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mothandpidgeon · 4 months

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Unrequited (bfd! pre-outbreak!/Jackson!Joel Miller x f!reader)

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pairing: bfd! pre-outbreak!/Jackson!Joel Miller x f!reader

rating: E 18+MDNI

summary: You arrive in Jackson 22 years after the outbreak only to be reunited with your best friend’s dad, the man that stole your heart and broke it when you were fourteen– Joel Miller.

contents: best friend's dad, age gap, outbreak night (nothing that isnt in ep 1), big angst, abandonment issues, brief suicidal ideation, daddy issues, grief, Joel guilt, unprotected p in v sex, reader doesn't know where Jakarta is, reader is not described physically but Joel picks (adult) reader up, moth never uses y/n.

wc: 9k

a/n: This has been a bitch to finish but I'm quite proud of where it ended up. It's the longest os I've written which makes me nervous nobody will want to read it but I hope you do.

Thank you a million times to @ezrasbirdie for making me finish this and betaing. Also thank you @lowlights for listening to me ramble on this! Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Old man, take a look at your life. I’m a lot like you. Neil Young

You’re waiting for Sarah on the front steps when she gets home. School ended nearly two hours ago and you’ve been sitting here a ball of nerves. The whole world seems to be uneasy this afternoon. You notice sirens, a team of fighter jets scrambling above. It's like your anxiety has spilled out of your chest and it’s taken life all around you.

You finger the corner of your notebook. On the inside are doodles— hearts and bubble letters. Juvenile daydreams put to paper. Your first name and after it his last, testing out the sound of who you would be if only you’d been born in a different decade. Mrs. Miller.

Sarah doesn’t look very happy to see you. It’s been two weeks since you’ve talked to her and you’ve never felt more lonely.

Her words still ring in your ears.

“It’s like you’re in love with my dad.”

“No I'm not!” you said, your whole body tingling with the heat of embarrassment. You’d never felt so exposed in your life.

“Sometimes I think that’s the only reason you’re even friends with me,” she said.

You've been ruminating on that accusation ever since. You pine for Mr. Miller the way only a fourteen year old can. It’s the kind of infatuation that makes you understand how Romeo and Juliet ended in tragedy. All-consuming, unrequited, so in love it hurts.

So maybe Sarah’s right. Your heart flutters every time Mr Miller appears in the kitchen, wearing a dark t-shirt that hugs his biceps. You try not to stare at his aquiline nose when he drives you home from Sarah’s soccer games. Sleep overs at the Miller’s house mean more opportunities to be around him, learn the little details that make him him. And there were plenty of sleep overs because your parents are always so busy fighting, they never bother to keep track of you.

But you’ve been in agony without your friend. It’s a pain sharper and more present than the yearning you’ve felt for Mr. Miller. You’ve talked to her every day since you moved to Austin in fourth grade and since this fight, there’s been an empty space in your heart.

“Hi.” You stand up, hoisting your backpack awkwardly over your shoulder.

“I’m supposed to go next door,” Sarah says.

“Can I just talk to you for a minute?” you ask.

She sighs but opens the front door with her key and lets you follow her into the living room.

“I’m sorry,” you say before you lose your nerve. “You’re right. I like your dad.”

It’s probably the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever owned up to. You wish you could explain to her that you know how silly it is to be in love with a full grown man, your best friend’s dad. It’s not like he’ll ever see you as anything other than a kid.

You can’t put into words how he makes you feel. It’s not just his broad shoulders or chocolate eyes, though it’s undeniable that he’s gorgeous. He asks about school and comes to see you in the musical. Joel is an adult that actually gives a crap about you.

You want to tell Sarah that one of the reasons you love her father so much is because of her. Because he’s such a good dad, because he raised such a cool, funny, smart daughter. That Sarah makes him better.

It’ll take years for you to find words for all of that. So you just do your best right now.

“I can’t help it. I wish I could,” you say.

That’s true. And not just because your crush has made you lose your only friend. It’s exhausting to feel such a powerful longing, to want something you know you’ll never have. It’s torture.

“But you’re my best friend. And that’s not why. I promise,” you say.

Sarah sighs heavily, her pretty hazel eyes full of remorse.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just get jealous sometimes.”

“I promise I won’t make you feel that way ever again. I could never like him more than you,” you tell her, sitting beside her on the couch and looking her in the eye so she knows you mean it. “He’s…old.”

You both laugh.

“He’s so lame. This morning he said that Jakarta is in the Middle East,” she giggles.

You don’t know where the hell Jakarta is but of course Sarah does. You throw your arms around her. You’ve missed her so damn much. The past two weeks have felt like two decades.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her.

“Me too.” She returns your embrace. “Do you have to go home? You can sleep over if you want. It’s my dad’s birthday but I don’t think he’s going to be home until late.”

Your heart twinges at the offer and not because it means you might see Mr. Miller at breakfast. You won’t even look at him again. Tonight is about your friend.

You end up watching some corny action movies and gorging yourselves on microwave popcorn. Everything feels right again. You don’t think about Mr. Miller. In fact, you’re grateful that his double has gone over into a late night so you don’t have to be in the same room. You’ve sworn to yourself that you’ll act normal around him but you’re not sure that sheer willpower can stop you from getting butterflies when he’s right there.

At some point, you pass out in front of the tv, happier than you’ve been in a long time.

Sarah nudges you awake sometime after midnight, concern all over her face.

“Was I snoring?” you ask, groggy.

She’s looking out the window. Helicopters fly so low overhead, the whole house rattles. It’s a wonder you slept through all of this noise— the choppers are joined by the wail of a car alarm, pops like fireworks. The TV is playing a high-pitched tone and when you peer at it, you see a test pattern on the screen.

Dread settles in the pit of your stomach.

“Something’s going on,” Sarah says almost to herself.

A sudden thud against the back door makes you both jump. You swear, shaken out of your sleepy haze.

“Mercy?” Sarah asks.

You’ve spent enough time with Sarah to become acquainted with their neighbors The Adlers and their border collie Mercy. Mr Adler used to pay you each a dollar to walk him. Mercy’s frantically pawing at the glass.

Sarah goes to the door and steps into the yard. You follow, unsure you want to leave the familiar safety of the house but unwilling to be alone with such an eerie feeling in the air.

“What’re you doing out here, boy?” Sarah says, crouching down to pet the whimpering animal.

“Where’s your dad?” you ask her.

You hope the question doesn’t make Sarah think you’ve already forgotten your promise. Everything’s just so wrong. You’d feel a lot better with an adult around.

“Don’t think he came home yet,” she says. You can hear the concern in her voice. “Let’s take Mercy back. The Alder’s will be home.”

Mercy puts up a fight as Sarah pulls him across the lawn. It’s late and dark save the street lamp and a few porch lights that have been left on. You shiver despite the fact that it’s a warm southern night.

The front door to the Adler’s house stands open and inside is black. No. Bad. You want to run back to the Miller’s house and lock the door behind you but the promise of Mr. And Mrs. Adler inside keeps you moving towards the darkened entrance. Maybe Mrs. Adler will give you some cookies while you wait for Mr. Miller.

Sarah steps in first. The dog bucks and strains against her grip on his collar. Sarah fights to keep hold of him but Mercy’s thrashing makes him hard to pin down. He pulls free from Sarah’s grasp and darts away.

You have half a mind to do the same but Sarah keeps going forward. She’s scared, too, her breaths shallow as she tip toes down the hall.

“Mrs. Adler?” Sarah asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

You reach for each other without even realizing it and you enter the kitchen holding hands.

What you see there is beyond your wildest imaginings. There’s blood, a lot of it. Sarah’s shoe slides in the stuff and you grab her before she loses her balance. The room is cast in shadows but a street light streams through the window in the side door. Its beam falls over the form of Mr. Adler, limp on the floor. His back is against the door and a gush of dark blood sparkles in the sodium vapor.

You’ve never seen so much blood, never seen anyone injured so brutally. It looks like he’s been attacked by some wild animal. Mercy was acting strange but the dog couldn’t do that.

“Help me,” he rasps.

He’s speaking to you. You’re actually here. This is happening and you need to do something.

But before you can form a coherent thought, your eyes travel deeper into the kitchen. Beside the island is more blood…and more bodies.

As if seeing Sarah’s neighbor with his neck ripped open wasn’t enough of a horror, you’re now watching Nana hunched over Mrs. Adler’s corpse, her face buried in the younger woman’s neck. The scene before you makes no sense. Most of the time the old woman is barely conscious, hasn’t left her wheelchair in years and yet she’s on all fours before you looking feral.

Sarah squeezes your hand so tight you’re afraid your knuckles will break.

Nana slowly raises her face to you. Her eyes are pitch black and her mouth teems with twitching tendrils. You are staring at a living, breathing monster.

When she leaps at you, you and Sarah bolt for the door. Your heart hammers against your ribs. Sarah makes it out first and races towards the sidewalk.

Once you’ve gotten onto the front step, you slam the storm door shut behind you to trap whatever that thing is inside. SLAM. Nana collides with the door and it rattles violently. You hold it closed with every ounce of strength in you, listening to the creature behind it scratch and wail and willing yourself not to look through the glass to see its horrible face. Terror holds your muscles taught. You’re not sure how long you can stay like this, your sneakers skidding across the ground.

With a roar, Uncle Tommy’s truck pulls up at that very moment and Mr. Miller hops out of the passenger seat before its even come to a full stop. He’s a fearsome sight, broad and rippling with untamed energy, his muscular arms outlined by the headlights of the car. You’ve never been more grateful for his presence.

This nightmare is almost over. Joel’s come to save you.

“Girls get in the car!” he bellows. His voice is raw and ragged.

Just as you’re ready to make a run for it, The door flings out towards you, and you’re thrown aside as if you weigh nothing. You hit the driveway hard, your head connecting with concrete.

For a moment, you can’t hear anything but the gush of blood pumping in your ears. You’re dizzy. Suffocating. There’s a warm trickle at your temple. Sarah calls your name. Your vision is blurred but you can make out the ghoulish form of the creature barreling towards her.

“What’re we doing, Joel?” you hear Tommy ask.

There’s a thud and then quiet.

You gasp again and again but your lungs won’t fill.

Are you dying? Help. You need help. The monster lays lifeless at Joel’s feet and you pray that he’ll scoop you up and take you away from this. Your eyes finally come into focus to see Mr. Miller comforting Sarah, holding her face in his big palms, so fixated on her that he doesn’t notice that Mr. Adler has appeared in the doorway.

Mr. Adler is still covered in so much blood and his gait has become twitchy as if his legs are on backwards. He moves towards them and you want to call out a warning but you’re still choking for air. Luckily he hasn’t noticed you but he soon stands between you and the Millers.

“We’ve got to move,” Tommy says.

“Get in the car,” Mr. Miller says to Sarah, throwing a protective arm in front of her.

“But she’s hurt!”

She steps towards you. You’d cry her name but you’ve still got the wind knocked out of you and you’re too terrified to make a noise. Mr. Adler makes an inhuman sound as he advances, a croaking, growling gurgle.

Mr. Miller pushes Sarah towards the truck.

“Leave her!” he barks. “Get in the car!”

You sputter and choke as you watch Sarah, Joel, and Tommy drive away.

You wait for a long time.

As the truck pulls off of the curb, Mr. Adler is joined by his wife in the street, making chase. You’re finally able to draw breath and rouse your body off of the ground. You scramble back across the lawn to the Miller’s house and lock yourself inside. There’s enough adrenaline coursing through you that you’re able to push the sofa to barricade the front door. You draw all of the curtains and grab the biggest knife you can find in the kitchen. It’s ridiculous, something you’ve seen in scary movies, but you’re living in one right now.

You hide yourself away. Sarah’s bedroom seems like the obvious place to do it. Familiar and safe. You curl yourself into a ball in the corner, clutching your knife and staring at the closed door with wild eyes.

Sirens go through the night. Gunshots. At one point even the roar of a jet engine.

For hours your body quivers as you try to make sense of what you’ve just witnessed. Flesh-eating mutants. Gore. Death. You keep waiting to wake up from a bad dream but you don’t. They left you. They abandoned you in a nightmare.

No. That’s impossible. You can accept that a comatose elderly woman made supper out of her son in law but you refuse to believe that Joel would desert you.

He’ll come back for you. Sarah will convince him. There’s always been room for you in their family.

But as the sun begins to peek through the blinds and the noises outside fade away, you begin to lose hope.

The muscles in your body go slack, exhausted from hours of uncontrollable shaking. Your instinct for survival and your need for sleep war with each other. Exhaustion is winning.

You cautiously open the door to Sarah’s room. The house is still, more quiet than you’ve ever experienced. You creep into the room at the end of the hall. The olive green sheets on Joel’s bed are still messy from when he woke up here the day before. A normal morning. His birthday.

You rest the knife on the night stand amongst the things he emptied from his pockets— coins, receipts, a stray nail. You slip into the bed and wrap yourself up. It smells like him— spicy deodorant and sweat, fresh cut lumber like the hardware store. The scent reminds you of all those times he was close, when your heart leapt.

They’ll come back. Mr. Miller wouldn’t leave you.

He left you to die but you just go on living.

It takes some time before you’re brave enough to leave the Miller’s house and see what’s left of the world. Your parents are nowhere to be found. It’s safe to assume they were infected that first night.

You’re on your own.

A QZ is set up outside of San Antonio. They assign you to housing for separated minors. An orphanage. You never make friends, not really. Trust is too fickle.

At night you lay in your bunk and wonder what life would be like if anybody gave a shit about you. Maybe you would have been with your parents when it all went down. You’d be a snarling monster but at least you wouldn’t be alone.

On the worst nights, when you like yourself the least, Mr. Miller’s words echo around your skull. “Leave her.” She's not worth it. Forget her.

You don’t imagine yourself in his arms anymore. Instead you picture him and Sarah and Uncle Tommy, all happy and safe hiding out somewhere idyllic. A sweet little cabin with a stream nearby, surrounded by peaceful woods. You’ve heard some people live like that.

Some days you wish you were with them. Others you wish they were all dead.

When you turn 18, you age out of your living situation. It couldn’t come soon enough. Things are changing and it seems like all the kids that stay in FEDRA school are being groomed to go straight into uniform. You dodged that bullet but life’s not easy. Now you’re well and truly alone, scraping by to keep food in your mouth and a roof over your head.

It only lasts a few years, though. By the time you’re 21, there’s an emergency evacuation. Outbreaks are happening within the walls and with so many people living on top of each other, it’s only a matter of time before shit hits the fan. They send swaths of people to Dallas but word is, there’s no room for such numbers and they consider everyone from San Antonio an infection risk.

You’ve heard enough stories to know what that means. There won’t be a warm welcome when you reach the next QZ. So you ditch the convoy and head north.

You bounce around for years, sometimes with others, a lot of time solo. Doing what you have to. It’s not a life, just survival.

By the time you reach the wilds of Wyoming, you’ve had enough. You break off from the group you’re traveling with. You leave them this time, just decide to walk into the forest and let the earth swallow you up. You’re exhausted, sick of hanging on by a thread. Too much of a coward to kill yourself, you wander around waiting for the cold or your hunger or a bear to do it for you.

They find you. Some scouts that look mean and tough take pity on you and offer you a place with them in a commune where things are half normal.

It’s the first time being alone has worked to your advantage.

Jackson is a strange place. It has walls like the QZ but it’s quaint. There’s laughter and evergreen wreaths, happy children that build snowmen in the center of town. Some of these kids have no idea how fucked up the world has become. All they know is this charming little haven.

You spend the first few days in the infirmary, getting patched up, regaining your strength. You feel like an animal compared to the people in your new community. It’s hard to accept that they’re willing to help you, no strings attached.

Eventually you’re well enough to have your own place. They set you up with a little apartment over one of the stores in town. You’re invited to take your meals in the dining hall.

It takes you back to those first days at your new middle school after you came to Austin. Unfortunately, this time Sarah’s not there to offer you a seat at her lunch table.

You keep to yourself, overwhelmed by all of the strange new faces. Head down, you eat your breakfast. It’s the best food you’ve had in years. As your belly fills, you start to relax and try to get used to the idea of this being home.

Then you hear a familiar voice say your name. You wonder if you’re hallucinating when you see him standing in front of you.

He’s gained a few decades but he looks good. His hair is nearly shoulder length and there’s a mustache on his upper lip but that’s him alright.

“Uncle Tommy?” you manage.

“That really you?” he asks.

Tommy puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. His smile wrinkles the corners of his eyes. You nod and you’re smiling too.

You expect to be upset. Tommy was there when you were abandoned after all. But you’re flooded with relief and a small flame of hope.

“Shit. What’re the chances?” he asks, studying your face. “C’mere.”

He pulls you through the lines of tables. Your head spins with questions. How did he end up in Wyoming of all places? How long has he been here? Did you actually die out there only to be sent to this strange afterlife?

“You remember this old son of a bitch?” Tommy asks with a chuckle when he stops at the table in a far corner.

And suddenly you’re face to face with Mr. Miller.

He’s old. Grey hairs run through his stubble and curl from his temple. There are deep lines in his face. He’s still good looking despite how weathered his features have become, still broad, still with that wonderful silhouette.

It’s funny. In your mind’s eye, you’ve never imagined Joel aging. He stayed the same while you grew up.

He looks at you for a long moment and then his thick bottom lip falls agape. His eyes glitter and his dimple appears as he recognizes the woman that you’ve become.

“Kiddo,” he whispers as he stands up.

He pulls you into a hug and his wide palm smooths down your back. He still smells just how you remember and without warning you’re sobbing into the front of his flannel.

You spent hours upon hours imagining what you might say if you ever saw him again. Sometimes it was a speech biting with venom, others a confession, a question. Now, though, your mind is blank, overwhelmed that fate has brought you back together. A testament to your survival.

“It’s alright, babygirl. You’re okay,” he says into your hair. Words you needed to hear all those years ago.

You stay like this for a long time, surrounded by him. He holds you the way you wished he had as you cried into his pillow in that empty house. Eventually you pull yourself together with a shaking breath.

“Where’s Sarah?” you ask, casting your eyes around the crowd in the mess hall.

There’s a girl sitting beside Joel, her curly hair pulled back into a ponytail, watching this scene unfold. Everyone else is polite enough to pretend you’re not bawling in the middle of lunch. Can’t be the first time it’s happened.

At your question, Tommy goes stone faced. The muscle in Joel’s jaw ticks.

You shake your head in disbelief. “Infected?” you squeak out.

“It wasn’t like that,” Joel chokes.

“She didn’t make it through that first night,” Tommy says.

It’s a punch in the gut, the air’s knocked out of your chest all over again. While it had crushed you to be abandoned, part of you understood. Joel had to choose and he picked his daughter. Even if he’d been in love with you the way you used to dream about, he always would have chosen Sarah. You couldn’t hold that against him, no matter how much it hurt. There just wasn’t anyone in the world that would have saved you.

But knowing that he failed her, that he failed you both, makes you sick. All those years of bitterness come flooding back to you and your tears turn hot and furious.

“You let her die?” you demand. “You told her to leave me behind and you didn’t even save her?” You push Joel, your hands against the wet spots you left on his shirt. It’s ineffectual. He barely moves against your pathetic shove but his face crumples. You know he hates himself as much as you do in that moment but that’s not enough. You hit him as hard as you can and he does nothing to defend himself.

“Hey, hey,” Tommy says, trying a hand on your shoulder.

“You should’ve saved her,” you bark.

Heads have turned now as Tommy holds you back.

“I hoped you were dead every day since you left me,” you say.

You can see on his face that Joel’s definitely wished the same thing.

You go on berating him, your tears mixing with spit as you snarl and shout, until Tommy’s able to wrestle you out of the dining hall.

The summer comes. After a long, cold winter, everyone in Jackson welcomes the change of seasons with open arms. Everyone but Joel.

Ellie was a salve for the deep wounds on his heart. They’ll never fully heal but at least they stopped overwhelming him for some time. Since your dramatic reunion, though, those scars have been torn open once more. Especially today.

