery small if u need to, such as only 10 bodyweight squats per day like i did and go from there. you wanna program ur brain into feeling accomplished to keep you motivated. patience is key!!!!

ok!! now onto the more detailed info below

Disclaimer: I'm still a newbie myself!! only consistently lifting heavy for about 3 months as of this post. I did a good deal of excessive info diving on lifting using the power of Sheer Autism, and my main gym buddy is very experienced & taught me a good chunk of this shit so shout-out to my pal for making all this possible xoxo

so good news!! "building muscle" is very easy for beginners starting from zero. newbie gainz are absolutely real. at this stage you can do just about anything at the gym and get stronger bc u can only go up. BUT!! if you structure it, you can make the process enjoyable and much more efficient. if you're goal oriented (lookin at u ADHD menaces), you'll love the concept progressive overload.

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD & SETS/REPS

wikipedia defines progressive overload as: a method of strength training and hypertrophy training that advocates for the gradual increase of the stress placed upon the musculoskeletal and nervous system. in layman's terms, it just means gradually adding more weight as you work out to increase the difficulty as you get stronger. progress is VERY easy to track because of this, and you'll be hitting PRs pretty much every week for the first couple of months and that shit feels fantastic because you physically feel yourself getting stronger so rapidly. I use the app Strong to track my workouts. so, how do we structure progressive overload? that's through sets/reps. A rep is a single execution of an exercise. 1 squat is one rep. 2 squat is 2 reps. and so on. A set is a collection of reps. The format is Sets x Reps, for example: 3x5 means 3 sets of 5 reps. You will rest between sets, and it's typically anywhere from 1 minute all the way up to 5 minutes depending on the level of exertion/type of training you are doing. Heavier weights mean longer rest periods and vice versa.

WHERE DO I EVEN START??

For those interested in barbell training: the r/fitness beginner routine is pretty good! I also recommend 5x5 stronglifts. both are very straightforward, but also note the typical olympic barbell is 45lbs. If this is a weight you struggle with, you can begin with bodyweight exercises, dumbbells, or machines at the gym which are all very BEGINNER beginner friendly. especially when it comes to legs you're probably much stronger than you think. Most people can squat 45lbs first try. don't be afraid -- you're standing on those things all day, they can support hella weight. Like I mentioned earlier, don't be afraid to start veeeery small and work your way up from there. I started at home with doing only bodyweight squats without the barbell, then added on benching with light 7lb dumbbells after a week, then impulse signed up for a gym membership a month later and began to go there to use equipment and now i'm deadlifting over 100lbs as a tiny girl that previously was too weak to even lift a 40lb dog. it snowballs quicker than you think once you gain confidence in your own body and its abilities!

WOAH I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SQUAT/DEADLIFT/BENCH/THIS IS SCARY AND IM FUCKING UP

If you can, i highly recommend getting a personal trainer to assist you, or tag along with a gymrat pal to show you the ropes. This page is also a good resource to learn specific lifts. otherwise, youtube is your best friend. you can record your sets and compare your form to form tutorials on youtube, and actively take notes on what to change the next time you work out. Be an active learner!!! be aware of what muscles are engaged when you lift and how your body feels. almost NOBODY gets it right the first time, esp with barbells. we've all made fools out of ourselves at the gym as beginners it's chill. i find people at the gym are very nice and willing to help you out if you're struggling, and people don't judge at all-- it's very easy to get in your own head in these spaces but most humans there are supportive and want you to succeed, especially since it's a hobby they are also passionate about. the more you do it, the less anxious you get. exposure therapy is very effective!! Also, almost all the barbell exercises can be replaced with smaller dumbbells, and you can do them at home if you get your own set + a workout bench (pretty cheap if u get secondhand, check facebook marketplace/craigslist). i got mad social anxiety myself so i understand sometimes you just can't, and this is an option for those that find public spaces overwhelming.

DIET

I personally don't think specialized diets/precise macro tracking is super duper important for newbies/casuals, only moderately important (spicy take for some but whatever). but you probably naturally will take an interest in diet once you realize it'll help you perform significantly better in the gym. the only macro i track is protein. You can use a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculator to roughly estimate the amount of protein you need for maximum gainz. it's usually around .7-1g of protein for every pound of lean body mass (weight that isn't fat mass). Imma be real it's pretty hard for me to hit the recommended protein goal and most days I don't because my appetite just can't kick in for the amount it demands, and protein is super filling. I found that if i decreased the amount of carbs i eat, i am able to consume more protein bc i guess there's more room in my stomach lol. i eat a fuck ton of greek yogurt, chicken, fish, and tofu. when i started working out, i begin cooking a lot more and found i naturally craved less processed junk foods and snacks because the protein was keeping me full all day which is a plus! Even when im not regularly hitting my protein goal my gym progress is still going well and I think it's simply because my diet is A LOT better than what it used to be in my gremlin days. I also eat a lot more now that i've gained a bit of muscle, so do be prepared for food costs to go up as your metabolism increases and demands more energy to upkeep your gainz.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR ME TO LOOK LIKE A MUSCLE MOMMY????