It’s warm and there’s barely a cloud in the sky. The July weather is mild compared to summers in Texas. Fresh air blows in through the open windows of the house, beckoning Joel outside but he has no desire to be in the sunshine.

“You okay?” Ellie asks.

She’s just come down the stairs. It’s early and Joel’s already at the kitchen table. Didn’t sleep much.

He and Ellie have been together long enough that she understands the wordless shifts in his moods. They’ve gotten worse since you arrived in Jackson. He does his work and patrols, sometimes he nurses a whiskey alone at the bar. The rest of the time he keeps to himself. He’s sliding back towards the man she met back in Boston. Joel’s rebuilt the walls that surrounded him, brick by brick since that afternoon in the dining hall.

“I was going to meet Dina at the mess. Want to come? Or I could stick around?” she offers.

It’s going to be one of those dark days, the kind that makes him question why he’s been hanging on for so long, and Ellie knows it. She’s giving him a lifeline, offering to be with him so he doesn’t have to ask. He should accept it, but he doesn’t want to waste his energy putting on a brave face for her when he feels so broken.

“That’s alright, Ellie. Go on,” he says.

She doesn’t push him. She never does. She just gives a sympathetic smile before she slips out.

Once seems gone, his heart begins to ache.

Sometime later, there’s a knock at the door. The last person he expects to see on the porch is you. You look a little nervous, like if he’d taken longer to come to the door you might’ve bolted.

He hasn’t spoken to you since that day that you came back into his life but the words you said play relentlessly on loop in his mind. He should have made amends by now. You were his daughter’s best friend and of all the places at the end of the world, you’ve ended up in the same town. He passes by the old pharmacy you live above just about every day, thinks about seeing if you’re in so you can have a conversation. He even knows what he’d say, but he can’t work up the courage. There aren’t any words that can make right what he did to you.

The guilt metastasized deep in his gut. His failure compounded.

So he doesn’t blame you for keeping your distance, avoiding him when your paths cross. He lets you be angry with him, as he deserves.

“Want some company?” you ask.

He recognizes the look on your face and it dawns on him that he might not be the only person struggling today. He steps aside to let you in.

Joel sets a cup of tea down in front of you. It’s not the real thing. Dried herbs from the garden Maria keeps. You’ve taken a seat across from him at the table, glancing around the kitchen so you don’t have to look at him.

“Surprised you remember,” he says.

“My best friend’s birthday?”

He shrugs as he pulls up a chair across from you. “Was a long time ago.”

“I think you underestimate the power of female friendships.”

You wear a soft smile that makes Joel’s heart ache a little harder. He takes a good look at you, seeing you up close for the first time. There are hints of the girl he knew back in Austin but she’s buried under years of hard living.

You’re the same age Sarah would have been today. The same age he was when he lost everything.

You sigh and scratch awkwardly at your neck.

“Listen, I’m sorry about…all that shit I said. It’s…” you trail off and he’s sure you’re still mad at him, deep down.

“I reckon I’m the one that owes an apology. I shouldn’t’ve left you back there. Sarah begged me not to,” he admits. “I was trying to keep her safe. But I fucked that up, too.”

“That’s not true. I was just angry,” you tell him.

“I was always so pissed at your parents for not caring enough about you. Turns out I was just as bad,” he says.

He hadn’t given any thought to the choice he made all those years ago. His priority was his family and he had no room for the rest of humanity. Joel didn’t realize until he saw your face again just how selfish that had made him. The past months he’s been haunted by the thought of it, a young thing all alone in the chaos. If Sarah’s watching over him, which sometimes he hopes she is, she’d be ashamed.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since I got here and…I don’t blame you. I’m not your kid. It just—“ You laugh without humor. “God, it’s so stupid but I had a huge crush on you.”

Joel’s eyebrows shoot up. You fiddle with the chipped handle on your mug.

“I know. I was just a kid but I was head over heels for you,” you say.

Joel can feel himself blushing. It’s a sweet thought. He’s honored in a strange way. He remembers the gravity of Sarah’s crushes– Leonardo DiCaprio, Usher, some guy with a lip ring from one of those punk bands she listened to.

“So when you left me…I was a little heart broken.”

“Shit,” Joel says.

“I didn’t say that to make you feel bad. I just wanted you to know why I was so hurt,” you tell him, leaning forward in your seat. “You didn’t know any of that. And it’s not fair to hang that over your head. It wasn’t your job to rescue me.”

“Course it was,” Joel responds. “You were just a kid. I let you down.”

You look at him gratefully and a tear slips down your cheek. It takes a minute for you to fully take that in and it seems like something you’ve needed to hear.

“Joel. I forgive you,” you tell him.

A thick knot forms in his throat.

There’s a litany of names in his mind, so many people he’s failed. Henry and Sam. Tess. Sarah. He’s never expected to be absolved of any of his sins, he doesn't deserve to be forgiven. But those three words make him feel lighter, like he can stop beating himself up. At least for a moment.

He tucks his chin into his chest trying to keep his own tears from spilling over. Your hand slips over his, a gentle, reassuring touch.

The two of you stay like that for a little while, crying together, then becoming reacquainted. You talk for a long time. There’s a lot of catching up to do but the conversation keeps coming back to Sarah. It’s a gift to share memories of her, to hear stories that he’s never heard. You knew Sarah better than anyone in the world— her favorite store in the mall, what she wanted for her birthday. Her hopes, her dreams, her fears. No fourteen year old goes to her daddy with her problems. You were there for her, though. Right up until the end.

“I, um, you should have this,” you say. “Well, it’s yours.”

You and Joel have migrated to the couch in the living room as the afternoon has crept on. You reach into your back pocket, a little reluctant, and pull something out.

It’s a photograph, dog eared and creased from years of being carried with you. Joel recognizes the picture— you and him and Sarah, all three of you donning life jackets, smiling as you float on a calm river. He and Tommy took Sarah kayaking and she asked if you could tag along. It was a wonderful day. Blue, cloudless sky.

The last time he saw the photo it was hanging under a magnet on the refrigerator in the kitchen.

“How’d…”

“I stayed in your house for a while. After. Just kind of hoping you might come back. I took that when I left. And I ate all your food,” you say with a little chuckle. You wipe some snot from your nose. “I guess…well, you probably don’t have a lot of pictures of her.”

You’re right. There was an outdated school photograph in his wallet when they left that night and it had been too painful to look at for years. It still stings a little but it feels easier to share with someone, someone that knew her so well.

“You sure?” he asks.

You nod. “I know where to find it.”

He props the picture up on the coffee table so you can both look at it and meditate on that day when everything felt so perfect.

“Remember we made you play “Crazy in Love” on on repeat the whole way there?” you ask.

“I still get that goddamn song stuck in my head,” he complains.

You laugh and rest your head on his shoulder. The familiar gesture cracks something open inside of him. He’s taken back to his favorite nights when he’d watch a movie with Sarah and she’d cuddle against him. Somehow the memory doesn’t hurt as much as he anticipates.

You sit like that, looking at the picture, both quiet, your smiles fading as you remember what’s happened since.

“Sometimes I think I see her,” he chokes.

He’s never told anyone that. But it seems like you might understand, He trusts you won’t meet his admission with a pitying smile.

“How’s she look?” you ask.

He can’t help but chuckle. He nods.

You don’t say anything, you just burrow your head a little deeper into him. Joel puts a gentle kiss in your hair.

You’re a fixture in the Miller house once again, part of the family. You babysit for Maria and tell her embarrassing stories about Tommy. You and Ellie tease Joel relentlessly. You sit with him in the evenings, sometimes singing along when he pulls out his guitar, other nights neither of you speak at all.

Slowly, you find yourself falling in love with him all over again. It’s not the same infatuation you harbored when you were young. You’re both different people. And you hardly knew him back then. Not really. What did a fourteen year old know about grown men?

The two of you fall into an easy rhythm. After being alone for such a long time, it’s magical to have a companion. Joel seems grateful for the company, too. He’s there whenever you turn around, like a promise. He’s not leaving you behind even if you’re just going from the stables to the library.

Neither of you acknowledge it, this easy rapport. A light squeeze on your shoulder, holding your hand when you get misty eyed. He probably doesn’t mean anything by it but you’re pretty sure you can’t live without it. You bask in the sweetness of these exchanges, trying not to think too hard about the fact that you used to spend Saturday nights giggling on his daughter’s bedroom floor.

He’s still Mr. Miller, after all.

Autumn comes and you’re inseparable. You realize just how much when you convince him to attend the children’s choir performance in town. You expect him to demure. Watching kids being kids must be painful. But he’s by your side in the dining hall as the little ones sing “Clementine” and “Oh Susanna”.

He puts his arm around your shoulder so you can lean into him. It might just be a paternal gesture, maybe you’re still a little girl in his eyes. That’s ok with you if he keeps absentmindedly massaging your upper arm. You can’t remember the last time you felt so safe, so loved.

Afterwards, he walks you home and you’re in such a good mood, you start singing to yourself.

“Johnny Cash,” he says approvingly.

You laugh to yourself. “You know, I started listening to him ‘cause of you. You had his CD in your truck,” you admit.

You wanted to like all of the things Joel liked. He would think you were so interesting and grown up because you knew all the words to “Riders in the Sky.”

“Least I was a good influence,” Joel says, shaking his head, his cheeks turning pink.

He’s so handsome when he blushes, you feel a little giddy when you come to stop in front of the old pharmacy.

“G’night, darlin’,” he says, giving your hand one last squeeze.

He waits. He’ll stand here and watch you get inside like he always does. He doesn’t need to— it’s not like people even lock their doors in Jackson— but he’s insisted on it so fervently that you stopped arguing.

You shouldn’t do it. It’s so silly. But there’s a softness in his eyes and his gentle touch still tingles on your arm. His salt and pepper hair is caught in the string lights that line the empty street. You can’t help yourself.

You kiss him, smoothing your palms up the front of his flannel until you sink your fingers into the curls at the base of his neck. The tip of his nose is cold from the chill in the evening air but his lips are warm and sweet.

You haven’t had a whole lot of experience kissing. You’d just started doing it when the outbreak happened and things haven’t been very romantic since. This is one of the better ones. Relatively chaste but unbearably tender. Certainly better than you could have imagined all those years ago.

It lasts longer than you expect. Joel kisses you back. He rests his hand on your waist and the way it covers so much of your back makes you swoon. Soon, though, he’s pulling away, cradling your cheek.

“We shouldn’t do that,” he says.

“I know,” you sigh. You’re reluctant to break away, savoring the brush of his nose against yours.

It’s all wrong but you’re not ashamed for trying it.

“Just once. I’ve always wanted to,” you say.

He presses his lips into your forehead. It feels bittersweet. A kiss you longed for for twenty years came and went.

You wave to him from the door before you go in for the night.

That kiss confirms Joel’s fears.

He’s spent months convincing himself that this is completely platonic. He would never have feelings for his daughter’s best friend. Even if he always wants to be around you.

He’s looking after you, comforting you, protecting you. He’s making up for those years that he made you suffer through. You forgave him but he’ll never stop atoning.

And then you kissed him.

Suddenly, he’s buried in an avalanche of thoughts he’s been disavowing.

You’re pretty and soft. You're strong and you ease the pain of his memories. You make him feel a little less alone.

The warmth of your lips, your body pressed to his. He was ready to lose himself in you.

That’s when he heard it.

It was Sarah’s voice chiding him with all the reasons why this is wrong.

She’s been in his head, his inner critic since the day she died, pointing out every failure and weakness in him. He could picture her looking down on him with disgust. She’s the same age as your daughter. She was just a kid when you met her. She deserves better than you.

He’s making the same mistake as before, letting his instinct get the better of him. The responsible part of him takes control. He can’t give you any more reasons to try and kiss him again.

If Joel is good at one thing it’s denying himself.

He backs off and you can sense it, he knows you do. Sometimes he catches you looking at him and there’s a longing in your eye. It fucking kills him but it’s just another reason why he’s no good for you.

Despite whatever it does to you, you haven’t got anybody else in Jackson so you stick around. He can only imagine how much it hurts you.

“Why did I go north?” you complain when Joel opens the front door. You’re holding a scarf tight around your neck, shivering against the cold. The sky is a dismal shade of gray, snowfall on the horizon.

Joel gets you in the house with a chuckle. He starts a fire, a luxury you little apartment doesn’t afford. You shiver in front of the hearth.

“Traded for this,” you say, pulling a thick book out of your coat and tossing it onto the coffee table.

“Oh good. I was looking for some light reading material,” Ellie quips from her spot on the couch.

“It’s a dictionary,” you explain, “so you’ll quit cheating at Boggle.”

“You're in trouble now,” Joel laughs.

“I don’t cheat. I just know more words than you guys,” she says.

“Dentment is not a word,” you reply.

“Neither is thoard,” Joel says.

“Sure it is. I’m about to thoard the two of you in this game,” she says.

This should be enough. A winter day by the fire. The simple joy of a board game. Laughter. This is practically a normal life.

But each time Joel’s eyes fall on you, there’s a pang in his chest. You’re just close enough that he could reach out and touch you but he won’t. He can’t.

When the sun sets, Ellie retreats to her room. Eventually, you fall asleep on the couch, wrapped up in a quilt as the fire dies down. You look even younger, curled up serenely. There’s no worry on your brow. Usually your face is in a perpetual frown even when you’re not in a mood.

The snow is already knee deep with no signs of slowing. There’s no sense in sending you back out there.

Joel scoops you up as gently as he can. He feels his age, back straining, but he doesn’t mind. He enjoys how you nestle your face into his chest as he mounts the stairs, warm and snug in his arms. A smile pulls at his lips.

He sets you down carefully on his bed and you whimper groggily at the loss of his touch. Your eyes crack open.

“Snowing pretty bad. Sleep here. I’ll be on the couch,” he whispers.

“Stay,” you murmur.

He hesitates. Carrying you to bed was already crossing a line. He’s not worried about keeping his hands to himself. He’s been able to control himself for this long. If he lays down next to you, feeling you warming his sheets, smelling the peppermint soap on your skin, he’ll be so far gone for you, there’ll be no coming back.

But denying you this simple request feels cruel. He imagines you waking up here all alone. You’re half asleep but what if you remember asking him to remain only to be abandoned again?

He gets into bed, still fully clothed and careful to stay on his side. His jaw is clenched so tightly his teeth hurt. You give a satisfied hum and sink back into sleep, your body melting into the mattress.

Joel watches you for a moment, fights the urge to put a kiss on your forehead. He crosses his arms and stares at the ceiling, beginning to tangle with the web of emotions that accompany you. Once it gets too confusing, he drifts off as well.

When you reach out for him in your sleep, he can’t deny you. Joel tries his hardest to pretend it doesn’t feel good, that this isn’t something he’s wanted to do. So he imagines the nightmares that come to you. Reminds himself that you wouldn’t have seen any of that shit if he hadn’t left you for dead. Now that you're in his arms, he’ll make sure nothing touches you ever again. The least he can do is hold you and make sure it goes no further.

You both find reasons that you should stay the night. Neither of you acknowledge it. Joel just hands you one of his t-shirts and busies himself as you slip out of your clothes and get under the covers. It’s all rather innocent, Joel does more than rub your back even though you sometimes feel his morning wood through his sweatpants. If he wants you, he doesn’t let himself have you. And he could.

It’s fine with you if cuddling is all this is. You don’t try to do anything more than that, unwilling to upset the unspoken agreement between you. You can be satisfied with a broad, firm chest to rest your back against. Sleep is better beside him, his heart beats guiding your own. The weight of his arm draped across you makes your body feel deliciously heavy.

After a while, though, it happens.

Joel’s having a nightmare. His murmurs and restless movements wake you. His mouth twitches and his brow is creased. You smooth circles into his shoulder until his eyes open. Even in the darkness you can see the despair in them.

He blinks, coming back to reality, remembering he’s not wherever his dreams took him. You brush your fingers through his hair, gazing at one another as his breaths even out. Normally, his age is obvious– the lines in his forehead, the sun spots on his cheek– yet right now he looks young. Like a boy that needs to sleep with a night light.

You’re not sure who initiates but you find each other in the dark. At first he’s not kissing you at all, his lips are just brushing your cheek or your nose. It’s sweet and gentle. You try to hold in a moan, worried that any noise might shatter this moment.

The kisses are timid as if you’re both waiting for someone to stop this. Joel lets out a shuddering breath against you. This is a bad idea, you’re both thinking it. After you kissed him the last time, he held you at arms length. When this blows up, you’ll lose him entirely. But you need to be closer to him.

You open your mouth to him, tangle your legs between his. His hand slides under your shirt, roaming your bare skin. You thought that snuggling under the blanket was enough but now you realize just how hungry you’ve been to be touched. Really touched. He needs it too. Joel leans into your hand on his jaw with a whimper.

You don’t open your eyes. You might be the one dreaming and you don’t want to wake up.

It’s quiet, just the sound of hot breaths and desperate kisses, the swish of the sheets as you shift your hips to meet his. You keep yourself from rocking against him, try to enjoy the feeling of him without crossing yet another line, but you’re aching. His shirt has ridden up so you feel the softness of his middle, the light hairs on his chest. Your fingers intertwine with his as his mouth trails down the column of your neck and. Joel buries his face there.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes.

You’re not sure what he’s apologizing for. This? Then? The years in between? None of it matters because you want to live in this moment forever.

You shush him, pull him back to your mouth. You’re ready to lose yourself, to forget, to ignore the storm of thoughts constantly plaguing your mind. This is all you want.

You peel off your clothing, helping him slide out of his sweatpants until there’s nothing between you. Joel’s skin is warm and soft against you and you realize you’ve never been this close to another soul.

When Joel settles over you and you feel him throbbing between his legs, you shiver with nervous anticipation. You expect him to say something, to warn you that this is a bad idea, to promise this won’t change anything. But his brown eyes look as confused with need as you feel. There’s no room for thinking or it will crush this fragile moment like glass.

You tilt your hips to allow him in, already slick from being so close to him.

Slowly, he enters you, kissing you all the while. He makes a choked sound, wincing as his body stills. The noise makes you clench around him.

Together you take a moment to get your bearings and you adjust to the fullness of him. Joel’s eyes are pressed shut, his teeth digging into his bottom lip.

Before he begins to move, his thumb finds your clit, grazing it lightly. After years of solitude and now months being just out of reach of him, the sensation makes you gasp sharply.

You’ve had sex a handful of times. They had been more about fulfilling a self destructive urge than a desire for pleasure. It’s never been like this.

You start to lose sense of everything but the feelings of your body. Your core tenses and your breaths go short and you start to forget that it’s Joel whose hips are stuttering into you. It’s as if this euphoria can erase some of those awful memories.

Soon you’re shattering beneath him, a crescendo that has you tugging on his hair and gasping for air. Joel grunts into your ear. He follows after you, hissing as he pulls out of you. He pulses into his hand, his release dripping from his fist onto your sweat damp skin. Then he collapses onto you. You run your fingers through his long curls and he kisses your forehead. There might be tears in your eyes– maybe his too. It’s too dark to be sure– but when his breath evens out, it still sounds ragged against you.

Eventually he gets out of bed and leaves the room and, in that moment, you can feel everything hanging over your head again– what you’ve just done, the horrors of the world. Perhaps even more intense than before.

But Joel returns quickly. He flicks on the light on his bed side table and cleans you with a damp rag. His touch is gentle, reverent, and his dark eyes travel over your naked skin to yours. There’s a question in them, guilt, but you have no regrets. You smooth your hand out on the sheets beside you and he lays back on his pillow. He surrounds you with his massive arms and you fall asleep grateful that you don’t feel abandoned anymore.

You worry that it was just a one time thing, try to accept that it might never happen again. But the next time you share Joel’s bed, he’s pulling you into him, pressing kisses into your shoulder, nuzzling at the spot behind your ear. His hard length prods at the small of your back.

It starts like that every time. Intimate, sensual, quiet. It’s never tearing his clothes off or pushing you up against a wall. You just stay close, breath each other in, trail fingertips across skin. Neither of you ever speak above a whisper.