a whileeee. over a year, probably, unless if you're on anabolic steroids (dont ever do that u will quite literally die). and physique is mostly from diet since it's dependent on your body fat percentage, the saying "abs are made in the kitchen" is true. its why you see hyper skinny terminally indoors gamer dudes with abs, even if they'd snap in half if you farted in their general direction. those mfs barely eat they too busy being gamers i am no longer interested in lifting for aesthetics personally since i get more joy from hitting PRs and i'm pretty content with my body image, but ik physique is the reason why most people get into lifting so i'll touch on it. Weightlifting on its own will not make you lose weight or fat. Again, it needs to be supplemented with a healthy sustainable diet (DO NOT DO CRASH DIETS THAT SHIT IS GARBAGE) and a form of cardio. I actually gained 8lbs since I began lifting from water retention & new muscle mass (muscle is more dense than fat, your body retains water when repairing muscle after a gym sesh) but my measurements and pants size have remained the same. I'm short, so something as small as a 5lb increase usually bumped me up a pants size but it didn't this time bc im gettin swole :') if you want to track physique changes, measuring your waistline & progress pics is a better way to do so than the scale. If you want bigger muscles, look into hypertrophy training. it's a tad different from strength training, mainly because you do higher reps at a lower weight.

#lifting advice

384 notes · View notes

headspace-hotel · 1 year

Note

I think a critical flaw in the vegan’s user’s argument was that they clearly buckled down on how capitalist exploitation and overproduction factors into milk and meat markets… and then seemed to assume that vegan diets avoid capitalist pitfalls completely.

But you’ve already posted on your blog before about how crop production under capitalism has created huge environmental issues in terms of biodiversity, depletion of topsoil, and sustainability. Meaning even a non-animal diet can (especially on the scale necessary for every human being currently in existence) still create large-scale issues if that diet demands having specific foods in abundance to avoid eating meat.

Like, I’m sympathetic to what vegans want to do, it just feels like they’re ignoring a MASSIVE number of pressing logistical and environmental issues to push that agenda. There’s several intersecting problems here, and claiming humanity as a whole is poised to chuck eating animals completely seems to be jumping the gun.

This is basically exactly what I hope to convey to people. I feel like extremely pressing issues such as topsoil loss, pesticide and herbicide use, and pollution caused by nitrogen fertilizers, not to mention the severe biodiversity impacts of monoculture, are being disregarded in favor of a very simplistic "Meat is killing the Earth" argument.

And I think the "veganism to save the earth" idea is just...distracting, as a movement. I'm glad people are motivated to do it. I don't think it's bad. But we need people to take action beyond just Buy Product. Anyone telling you that the most important action you can take is Buy Different Product does not have your best interest, or the planet's best interest, in mind.

If you're eating a plant based diet, but your only relationship with your food is Buy Product, you are still alienated from the source of your food. You still don't know, and can't respect or care for, the ecosystem or the labor that gives it to you.

My agenda is far more along the lines of "society needs to be organized so more people are directly involved in growing food that feeds their community" than anything to do with animals, but it's clear to everyone who has studied it for 2 seconds that farming needs to change hugely and it's so, so much more complicated than "farming animals is bad, farming plants is good."

Also the fact is that veganism cuts you off from sources of nutrients that have been part of virtually every human society ever, a LOT of people have disabilities, allergies or nutrient absorption issues that mean going vegan isn't possible for them, and people who try to argue with me about this simply Stop knowing how to read when this is brought up. "Some people need animal protein to live" is a reality of the world but people who don't like this straight up refuse to consider it.

I have no food allergies or sensitivities, and I still struggle to eat enough food to live. I lost thirty fucking pounds in college because of stress, the dining hall being shit, and my roommate trying to control my eating habits (long story). Thats like...well over 1/5 of my body weight. Sometimes people Cannot restrict their diet safely.

Like, sure, I 85% agree with the vegans who like to comment on my posts, but the remaining 15% of things they say is completely insane.

And some of them are so out of touch with reality that they will swear up and down that it's impossible for humans to drink milk without someone having to murder a baby animal. They seem to think farming is exclusively some kind of horror show that happens in a warehouse somewhere, and don't understand the concept that "some people live in rural areas" or "it's not uncommon in some places to just keep a few dairy goats that provide milk for your family."

And if they admit this exists, it's like "well, that's not where your dairy comes from, because the INDUSTRY—" thats. that's my point, you can get milk from a farmer who keeps a small herd that is well treated, we should start doing this actually, you can even keep your OWN goat

my ideal world involves "backyard chickens and goats are legal in suburban areas where there's space" because there's literally nothing innately unethical about keeping a couple dairy goats or healthy heritage breed chickens and you can quote me on that and you can even fight me.

That one person (the one who kept bringing up eating poop) (Lord what a sentence to have to write) eventually turned to "Well those sources are wrong because governmental organizations want you to keep eating animal products" which is already well into "conspiracy theory" territory. No thanks.

#weight loss tw

707 notes · View notes

missmaywemeetagain · 5 months

Text

A Pink Scarf Thanksgiving 💗🧣🦃

A very happy Thanksgiving weekend to those who celebrate! ❤️

This blurb came out of nowhere, in a fit of Thanksgiving inspiration (and a special thanks to Norah for inadvertently nudging me towards a Thanksgiving prompt)! Because of this, it is not overly edited or revised. I will say, I'm not sure yet just how canon I want this to be in terms of the PS Universe, but I figure it came out of me for a reason, so I decided to go with it for now.

I think my current moody headspace influenced the vibe for this--for us fans, it's a slightly indulgent "what could have been" scenario. But that's PS in a nutshell, isn't it? 🥹

Anyhoo, I hope this hits you in the feels! And I hope you know just how much you matter to me, even though I've been a bit MIA recently.

Much love xoxoxox, Madi 💗

TW: It's 1977, so...medical issues/trauma/strife. Panic attack. Thanksgiving stress. A little hint of sexy at the end bc I couldn't leave you on a melancholy note! 💋

A Pink Scarf Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 1977

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. P, but the oven is out. Lamar took a peek, but the thing is as cold as ice and don’t look like it’s gonna be warm any time soon,” Mary says, looking as distraught as you feel. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch it sooner.”

The naked, trussed, and cold turkey on the counter mocks you.

“No, no, it’s not your fault, Mary. We’ll…figure something out,” you try and reassure her, but it feels like a weight has just been placed on your chest. You pinch the bridge of your nose to stave off the massive headache that began early this morning when Nicky barged into your room at the crack of dawn sobbing because he’d had a nightmare that Mr. Gobble Gobble, a monster turkey, had eaten Daddy instead of the other way around.

This was one of many nightmares that your poor little boy had suffered since August, but certainly the first starring a murderous Thanksgiving turkey. He’d barely been consolable and neither of you had gotten back to sleep.

You take a deep breath, holding back the tears that threaten your vision.

Today needs to be perfect. It was supposed to be perfect.

But you should have known. After all, this year has been far from perfect.

You force yourself away from the wave of despair trying to overcome you. No, we’ve been lucky, you think. It could be so much worse.

Unfortunately, your nerves are shot, which makes sense considering the last few months you’ve had. You’ve kept it together so well. You’ve had to. For Nicky. For Elvis. But that tried resolve begins to crumble with the pressure of it all, as though everything that has happened is hitting you all at once.

Now you have a house full of hungry people, Elvis will be home any minute, and your usual quick-footed problem-solving skills have flown out the window. Your hands begin to tremble.

The panic swells as the kitchen swarms with people looking to you for direction, and in that moment, Nicky runs through the adults, chased by one of the other kids. It happens so fast—you barely have time to register the commotion before disaster strikes.

You watch in horror as the kids fly into the sideboard, knocking the precious side dishes and desserts onto the floor with a resounding crash.

The collective gasp of the adults in the room sends your panic into overdrive.

Thanksgiving is officially ruined.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” you shout. The entire room goes silent. It’s not everyday Elvis Presley’s calm and collected wife loses her shit. No, that is something usually reserved for the man himself.

“Well, that’s not quite the welcome home I was expecting,” a familiar baritone chuckles from behind you.

You whip around, your bottom lip quivering. “Elvis?” you whisper.

He’s standing right here—standing! On his own!—leaning on his cane for support, a twinkle in his eye that you haven’t seen in ages. One you weren’t sure you’d ever see again. And the sight of him finally being home again after so many months in the hospital is more than you can bear. After standing tall and strong for him for so long, you crumble into a thousand pieces. An uncontrollable sob chokes out of you, your tears overflowing.

“Aw, honey,” he says quietly, slowly making his way to you, waving everyone else out of the room with the commanding flick of his hand. They exit in a flash with their concerned and pitied looks. Not that you care, because the second you can, you are falling into your husband’s open arms.