Joel barely talks at all except to ask, “That too much?” and “Feel good?”

You live for the moments when his hand skates over your hip, his dark eyes soft.

“Pretty,” he says almost to himself.

He’s such a beautiful man. Your fingers trace the smooth plane of his chest, dusted lightly with hair and a few stray freckles. Age has only improved him. The greys in his stubble catch the glow from the lamp on the nightstand. You study him with the same attention to detail you used in your youth. The cleft in his bottom lip, the dimples on his lower back, the scar on his temple. You’ve memorized it all.

Joel breaks open for you. He lets you see him vulnerable. He’ll fuck you with thrusts that shake loose deep emotions. Just as quickly, he’ll hold you together when it feels like you’re falling apart.

You lay with him after, sticky with the shared heat of your bodies but reluctant to roll away and break the connection.

Whatever this is, you don’t speak its name. There are too many questions and conflicts that it might not withstand. It exists only for you and him. A safe haven in the chaos, a bit of respite at the end of long years.

In his arms, you’re not his dead daughter’s best friend. He’s not the man that left you when you needed him most. You’re just two people that need to not be alone. Each time, it’s the same. The overwhelming bliss of Joel making love to you is second only to the understanding that he’s finally come back for you.

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear from you. Comments and reblogs always appreciated.

#joel miller #tlou #joel miller fic #bfd!joel miller #jackson!joel miller #pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fic

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shellshocklove · 4 months

Text

does anyone know where the love of god goes? | joel miller

pairing/AU: joel miller x female!reader – post breakout & no ellie AU

summary: crossing the country alone as he searches for his brother, joel stumbles on a farm. winter is closing in, and against his better judgement he's convinced to stay. as the frost covers the land like a blanket, a warmth ignites in his heart for the young woman who's home he finds himself in.

warnings: this is an 18+ fic so minors dni!!! canon-typical violence, age gap (reader is mid to late twenties), swearing, dead animals, joel being a sad man, masturbation, no use of y/n

a/n: i soft launched this ao3 last month and it flopped lol so i'm gonna keep my expectations low for this series. anyways this has been a story i've been thinking about since probably october. this is the first part of what i'm hoping will be 3 parts. happy reading i guess

main masterlist / series masterlist / ao3 / playlist

from the river to the sea, palestine will be free 🇵🇸 this account stands with palestine. the creator of tlou is a zionist, and the second game is largly based on israel/palestine. please, everyone who interacts, educate yourself about the genocide happening right now, and support/donate.

The leaves rustled against Joel’s boots with every step he took. The sun had turned traitor cold, and he couldn’t feel its kiss against his cheek no more. The trees shivered above him in the wind – the only sound for miles except his heavy steps.

Did he still exist, with no one around? Joel had never minded being alone; after the breakout he’d found that he sometimes preferred it. People could be… well, when you’ve seen the worst of humanity, maybe it’s best to leave it behind.

And wasn’t he the worst of humanity? The things he’d done. The people he’d killed, and killed for. The people he’d lost.

But he had to keep going. For Tess. He promised.

Every night as he stared into the flames his thoughts would drift to her – the memories flickering in the fire. They should’ve never gone through that museum – it was supposed to have been empty – they should’ve never left Boston in the first place. Now Tess is gone because of him, him and his stupid plan to find his brother.

And for what? How is he ever gonna find Tommy?

Joel didn’t even know where he was. Nebraska? South-Dakota? Maybe he’d made it to Wyoming and just didn’t know it? Abe had told him ‘Cody Tower’, but Joel hadn’t seen anything other than mother nature for weeks.

Everything had started to look the same. Trees and more trees, a mountain in the distance, a grey and heavy sky above him. He’d been walking for forever. Slowly he moved west– or at least he thought he was. On the days where the sun hung high in the sky and wasn’t shielded behind a cloudy partition, he liked to watch it as it dipped below the earth. As the days turned shorter and shorter, the display of color had started to get more vivid. Joel would watch the light blue turn red and bloody, fiery tongues of flames licking over the horizon while the sharp edges of the mountains, and the triangular shapes of the trees faded into an intense black– like the shape of the mountain and the trees had been cut out with scissors. There wasn’t much to stay alive for anymore– but Joel lived for those few moments where nature painted with fire. Humanity might’ve gone to shit, but the cyclical regularity of mother nature gave Joel a small sense of peace.

But he missed the kiss of the sun against his cheek now. He’d moved into a large forest a few days ago. Tall trees hovered over him like giants and cast shadows down at him. It was colder here than out in the open country, but at least he’d been somewhat shaded from the rain pouring from the grey cover above his head the last few days.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

The sound stopped Joel in his tracks. Muscle memory worked on its own, gripping the shotgun slung over his shoulder. He listened for the sound again, to the steady rhythm echoing through the forest.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

With slow calculated steps Joel walked in the direction of the sound with the shotgun held tightly to his chest, his finger hovered over the trigger. The chopping sound got louder as he closed in on a man. He couldn’t tell his age with the man’s back turned – but he was strong – Joel could tell from how hard the man’s axe hit the tree trunk.

Taking another silent step, Joel got in position, “How ‘bout you slowly turn around and place that axe on the ground.”

Joel’s voice was hoarse after no use, but still cold and calculated as he spoke his order. He could see he’d startled the man, probably thinking he was alone, just like Joel had thought mere minutes ago.

The man obeyed, turning around slowly. He was older than Joel, maybe mid-seventies, maybe older if the wrinkles and creases around his eyes and nose were to be believed. His hair was white as snow matching his unkempt beard. Joel caught his eye. Strong and steady, no trace of fear one would think a man would feel while having a gun pointed at them.

Joel’s grip around the gun tightened. He wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger if that’s where this was headed. The man watched him calmly before he bent his knees, throwing the axe haphazardly on the ground.

“Kick it over here,” Joel commanded again, and the man obeyed, kicking the axe clumsily towards Joel.

Slowly Joel crept closer, gun still pointed at the man. He locked the heel of his shoe against the shaft, dragging the axe behind him and out of the way.

“Hands where I can see ‘em.”

“Are you going to kill me, son?”

The man’s question puzzled Joel. He said it so calmly, like how you’d ask someone to pass the salt.

“That depends on you.” Joel’s answer pulled at the old man’s lips, a small huff of a laugh escaping them.

“Well, you’re the one with the gun. I think it depends on you.”

Joel tightened his grip on the shotgun again – he didn’t know why –to frighten the man? He didn’t seem very frightened.

“Are you alone?” Joel asked.

“Not anymore,” the man answered.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Joel gritted through his teeth, “who you travelin’ with?”

“No one,” the man’s eyes never left Joel, “I live at a farm about a mile away.”

“Take me to it.”

The man walked with a limp Joel noticed. It was barely there, you wouldn’t see it if you didn’t pay attention, but it was there. The man acted tough enough, but his body revealed his weaknesses. It would be easy to kill him, Joel thought, if it came to that.

He followed the man through the trees with his gun pointed at his back. When they reached the end of the forest a clearing revealed itself. They followed a path through a field of, tall but wilted, brown grass until they reached an overgrown gravel road with a fence running along it. Looking out in the distance, Joel could see small spots of white and black wool. The gravel moaned under their feet as they closed in on a small farm. A two-story house sat in the middle of the barnyard where it was surrounded by a barn who’d seen better days, a silo, and a smaller farmhouse – a stable – Joel noticed as they walked closer.

The man trudged up the front stairs of the main farmhouse, a hand on the handrail keeping him steady.

“Put that gun away would you, son? I don’t want you frightening my wife.” The man broke the silence between them, speaking for the first time since they left the woods.

Joel’s grip on his shotgun didn’t loosen. How could he be sure that this man’s ‘wife’ wasn’t some gang of raiders hiding behind the front door? A question he asked the man through gritted teeth when he turned around to look at Joel.

“There’s nothing of the sort around here,” the man said, “we don’t even see any infected.”

When Joel didn’t say anything, and didn’t lower the gun, the man spoke again, “Who are you?”

“Just someone passin’ through,” Joel answered, making the man chuckle.

“You’re something else, passer-througher,” the old man smiled before he turned around again and stepped inside, leaving Joel on the porch alone.

Abandoned outside he lowered his gun slightly. Inside he could hear muffled voices, a deeper one, definitely the old man, and a brighter one, a woman’s voice. He listened, trying to make out their words with no prevail. The man seemed to have spoken the truth up until now. He most definitely lived on this farm – a seemingly normal farm. This man was just someone making an honest living – even after the apocalypse.

Lowering the gun completely, Joel put the safety on before he slung it over his shoulder. Taking a hollowed step towards the front door, movement in the window to the right of him caught his eye. It was there and then it was gone – just a ruffle of blonde curtains. Then, the door opened revealing an elderly woman.

The man’s wife.

“Welcome, traveler,” she greeted, stepping aside to let Joel in.

He passed through the doorway with a “Thank you, ma’am,” never forgetting his manners even after pointing a gun at her husband.

Inside it looked like a picture taken straight out of a Homes & Gardens magazine. The house was cozy, but it was small. He’d been welcomed into what probably used to be a parlor, but now served its purpose as their living room. It was hard to get a read on the house. Not like those open-floor plan houses he’d built too many of back before the outbreak – this was old, maybe hundreds of years old. The floorboard creaked under his shoes as he walked deeper into the living room, the rest of the house locked away like a secret behind three closed doors. The man was seated in a lounge chair by the fireplace, watching Joel with an expression Joel found it hard to decipher.

“Would you like some tea?” the woman asked, “It’s peppermint from our garden.”

Joel turned his head to the woman. She must be around the same age as the old man, Joel thought. He cleared his throat before he answered with a nod, “Thank you, ma’am.”

She pointed to the sofa, urging him to sit down with a smile before she disappeared through one of the doors to what Joel thought must be the kitchen. He felt the old man watching him as he slid his backpack off his shoulders, placing it on the creaky wooden floor behind the sofa. Joel hesitated for just a second when placing the shotgun up against the back, but decided he wasn’t in any imminent danger.

Joel almost groaned as he sat down. He’d been walking for so long, slept on the hard ground for months, he’d almost forgotten what a comfortable chair was. It almost felt surreal, being invited in for tea, like the outbreak had never happened. Here, it was like the time had stood still.

“So,” the man started, “where are you heading to if you’re just ‘passin’ through’?”

Joel cleared his throat again, “I’m lookin’ for my brother,” he answered truthfully, “last I heard he was somewhere in Wyoming.”

“If you’re going to Wyoming, then what you’re doing all the way up here?” The man queried with a chuckle.

Annoyed, Joel grinded his teeth, “Not many signs in the fuckin’ woods are there?” He huffed.

“I guess not,” the man shrugged, “but you’ve made a heck of a detour… where did you come from? Texas? You sound it.”

“Boston.”

“Boston?” the man didn’t hide his surprise, breathing out chuckles in disbelief, “I’ll give it to you, that’s one long trip.”

Joel only huffed in agreement, turning his head from the man to the window overlooking the barnyard.

“Well,” the man broke the growing silence between the two men, “you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner and for the night– you look like you could need a hot meal and a warm bed.”

Joel’s instinct was to say no, but before he could the front door opened, revealing a young woman. You.

You stopped dead in your tracks as you laid your eyes on Joel, “Oh!”.

The door slammed behind you. Under your arm you were carrying a metal bucket filled with apples. You were beautiful, young, but still beautiful – Joel couldn’t deny it.

“This is…” The man paused.

“Joel.” He cleared his throat, introducing himself, “Joel Miller.”

“Mr. Miller is just passing through– he’s looking for his brother,” the old man explained to you.

You nodded at the information, sat the bucket down before you reached out a hand for Joel to take, introducing yourself. Your hand in his was warm and soft while his own dwarfed yours, rough and calloused. He couldn’t help but think about what his hands had done, the people they’d killed. He shouldn’t be tainting yours, painting them red. Joel quickly drew his hand back, balling it into a fist at his side.

Joel looked over at the old man, “Your daughter?” he asked with a tilt of his head in your direction.

“Oh, no,” the man answered with a playful smile, “You’re not the first person ‘passin’ through’ who’s shown up on our doorstep.”

The door to the kitchen opened to reveal the old woman with a teapot in her hand, and a stacked tower of teacups in the other.

“Let me help you Alma,” you said, taking the teacups from the old woman’s hand before placing them on the table; one in front of Joel, a second in front of the old man, “Here you go Arthur,” and a third next to Joel.

“Did you also want some tea, sweetie?” Alma asked you as she placed the steaming teapot on the table.

“Yes, please, but I can grab a cup myself– sit down,” you smiled and padded the old woman’s shoulder, then you grabbed the bucket of apples and disappeared into the kitchen.

Alma started pouring the tea as a silence fell over the room. A small, “Thank you, ma’am,” left Joel’s lips as she moved on to pouring tea for her husband.

“So,” the man started before taking a sip of his tea, “what do you say Mr. Miller? You staying for the night?”

That night as he laid in a real bed for the first time in months, Joel had trouble falling asleep. He wasn’t used to this. Hadn’t been used to it for a while. His belly full, soft fabric against his skin, feeling warm, and clean. The old couple had offered him one of the two bedrooms on the first floor, the two mystery doors in the living room now revealed. Laying in his new bed he tried not to think about who he was sharing a wall with.

You.

You were something else, helpful and kind. Everything Joel hadn’t seen since the outbreak. At the dinner table you’d asked him questions and listened intently – even when his answers were short and brisk. There was a glimmer in your eye, and it touched something inside him he hadn’t felt in a long time. But you were young, mid to late twenties he reckoned, maybe a little older– anyways, he shouldn’t be harboring anything for you, it wouldn’t be right. Especially now, now that he’d agreed to stay.

After the dinner plates had been cleared, Arthur had folded a big map out on the table. “Here are we now,” he’d pointed a finger at the map. Montana. Southern Montana to be precise. “I’ll give it to you Mr. Miller, if you’ve made it this far on your own you probably won’t have any trouble making your way down south to Wyoming.”

“But?” Joel watched the grimace pulling at the old man’s face.

“But,” Arthur had said, “Winter is just around the corner and… well, going back out there in the wilderness alone during our winters is a dead trap, I’ll tell you that much.”

Joel had let the man go on about the far below freezing temperatures, the heavy snow, and the tough wind, but Joel wasn’t stupid. He knew the winters up here were harsh. It wasn’t even winter yet, but every day he’d felt the temperature drop lower and lower, and the last few of nights he’d even had to get a fire going, against his better judgement.

So– the deal was: Joel would stay over the winter. Just for the winter, he’d been adamant on not staying longer. He’d get a place to stay, a warm bed to sleep in, and food in his belly on one condition – he’d help out on the farm.

The fire crackled loudly, red tongues licking up the chimney as Joel fed it another log. He watched as the fire caught in the new log, devouring it quickly and with no mercy. It was really starting to heat up now. A small flicker of pride sparked in Joel chest. He’d always been good at building a fire. It was one of those things, Joel had come to learn, where you needed to pay attention, to have patience.

When he was younger, he’d take Tommy out camping sometimes, just the two of them. Mostly they’d go during the summer; Tommy wasn’t a fan of sleeping outside in the cold, though cold had meant something different back then in Texas. But Joel remembered one time he’d managed to convince him to go with him. It was right after he’d gotten his driver’s license, and his parents had given him a beat-up truck for his birthday – for sharing – they’d told him, “You need to give your little brother a ride when he needs it!” Joel wasn’t exactly thrilled about his future as Tommy’s private driver, but it didn’t mean he didn’t love his brother.

A few weeks into October he’d managed to convince Tommy to go camping. They’d packed the truck with their tents, sleeping bags, and fishing equipment, before they’d gotten on the road, driving to a lake where they knew there were fish to catch. Finding a place to camp was always difficult with Tommy. They’d parked Joel’s truck at the edge of the forest before they’d followed a hiking trail. Joel was convinced they’d walked at least three quarters of the way around the lake before they found a spot good enough for Tommy.

It had to be flat, but also shielded. There couldn’t be too many rocks, but there also had to be enough rocks to build a hearth. Tommy wanted it to be private, but he also wanted it to be open enough that he could see if someone would stumble upon their camp. Joel knew not to argue with him when he got like that, opting instead for a defeated, “Whatever.”

Setting up camp went relatively easy. They’d worked together building the tents, collecting rocks for their fireplace, and even managed to find a fallen tree to use as a bench. When the night slowly started to cover them in darkness, Tommy decided to get the fire going. Joel watched him work the logs into a pile as he started on filleting the fish they’d just caught.

“You’re doin’ it wrong,” he’d told his brother, “You’re suffocatin’ it.” He’d washed his hands in the lake, ridding himself of the slimy smell of fish, before crouching down next to Tommy.

The fire was one big bowl of smoke, and Joel caught himself wondering what messages Tommy must’ve been sending to the heavens. He removed some of the heavier logs, and the fire could breathe.

“See?” he’d looked at Tommy, “It just needed air.” Joel had shifted the smaller pieces of wood around and not long after the fire was alive.

That Joel, that green boy who liked to take his little brother camping, that Joel didn’t know how much those skills would come in handy in a few years when the world would get turned upside down.

“Do you have any mittens, Joel?”

Your question pulled Joel from his memories. He turned his head slightly, meeting your gaze from where you were huddled up in the corner of the couch. You looked cozy, but he knew you weren’t. The house was cold this morning, outside a thin layer of frost had stuck to the grass during the night. It was early too, the sun not having climbed high enough yet to peek over the mountains. You looked tired where you sat, clad in a wool sweater with a blanket pulled over your knees. Under the blanket Joel remembered you were still wearing your pajama pants, and in your hand you held a steaming cup of tea, peppermint, Joel knew, his own cup abandoned on the coffee table.

“What?” Joel answered, eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you have any mittens, Joel?” you repeated softly, like the way people tended to speak in the mornings, like they were afraid they’d wake up the world.

His calves were starting to burn from the strain of being crouched in front of the fireplace for a moment too long, and he tried his best to hide his groan, biting his teeth together as he stood to his feet, knees cracking loudly.

“Um, no,” he said, confused about your question.

“I’ll knit you a pair then,” you smiled before putting your cup down next to his.

“That’s… that ain’t necessary,” Joel hurried, but you waved him off.

“Sure it is,” you smiled again, much to Joel’s annoyance. He didn’t deserve your kindness, but you gave it away like it cost nothing. “If you’re gonna be helping Arthur out in the woods this winter, you need some mittens.”

Joel watched as you got up from your home on the couch and vanished into your bedroom. A moment later you appeared in the doorway with a basket under your arm.

“Also…” you gave him another smile as you sat back down again, placing the basket in your lap. It was close to overflowing with yarn, balls of black and white in varying sizes peeking over the top, the homespun ends fraying against the rough edges of the basket. “I’ll have something to do during the evenings,” you winked before you rummaged through the basket and fished out a measuring tape.

Joel shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he watched you. Mittens? Joel can’t remember if he’s ever owned a pair of mittens. Gloves, sure, but mittens?

You patted the cushion next to you, urging him to sit down, kind smile hanging off your lips like always. Sitting down, he folded his hands in his lap, suddenly very aware of how close you were sitting. It wasn’t like he hadn’t sat next to you before; he’d been here a few weeks now, and he was starting to know you, but for some reason, this felt different. Maybe it was the early morning, the quiet house, or the fact that Alma and Arthur were still sleeping upstairs, but it felt like it was just the two of you, alone, and Joel didn’t know how to feel about it.

You shifted towards him, the blanket slipping slightly off the couch with your movement, in your hands you held the measuring tape while you looked at him expectantly.

When Joel didn’t move, a smile quirked at the corner of your mouth before you grabbed one of his hands resting in his lap. You uncurled his fingers slowly, one by one, making Joel hold his breath.

“I need to see how big I need to make them,” you whispered, holding his hand very gently.