“I’m so sorry…your homecoming…it’s all ruined,” you sob into his chest, being mindful of the long scar down the center. Feeling the warmth of him engulfing you is overwhelming. His scent, untainted by antiseptic and hospital smells for the first time in a long time, swirls around you, caressing your senses.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. Let it all out, Satnin,” he coos, stroking your hair with his free hand. “Hers has been so strong for hims, but hims is home now.”

The tenderness of his baby talk in your ear sends a fresh wave of tears to your eyes, staining the silk of his blue dress shirt. He’s dressed up, you think absently, knowing this is a huge thing. Even before that fateful August morning, he’d been mostly wearing his tracksuits when he wasn’t performing. He’d been so uncomfortable and in pain, you’d understood why.

You bury your head into his neck, pent up emotions violently shuddering through your body as you let your tears fall freely for the first time in months. You can barely breathe with how you wedge yourself into him, with how he holds you tight. He’s so much slimmer now that the edema is gone and his colon has been tended to, you realize, but he’s still soft in all the right places. You still fit against him perfectly, and his grip on you makes you realize he understands just how raw you are.

You cry more, thinking about how the last time he was here was when you’d found him unresponsive on the bathroom floor. How you’d never been so scared in your entire life, not even when you yourself had brushes with death.

It's a miracle he’s here at all. None of you, doctors included, were sure if he’d ever step through the doors of Graceland again. Not after the heart attack, or the coma, or the complications from his various surgeries. It had been one blow after another, for weeks, months. But somehow, in true stubborn Elvis fashion, he’d pulled through.

He’d gritted his way through healing, through physical therapy, through weaning off so many of the meds he’d been on before and during his hospital stay, and he hated every second of it. He’d been livid about the colostomy, but you’d had no care for his vanity when you’d had to make the decision to save his life. You didn’t care if he hated you because at least he’d be alive to tell you so. He’d gotten past it, mostly, especially once he was feeling better.

The entire ordeal had terrified him. Something had changed in him in those weeks he’d lingered between life and death, something he wasn’t ready to talk about just yet, but even with all the setbacks, his determination to come home was intensely motivating.

Which is why you’d wanted it to be special, and why it being Thanksgiving had so much meaning. Elvis was finally coming home. Then everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.

“I wanted everything to be perfect for you. You deserve it,” you say quietly, sniffling, holding him as tight as you dare without wanting to hurt him.

“Darlin’, just bein’ back home with you and Nicky is more than I ever dreamed of. I don’t need no big fancy dinner or welcome home committee. I jus’ need you.”

You pull back then, your heart about ready to burst, and look at him. He looks downright debonair with his silvery hair (which you’d convinced him not to dye back after it had grown out during his illness), freshly cut and shorter than it had been in years, fluffy but brushed back off his face in a style reminiscent to when he was younger. His apple cheeks are full and have more color than they’ve had in months.

“What?” he asks looking down at you, almost bashful under your gaze.

You reach up and cup his freshly shaven cheek, smooth and soft under your palm. Those deep ocean blue eyes of his threaten to swallow you whole. Staring into their depths, you don’t want to imagine a world without him in it anymore.

“I just love you,” you whisper, barely able to get the words out without choking up again. “So much.”

Eyes shining, Elvis pulls you up and into him. His lips are as sweet and as soft as you remember when they press into yours. The kiss is full of yearning, of love, and of everything you two have been through the past twenty years. It’s truly like coming home.

The kiss turns hungry then, more so than you expect. It’s been so very long since you’ve had each other in this way and it surprises you how readily your body remembers, despite all the pain and trauma you both have experienced. You open for him, and he moans when his tongue brushes against yours. A fiery wave of heat blisters through you then, hastily banishing away your tears.

Despite all the challenges you’ve faced over the years, you’ve always felt the pull of him in your soul. You’ve always wanted him, neededhim, even when you convinced yourself to forget because you thought you couldn’t have him. And now, after almost losing him for good, you can think of nothing else but him. The warmth of his body pressed against yours causes you to melt. The way his lips and hands roam over the curves of your body sends you soaring.

You thought you’d never have this again. It had almost broken you.

“I’m here, baby. I’m home, I promise,” he mutters into your skin, as if reading your mind.

You kiss him deeply, yanking him into you by his pretty shirt, taking his breath away.

He pulls away and presses his forehead to yours, and you can feel him sway on his feet, a little unbalanced.

“Good news—looks like Little Elvis is back in working order,” he says breathlessly, pressing his thickening erection into your belly. He seems pleasantly surprised.

Honestly, with everything dire that happened, it hadn’t even crossed your mind as a concern, but it makes sense that it could be an issue. You grin up at him with the knowledge that it isn’t, then roll your hips against him.

He groans. “Bad news—not sure I have the energy to do all the things I wanna to ya, and we got a house full of people.” Doesn’t stop him from grabbing a handful of your bottom, however.

“Oh, that’s never stopped us before, now has it?” you muse, walking your fingers gently down his chest and over his belly to palm his length.

“Lord have mercy, woman,” he moans, his eyes fluttering closed. You notice him lean more heavily on his cane and instantly ease up. One blue eye opens with a quirked brow. “Hey now, I din’t say stop.”

You laugh. “Well, it seems dinner is ruined anyhow,” you say, surveying the disaster of broken dishes and scattered food all over the floor, and the cold, raw turkey on the counter. “Maybe we better get you upstairs to rest.”

Rest is, of course, the furthest thing from your mind now, which you let him know with a little squeeze to his butt.

“Mmhmm, yes, I definitely need to lie down,” he mumbles as he peppers you with kisses. Suddenly, he freezes against you. “But, honey, I-I-I’m not sure how much I can do,” he whispers, a wave of uncertainty washing over him.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll take it slow. Real slow. One step at a time, like fumbling teenagers,” you say lightly, cupping his face and looking up into his eyes. “Or we can just kiss and hold each other. I’m just happy you’re here, baby.”

He nods, seemingly reassured by this. “I know I don’t say it as much as I should, but I thank God every day for you and for what we have together, Satnin,” he says quietly, brushing your hair behind your ear, kissing you gently. “I love you.”

Your heart and body ache for him. “We better get you upstairs to “rest”before I start crying again,” you snuffle, laughing, slowly walking with him toward the stairs.

“Well, tears aren’t entirely off the table…I can think of a couple good ways I can make you cry,” he teases, nibbling at your ear.

“Elvis Aaron, you did not just…” you gasp.

“What??” he says innocently. “Am I wrong?”

A shiver runs down your spine and settles in the heat of your belly.

You’ve missed him. Terribly.

But you do have so much to be thankful for this year, namely for the infuriatingly talented, generous, and stubborn man you married and are gingerly leading up the stairs for the first time in months.

In fact, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

Taglist Pt 1

@eliseinmemphis@russian-soft-bitch@tattywood

@sassanoe@thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle@carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23

@littlebitofgreen@paigevis@bugg06@xhannahbananax03@artlover8992

@18lkpeters@frozenhuntress67@girlblogger2002@kendralavon7@misspresley

@be-my-ally @whositmcwhatsit @vintageshanny @ellie-24 @thatbanditqueen @powerofelvis @from-memphis-with-love

@precious-lil-scoundrel @stylespresleyhearted @prompted-wordsmith @crash-and-cure @elvisgf @lookingforrainbows @fic-over-cannon @godlypresley @ab4eva @whatstruthgottodowithit @elvisabutler @amydarcimarie@idontwanttoputanything @callieselvisobsessed @captainamerica1235-blog @xenaspace3-blog

@simplyamberj@claire-elvisgirl@everythingelvispresley@louisejoy86@deniseinmn @madelynpresley

#a pink scarf thanksgiving #pink scarf universe #elvis presley #elvis #elvis presley x reader #elvis x reader #elvis 1977 #if you’re looking for trouble #you came to the right place #elvis fic #elvis x you #elvis presley fanfiction #elvis presley fic #elvis imagine #big daddy elvis #elvis smut #elvis fanfic #elvis fanfiction

118 notes · View notes

cherrycola27 · 1 month

Text

false god

Series Warnings: Mythology!AU. Language, alcohol, drinking. Military inaccuracies. Mutual pining, unrequited love. Allusions to and full smut. Minors DNI. 18+. Individual chapter warnings will come as needed. Banner Credit @thedroneranger

Specific Chapter Warning: Death, Dying, Grief

Masterlist Previous Part Next Part

...........................................

Chapter 19: I Lived

Smoke clouded around you and singed your nostrils as you felt the fires from the depths of the Underworld surround you. To anyone watching or listening, it would look and sound like your jet was hit with a missile, presumably killing you because there would be no evidence of an ejection.

By now, the Daggers and others on the boat would be coming to terms with the fact that you were dead. In a way, you already were. Transforming to save Bradley would seal your fate.

You accept it.

Your bones creaked and snapped with each flap of your powerful wings as you gasped for air. Each breath you drew in felt like you were swallowing a thousand suns, but you had to push through the pain. You had to make it to Bradley.