Joel’s heart hammered in his chest. Your hand was warm and soft, like the last time he’d touched you as you’d introduced yourself to him. Joel didn’t dare look at your face, or he’d say something stupid, so he didn’t. He looked at your joined hands, his brain trying to remember the last time someone had held his hand as gently as you did, your thumb running over the back of it soothingly.

He can’t remember. His hands are always empty.

With your other hand, a finger curled around the measuring tape, you slipped it around his wrist before leaning closer to look at the numbers.

“Is this too tight you think, or do you want them to be looser?” You asked through your lashes, eyes sparkling in the low morning light.

Joel cleared his throat, “No, that’s fine.”

“Okay,” you nodded, slipping the measuring tape from his wrist to write down the measurement. He hadn’t noticed your notebook until now. It was a little rough around the edges from use, the spined cracked and the paper a little yellow. Placing the pen in the seam, you grabbed the measuring tape again.

Loosening your grip on his hand you placed it over the thick of your thigh. Joel drew a quick breath, his heartbeat hammering in his ears, under his hand he could feel the warmth of you through the soft flannel.

You continued taking your measurements. You didn’t say anything, so neither did Joel, but you looked up at him through your lashes sometimes, and Joel thought that maybe the most useful thing one can do with empty hands, is hold on.

The creak of the stair made Joel jump, and like he’d been burned his hand retracted on reflex, as Arthur’s heavy steps got closer.

“Morning,” Arthur greeted as he ducked his head through the door to the living room.

“Mornin’,” Joel mumbled, head lowered as he gathered his hands in his lap.

“Good morning!” you smiled, always with that kind smile, “Did you sleep well, Arthur?” you got up from your seat before grabbing your teacup to follow Arthur into the kitchen, leaving the yarn and Joel.

Taking a deep breath, Joel pinched the top of his nose. He needed to get it together. You were just being your regular kind self; your soft touch was nothing more than that. Standing to his feet, Joel grabbed his own cup, trudging into the kitchen.

In the kitchen Arthur sat in his usual spot at the dining table, the chair closest to the window. “I need to get on with this barn soon,” Joel heard him say as he sat down opposite him. “It’s gonna fall apart come spring if we get as much snow as we did last year.”

Joel tried his best not to look at you as he heard you hum. You were stood at the kitchen counter slicing the bread Alma had baked yesterday, readying breakfast. Instead, Joel opted to gaze down into his teacup, where the peppermint leaves had all gathered at the bottom.

“Um,” Joel cleared his throat, “what needs fixin’?”

“What doesn’t need fixing in that barn?” Arthur sighed, peeling his eyes from out the window to Joel.

“I can uh,” Joel eyes shifted quickly to you before he cleared his throat again, “I can take a look at it, if ya want?”

Arthur’s eyebrows met in a furrow as he looked at Joel.

“I used to be a contractor,” Joel explained with a shrug, before taking a last cold sip of his tea.

“So, you know a thing or two about buildings I reckon?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah, well I used to,” Joel leaned back in his chair.

“Well, that would be very helpful Joel– I’d appreciated it!” Arthur smiled before leaning back in his chair making room for you as you started setting the table. Joel gave him a short nod in return, trying to fight the urge to look at you as you placed the food on the table.

Arthur had downplayed the state of the barn – it was a mess – it was dangerous, and had Joel told him as much. But it was nothing Joel couldn’t fix, as long as he had the right supplies, fortunately for him the forest would provide them with what they needed.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

The axe dug a deep wound into the bark with every swing. Joel’s breath was heavy, and his arms ached, but it was a welcomed form of tiredness. A month into it, he was starting to get used to the work. There was something so satisfying about manual labor, of using his hands, of making something – he’d almost forgotten.

The routine of the work felt good. Waking up at dawn, then breakfast, he could use his body for something useful for the first time in twenty years and end the day with a warm meal for supper. This new temporary life was simple, but it was strangely normal.

Originally, Joel was only helping Arthur out in the woods for firewood through the winter– but now with the barn, they’d changed course. The last few days they’d started to become more selective with the trees; looking for the tallest and straightest ones that would fall safely.

A frozen sky hovered over the men as they worked. This morning when Joel had woken up, the thinnest layer of snow had fallen like powdered sugar during the night, turning the world bright with winter. Earlier in the week the frost had perched on the farm, and Joel had known winter was closing in. He’d lost count of the days and months passing while on his own, but Arthur had told him it was late October.

“It will start snowing properly soon,” Arthur said, breaking the silence between them.

Joel hummed before taking a bite of his packed lunch. They’d worked all morning – Joel felling the trees and Arthur cleaning them up and removing the branches. Now they were sat on a fresh tree stump each, their first break of the day.

“I have an old logging sled in the barn– used to be my father’s,” Arthur explained, “I think we should leave the trees here until the snow gets deep enough for the sled and have the horses pull them back to the farm.”

“Fine by me,” Joel took another bite of his lunch.

“The logs will have to dry out over the winter,” Arthur mused, “Then come spring we can start the repairs on the barn.”

Spring. If everything goes according to plan, Joel won’t be here come spring. He needed to find Tommy– he couldn’t, and he wasn’t gonna stay on the farm for any longer than necessary. He’d already decided– when the snow finally started to melt, Joel was gone.

Joel hummed, a non-committed answer. It was easier that way, to not get Arthur’s hopes up. He liked Arthur, he was a good man, a hard worker even in his old age, and silent when Joel wanted him to be. Joel liked Alma too, but her age shined through more easily than Arthur’s. Joel couldn’t help but notice her repeating herself more often and forgetting where she put things. It made life harder for you, Joel could see it. Your responsibilities were already a lot to handle as you took care of the animals mostly by yourself, but as Joel had discovered Alma starting to struggle with the housework, he’d noticed you starting to help her more often. In Joel’s mind it was unfair to you, but it wasn’t like he could blame Alma for growing older, in this world it was a feat.

Still, he’d try his best to help you when he could, like doing the dishes after dinner as you dried them off and put them away. The first few times you were both quiet, it was strangely intimate, only the sound of splashing water filling the space between you. One night he'd gotten brave, breaking the comfortable silence and asked you ‘What you thinkin’ about, sweetheart?’ You’d looked at him with big eyes, searching his own for something, but before he could figure out what it was, you’d answered him with a shrug. It was unlike you, unlike you to be this silent, but Joel didn’t push. The next night the silence persisted, and he’d thought adding ‘Sweetheart’ had been too much, but then the next night you’d sighed quietly and whispered, “I’m worried about Alma.”

Looking down at the mittens in his lap, the guilt gnawed at him. The look of worry in your eyes, Arthur’s hopeful wishes, and Alma’s aging. Joel couldn’t have anything tying him to this place. He was supposed to find his brother.

Suddenly, a black and orange butterfly landed on Joel’s knee. Joel stopped breathing, body going rigid as he tried not to move. How the hell was this butterfly still alive? It sat quiet on his knee, wings slowly retracting and widening behind it. Memories pushed its way to the forefront of Joel’s mind then.

Sarah. Another year had gone by, and the thought made his chest tighten.

“That’s quite a sight at this time of year,” he heard Arthur say, “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Y-yeah,” Joel stammered out an answer, afraid his voice would scare it away.

The longer Joel watched the butterfly he found his guilt started to slowly melt away. It’s okay, dad. It was like the rustling of the trees carried her voice with them. You’re on the right path.

“I can do that f’you want, sweetheart.”

Joel’s boots creaked under him as he walked across the barnyard. You looked up at the sound of his voice, smile blossoming across your face as you tightened your grip on the shovel.

“It’s alright,” you said with a grunt as you picked up more snow, adding it to the growing pile, “Good for me to get some physical work in.”

Joel nodded as you straightened up, hand going to your hip while the other leaned on the shovel, your heavy breath curled in small plumes out of your mouth. You took him in for a second, eyes flickering over his form before they fell on the rabbits hanging over Joel’s shoulder.

“Where’d you get those?” you asked, and Joel shrugged.

“Shot ‘em,” he said simply, “they walked right by me as I was choppin’– seemed too good to pass up.”

“Not for the rabbits,” you muttered, and Joel had to fight the urge to smile.

“You a vegetarian or somethin’?” he asked with a single raised eyebrow, and you waved him off.

“No,” you said pointedly, but a teasing lilt lingered, “Just stating a fact... we don’t eat a lot of rabbit around here, is all.”

Joel nodded slightly; it made sense. He knew there was a gun in the house, but it was a revolver– too small to do any real hunting, and Joel didn’t even know if there were bullets for it. So, Joel didn't ask further. Lucky for him, you did.

“So, you just shot those?” you asked, a frown pulling at your eyebrows, “Aren’t they fast?”

Joel made a nonchalant sort of face. “Ain’t that hard when you can aim straight.”

“Well, how do you aim straight?”

“You learn to shoot.”

You let out a small laugh, one that pulled at Joel’s lips. “And how did you go about learning that?”

Joel felt his smile drop, the leather strap of his shotgun weighing heavy on his shoulder, “Practice.”

You didn’t seem to notice the change in his demeanor as you dug the shovel into the snow, so it stood by itself like a watchman. “Can you teach me?” you asked, the snow creaking under your shoes as you took a few steps closer.

His lips pulled at the corner, “No.”

Your eyes widened with disappointment, eyebrows pulling together in a frown as you asked, “Why?”

“Nothin’ good ever comes from it,” Joel shrugged.

“Okay,” you huffed a laugh, “that’s sinister.” Then you narrowed your eyes at him, gearing up for an argument no doubt with the way you rested your hand on your hip. “What if I also wanted to go hunting?” you posed, and Joel shook his head.

“That ain’t happenin’, sweetheart.”

“Okay, but now you’ve brought us rabbits– and what if I end up really liking rabbit?” you bit down on your bottom lip, unconsciously showing off you own rabbit teeth.

Cute.

“Then I’ll shoot as many rabbits as you want,” Joel countered with a teasing smile before tightening his hold on the rope slung over his other shoulder (the one he’d tied the rabbits to), and walked towards the kitchen door at the back of the farmhouse.

He heard you huff in defeat behind him, your creaky steps following him up the stairs and inside. Walking into the kitchen Joel placed the rabbits on the table before he pulled at his mittens, stripped off his jacket, and hung it neatly over the back of one of the dining chairs. Grabbing one of the rabbits he brought it to the kitchen counter to start dressing it, fighting the urge to turn his head as he heard you enter the room.

“Come on, Joel,” you whined, “Why won’t you teach me?”

“Told you already,” Joel replied, “Nothin’ good comes from learnin’ to shoot things.”

Shifting the rabbit around on the counter he reached for the butcher knife in the knife block.

“You know, that’s a really stupid way of saying you don’t want to spend the time,” you told him, your voice closer now as you leaned against the kitchen counter.

“When exactly did ya hear me sayin’ I don't wanna spend time with you?” Joel asked, his eyebrows pulled together in a frown.

“You won’t teach me to shoot,” you teased, and Joel could hear the smile in your voice.

Joel huffed out a laugh, “Damn right I won’t.”

He heard you let out a whiney huff, before you turned on your heel, muttering out a curse under your breath when you accidently bumped your hip into the counter and Joel couldn’t help the smile teasing at his lips. You sat down with an overdramatic sigh, and Joel still didn’t look at you – he knew he’d cave eventually if he did, say yes against his better judgement – so he kept his eyes on the knife in his hand.

“How’s Arthur?” Joel asked as he worked.

“I don’t know,” you sighed, “The same I think– Alma was up there looking after him last time I checked.”

This time Joel allowed himself to look at you. You sat sideways on the wooden chair, legs crossed and tucked under your chair with your head hanging, eyes glued to your lap. Gone were the teasing, and gone were the smiles.

“He’ll be fine,” Joel said, his eyes back on the rabbit, “it’s just a cold.”

“Yeah… but he’s been getting sick a lot more often,” your voice was low, like you didn’t want them to hear you upstairs, “you can’t help but think the worst you know?”

Joel put the knife down and moved over to the sink. He quickly washed his hands before grabbing a towel to dry off, twisting it in his hands as he approached you. Placing the towel on the counter, he hesitated for a moment as he watched you, watched the way you twisted your hands in your lap with no sense of purpose or intent. It was like the worry dripped down your body. Pushing off the counter Joel knelt in front of you, a grunt escaped him as his knees clicked loudly, his balance slightly off on his haunches.

“Shit,” Joel huffed out a laugh, and you followed. Your palms landed on his knees to keep him steady, warmth spreading like jolting electricity.

“Sweetheart, I’ll tell you what–” he stopped himself when you looked at him through your lashes, trying to ignore the way your eyes focused on his mouth as he spoke. “’s just a cold, he’ll be up ‘n walkin’ tomorrow– man’s got gumption.”

“Yeah?” your eyes flickered upwards, meeting his.

Suddenly, under your gaze Joel felt brave. His hand moved on its own accord, cupping your cheek in his hand. He let his thumb ghost over your skin, still cold under his fingertips from being outside, but warming under his touch.

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

You didn’t say anything for a moment, you only watched him with glimmering eyes, like you were under a spell. Maybe he was too.

“Still,” you sighed, “Would be better if I could pick up more of the slack around here... Arthur does a lot, and I wish I could do more to support them.”

“Like what? You take care of the animals all by yourself– that’s more than enough.”

“Well, I could learn to shoot rabbits,” you told him, before the corners of your mouth pulled into a pleased smirk as he rolled his eyes at you.

Reluctantly, he pulled his hand away, making a move to stand when you grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

“I’m kidding, Joel,” you smiled, before a more serious look washed over your features. “I mean it’s… It’s gonna be empty here without you,” you said, “I’m starting to really like having you here, Joel.”

Joel turned his hand to rest the back of it on your thigh, your hand fitting in his.

“I uh,” his eyes fixated on your joined hands, then he cleared his throat, “I’ll stay as long as you need me to. I’m not leavin’ you alone, sweetheart.”

Your eyes lit up at his words, smile growing large across your face. Joel’s heart drummed in his chest as your eyes flickered down to his mouth again.

“Thank you,” you said in a low voice, and then you did something Joel thought was gonna make his heart stop beating. You leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. It bloomed against his skin, and made wings flutter against the walls of his stomach.

“You’re a good man, Joel Miller,” you whispered before you pulled away, looking at him with kindness in your eyes.

If only you knew, Joel thought, if only you knew the blood on his hands.

He couldn’t look at you when you looked at him like that. Like you believed your own words. So, he cleared his throat awkwardly and stood to his feet, his knees clicking as your hand slipped from his movement. He walked back to the counter, fingers grabbing the towel with no other purpose than to calm himself down.

After placing the towel back where it usually hung, he grabbed the knife again, turning his attention back to the rabbit, allowing himself to steal a few glances at you where you sat looking out the kitchen window.

“Hey, uh,” Joel broke the growing silence after a few minutes, “how ‘bout rabbit stew for lunch?”

Your head snapped to look at him as he spoke, a smile ghosting over your lips as you said, “I’ll go get some vegetables from the cellar.”

Joel wouldn’t necessarily call himself a good cook – he wouldn’t even call himself a cook in the first place. Back before the outbreak he’d been forced to learn the basics as a fresh single dad, but he’d never been able to provide Sarah with gourmet meals very often, and when Sarah had gotten older, he’d been embarrassed to say that her food was always better than his – eggshells and all. One summer he’d bought himself a nice grill– one of those way too expensive gas grills with too many fancy accessories for Joel to regularly use. He’d had a job that ended up paying well, some rich guy’s mansion that needed renovating, and decided to treat himself for once. That summer all their meals had come from that grill, well mostly, and afterwards Joel looked at himself as a pretty good griller, if nothing else.

You on the other hand, you knew what you were doing, it was clear in the effortlessly way you moved beside him as you got the vegetables ready for the stew. Joel seared the meat to the best of his abilities, making sure it was properly browned on both sides before setting it aside. After that, it was clear that you were in charge, and Joel let you boss him around and tell him what to do. It made his heart warm around the edges, watching how you put so much love and care into everything you did.

An hour later you finally sat down to eat; two hearty bowls of stew each as light snowflakes covered the world outside. You’d let the pot simmer on low over the heat as you’d wanted to bring up a bowl for Arthur and Alma later.

“So…” you started, watching as Joel dug into his bowl, “How’s the stew?”

“’s good!” Joel nodded through a mouthful, and he wasn’t lying. It was good, really good in fact.

“Yeah?” you bubbled through a smile, before you dug into your own bowl to see if he’d spoken the truth. He watched as you face brightened as you chewed, nodding your head to confirm his verdict.

“I think I really like rabbit, Joel,” you said through a teasing smile, and Joel couldn’t fight the chuckle from spilling.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, teasing smile not going anywhere, “So… when are you teaching me to shoot?”

“Shut up.”

The living room was quiet, safe for the cracking of the fire. It had almost died out when Joel had stepped out of his room. He’d been twisting and turning again, counting sheep, but nothing had been able to pull him under the blanket of sleep. He was plumb tired too, that was the worst part. The embers hummed with a low light, and with a small stick Joel had spread them out before placing a small piece of wood on top. No less than a minute later the fire fed on the log.

Taking a seat and leaning back in the lounge chair, Joel looked out the window with tired eyes. The moon looked down on him, big and bright, it shone its white light over the barnyard like a spotlight. His thoughts were clouded over as he gazed up. A billion little lights turning into bright spheres in the sky.

On nights like this, Joel felt like he was barely breathing at all.

His thoughts didn’t stray for long before they found you again. Lately, you were always on his mind. He thought about how you’d looked mere hours ago, when he’d sat in this same exact chair, only this time it was facing towards the sofa and not the window.

You’d been sat curled up in the corner, blanket thrown over your lap with a book in hand. You’d told him you’d read all the books in the house already, but it didn’t stop you from coming back to your favorites. Joel had been reading his own book, an old western he’d found in the bookshelf in the upstairs hallway a few days ago. It was entertaining, but not enough to hold his attention. He found his eyes had a mind of their own, slipping over the top to steal a peek at you as you read, feeling a smile tug at his lips at the barely there furrow of concentration between your eyebrows.

“Joel.”

Joel perked up at the whisper of his name, the memories fading like ripples in still water. He looked around the room –nothing. He sat quietly in his chair for a moment, listening, as his heartbeat quickened in his chest. It had been your voice, hadn’t it? Or was he starting to lose it? His eyes fell to the door of your bedroom. He hadn’t noticed it until now, but he could see it was slightly ajar.

“Joel.”

The voice was louder this time, almost strained, but it was yours. A thousand scenarios flashed before his eyes then at your tone. Was there someone in your room? Were you in danger? Seconds later Joel crossed the room, a mix of fear and protectiveness overcoming him.

Leaning up against your door he listened for the intruder as he readied himself. The soft crinkling of your sheets combined with your strained whimpers was all it took for him to push the door open, fearing the worst.

And…

It was empty, your room, you were alone. Joel immediately felt stupid– the only intruder here was him.

He was about to step out, embarrassed at his actions, when he heard it again, his name falling from your lips. It was all Joel needed to finally take in your body, squirming under your sheets, still asleep. The realization of what he’d just walked in on made Joel’s eyes widen.

Laying on your back, the duvet had slipped down your torso from your movements to reveal the thin t-shirt you wore to bed. Like this he could see your perked nipples through the fabric, as your chest quickly rose and fell, making Joel’s imagination start to run wild.

“Joel.”

In his pajama pants, Joel could feel his cock come alive from the soft whimper that left your lips along with his name. He couldn’t move, like some farm elf had glued his feet to the floor while he wasn’t looking. He watched as you scrunched your face together in pleasure, another whimper falling from your lips, and all the blood in Joel’s body rushed down south.

As if the soundwaves from your voice had broken against him, he took a step backwards, and then another, and another until he crossed the threshold of your door. He tried his best to be quiet, to not wake you and have you catch him in your room in the middle of the night.

The image of you squirming under your sheets, dreaming of him, didn’t leave him as he closed the door to his own room. With a sigh his head fell against the door, a strong hand gliding down his front to hover over his aching cock.

Joel Miller was no saint, but what he was doing– what he was about to do, was bad.