You could see him struggling, just up ahead, desperately trying to slow his decent. You flew fast towards him, stretching out your arms, reaching for him desperately before—thwack— his chest collided with yours as you pulled him close to you.

Normally, his weight wouldn't be an issue for you. But you were so weak. You struggled to hold onto him. You looked around. Frantically hoping for some place to land. You caught sight of some cliffs, just on the horizon. You could make it. You had to make it.

You beat your wings harder. Trying to get to the cliffs before your body gave out and you returned to mortal form. They were getting closer and closer, but as you approached, you could feel your power slipping. The flames surrounding you snuffed out. Dark spots clouded your vision before everything went black.

.............

A smokey, bloody cough and the sound of Bradley's voice slowly brought you back to consciousness. You could feel your body swaying. The light hurt your eyes as you slowly opened them, letting out a groan of pain. Glancing to the side, you could see that you were tangled in the ropes of Bradley's parachute. Looking up, you could see that the two of you were snagged in some stray branches growing out of the cliff you'd tried to fly to.

"Angel, hey, there you are. There's my girl." Bradley said as he smiled down at you. You focused on him, trying to check his counter, but it seemed as if it was glitching, flickering between the fifty years he'd had when you first met him, and just over thirty minutes.

As you watch the times change, never settling on one, you realized two things. One, a choice that Bradley would make in the next half hour would determine his fate. And two, that choice had to do with you.

"Bradley, Love." You croaked out. The metallic taste of blood filled your mouth. "I'm right here, Honey. I can't reach you to untangle you. Just stay still. I triggered my ESAT tracker. Search and Rescue will find us and get us home." Bradley assured you.

That's when you knew what choice Bradley would have to make. There was no way you'd live long enough to be rescued, and you didn't have faith in the ability of the branches you two were tangled in to hold both your weights. Your arms were pinned to your sides. There was no way for you to cut yourself free. Bradley was going to have to.

Bradley was going to have to let you die.

"No." You breathed out, fighting to keep your eyes open. "They won't make it in time."

"What do you mean. We're fine as long as we don't disturb these branches holding us." Bradley says, his voice wavering slightly.

"There's not enough time." You say as a violent cough racks your body as you struggle to breathe. Blood sputters out of your mouth and splatters on your face, and Bradley's cheek."

"Hades? You're hurt! Just hang on, everything will be okay!" Bradley cries out. He uses your real name. It's funny, really. It's been so long that you almost forgot what it sounded like when he said it.

"I'm not hurt, Bradley. I'm dying." You say in as soothing a tone as you can manage.

"No, you can't know that. You're a Goddess. Mortal things aren't supposed to hurt you!" Bradley tries to argue back.

"Bradley, Love, I've been keeping something from you." You sigh, about to come clean. " A few weeks ago, for the first time, I saw my own lifetime counter. It showed me I had a few months left. I was going to die on my birthday. Minthe came to visit me and said that the Fates told her my lifeline was crumbling because I spent too much time on Earth and because I was tethered to a mortal." You tell him. He swallows thickly.

"Minthe said I could ask Hera and Aphroditie to cut my tether to you, but I refused to. The Fates said if I completed my quest for worthiness, I'd be resorted. I thought I would be able to figure things out before something bad happened. But I didn't." You chuckle before coughing again.

"Minthe also warned me that if I turned into my true form, it would take too much of the life force I had left, and it would kill me." You tell him.

"Why—why didn't you tell me?" Bradley asks you. You see the tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

"Because you would have told me to cut my tether to you. To go complete my quest. That being with you wasn't worth my life." You shake your head. Bradley opens his mouth but quickly shuts it again because he knows you're right.

"But you're wrong about that, Bradley. That my life is more important than loving you. Because the truth is Love, I didn't have a life before I loved you. I was living, but I wasn't alive." You smile at him. "You gave me purpose."

Bradley smiles and lets out a small sob. "Why did you save me? Why did you save me knowing that it would kill you?" Bradley asks you tearfully. "You're my reason for living. You're my purpose, Bradley. Now that I've lived in a world with you in it, I couldn't imagine one without you. You're worth more to me than immortality." You tell him truthfully. "I love you."

"I love you too, Angel. There has to be a way to fix this. I can't lose you." Bradley sobs.

"It's okay, Love. I've accepted my fate." You sigh. "Bradley, I have had more than a hundred lifetimes. I have done and seen so much. And even though I have been alive so long, this is the first lifetime I have truly lived in. This is the only one I have enjoyed. I have loved and been loved by someone. I have made friends and been a friend to many, and most importantly, I learned to love who I was and that I am enough. You and our friends have given me more than I ever could have imagined." You say as you feel your own tears streaming down your face.

"I am not afraid to die, Bradley. And you shouldn't be afraid for me either. I know I'll be okay, and you will be too." You smile at him. "How am I supposed to live without you?" Bradley asks you, desperation in his voice.

"I'll always be with you. I promise." You assure him.

The wind blows the two of you, and you hear the creak of some branches snapping.

"There's not much time left, Love. I can't do it myself." You tell him as you struggle to try and reach your dagger.

"Can't do what?" Bradley asks you, panic in his voice.

"These branches can't hold us both. And I can't reach my dagger. Bradley, I need you to get the knife out of your boot and cut me free." You tell him. Horror flashes across his face.

"No. No! No, no, no, no! You can't ask me to do that, I won't!" He shouts through tears.

"Bradley, you have to. If you don't, we both die. And it's not your time, Love." You tell him.

"Hades—please don't make me." He cries.

"I wouldn't if there was any other way." You try to comfort him.

"It's okay. I promise. This is my choice. It's my choice." You assure him. "But—" He stutters.

"So much of my life has been decided for me. I've only really gotten to choose two things for myself. Loving you and my own death. I don't regret either of them. Please, Bradley. I need you to cut the rope." You try to persuade him.

You hold eye contact with him for what feels like ages before he slowly reaches for knife. You keep telling him it's okay over and over again as tears stain both of your faces.

He moves to grab one of ropes, holding you. He drags the blade over it a few times before it snaps, and you drop a few inches. He repeats it three more times. When he gets to the last rope, you stop him.

"Love, before I go, I need you to promise me something." You say to him. "Anything." He tells you.

"You have fifty years, six months, three weeks, five days, and eighteen hours left. Promise me I won't see you in the Underworld a second, too soon." You say to him. It feels odd saying his time out loud. You've never told him before.

"Hade—Angel—I" He trails off.

"Promise me, Bradley." You insist.

"I promise." He finally relents.

"Thank you. I love you. Remember, this isn't goodbye, this is see you later." You weep.

Bradley moves his knife to cut the final rope. Tears spill from both of your faces as you whisper "I love yous" to each other over and over again until the final stroke of his blade.

You don't feel yourself falling. It feels more like flying than anything. You look up just in time to see Bradley's time go back up on his counter, and you smile.

You stretch your arms out wide, accepting your fate as the air rushes around you. You're not scared. For probably the first time in all your centuries of life, you're at peace. You don't dread dying. You've been around death so much that it feels more like a memory, like an old friend welcoming you home.

You don't feel yourself hit the water. You don't feel the icy sting of it. Instead, you feel warm all over, like being wrapped in a blanket. You don't feel the water filling your lungs. Instead, you focus on watching the sunlight overhead start fading, more and more, until it all goes black.

............

The knife falls from Bradley's had as he tries to reach for the ropes attached to you, immediately regretting what he'd done. But it was useless. The cord slipped through his fingers as he cried out your name.

He could feel his heart breaking as he watched you fall further and further down. It shattered the moment he heard you hit the water.

Bradley was forced to dangled there, alone, staring at the waves you disappeared under for another two hours until he was rescued.

His eyes were red and practically swollen shut from the tears he cried. His throat was raw, and his voice gone from screaming in agony.

Maverick was waiting for him on the chopper. All it took was one look at him, and Maverick knew that Bradley knew you were dead. Only Maverick didn't know you died in front of him. He assumed that Bradley saw your jet explode. That's what everyone thought.

Maybe it was for the best, though. How would Bradley ever explain the truth?

When the rescue helicopter landed on the carrier, there were no cheers or victory celebrations. Instead, the Daggers, Cyclone, Warlock, and several others stood on the flight deck, all wearing matching somber expressions.

Maverick got off first. Bradley followed. His large frame practically dwarfed his uncle as he leaned on him for support. Hangman and Bob quickly rushed to his side, each grabbing an arm to help hold him up.

"Rooster—I—Bradley—I'm so sorry." Jake is the first to speak. "It's my fault. I'm so, so sorry." His voice cracks.

"It's not your fault, Jake. She knew the risk. We all did. She made her choice. We can't change it. All we can do is accept it and prove ourselves deserving of her sacrifice." Bradley tells him before wrapping his arms around Jake and letting out another sob and dropping to his knees on the flight deck.

It takes the Daggers and Maverick almost an hour to get Bradley back to his bunk. And even though it's beyond cramped, none of them dare leave Bradley alone. They're all too afraid of what he might do if he's by himself.

Maverick sits beside him on his bed. And even though it's small, Bradley manages to curl up with his head in Maverick's lap as the tears silently stream down his face. Maverick runs his fingers through Bradley's hair, trying to soothe him. It's the same thing he did back when he was a kid after Goose's death.