“Shit,” he quietly hissed, running his hand up his clothed cock. He hadn’t touched himself properly in a long time, not since he left Boston.

His cock reacted to his touch, growing harder and harder until he couldn’t take it anymore. He hooked his finger around the hem of his pajama pants, pulling them down to the thick of his thigh, freeing himself. He hissed at the cold air hitting his length, as it bopped with the movement of being freed. Bringing his hand to his mouth, Joel spat, before he wrapped his spit-soaked hand around himself.

His mind found you again as he started stroking himself, slowly at first, pumping himself with a practiced hand, squeezing himself at the base before bringing his hand up to thumb at the tip. Joel couldn’t get the way you sounded out of his mind. Couldn’t forget how you were squirming in your bed, dreaming of him. Couldn’t shake the thought of pulling those moans and whimpers from you with his hands, and his mouth, and with his cock.

“Fuck.”

Joel tried to be quiet, but he couldn’t fight the moan from slipping from his lips. Fuck, he wanted you. He wanted his hands all over you. Closing his eyes his mouth dropped open as he imagined what he was dying to do to you.

How much he’d wanted to help you out of your t-shirt, run his hands over your breasts and tease your nipples. Take his time to pull those moans and whimpers from your soft lips as he teased you with kisses down your body, down the valley of your breasts, your tummy, down to you to your–

Another low moan fell from Joel’s lips. He squeezed himself tighter as he jerked himself off, precum pearling at the tip, and slipping down his length, mixing with his spit.

The sound of the slick rhythm of his hand filled his bedroom as he increased the pace of his strokes. He had to bite down on his lip to strangle a groan when thoughts of getting between your legs, spreading them open and getting his mouth on you filled his head. He fantasized about how you’d taste falling apart on his tongue–Fuck, how you’d sound falling apart around his cock.

His eyes fell shut as he fisted himself faster. Joel could feel his orgasm quickly building, coiling tight in his tummy. With his free hand he cupped his balls, and then he couldn’t help but imagine it was you, a picture of you on your knees before him flashed behind his eyelids, your tongue lapping at his balls while your hand pumped his cock.

“Shit.”

With a strained groan, thick ropes of cum spilled over his knuckles and down his length, coating him in his release. His breath came out ragged, as he continued his strokes, milking himself of the rest of his release.

Fuck.

His cock softened in his hand as he calmed down from his high. With a quiet groan he pushed himself off the door, looking around his room for something to clean himself up with.

The guilt of what he’d done washed over him quickly, settling in his chest like a heavy weight. You were so young, and beautiful, and Joel just an old man. He shouldn’t want you like this, shouldn’t want you this much.

Climbing under the covers, Joel couldn’t shake his thoughts of you, of you dreaming about him in your bed, about your smiles, and your touch. A supercut of you rolling like a tape in his minds eye. A supercut of you bundled up under a blanket on the sofa, knitting him his mittens. Of you, your own knitted hat pulled tightly down over your ears as you stepped out into the snow to check on the animals. Of the way you’d looked at him for the first time, with the bucket of apples under your arm, and the sweet taste of them as you’d offered him one later, after dinner.

Finally, Joel could breathe.

next part -> here! i hope someone liked this? if you did a comment, reply or an ask is always welcome and they make me super happy <3 other than that thank you for reading!!

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #joel miller smut #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #tlou smut #tlou fanfiction #the last of us smut #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal

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stevesbipanic · 23 days

Text

@steddieangstyaugust Day 30: Vampire

Eddie had one rule in his immortal life.

Don't fall in love.

He had once, centuries ago. He'd loved a boy bathed in sunlight. Who's simple smile improved his day. Someone who completed him. His name doesn't even exist anymore, a language lost to history.

Time fades all wounds except the loss of love. They had plans to grow old together, to always keep their home full of love. That was all ruined when Eddie had gotten attacked in the woods one night.

A week of fever, his lover not knowing what to do except try and keep him drinking water and breathing. When Eddie had gone cold he'd called for the village's healer, that had been a mistake.

The healer took one look at Eddie's cold pale figure and screamed, "Vampire!" Before Eddie's lover could do anything their home was overrun with scared, angry people. Eddie barely had any strength to fight them off, his lover standing between him and the blade.

His lover's body laid dead and still in their once blessed home while people who they called their friends burnt it to the ground. Eddie could only watch on, too weak to save his love or his home.

He hid in the woods, taking shelter in an old home that would one day stand tall and strong deep in the woods. He watched and listened as the world changed around him, only thinking about his lover. Cursed to live forever without him.

The town called itself Hawkins these days, Eddie would sometimes brave a chance into town late at night, he enjoyed the music and stories of the world even if those same stories had led to his love's demise. He'd recently discovered movies, enjoying the moving pictures and sounds, his love would've called it magic.

He was sneaking into the store that held many movies late one night, the lights were all out, the room only bathed in the soft glow of the moonlight. Suddenly the room was flooded with bright yellow lights, Eddie hissed turning around hearing a noise by the door.

"Hey what're you doing in here! The store is closed dude!"

Eddie stopped in his tracks, could it really be? Eddie moved swiftly to the man at the door, soft tan skin, wavy brown hair, one two, yes three moles, just like how he remembers.

The man looked at Eddie confused at his closeness. "Are you ok?" He asked but didn't move away, if anything he seemed to lean closer to Eddie.

"You're as beautiful as the day I lost you, my love."

"Do I know you?"

"You will," Eddie said and he learnt forward kissing the lips he'd dreamt about for a lifetime.

The man gasped, eyes becoming clearer in recognition. Eddie smiled, "Hello, Steve."

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steddieangstyaugust #angst #freaky friday #vampire

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bad268 · 5 months

Note

a kimi story where the reader is ollie’s sister and they’re a secret and ollie finds out please

Impromptu Meeting (Andrea Kimi Antonelli X Bearman! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/F2/F3

Requested: Clearly (AHHH I LOVE THIS)

Warnings: Making out, brief sex joke (if you squint)

POV: Second Person (You/your/They/them)

W.C. 1253

Summary: Maybe sharing a room wasn't a good idea...

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

It was not how you imagined introducing your boyfriend to your family, let alone your brother.

You were supposed to be there to support Ollie (which you were!), and it wasn’t like you were sneaking off to another garage or wearing another team’s kit. Thankfully, Kimi had signed to Prema at the beginning of the season, so that was not something you needed to worry about.

When you first met Kimi through a mutual friend, he did not know your brother. Granted, you only introduced yourself by your first name, but drivers stuck with drivers. You assumed he knew that you were associated with one of the drivers. It wasn’t until the middle of the Formula 2 season that Kimi finally made the connection.

You had stayed up the entire night before, catching up on assignments you had been putting off in order to spend more time with Kimi. You had traveled to the track a few days early to meet with him, and you told your family it was for a school trip. You would meet them at the track by Thursday.

It was currently Wednesday, and you were cuddling with Kimi in your hotel room. You may or may not be struggling to stay awake, but that was not really a problem since Kimi had done all of the promotional things he needed to do that morning. Plus, the whole team, namely one of their drivers, was not there yet, so they did not want to get too far ahead without the rest of the team.

You were watching some random lifetime movie on the television as you laid on Kimi’s chest. He may have been reading race strategies, but you were not going to force him to pay attention to the movie when you weren't paying attention anyway. You were more captivated with listening to his heartbeat and watching his concentration focus on the piece of paper. At one point, you moved up a little to lay your head on his shoulder, so you could look at the paper too. Despite growing up surrounded by racing, you still could not understand most of the strategies for the life of you.

“Y’know,” You broke the silence as you shifted your attention to his face. He looked down at you, his concentration being broken as soon as you moved, but he did not say anything. “I really wish I understood any of that jargon. Sometimes I wish I could read it and think ‘Ah, yes! This will be a one-stop race and we’ll pit for mediums.’ I really do sometimes.”

“I thought you just liked the sport,” Kimi laughed as he set the papers to the side. “You really don’t care about the behind the scenes or the strategies. You like cars going fast, and you like the people in the cars.”

“Sometimes, I really wish you didn’t know me as well as you do,” You giggled as you leaned up to peck his lips. He reciprocated immediately, pulling you onto his lap as he wrapped his arms around your back to hold you to him. Your lips moved in sync for who-knows how long, and you were only broken apart by the sound of bags being dropped on the floor. That’s when you finally pulled apart, thinking it was Kimi’s dad or Anthoine, but no. It was Ollie with his jaw on the floor and his hand over his eyes. You moved away from Kimi and approached Ollie, but it’s not like he could see you. You approached him cautiously, reaching out your hand, “Ollie, I can explain.”

To say Kimi was confused would be an understatement. He knew Ollie was going to come today, but why would you need to explain to Ollie? The Prema boys almost always shared a hotel room. He had walked in on Ollie with a few people, so why was he reacting this way when the tables were turned?

“I don’t need to see this!” Ollie complained as he turned around and walked back into the hallway.

“Ollie, wait,” You followed after him, causing Kimi to also climb out of the bed, wanting to get to the bottom of this. He grabbed a keycard just in case as he followed you both toward the stairwell and out to the back of the hotel. “Ollie, please. Give me a chance to explain.”

“You and my teammate? Really?” Ollie sighed, turning around to face you. It did not sound like a disappointed sigh, just a confused one. You could work with that. “Why my teammate? Also, I thought you had a boyfriend!”

“I do! It’s Kimi,” You explained as you moved to stand in front of Ollie. “It’s been Kimi this whole time. We’ve been seeing each other since Paul and I went to the FRECA race at Mugello last year but became official after Hockenheim.”

“All this time I thought you liked Paul,” Ollie commented to himself, but it caused you to laugh. “What?”

“I’ve been around Paul for too long,” You laughed, finally letting out a breath you had been holding. “He’s like a brother too much.”

“Hey! You already have a brother! Don’t go replacing me already!” Ollie protested, and that caught Kimi’s attention. He had been hiding by the stairs, watching you two converse in the parking lot, but at that point, he could not hold back his shock.

“Brother?” He said out loud on accident, causing both of you to look at him. He never realized how similar you looked until that moment. Not identical, but now that you both stood side-by-side, looking at him, it was fairly obvious that you were siblings. “You’re related.”

“Maybe,” You chuckled at the look on his face. Just as much, maybe more, shock than when Ollie saw you and Kimi.

“Yeah, that’s my younger sibling,” Ollie said as he pointed at you before brushing past you to walk up to Kimi. “I get that you’re my teammate, but if you screw this up, I will push you off the track.”

“You’re not gonna forbid me from dating your sibling?” Kimi was confused, but he would accept it with open arms if it meant he got to stay with you.

“No,” Ollie sighed with a smile. “I’ve heard enough about how well you treat them, so I’m not concerned. Don’t make me concerned, Andrea.”

“I’ll try my best,” Kimi replied back with a smile as Ollie pulled him into a hug. Having your older brother’s approval was something you always wanted, so you smiled as well.

“Oh, one more thing,” Ollie started as he turned to look at you, still standing in the spot you were at previously. You slowly walked over to join the two. Ollie turned from smiley to downright serious in the blink of an eye; it almost scared you. “I don’t wanna walk in on you making out ever again.”

“Then, the same rule goes to you,” Kimi joked back, causing you to gape at Ollie.

“You’re making out with people? Ew.” You jokingly pushed away from Ollie, wiping your hands on your shirt.

“You did the same thing! Don’t even try to flip this on me!” Ollie tried to defend