Maverick has to fight his own tears. He feels so bad for Bradley. Almost everyone he has ever loved is dead. Maverick knows he is the only family Bradley has left. He worries about what will happen to Bradley after he's gone. You were supposed to be there for him. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

...............

The rest of the deployment goes by in a blur for Bradley.

He's numb to everything around him. He doesn't remember debriefing about the mission. He just goes through the motion.

When they finally get back home, Maverick drives him to your house.

Penny and Amelia are there waiting for them with Hydra and Cerberus. When Bradley walks through the door, the two animals immediately rush to greet him. Bradley walks by them and sits down as they both stare at the door, waiting for you to walk in.

"She's not coming home. She's never coming home again." He tells them as he chokes back another sob.

Hydra and Cerberus each whine before coming over to the couch and sitting with Bradley. "She's gone, Hydra. She's not coming back, Cerby." Bradley tries to explain to him. He doesn't know if they understand yet, but he knows they can tell something is wrong. They don't leave his side for the rest of the evening. Not even as Penny makes dinner and cleans up or as Maverick makes himself comfortable in one of the guest rooms.

Neither of them leave Bradley's side as he trudges up the stairs to shower, nor do they leave when he flops onto the bed and burries his face in your pillow.

They are still there when Maverick rushes in later that night because Bradley woke up screaming from yet another nightmare.

He doesn't go back to sleep after that because every time he closes his eyes, all he can see is you, falling to your death and all he can think about is what he could have done differently.

.............

You thought you might have been in pain when you first woke up in the Underworld, or maybe cold. You'd never thought to ask the souls that stood before you waiting for judgment what it was like when they first found themselves there. It never occurred to you that you might be in their shoes one day.

But you certainly didn't expect to feel smooth silk sheets under your fingertips or a velvet pillow under your head. Nor did you think you'd be in such a pleasant, calm space. But that's exactly where you were as you slowly regained consciousness.

You sat up and stretched your arms out and discovered that your hair had been braided and you were wearing a flowing white gown with a gold belt around your waist.

"Is this what happened to everyone when they died?" You wondered.

You sat up from the bed you were laying on tentatively putting your bare feet on the floor. Taking stock of yourself, you were thankful to find that you still had all of your tattoos, the anklet from Bradley, and your wedding ring, but something felt off. You couldn't quite place it.

Standing up, you looked around the room only to realize that you weren't alone. There was a man standing a few feet away, looking out a window.

"Hello?" You called out to him timidly. He whipped around, and the tension from your body immediately melted away as you recognized him

"Poseidon! Brother!" You cried running to hug him. "Hades! Sister, you're awake!" He sounded startled as you jumped into his arms.

You pulled back and smiled at him, happy to see the brother you cared for and the only person from Olympus you actually missed.

"Si, it is truly wonderful to see you. Oh, how I have missed your brother!" You said as you hugged him tighter.

"Hay, I have missed you too, sister. You are truly a sight for sore eyes." He smiled down at you.

"Si, as happy as I am to see you, I'm curious as to why you're here." You tell him. "What you mean?" He asks you.

"I mean, why are you in the Underworld Poseidon? Why are you not with the others?" You ask him. He furrows his brow before he realizes what's happening.

Poseidon takes your hands in his, and both of you sit down at a stool in front of the window. "Hades, dear sister, we are not in the Underworld. You have been restored. We are on Olympus. Welcome home."

Taglist: @shanimallina87 @teacupsandtopgun @wkndwlff @roosterforme @daggerspare-standingby @dakotakazansky @startrekfangirl2233 @hecate-steps-on-me @na-ta-sh-aa @katieshook02 @je-suis-prest-rachel @soulmates8 @diorrfairy @eli2447 @xoxabs88xox @djs8891 @roosters-girl @sebsxphia @rosiahills22 @dempy @callsign-magnolia @alchemxx @gretagerwigsmuse @withahappyrefrain @bradshawsbaby @seitmai @kmc1989 @bcarolinablr @roosterisdaddy36 @itsdesiree86 @waywardhunter95 @hisredheadedgoddess28 @whatislovevavy @asshlyyyy @inkandarsenic @tomanybandstolove @jiminie-08 @dingochef @skipchat @sunlightmurdock @princess76179 @schoollover @cheyrenee @briseisgone @angelbabyange @marvelouslyme96 @desert-fern

#cherrycola27 #top gun maverick #top gun #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw #rooster top gun #tgm #rooster smut #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw fic #tgm fic #tgm fanfiction #top gun 2 #false god #Spotify

78 notes · View notes