“I have a feeling we should not be sharing a room anymore,” Kimi trailed off to himself as he slowly started moving towards the stairwell again.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Andrea?” Ollie accused as Kimi took off up the stairs. “No! Get back here! We’re not done with this conversation!”

~~~~~

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keypaa · 5 months

Text

Astrology Observations No.6

with lovely @sc0rpi0suntaurusm00n

Saggittarius suns, moons and mercurys don't have a social filter, they say what everybody is afraid to say blunt af. Jupiter the optimist makes them confident to say what they mean, feel or think (Sun,Moon,Mercury)

If you have venus in tense aspects with neptune you need to do a reality check of your relationships now and then, because sometimes you will put the people around you on a pedestal and other times you will dislike people because they don't fit into your picture perfect fantasy anymore. Just needs some work.(Neptune is like a siren that wants to sell you a fantasy that isn't there, and when you follow her whistles she gets you. Venus energy wants to receive, get loved and share love. So combining these two energies in a tense aspect like a square or opposition gets messy)

Saturn square north node + the south node are generational breakers. Their upbringing was hard and truly intense

Scorpio mercurys don't mind sounding too direct they will ask you anything if they want to know the answer. Oh I saw that you talked about me on a tuesday girls night with ... around midnight, why did you do this...¿😆

Capricorn suns please let us know how to help you. You go through traumatic sh*t, and after all that you stay humble and act like nothing happened

Jupiter aspecting neptune in a positive way love to create art (all forms of art), it makes them genuinely happy ^^ Neptune has to do with artsy stuff, singing, imagination jupiter expends this energy

Mars in leo want to achieve something (whatever it is) The ego is also ruled by leo, so leo placements feel worthy if they achieve something for themselfes

Pure devine love is something that pisces venuses and moons are capable of giving to human 🫘 But they will also text or call you multiple times if you don't answer (Especially Pisces suns with a pisces venus)

You just want to listen to people who have scorpio mercurys, they always have something interesting to say...They know the secret spots, newest updates overall everything that is hidden honestly

Taurus moons have the ability to become real successful and are some of the warmest people if they let you in :) They like to be confortable and also give this energy out to their beloved ones

Mars in aquarius are known to behave different than the rest of their peers. Nothing that is bad, we need more people who think outside the box and follow different life tracks

If you have your moon (square,opposition) your venus list of your emotional needs and your definition of love and find a solution to combine both, if you not want to hurt the people around you regarding showing them your feelings. Due to this conflict of wanting to show love and not being able to express your feelings as you would like to this technique could possibly help you (:

Taurus venus attract love easily (best example: Ariana Grande MASTER MANIFASTOR)

Leo moons love receiving princess treatment and they know how to get it aswell ;)👑 They are LOUD with their wants and needs

Gemini moons get borderline crazy in their love reationships. One day they LOVE the other they despise you and the cycle begins again (also if you have a gemini venus)

Leo placements are either one of the most timid people you will ever meet or they

want all attention on them

Why did I meet a whole lot of taurus sun boys that struggle with finding real genuine love

Mars in sagittarius are se*ually free people. They like going after their needs and what they feel free to do

Sun (trine,conjunct,sextile) jupiter are confident at their core or they come off as such. It gives the personality an optimistic vibe

Venus in virgo are the most devoted lovers on the world, they will not forget your anniversary (and get real mad if you do), take care of you, pay attention to your dislikes & likes

If you have sun in scorpio degrees your real personality is so hidden from the public. Everybody is going to want to figure out who you are only to discover a new personality trait of yours every now and then

Virgo man get the ick real quick. Why do they hate on women without a reason, boy get that frustration out in a healthy way

Aquarius placements may feel excluded from groups a whole lot but later in their life they find their people and have a good amount of friends around them. Also people who start trends and influence a whole generation (XxxTentacion, Paris Hilton,...)

@sc0rpi0suntaurusm00n part:

Pisces moon - these are the folks who you see drawing in a corner or reading an interesting book, whether it is mixed with fire or air there will always be an ethereal Aura or a mystery to these natives 🫶

Cancer moon - shy individuals quite often. Not ones to initiate contact but definitely enjoys some attention to their needs. Cares about their mother or maternal figure quite deeply. Often times these individuals have a significant relationship with the mother which is part of who they are, single mother raised is quite common and adoption is likely as well from what I have seen. There may also be a misogynistic type in lower vibration natives from what i have seen

Capricorn moon - they may seem like the mysterious yet charismatic type but deep down there is a lot under the surface. These natives being cardinal signs, they can relax into something and then when you least expect it their passion and drive is unstoppable. You never know when they're tumultuous emotional life might break through the surface and send them blazing toward a new goal.

Taurus moon - (I am biased as a Taurus moon myself lol🫣)they may have a soft spot for comfort and stability, and typically the pinnacle of finance, care, and stability (although when mixed with sag it may be expressed quite unconventionally) Taurus moon natives are the least likely to make plans and change them due to "not feeling like it" if they are going to do it, they will. Taurus moons are always sharing their food OR they will never let you touch it - no in- between lol😭

Aquarius sun - Aquarius is very different, what I notice in common is the respect for difference. Often these signs are good with computers lol (maybe just because I have 3rd house aqua). The Aquarius man can be so caring or they can be cold, but they have a soft spot always -whether it is a quirky girl or a Quirky interest. These are often the people who want to be first to do something- the trendsetters... Although some can just be quite on top of trends-i have never seen an Aquarius who wasn't ahead of their pears in something whether fashion electronics or anything new.

Scorpio moon - one of my personal favorites💕, but I'm so biased lol(Scorpio stellium🤫) although these natives are known for having rough lives which is true, these peeps are totally down for a trauma dump sesh, or just a really good rant when you are their close friend. The female Scorpio moons are often friends with more females- might be gay even but too stubborn to act on it. There is always something interesting going on in their emotional world. Either the purest virgin or somewhere between that and a man eater... Scorpio moons do not play around, they are often no bs types whether mixed with air or fire -except for Libra placements sometimes if undeveloped.

Aries moons - omg 🤍 y'all are so passionate with your emotions, like if you are mad you can have a hard time hiding it, but yall are just made to be a ball of passion. There is nothing you do that you do not put your whole heart into, if you don't have your heart in it you won't do it. You can set boundaries a little too rough sometimes for us water signs, but it's okay because you are baddies and need that extra space for chasing passions. PLuS You are always loyal anyways so we don't mind. Aries moon has a really hard time holding a grudge against people, because y'all just want to live and let live. Amazing peoples! especially the girlies whom I have met. The lower vibrations can be super flirty and super flighty tho🫠

Pisces and Aries are actually a really great duo, despite what the horoscope things so often say - pisces and Aries are the most common duo i see i believe this is due to the fact that pisces is at the end of the zodiac and Aries is new to the cycle. Its like opposites but they are also alike which is perfect for a friendship.

Unlike me, a scorpio, since i don't often have libra best friends although libras fall into my 11th house - might be due to my lilith placement being in libra as well...😭

Virgo mercury can be so intentional with their words, and this mixed with virgo mars can make for a really sharp mind but also sharp words in an argument.

- That is part of what makes cancer (sun/moon) and virgo moon a good pair in a relationship, because cancer (sun/moon) is very emotionally intelligent and virgo moon is often good at compartmentalizing emotions and rationally dealing with emotions, and often times cancer (sun/moon) need to learn to balance emotions with reason

Moon quincunx to Mars or mars square moon aspects may cause anger issues in men, specifically cancer moon Sagittarius Mars or Aries Mars. As well as Aquarius moon with Virgo mars.

Pisces placements remind me of the most beautiful expression of emotions. The positive expression of pisces placements can be expressing deep and dark emotions through arts, music, love, and things that are beautiful expressions of feelings. Some pisces placements are old souls having to go through rough experiences in childhood, like experiencing many be lifetimes in one life, it reminds me of what I believe mMitski said best 'I was so young when I behaved 25'

April Mercury Rx in Aries!? Was I the only one or no? - there were so many fights and arguments...as well as exes coming back 🫣 like as a scorpio mercury rx it wasn't that crazy for me but my friends had their exes come back into their lives and there was even a small fight which is very mars..

_______________________________________________

If you would like you can join my spiritual family glad to have you here, and never back down never WhAaAT! Keep your hopes in life up always¡ :)

Luvv muah

555

7:25 PM

#astrology observations #hot takes #mars aspects #18+ astrology #astro notes #aries moon #neptune aspects #astrologie #venus aspects #moon signs

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paradiseprincesss · 3 months

Text

please, please, please | jonathan crane

please please please by sabrina carpenter has been playing in my head nonstop...and the music video? that has jonathan crane and his gf written ALL over it. also i promise I AM WORKING ON REQUESTS i swear.

summary: you warn jonathan not to embarrass you at your dinner party — you know how he is sometimes. thankfully, disasters were avoided during dinner and as a reward, you let him try something new in the bedroom with you that he's been wanting to do.

warnings: smut, p in v, fingering, sex toys (butt plug), anal but only using the toy lol, jonathan kills someone, talk of dead bodies lmfao? mdni 18+ only

word count: 3.9k

masterlist

"what did you do?!" you whisper yell at jonathan, who was currently staring at you with hearts in his eyes and a sheepish smile.

"i didn't know he was going to react this way, swear it," he says quietly, "i just wanted to see what a concentrated dose would do."

you look at the man slumped over on your apartment couch, seemingly dead. you turn your head to jonathan silently, looking at him incredulously as he kept that sheepish smile plastered on his face.

your boyfriend, doctor jonathan crane, had "accidentally" — that's what he claims — murdered your electrician with a too high dose of his fear toxin. he swore that he had thought some man had broken into your house and he was only trying to protect you; which yes, you found sweet, but there was also the issue of the now dead electrician in your living room.

"i swear baby," he says with his hands up defensively, "i thought he broke in."

"i told you that the electrician was coming by today!"

jonathan laughs awkwardly for a moment, but he pulled you close and gave you a little kiss on the forehead. "i'm sorry darling. don't be mad, please."

you let him pull you close, relaxing into his touch, "jonathan, what are we supposed to do with his body? we have dinner guests coming over in less than two hours."

"i got it," he assures you, "don't worry. i'm sure if i just hide his body in the meantime, nobody will notice."

you groan, wriggling out of his grasp as you leave him to it. you get ready, doing your makeup and hair, before picking out on outfit for your dinner party.

you and jonathan recently moved in together, and though you had been dating for quite some time, he hadn't really met your friends all that much. sure, he'd seen them a handful of times, but you wanted your friends to get to know him better — i mean hey, they had asked to.

honestly, you thought you had good judgement and you thought you had good taste. i mean, you managed to snag a handsome, intelligent, financially stable doctor; what else could a girl ask for? and look — yes, you may of had a small, tiny, little track record of dating mentally unstable, dangerous, and wild men but you swore jonathan was different.

he wasn't unstable, dangerous and wild. no, no, no — he was calculated, precise and a murderer! three totally different traits than what you usually go for.

"look at you, baby," jonathan cooed as he watched you walk into the kitchen, "you're the prettiest, my god."

you blush, shaking your head bashfully as you pull him into a kiss, admiring his every feature. "i love you, jon."

"i love you, too."

"but listen to me," you say softly, trying your hardest to sound menacing, "you're a doctor — so act like one. please don't kill one of our guests or anything."

"only for you, darling." he says with a smile, hands resting on your hips.

the doorbell to your apartment rang, and you made your way to the door with jonathan, hand in hand. "oh, and one more thing," you say quickly reaching to unlock your front door, "i beg you, don't embarrass me, motherfucker."

jonathan holds back a laugh at your not-so-threatening threat as you let your friends in, and the night goes by without a hitch. you don't know where jonathan has hid the dead body in your apartment, but you don't care as long as your guests don't fucking find it.

"it was great getting to see you two again. you guys are so wonderful together. congratulations on the new place, by the way!" your friend tells you as you all wrap up dinner, a few of the other dinner guests still finishing off their wine.

"thank you!" you gush, smiling happily, "we really love it here, right jonathan?"

"yes, darling. it's quite lovely, isn't it?" he replies softly, caressing your hand with his.

"your patio is gorgeous, by the way — great view of the city. we should have a drink out there, it's still early!" another one of your guests suggests, and jonathan shoots you a look.

oh, so that's where he hid the body — on the fucking balcony where anyone could see.

"o-oh!" you stammer, "um, you know, the summer weather is great. wonderful, really — but like, isn't the inside of our brand new apartment just so lovely, too? like look at our new ceiling fan — wow."

your friend looks at you with a confused expression, and she laughs a little awkwardly. "yeah totally, the interior design is so...great."

"yeah, so i have a fun idea," you say rather enthusiastically, to which jonathan has to look away to stop himself from laughing, "maybe let's stay inside? i know your craving some fresh air, but the ceiling fan is so nice."

"darling," jonathan interrupts softly, smiling at you then looking at your friends, "why don't we just schedule a time another day to have drinks all together? i'd love to keep the night going, but i'm afraid i have to work particularly early tomorrow at the asylum."

everyone "ahh'd" in union as they respected what he did for work — he was one of gothams finest, most renown psychiatrists, after all. surprisingly, tonight it was jonathan saving you from slipping up instead of you coming to save him.

as your dinner guests left one by one, you shut the door and locked it as you turn to jonathan with a sweet smile. "thank you for that, i wasn't particularly planning on my friends seeing a dead body out on the balcony tonight."

"relax, baby," jonathan cooed, "i told you i'd handle it, right?"

you look up into your boyfriends beautiful, pale, blue eyes — for someone so notoriously dangerous, he sure was gentle and sweet with you. of course, jonathan did have a soft spot for you and you only.

he would openly admit it, too.

"right, sorry," you whisper as he leans down from his towering height to kiss you, "i trust you."

he hums in satisfaction, then captured your lips in a kiss. his gentle hands roamed across your body, and suddenly, jonathan was pulling you flush against him. through broken kisses and breathless panting, his hand found it's way to your neck. when he gave it a light, experimental squeeze, you moaned into the kiss — he knew this was exactly how to get you going.

"go to the bedroom," he commands softly, "and be ready when i get there, darling."

you look at him inquisitively for a second, but as soon as he raises a brow; you don't ask any questions. he goes into the living room to rummage around for something, and you make your way into your shared bedroom.

you slip out of your evening attire, keeping the lacy, black, intimate lingerie you had underneath on as you patiently wait on the bed for your boyfriend. after a few moments, he returns with something in his hands — a small, dainty, pink gift box with a white ribbon adorned around it.

"i was good for you tonight, right darling?" jonathan asked softly, handing the pink gift box over to you as you start to unravel the bow on top.

"of course you were." you sigh, smiling dopily at him.

he hummed as you opened the box and your eyes went wide, "well, now i want you to be good for me, baby."

inside the dainty, pink, gift box was a butt plug, and on the end of it was a shimmering, baby pink, sparkly gem. "jonathan," you blush profusely, "y-you wanna do...?"

"i just want you to try it out while i fuck you, darling. see how it feels — it's an experiment i've been wanting to try out with you for a while." he says lowly, watching you like a hawk as you took it out of the box.

"i've never done anything...there." you say shyly, and he kisses you gently; of course he'd see sex as a way to experiment.

this was a man of science we're talking about, after all.

"that's alright," he assures you with a quiet chuckle, "i'll guide you through it, okay? you trust me, don't you?"

"yeah," you giggle, "okay — fine, but just this once."

jonathan eyed you down in your black, lacy lingerie as you shuffled around on the bed, bending over as you reached for the lube in the bedside drawer. he had to stop himself from groaning aloud when he saw your already wet cunt soaking through your undergarments — all bent over and needy for his fat cock.

you tossed the bottle of lube over to the side of the bed, crawling over to jonathan as his eyes turned three shades darker at the sight. after you crawled into his lap, he slowly unhooked your very lacy, very see through bralette, slipping it right off your shoulders.

his hands immediately came to paw at your tits as you rested your head on his collarbone, leaning back at the feeling of his strong hands tweaking your perked up nipples.

"jonathan," you breathlessly moan, "please."

"be good for me, baby — be patient." he whispered against your ear, nipping it lightly.

his feather light touch traced down, further and further until he got to your underwear. his fingers hooked into the lace trim, gently and ever so slowly helping you out of the undergarment. you felt your breath hitch lightly as the cold air hit your bare, soaked core, and you leaned further back into jonathan.

jonathan — who by the way, was still fully clothed — swiped two fingers through your dripping folds gently, causing you to jump at the sudden pleasurable feeling. "you're soaked," he noticed, placing a kiss down your neck, "i've barely touched you."

"i-i know," you whimper, "but—"

"i bet you liked it when i said i wanted to experiment on you, hm? did that turn you on, darling? knowing that i'm studying your every reaction to my touch?"

you bit your lip as he spoke, cutting you off as you whimpered under his touch. yes — he was on the dot with his assumptions and observations. sure, you'd never used a butt plug before but hey, if it was with jonathan, you were pretty much down for anything.

"yes," you admitted breathlessly, "fuck, jon."

it was strange — the thought of him studying you during sex in such a...clinical way. it was a major turn on for you, in fact, you didn't know if you'd ever been so turned on before. jonathan proceeded to slowly insert a finger into your drooling hole, causing you to let out a choked moan.

"yeah, you're fucking dripping." he observed, peppering kisses down your neck and shoulders as you relaxed your head onto his. after he fucked you with one finger for no more than a minute, he was suddenly inserting another — it was no issue though, you were so wet that his second finger slipped in without resistance.

you arched your back instinctively, letting out choked, breathless moans as you whimpered his name sweetly. it was like music to jonathan's ears — hearing you fall apart as he carefully, slowly, and precisely turned you into nothing in just mere minutes.

"s-so close!" you squeaked out, and jonathan was suddenly drawing his fingers out of you, causing your jaw to drop and you to turn around to look at him with disbelief.

"i know," he cooed, "now, turn back around and get on all fours. face down, ass up."

you looked at him with surprise, but jonathan was always in control in the bedroom — this wasn't new by any means, but it sure was hot. listening and hanging onto his every word, you do as he asks, getting on all fours as you hear him shuffle around behind you.

with your ass up and your pretty face down, you bite your lip as you hear the pop of the lube bottle cap being opened. you gasp quietly as you feel a foreign, cold, silicone texture poke at your ass — it was almost embarrassing how wet this was making you.

"look at how wet you're getting, and i haven't even put the toy in your ass yet." jonathan chuckled lowly, feeling his cock straining so hard against his pants that he thought the zipper might pop open.

"s-shut up." you try to retaliate, but it comes out more like a broken, desperate plea.

"m'gonna push it in now, okay? not all the way, i promise i'll be gentle — and slow." jonathan says softly, his voice easing your nerves.

though you wished you could see his face, the thought was soon wiped from your mind as you felt the silicone toy being pushed into you, stretching your ass out. thankfully, it wasn't painful. it felt uncomfortable at first, but the more he pushed, the more you got used to the stretch.

"how's it feeling, baby?" jonathan asked lowly, watching your glistening cunt clench around nothing.

"s'okay," you respond, "is it almost all the way in?"

"almost, just a little more to go. you look so good like this, darling. letting me do whatever i want to you, and you just take it like a good girl."

his words made your cheeks burn, and you whine as you felt him give the toy one more gentle push into your ass. it felt good, surprisingly, but it also felt full. you felt full.

"is it hurting?" jonathan asked with concern, and you shook your head no, finally looking behind you as you saw his face.

his cheeks were dusted with a pink colour, and his lips looked plush. he was extremely turned on — that much was obvious with just the way he looked. your eyes trailed down to the tent in his pants; he was so hard it looked like his trousers were about to rip.

"feels really full, though," you giggle softly, "i'm guessing you like the view?"

"god, baby," he groans, "i wish you could see what i'm seeing right now — your ass up with a pretty, pink gemstone in it. all stretched out and waiting for me to fuck your pretty little cunt, hm?"

"mm, y-yeah." you moan as he reaches for your hips, gently turning you onto your back as he pushes you into the soft pillows.

the butt plug still felt a little odd to you as you switched positions, now laying on your back, but it felt good at the same time. as your mind was focused on the feeling of that, you look back up at jonathan to see him desperately trying to undress himself. as controlled and precise as the doctor was — he was a needy mess when it came to you.

"hurry up, doctor crane," you tease, biting your lip as he huffs, clearly affected by your little comment, "i'm so fucking wet—"

"i'm gonna fuck you till you can't think anymore," he interrupted, his voice strained, "you're going to be so full with my cum."

his suit jacket was long gone, and now so was his white button down and tie. his trousers had seemingly disappeared somewhere as well, and his leaking, hard, veiny cock sprung free, hitting his stomach lightly as he took it out.

within seconds, your legs were spread for him. pupils blown wide.m jonathan was positioned between your legs, the tip of his cock rubbing up against your dripping cunt, and you whined when he teased your folds. "how does it feel?" jonathan asks softly, just barely putting the head in, "you feel nice and full, darling? all stretched out?"

"s-so full," you pant, "but i need your cock — so badly."

he smirks to himself; his ego clearly being stroked with the way he had you, his beautiful girlfriend, in bed begging for him and letting him do whatever he pleases to any of your holes.

with a sudden thrust, he slid into you with ease from how slick your cunt was, and you gasped at the feeling of his cock filling you up. jonathan set a moderate pace; not too fast but not too slow, either.

"does it feel good, baby? having both your holes all stuffed?" he asks, fucking into you gently as you struggled to speak.

"y-yes!" you said to him, voice shaky, "feels so good, f-fuck—"

jonathan continued to thrust his thick cock into your tight, wet hole and within seconds, you were cockdrunk. your eyes rolled into the back of your head as you moaned his name over and over, incoherently begging for something. you weren't sure what exactly you were begging for, but as long as you were begging — jonathan was satisfied.

this is how he liked you — fucked out and willing to do anything for him. to be fair, he would do absolutely anything (and i mean anything, including murder), for you too. you were his girl, his everything, what he needed in his life — so naturally, nothing was off the table when it came to what he'd do for you.

but nothing beat the feeling of you submitting to him like this.

"god, you're already close, aren't you, my love?" jonathan asked softly, picking up his pace as his cock brushed up against your walls.

he was right — you were close. the way his thick, veiny cock stretched you open while you were stuffed with a toy in your other hole had you feeling ready to tip over the edge in just seconds. "insatiable," jonathan commented as he plowed into you faster and harder, "that's what you are, darling. look at my needy girl; she needs all over holes filled and stretched, all the fucking time."

his filthy, degrading (but also very hot) comments tipped you over the edge, and before you knew it — you were coming undone all over his cock as he groaned. a plethora of whines and pleas left your lips, but you were so gone from the way he was fucking you stupid, you didn't even realize what was said in that moment.

before you could register what was happening, jonathan pulled out of you quickly. he flipped you onto your stomach, being quite gentle with you, as he grabbed onto your hips, indicating he wanted you to be on all fours again. understanding what he was asking, you did what you knew to do — be face down, ass up.

"jesus," jonathan groans from behind you, giving your ass a light spank, "fuck, look at that."

you whine at the gentle spank he gave you, and his fingers brushed up against your other hole, where the butt plug was sitting. "j-jon," you whined, "please."

you heard him chuckle lowly, his cock brushing up against your folds once more as he slowly split you open on his cock. he was enjoying this far too much — the sight of you with that pink gemstone in your ass and the way your cunt took his cock deeper and deeper with every thrust? it was driving him insane.

"fucking beautiful," he groaned, "h-how'd you manage to get even tighter, baby?"

"f-feels so good, oh m-my god!" you started to scream into the pillows as one of jonathan's hands snaked down and started to rub at your clit.

as you were about to cum from the way he was rubbing your sensitive clit, he removed his hand which caused you to whine. he chuckled softly from behind you, fucking you into the mattress so deep and rough, you were for sure going to be sore for the next week to come.

suddenly, you gasped as your cunt started to flutter around jonathan's length. his hand that was previously on your clit, was now toying with the butt plug, teasingly pushing it in and out gently. he didn't pull it out all the way, but just ever so slightly — just enough so that every time he pushed it back in, you'd feel so full again.

"are you about to cum, baby?" jonathan asked sweetly, "are you about to cum on my cock?"

"f-fuck, yes! yes!" you screamed as jonathan fucked you even faster.

"s-shit, me too," he groaned, "come now, baby — fuuuck!"

as your vision went white and you creamed his cock, jonathan gave you a few more harsh thrusts before he spilled his cum into you. hot ropes of cum covered your walls, filling your hole up completely.

as both of you were coming down from your intense highs, jonathan pulled out after a moment. his cum started to leak from your cunt, and he took two fingers to push it back in — causing you to whine at the sensation.

his demeanour changed the second you two weren't fucking anymore — he was soft, doting, and loving towards you as soon as he cleaned you up. he helped you into his arms, pulling you close as the two of you curled up under the sheets in the crisp, cool, air-conditioned bedroom.

"that was something," jonathan says, being the first one to break the silence, "did you like it? i didn't hurt you, right?"

"no, you didn't hurt me at all, baby," you laughed softly, kissing him on the cheek, "and yeah, it was really ejoyable."

"i see. well, i'm glad you enjoyed it, darling." he smiles at you lovingly, pulling you into a gentle, passionate kiss.

as you wrapped your arms around his neck, you looked up at your devoted boyfriend with the most loving, adorable, and kind look that jonathan had ever seen. "i love you, jonathan. that was fun."

"i love you too, darling," he says, but he pauses before getting up with a sigh, "i'm sorry to cut this moment short, my dear, but i do believe that i have a certain...body to dispose of in a timely manner."

"you and your pillow talk, jonathan. it never seizes to amaze me — last week it was about that patient you terrorized at work and this week, it's the dead electrician on our balcony." you said with a small smile, biting your lip as you teased your deranged, doctor boyfriend.

"well, all i can say is that i'm lucky to have you in my life, my dear." he said softly, looking at you with those gorgeous, pale, icy blue eyes of his. "i truly do love you."

as he turned around to look at you once more time before leaving the bedroom to go deal with the body on the balcony, you smile at him sweetly. he had his bodies on the balcony and you had your skeletons in your closet — you just understood him.

everyone has their ghosts, right? and plus, as long as nobody else knew about the whole scarecrow and murderer thing, then it would be fine. it would aways be fine.

"i truly love you too, jonathan," you said after a moment, and you could've sworn that you saw the scarecrow himself start to blush, "but if you wanna go and be stupid, don't do it in front of me."

he shakes his head on his way out — presumably to dispose of the body in ways you didn't really want to know of. jonathan's voice called out back to you as he made his way to the balcony doors.

"noted, my love!"

@girlinterrupted505 @ciriceimpera @jordyn-yeager @thevelvetvampyre @galactict3a

@xanaxiii @nocturnest @psylrd @bloodandglitter207 @humbuginmybones

@oceanstem @futurefamousdeadmusician @jonathancraneslittlepet @dolleyednymphette @kpopgirlbtssvt

@ll4n4 @ilovetoxicfictionalmen @the-buddy-things @ellebelleshelby @wiseyouthinfluencer

@aprilsfrog05 @minedofmoria @strangeobsessed @5tud10-54r4h @franzine-xii @stsrfujid

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multific · 5 months

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The Confession Killer

Spencer Reid x Reader

Warning: torture, blood, violence, kidnapping

Summary: They called him, 'The Confession Killer', but to you, he was nothing but an unsub, another man who needed to be caught. But the sudden knock on your door one late evening will change your entire life.

"The unsub we are looking for is a white male 30-35. A sadistic narcissist who tortures his victims both emotionally and physically." Morgan began to give the profile to the members of the Austin Police Department.

"He makes them call up their husbands, boyfriends or even their fathers so they can confess their love before killing them. We believe he is doing this due to a rejection. His ego can't move forward, so he takes it out on women who look like the woman who rejected him. Given the time of deaths and kidnappings, we can assume that he works at a gas station or supermarket. He kidnaps them at night and then locks them up, then the next evening he makes them call and by the next morning, he kills them. This unsub hates women with a passion, and often he can't mask the hate." you continued as everyone took notes.

"Look for men who are keeping to themselves, if you talk to their coworkers they will tell you that he sometimes has outbursts at women for apparently no or very little reason. He most likely has a hidden house far from where he lives." Finally, Hotch finished and everyone went off to work.

Soon you all finished for the day and headed to the hotel. You ordered some food to your room as you continued to work.

You continued to listen to the last victim's call to her father. Even if Penelope did analyze it already, you wanted to go over everything.

Then, there was a knock on your door.

"I didn't order anything," you said but they knocked again, you stood up and headed to open the door and tell the person to just leave you alone.

The door flung open and all you saw was the tall man before he hit you on the head and you blacked out.

The next morning, everyone found it interesting when you didn't show up but they didn't question it too much. Even Hotch knew that sometimes you needed to be left alone. Sometimes you come up with the most brilliant ideas that way.

But when you didn't even call by the late afternoon, everyone grew suspicious.

Then, Spencer got a call. He barged into the room where everyone was and put it on speaker.

"S-Spencer, I'm so sorry." you sounded so desperate, everyone knew this was bad. Very bad. You cried and there was a loud bang, it made everyone jump a little before you continued.

Morgan quickly dialled Garcia so she could track the call.

"I should have told you this sooner. I should have been brave but I'm a coward. Truth is I have always loved you. Every time someone asks you to stop rambling, I just want to ask you to continue. Every day I just want to tell you that I love you but I'm a coward. I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner." there was a pause as you cried, everyone felt their stomach drop. "I do love you, Spencer Reid." you whispered the last part before the line was cut off.

"Garcia?!" yelled Hotch.

"Sir... I lost it."

"This is not good, we all know he kills them after the confession," said Rossi.

"Rossi," David looked at Hotch who had a stern expression and motioned to Spencer.

Spencer's mind was visibly running at a speed and yet, his mind was blank.

He knew your words were true, he noticed the way you looked at him.

He needed to find you.

"Guys, I think I have something." Hotch barged into the room. "The victims never used the word coward before. This must mean something."

Then as if a lightbulb was turned on, Spencer understood.

---

You sobbed as you looked up at the man keeping you hostage.

He then threw you back into the closet he kept you in and locked it before heading upstairs.

"Whore." you heard him say before he left.

You were in complete darkness. He kept you locked and only came down to occasionally torture you.

Small cuts now adored your arms and thighs.

He called you Clara. The woman that hurt him, and now because of what happened with him, he was taking it out on you and other women.

You knew his MO. You knew you didn't have long.

Now you just hoped at least one member of your team understood your secret message before it was too late for you.

At least you told Spencer how you felt.

That was something.

Even if you were crying and sobbing while doing so.

The door slammed open as you heard footsteps. Your tears began to fall once again as he dragged you out of the closet and upstairs by your hair.

"You are all the same." he said. "Fucking WHORE!" he said as you lay on the floor, he was above you with a huge knife.

This was it, you thought as you cried.

This was your end.

You shut your eyes and awaited death.

"FBI! Put the knife down!" you heard Derek's voice but you were too scared to open your eyes, then you heard a gunshot and then, silence.

Silence until Derek came, picked you up from the floor and you finally opened your eyes.

He had officers behind him as he carried you out of the cottage.

You caught a glimpse of Emily as you were taken to the ambulance.

The next thing you knew, you woke up in a hospital bed.

Everything hurt, but at least you were not in there anymore.

To your left, Spencer was reading in a chair.

"For a second, I was scared I would wake up in that closet." you said and Spencer shot up, going over to you and holding your hand. "It was so dark in there."

"It's over now. You are safe." he said and you believed him.

"I knew someone would understand my message."

"You are safe now." he said and you nodded.

"You know Spencer, I didn't lie. My confession. I really do have feelings for you." you avoided looking at him, you were scared of rejection.

"I-I know that you were serious. Your tone and... sorry. I'm rambling. I'm trying to say that I also have feelings for you." this time, you looked at him.

Both of you were rather embarrassed, but the feelings were there and were real.

All you could see was love. Pure love mixed with desperation.

"Kiss me please." you said, easing his desperation.

He sat down on the bed next to you.

At first, he was awkward, not sure where to put his hands, or what to do, but then, he eased up and after a big sigh, his lips found yours.

You let him take the lead, even if he was a bit hesitant and careful, he found his rhythm.

He was so sweet.

You were sure he ate some candy not long ago, but he was also perfect.

His lips moulded with yours so easily.

It was meant to be. Even if he was rather hesitant in the beginning, he started to get bolder by the second.

He pulled away way too soon, but you might have just scared him when you started to use some tongue. He pulled back but didn't go too far, your hand was still on the back of his neck.

"We should go on a date." he suddenly said. Then he started to ramble on and on about perfect dates, perfect places to go to and more and more and more.

"Spencer, some dinner and drinks will be perfect." you tried to help but then he started to think about different restaurants. "Let's do some Italian," you said, again, helping him.

"I know the perfect place." he said and you smiled. "How silly of me, you should heal."

"Then you can come over and we can order something," you said and he quickly nodded.

Who could have thought that you getting kidnapped and tortured would turn out so well?

Taglist:

@castellandiangelo @imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl @manduse @jacalineiscomingforyou @mandoloriancookie @il0vebeingdelulu @deliciousfestsalad @groovyqueer @lilliumrorum @asgards-princess-of-mischief

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

/YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO TRANSLATE, OR TO STEAL ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

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mattsdolll · 4 days

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𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 - 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨 . . ୨୧

softbf!matt x childish!reader

𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 . . this req ! fluff, age gap (2-3 years) matt taking care of his girls inner child. i thoroughly enjoyed writing this!! lets pretend this isnt like 300 words long

matt had been out working the entire day, filming. you had absolutely no problem with his busy life, constantly working on content, but sometimes it made it difficult when you had nobody to talk to all day, both his brothers being out with him didn't help either. he had to travel a lot between boston and la, sometimes other places – depending on his schedule.

as you were sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, wondering what color markers you'd use next to color in the drawing laid before you, your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door unlocking. you perked up, greeted by your boyfriends smile.

"hi baby"

he beamed, walking over to you, you smiled wide, sitting up to give him a hug. he swiftly gave you a quick squeeze around the waist before dipping his head down to kiss you gently.

"missed you so much today, what'd you do all day, huh?"

he muttered against your lips, repeatedly kissing them. you let out a soft hum of contentment, leaning into his lips. he caressed your hip bones with his fingers slowly, almost massaging them.

"i missed you too handsome, i took a nap, i ate some food, oh – and i also colored a little, see?"

you beamed, proudly showing off the messy work to him. you handed him the page to give him a better look. he took it out your hands and let out a soft chuckle, admiring the so called art. it was a little out of the lines, pretty messy, but he found it all the more adorable.

"yeah? a flower? so pretty"

he mused, kissing your forehead. you let out a soft laugh, rearranging your markers. the sound of the tv wafted through the air, reaching matts ears. the familiar sound of cartoons often filled the house, nor matt or chris and nick cared, it didn't bother them.

"how about we get you in the bath, and after, we can have a little date night? just you and me sweetheart, we can watch some of that show you were watching and i'll help you color, yeah?"

he brought you to your feet with a smile, you beamed at the idea. once he saw your eager demeanor, he gently swooped you up and carried you to the bath. he let you soak in the warm water before washing your back for you and getting you dry.

you loved how much he cared for you, you could shut your brain off around him. he helped you into your pajamas – his pajamas.

you pressed a small kiss to his lips, leading to a longer, deeper session. you stood for a while, against his front as his lips moved slowly and sensually against yours. he pulled away with a grin.

"soo..date night?"

you soon found yourself on his lap, coloring away in the book he got you. matt propped himself up against the couch, watching you do your thing. he let a small smirk spread across his lips at the adorable sight before him. your matching pajama pants, your concentration, the way you were so comfortable. he absolutely adored you.

his eyes drifted to the tv, listening to the squeaky high pitched voice of the cartoons you loved watching. he claimed he didn't care, until you'd turn gravity falls on – then he was hooked. your age regressive tendencies were alluring, he found them strange but it was a part of you, and he loved every inch.

after what felt like ages of matt letting you talk about your day and whatever was on your mind, mindless coloring and losing track of what episode of gravity falls you were on, the both of you grew tired.

you colored until your hands gave out, crayons and markers splayed across the messy table. matts arms were around your waist, your face tucked into his shoulder. somehow in your sleepy state he had turned you around to face him without you realizing and soothed you to sleep. you snored softly, in complete bliss to his touch.

tags !

@mattscoquette @blahbel668 @emely9274 @pearlzier @wompwomp-1

@bernardsgfs @sturnsxplr-25 @aesthetixhoe @jetaimevous @alyrasturnz

@adorsturns @cvntytiger @d0e-b4by @lysielaced

#mattsdoll ୨୧ #matt sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #matt stuniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo x reader #sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo fluff #matt sturniolo x you #fluff #blurbs 𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖♡

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mint-yooxgi · 15 days

Text

Dreamer - Yandere!Vampire!Yeosang

Yandere AU & Vampire AU - First Person POV

Genre: Mature, Smutty Themes, Internal Monologue

Pairing: Yeosang X Implied Chubby!Fem!Reader

Words: 1,771

Warnings: Hunter/Prey dynamics, Invasion of dreams mentioned multiple times, Possessive and sexual thoughts, violence and blood mentioned. This is a Yandere story, it will contain themes such as stalking, violence, obsession, possessive natures, and just general overall creepiness and swearing. You have been warned.

A/n: It's been a while... sorry for the delay in posting things, like I said, life has been crazy! I hope you all enjoy this one, something short and sweet for you all. Dedicating this one to @anyamaris hehehe... As always, Feedback is greatly appreciated! Enjoy~

The Sixteenth and Final of The Feral Drabbles

The loud chiming of the clock tower rings through my ears, nearly drowning out all other sounds. Golden light filters in through the widows, filling the stone walls with the last rays of the setting sun. If I listen closely, I can still make out the faint sounds of your heavy breaths. You cannot escape me, Starling. No matter where you hide, no matter how far you run, I will always find you.

I don’t know how many times I have told you how futile it is to try and get away from me, but you never seen to want to listen. I’m starting to think you rather enjoy the chase. Something about the imminent danger I pose simply gets your blood thrumming with excitement. I can just tell.

Of course, I could end this all in an instant. I could appear beside you at any given moment. My speed and tracking abilities are unmatched, especially when I have what I want in my sights. Yet, where would the fun be in that? I love listening to your heart race because of me. I love knowing I can make your scent spike suddenly with the slightest of sounds. You can sense me getting closer, can’t you? You know that I always get what I want, and what I want is you.

You smell amazing… Have I said that already? That pungent aroma of fear, permeated with the slightest thrill of excitement. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. After all, I know you better than you know yourself. In time, I’ll show you just how perfect I am for you, just as I know how perfect you are for me.

For months I’ve been studying you. The shadows have always been my friends, but when it comes to you, I am the shadows. All those dark and lonely nights I watched you, longing to be beside you, and finally be able to hold you in my arms. I longed to be able to brush my fingertips over your face, tracing loving patterns into your skin that only I can see. I wish to be there for you, and I so badly want you to be there for me.

Your soul called to me. The scent of your blood intoxicates me. Your laugh enchants me, and your smile sets my long dead heart aflutter. Just the sight of you has brought me back to life in ways I never thought possible, and I will cling to that essence of vitality for as long as we both shall live.

There is no me if there is no you.

Now, if only you could see that.

I’ll admit, knocking you out and bringing you to an unknown location was probably not the best way to properly introduce myself. In my defence though, I did overhear you talking to that one friend of yours about certain particular fantasies you’ve always had. You’ll have to excuse me for jumping the gun. I got too excited, and besides, it’s not like you don’t know me.

For months I’ve been appearing in your dreams. It started out small, just in passing at first. A glance of my face here. A hint of my voice there. You seemed to be reacting positively to me, too! I noticed a few times you seemed to be looking forward to my slight visits. Sometimes, you’d even go so far as to continue searching for me in your mind when I passed by. A fact of which made me happy beyond doubt.

Then came the nightmares.

You’re prone to them, aren’t you? The darkest recesses of your mind which you hide away in the light come creeping out of the shadows to torture you while in your most vulnerable state. They’re relentless, and unforgiving. A hindrance to your livelihood which dulls your shine, and petrifies your strength.

You can see why I couldn’t have that. I vowed to keep you safe, and that will always include keeping you safe from yourself.

Which is why I had to step in. I couldn’t leave you to suffer all alone. Not only could I prove to you how valuable I could be to you in your dreams, but it let me interact with you. Even on a subconscious level, I could tell it was going to benefit me greatly. I could talk to you, protect you, keep you interested…

And interested you were! I can still recall the way your eyes felt raking over my full visage for the first time. I could tell that you liked me, and that only made me know stepping into your subconscious mind was the right thing to do.

We were finally making progress! You could see me for who I was, and I could finally see you without hiding myself away. I could interact with you on a more personal level, even within a dream.

Everything I said, everything I did, was real. There’s no question about it. I would never deceive you like that, anyways. You deserve my truth, for it will soon become yours as well.

Those nightmares, though recurring, also let me understand you better. Those monsters stalking your dreams will never be able to hurt you again. I made sure of it. I showed them what a true beast looked like. Though, I will say, feeling their blood drip from my hands after rendering them limb from limb is immensely more satisfying in real life than within any dream your mind can conjure. I only wish I could have inflicted more damage on them while they were still alive…

They didn’t suffer enough. Not after what they all did to you. Nobody hurts you, cheats you, lies to you and gets away with it. No one.

I’ll tear them all to shreds. I’ll rip their pathetic flesh from their bones and feed their mangled corpses to the sea. Hell is a blessing compared to what I have prepared for anyone that crosses you. After all, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you…

Oh, look at me… getting so caught up in my thoughts of you again that I nearly missed the sound of you changing your hiding place. It’s adorable how you think you can get away from me. As if you really want to. Why else would you have ran up the clocktower rather than out into the streets the first chance you got?

What will I get once I finally catch my prize? I’ll finally be able to properly feel your skin beneath my touch. Will you hold onto me as tightly as I’ll be holding onto you? Will you whisper my name so sweetly, granting me a long since desired wish? Or maybe, just maybe…a kiss?

Oh, how I’ve longed to feel your lips pressed against my own, My Sweet Starling. Ever since that one fateful night, that glorious dream we shared, I’ve been longing to know what you taste like in real life. You’ve already let me touch you once before, now all there’s left to do is make your whole body shake in ecstasy in real life.

I know it was simply a dream, but fuck- I can still hear the way you cried out for me. The way your thighs wrapped around my head as I worshipped you between your legs… as I buried myself deep inside of you… I want to feel it again. This time, I want it to be real.

I want to hear those sinful lips of yours crying out my name. I want to hear you gasp as I sink my fangs into your flesh, and drink my fill of you. I want to feel your nails cutting into my back and pulling me closer because you cannot get enough of me. You already know that I can never get enough of you, and I will always prove that my love for you is true.

Oh, Starling… you’re going to make me moan if you keep smelling like that…

Delectable. Sinful.

…Mine.

Already I can feel my mouth salivating at the thought of catching you. My fangs are nearly pricking my lips. Starling, I don’t know if I can hold myself back for much longer…

I can hear your heart racing nearly in time with mine.

Tell me… are you as excited as I am right now? There’s something about the thrill of the chase, isn’t there? Knowing that I’m hunting you, wanting to catch you and finally make you mine. I swore to you that I meant you no harm, and that fact will always hold true. I will never hurt you. You are mine, and I am yours. That’s how it should be. That’s how it shall always be.

See! I knew you wouldn’t be able to deny me! We’re meant to be!

Look at you trying to be quiet after purposely giving away your location. It’s extremely endearing, you know. Try to hide all you want, but you can never escape the inevitable.

You may be able to lie to yourself, My Glorious Starling, but you cannot lie to me. Like I said before, I know you better than you know yourself. I can smell the excitement pouring off of you. You want me to catch you. I knew you wouldn’t be able to forget all that I’ve done for you in your dreams so easily. After all, my actions have always been, and will always be, as real as I am.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

The longer I let this go on, the more excited you seem to get. Just listen to your heart racing for me! It’s getting louder with each step, and this time, there’s nowhere you can run. This will be the last place you can ever hide from me. Or rather, should I say, the last place I’ll let you hide from me.

From now on, you’re mine.

Fuck- I haven’t felt this excited in centuries. Do you realize how special you are? My blood feels like it’s lighting a fire within my veins, and my hands are shaking. Do you see the effect you have on me?

And, oh, when I finally get my hands on you…

There will be no part of you untouched - unloved - by me. I plan to spend however long it takes worshipping you and showing you just how loved you are by me. Mentally, physically, spiritually… Nothing is too much for you. You deserve nothing but my best, and my best is what you’ve always deserved. Nothing less.

Tick tock, My Glorious Starling… Your time is up.

#cultofdionysusnet #mfu-net #yandere ateez #yandere yeosang #yandere kpop #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #yeosang x reader #yeosang imagines #yeosang scenarios #kpop x reader #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #vampire au #chubby reader #kpop au #ateez au

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radioactivesweet · 24 days

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can i request poseidon x ExiledGod!S/o whose the God of Life and Nature and protector of living things? They give him pretty flowers and their voice is soothing and calming, a baby would fall asleep listening to their voice. They were exiled to earth in the mortal realm for disobeying a law, so they lived forever in earth in a secluded forest and helps hikers or a passerby.

this sounds like such a cute concept!!! hope you'll like it^^ I might have gone a bit off track ngl

Behind his expressionless façade, Poseidon was quite unsettled when he first heard the news: you had been exiled to the mortal realm. He wasn't expecting you, out of all the gods he knew, to be given this punishment... no, deep down, he knew that was something you have been longing for. It wouldn't surprise him if he were to discover that you disobeyed the rules on purpose. You have always been quite unusual, after all.

Most gods look down on humans, Poseidon first and foremost. Somehow you loved, you protected them - respected even To someone like Poseidon it was an unconceivable thought - he couldn't bring himself to respect his fellow gods, whom he deemed as vile and cowards, much less humans. Despite your differences, he respected you, who needn't allies nor schemed, who loved unconditionally without asking for anything in return. He didn't necessarily approve of your beliefs, nor he did care to correct you - yet, after you had been exiled, Poseidon found himself more and more often wandering around the mortal realm.

"I've been missing you too", you greeted him with a smile while his brows furrowed, missing you? You must have misunderstood him. "I was just passing by", he explained, despite it being unreasonable for someone like him to be just "passing by". You seemed healthy, heaalthier than the last time he had meet you in the Heavens - wherever you'd walk, flowers and grass would grow beneath your feet, life would thrive all around you, making it spring all year long... and it all seemed to be amplified now that you were on Earth. He thought you were beautiful under the gentle light of the sun, finally at peace.

You welcomed him in your lair, a cottage in the middle of the woods, a place where those were lost could find refuge, where nature blossomed undisturbed - a peaceful coexistance between men and the rest of the natural world, something which gods considered to be unattainable. Something only you could make possible.

At first his visits were sporadic, it would be years before he would come back and visit you, then it became a matter of months... then you'd be counting the days in between your meetings. Sometimes you were surrounded by humans who couldn't find their way out of the forest, other times you were looking after a group of childreen, singing lullabies in moonlit nights, some other time animals were listening to you as if you were part of their pack. The essence of a deity, not through power, but through love, a feeling he had rarely been able to perceive. He could almost feel it warming his chest whenever you smiled at him or told him some kind word. The most anomalous god he had ever met, definitely.

He heard them, the so called "gods", talking idly about you, for leading that unconventional existance, as if you were the first deity banished in a far-away land, while they poured wine in golden goblets wasting their immortality chatting in their opulent palaces, without a care, "gods" who would hide behind him as soon as a minor accident occured. Those were not worthy of that title, you, who they costantly belittled, were. Your kindness, unparalleled, you, who had all humans virtues, but none of their flaws. Time would pass, yet you would remain unchanged. Poseidon, though, could feel himself changing a little bit every time he would meet you - slowly, but you noticed it too. Patiently, even the toughtest of stones is eroded by waterdrops.

#poseidon x reader #poseidon #record of ragnarok #record of ragnarok x reader #shuumatsu no valkyrie #ror #snv #ror x reader #snv x reader #shuumatsu no valkyrie x reader #poseidon ror #poseidon snv #poseidon record of ragnarok #poseidon shuumatsu no valkyrie

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dellalyra · 1 year

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𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨 - 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙩𝙬𝙤

𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘺!𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘶 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘴.

𝘊𝘞: 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺, 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘧𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘭𝘪𝘭 𝘴𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘺, 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘶 𝘸𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵

part one

recommended listening:

The Search - NF

Waltz for Richard - First Aid Kit

Late Night Talking - Harry Styles

It wasn’t a question for any of you.

These kids? They were staying.

No way in hell was Suguru letting those kids, sweet, good kids go to the fucking Zen’in estate to be ruined and brainwashed into the same thinking as the higher ups.

They settled in easily, Tsumiki enjoyed playing with Suguru’s hair, braiding it to match hers sometimes in the morning. Megumi definitely gravitated to you, a comforting presence, less extroverted than either of the boys. Satoru loved introducing them both to Digimon - which Megumi became enamoured with.

And then - one day when the kids were at school, and you and Satoru were at work - Suguru had a mission.

A village. A shitty village. The middle of nowhere.

Pathetic, weak, cruel people.

Two small, tiny and scared girls.

Two small girls, no more than 4.

Two small girls, in a fucking cage.

He came so close - so fucking close to just wiping the village out. He could have done it. He nearly did. There were only 2 reasons he didn’t.

Y/N and Satoru. He couldn’t, he couldn’t do that to you both. He couldn’t do it to himself.

He finds himself grateful this didn’t happen 2 years ago. Because then he would have followed through.

Without hesitation.

He hauls both girls into his strong arms, and leaves the town with a warning that if something like this happened again - he would be back, and he wouldn’t be alone.

The terrified girls slept soundly as he transported them back to the house. He opened the door, and softly kicked it shut behind him.

“Suguru? Is that you? ‘Toru and I are about to start a movie - I made pop-” Your voice carries from the kitchen as you round the corner and the plastic bowl of popcorn clatters to the ground at the sight before you. Two small girls, one curled up in each of your boyfriend’s arms. Suguru looked exhausted, and there was something in his eyes that was rare to see - fear.

Satoru came skidding around the corner at the sound of the bowl falling, clad in one of Suguru’s hoodies and basketball shorts. He stops in his tracks right beside you.

“Holy shit.”

“They were in a cage.”

“What?” You whisper.

“The mission. They - they kept them in a cage.” He stuttered, voice laced with raw fury.

“Suguru, baby, give me the kids. I’ll lay them down on the sofa. ‘Toru?” You say as you take a tiny girl in each arm, they were so small. Not the size a 5 year old should be.

“I got him, princess.” Satoru says, turning to Suguru who is stoney faced.

“C’mon, baby, let’s go to the kitchen.” Satoru says, grabbing his boyfriend’s hand and pulling him into the kitchen to sit at your cosy table.

Suguru sits, elbows resting on knees and hair falling in inky tendrils down around his face. Satoru kneels in front of him, between his knees as he lets him breathe for a moment. The last time he saw Suguru like this was after Riko, the darkness in his eyes reflected what he felt inside.

You walk back into the room, having put the sleeping girls down, wrapped in blankets on the sofa.

You sit on the table beside Suguru, and exchange glances with Satoru.

“Suguru, what happened?” You ask, gently as possible.

You hear a deep breath.

“The village. The curses they had, weren’t curses. Just two little girls, they were scared of them so they locked them in a fucking cage. I couldn’t - I couldn’t leave them there. I - fuck, Satoru, Y/N - I… I nearly killed them. The village. All of them. I was ready to burn that place to the ground.”

The shake in his normally languid voice startled you and Satoru. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him into your chest as you press kisses to the top of his head and Satoru wraps his arms around his middle and kisses his cheeks.

There’s 3 of you, and 4 kids now. It took some discussions and figuring stuff out - but you all believed the twins should stay with you. Megumi was 6 now, Tsumiki was 8, the twins newly turned 5. At 21, you never expected to be mother of 4 but you wouldn’t change it for the world - not when you had the two best dads by your side.

It took Suguru a few weeks to shake the feeling from the village, but the twins soon came to be known as two balls of sunshine. Megumi took some time to warm up, but about 6 months later acknowledged them as his sisters, Tsumiki was just happy to an even bigger family.

Figuring out the legalities was tricky, when you all decided to adopt the kids formally. Eventually, you decided that Megumi and Tsumiki would be legally you and Satoru’s kids, and the twins would legally be Satoru and Suguru’s. Having the Gojo name as backing would ensure a level of safety for each of the kids, so that was decided from the get go.

The twins insisted on sharing a room, which was fine by you - so they stayed in the room next to Tsumiki. They were just old enough to start school, so you enrolled them at the same school as the older two. Megumi immediately went into protective big brother mode and more than once you were called in because he beat up some kids being mean to his baby sisters.

However one day, you were called in with Satoru and Suguru and told that Nanako and Mimiko had beat up some boys who wanted to fight Megumi. The three of you barely contained your laughs when you found out that your two now 7 year old girls beat up 5 10 year old boys with ease.

As the kids grew up, they started to ask questions about the family. So you came up with your answer. You and their dads had so much love that you all decided that you would use that love to be with each other, because you all made each other happy. You loved Suguru and Satoru, Satoru loved you and Suguru, Suguru loved you and Satoru. Then, because you guys loved each other so much - it grew even more love, and that’s where the four kids came in. It wasn’t always easy, having four kids under 10 in the house, but with there being 3 parents (and a usually semi tipsy aunty Koko in the living room) it was easier.

It was never even discussed, but Satoru somehow became Papa to everyone and Suguru became Dad (daddy had been off the table, because that’s what you called him).

One night, Suguru was cooking a meal for you and Satoru. The girls were having a slumber party with Utahime and Aunty Koko, and Megumi was having a nature documentary evening with Uncle Nanamin having vehemently declined the offer of joining the slumber party with the girls.

You three sat and ate, laughed and chatted and then went to snuggle up on the sofa with a glass of wine each.

After an hour or so, Satoru left to get a top up for everyone.

But when he came back, it wasn’t wine in his hands - but two small blue velvet boxes.

You clasped Suguru’s hand as you gasped and he whispered the white haired man’s name.

“This isn’t half as flashy as people would expect from me, but neither of you like flashy - plus, it only felt right for this to be just for us. Nothing we’ve done has been normal, from day one, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. When Y/N and I first started dating, I never thought I could love a person as much as I loved her - until I realised that I was ridiculously in love with you too, Suguru. When Y/N and I realised we loved each other, and you - and you loved us back - any infinity or infinite void would never compare to that feeling of having you both by my side.” He kneeled down on one knee in front of you both, as you sat up with Suguru’s arm around your waist. “Y/N. Suguru. Will you both do me the honour of promising to spend the rest of your lives doing stupid shit and annoying the hell out of everyone together with me, and each other?” You couldn’t hold it in any more as you flung yourself at the kneeling man and pressed your lips to his, one had dragging your other love behind you as you said yes a million times. Your antique ring was accompanied by a plain tungsten black band for Suguru and a platinum one for Satoru.

The wedding was simple, you all married each other (that was tricky to organise) and had a classic, small and intimate reception at the rooftop garden in Tokyo.

The years passed, the kids became teenagers - 4 teens simultaneously was testing - Tsumiki and Megumi were easy enough, Tsumiki worrying both her dad’s endlessly with her popularity with boys and Megumi was easy going, just sullen and grumpy - but not that that was a change from when he was 6. The twins were just as fun as ever.

Tsumiki’s curse hit everyone hard. She was everyone’s big sister, everyone’s rock. You vowed with your husbands that you would find a way to wake her up, you promised the kids.

Once Megumi was getting ready for his move to the dorm at Jujutsu High, the twins started talking about how in a years time they’d be starting too, a year below their brother. Gakuganji tried to coax the twins to enroll in Kyoto, so that not all 3 of the Gojo-L/N-Geto kids would be in Tokyo but he was swiftly denied with a ‘shove your shitty old school, I’m going with my brother, you wrinkly ballsack’ by a 14 year old Nanako.

Gojo said he’s never felt more proud.

With Tsumiki… not around anymore, Megumi only a few months from only spending weekends at home and the twins joining him in a year - you and your men realised the house would feel pretty empty pretty soon, and you all felt a bit young at only 27 for empty nest syndrome.

Geto was the first to broach the topic. Suggesting that maybe, because your IUD is running out next month - that maybe, you just don’t get a new one. You looked to Satoru, who quickly nodded in agreement. Because the truth was, you all loved raising your adopted kids so much, but they’re grown now.

So maybe, just maybe

It was time to try for a baby…

Before any pregnancy started - you rang Satoru one day - telling him to come to your location. Megumi and you were there. Behind you, hoisted up by your eldest son, was an unconscious pink haired boy. You introduced him as Yuuji. Why was he unconscious? Oh! You had to knock him out, because he’s also Sukuna.

He came home with you that night. You set up the spare room so that he could settle and you could tend to him before he started school.

“Another kid? Y/N, Megs just moved out.”

“Hey! You two both brought home your strays. This one’s my stray.”

The next weekend, a fiesty girl reminiscent of yourself a decade earlier joined the gang - your second stray, your Nobara.

Again, Satoru saw your little body roommate first. He noticed a trace of cursed energy in your belly before you did. There were tears and joy between all three of you. Neither of them cared who the kid belonged to biologically - it was a baby made of a huge amount of love. That’s all.

They were nightmarishly protective during the pregnancy, never leaving you alone. Geto discovered his intense kink for seeing you with his kid in your tummy and couldn’t keep his hands off you, Satoru was only spurred on more by this - seeing your belly all soft and round with his baby? The baby that he made with the two people he loved? Had him leaking in seconds.

9 months later and 14 exhausting hours later, the baby arrived.

The minute you all saw the baby, freshly cleaned and placed in your arms, the three of you burst out laughing.

“Well, I guess there’s no question over the paternity of this little one.” Satoru giggles.

That’s because Genji Yu Geto L/N Gojo was staring at you all with the brightest blue eyes from under a swathe of snowy white lashes to match his snowy white hair. He was placed into Suguru’s arms, who kissed you and his husband and thanked you both for his beautiful son.

Raising the baby was no different from raising the kids, you were all the parents. He was loved so much by all three parents, all four elder siblings and his Grandpa and Grandma Geto.

Genji’s godparents were Shoko and Nanami.

When Genji was 2, you fell pregnant again. You quickly realised that unless the child only had your genetics, it would be easy to tell who had who’s genes. This was proven when Keisuke Geto-L/N-Gojo entered the world, all dark hair and dark eyes and ivory skin. Your two babies were carbon copies of their biological fathers, but funnily, Genji behaved like Suguru, and Keisuki like Satoru.

Nobara and Yuuji were asked to be Keisuke’s godparents, with Yuuji very confused by how it would work being his godfather and brother in law - now that he was dating Megumi.

Izumi came next, he looked exactly like you - just with eyes that made him clearly Geto’s, but your hair, your nose, your lips. The youngest now, with Genji being 5 and Keisuke aged 3.

Utahime and Hikari were named as Izumi’s godparents, and they doted on the boy.

You figured you’d finish there. 3 boys under 5? Impressive given that the three of you were only 33.

However, the sudden craving for toasted marshmallows and Sakura mochi 3 years later at Megumi’s 24th birthday made you freeze.

Grabbing Shoko, you drove to the store.

8 months later, the most beautiful little accident arrived into the world. Suki Geto-L/N-Gojo arrived to the world announcing her presence with lungs capable of deafening an elephant. All shiny soft white whispy curls and sparkling blue eyes, your baby daughter joined the world. A true beauty, perfect in every way, Satoru’s other carbon copy but every ounce of her mother’s temper, moxie and gall, she became the apple of her elder brother’s eyes, and the angel of her sister’s. Mei Mei and Choso were chosen as Suki’s godparents.

Your husbands? The most doting fathers ever. You typically wake up on a Saturday morning with Geto’s arm slung around Satoru’s waist, who is leaning his white head on his chest, Suki having a bottle on Geto’s lap with the bottle held by Gojo, Izumi having pancakes on Satoru’s lap and Keisuke and Genji on either side keeping watch over their siblings or trying to braid Geto’s hair whilst watching scooby-doo. Every time, you’d sit beside them, scooping Suki into your arms and the two elder boys would curl up on their dad’s lap. All was peaceful. Well, that was until big bro Megumi and Yuuji-kun arrived.

All four of the elder kids? Adored by all three of you.

All four of the babies? Adored by all seven of you.

#jjk #jjk x reader #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo fluff #anime #dad!gojo #geto x y/n #getou suguru x reader #getou suguru #geto x gojo #satosugo #poly satosugu

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zegrasdrysdale · 9 months

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[ wrapped in red ] j. drysdale

day five of malia’s christmas fic marathon

paring : Jamie Drysdale x fem!reader

summary : (Y/N) surprises Jamie with his Christmas gift early when he gets back from a rough east coast roadie at four in the morning

warning(s) : smut ! oral (m receiving), p in v penetration, unprotected sex (pls be careful), whining, light hair pulling, use of pet names during sex

author’s note : this is me trying to catch up w the schedule lmaoo anyway … enjoy (even tho i definitely got a little carried away with it. i was having a moment and let the moment take over)

༺═──────────────═༻

The horn sounds through the TV, signaling the end of the game. The Ducks lost to the Devils at the Prudential Center 4-2, and it was Jamie’s first goal back after missing nearly 30 games. He probably isn’t feeling the best right now.

Yet she knows exactly what would make him feel better. She's sure he will appreciate his Christmas gift a little bit early. She's been excited to give it to him since she got it right after he left for the road trip that has kept him away for a week.

Now might be the perfect time since he might need to relax a little bit. She knows her boyfriend so she knows exactly how to help him relax after a rough roadie. She even tells him that she'll wait up for him to get home so she can surprise him.

ʚ jamie baby ɞ - 10:29 pm flight doesn't leave until midnight so you don't have to stay up for me. i won't home until 4. pls don't be up until 4 in the morning, baby. i'd feel so bad

i love you and i'll see you when you get up in the morning, okay ? i won't be good company when i get home and i don't want to ruin your mood

Her plan doesn't change from Jamie's texts. All it does is tell her that he really isn't in a good mood after the road trip. She can take a four hour nap and be fine by the time he gets home. She needs to be wide awake for when she gives him his gift.

The gift also needs a little prep so she'll sleep until three, drink a cup of coffee to wake her up, then get ready to give Jamie his gift.

She's pretty sure his mood will change real quick, especially since he's been gone for a week. They both are a little desperate at this point.

An alarm is set for three in the morning to give her an hour to do what she needs to do. She only needs an hour to prepare the gift. A cup of coffee, a shower, a shave, hair, makeup, and a small snack isn't going to take more than an hour.

For her nap, she wears one of Jamie's Ducks hoodies because they're insanely comfortable. She sends Jamie a text that says goodnight and for him to have a safe flight.

(Y/N) is shaking with excitement as she lies down in their shared bed for her four hour nap. The look on Jamie's face when he sees what he's getting for Christmas is the only thing that causes her to fall asleep.

The sooner she falls asleep, the sooner the alarm will go off and the sooner Jamie will be home.

She dreams of his reaction.

༺═──────────────═༻

A screaming alarm wakes her from her light sleep. It's still completely dark outside and there's a dim light coming from her phone while the alarm goes off. She turns it off and sits up with a stretch.

(Y/N) feels very refreshed though, and she definitely needed the little nap if she is to make it through the night. She allows herself a few more minutes before she goes and makes a cup of coffee.

While the coffee brews, she tracks Jamie's flight. They haven't landed early so she can still definitely pull off the surprise. The team plane is scheduled to land in a half hour. Then it's baggage claim and a fifteen to twenty minute drive to their apartment in Anaheim.

After coffee and a few pieces of toast with strawberries and Nutella, (Y/N) takes a shower. It's a full shower. She shampoos, conditions, shaves all necessary areas, washes her body, and exfoliates her face.

All while Taylor Swift is playing from the Bluetooth speaker on the sink counter.

(Y/N) loves listening to Miss Swift while she showers. Sometimes she listens to it while showering with Jamie, and he gets very into it. That's Trevor's doing though. Trevor is a bigger Swiftie than she is. Sometimes.

It's quarter to four when (Y/N) gets out of the shower. She checks to see where Jamie is and finds he's still at the airport. His location says he's outside though so he's probably headed to his car. She needs to hurry up if she's going to pull this surprise off.

She wraps herself in a towel and secures it under her arms so she can do her hair and light makeup. She blow dries it until it's pretty much straight then runs the straightener through it a couple of times to make sure there is no wave or curl to her hair.

She puts foundation under her eyes to hide the circles that have formed and all over her face to hide any blemishes. She puts on red lipstick and does a natural smokey eye look.

When she looks at Jamie's location, he's on his way home. There are about ten minutes until he's going to be walking through the door and she still has to go get the actual gift out of the closet. She curses to herself and makes her way back into their bedroom after disconnecting her phone from the speaker and turning off the light.

Inside a box in a closet is the gift. It's a red lingerie set that she tried on once when she was with Jamie. He said he really liked it so when he left for the trip, she went back to the store and bought it.

The sleepwear lingerie is made of lace and mesh. The cups of the nightgown part of the set is made of lace and is practically see through. Below the cups is completely see through. A matching mesh G-string will be worn underneath the sleepwear.

(Y/N) looks in the full length mirror against the wall and finds a hot, confident version of herself. Usually she doesn't dress like this, but it's Christmas so she figured it could be Jamie's gift since he liked seeing this set on her.

Somewhere in the apartment, a door softly opens and shuts with a nearly silent click. She makes a beeline for the bed and turns on the lamp beside the bed so Jamie gets a very good look at her when he opens the bedroom door.

There is a sigh and footsteps that are getting closer and louder. She tries to lay on the bed in a way that Jamie will get a good view of her as soon as the door opens. She has just decided on a position when the door slowly begins to open.

Jamie sticks his head into the room and looks right at the bed. His eyes immediately widen and the door swings completely open. His jaw has dropped to the floor and he nearly drops his bags on the ground.

"I- what-," he stammers. She smiles as he tries to find the words. "I don't understand what's going on here. (Y/N), I thought I said not to-"

"Wait up for you?" she finishes. "I didn't. I woke up at three so I could get ready to surprise my boyfriend since he hasn't been home in a week." She allows her eyes to travel up and down Jamie's body. He's tense but it's hard to miss how tight his pants have gotten at his crotch area. "Maybe put him in a better mood because he seemed very cranky after the game."

He shifts his weight between his legs before he drops his luggage by the door. "I am," he tells her. "I mean, I was. I don't think I am now." His eyes travel over her body. "Holy shit, baby."

She slowly gets up off the bed, making sure to show off every part of the set. Jamie's cheeks get red as he watches her walk up to him. She smiles when she is standing in front of him. "Merry Christmas," she says to him. "Decided to give you your present a little early. You said you liked this on me so I went and got it to wear for you on Christmas but then you had a rough road trip. Surprise."

Jamie's quiet, but she can see that he's trying to hold back. His hands are shaking, itching to touch her. "I don't know what to say," he tells her. "Fuck, (Y/N)."

"How about you don't say anything?" she suggests. Her fingers grasp at the collar of Jamie's game day suit jacket. Slowly, she pushes it off of him and he shivers despite wearing long sleeves under the jacket. "How about I help you relax? Let you enjoy seeing me in this while I suck you off. Promise you won't rip it?" He immediately begins to nod.

His eyes are on her fingers as she works on unbuttoning his shirt. She untucks it from his pants to finish unbuttoning it and her eyes meet his. "I wish I could come home to this after every roadie," Jamie softly admits. "I think I'd score a hat trick if I knew this was waiting for me at home."

(Y/N) undoes his belt without looking at what she's doing. It hits the ground with a soft thud. "I'll see what I can do," she replies. "Maybe if you get a hat trick then I'll be waiting for you like this when you get back." Slowly, she sinks to her knees. She is so thankful that the room has carpet. Her knees are definitely grateful. "I'll be waiting on my knees like this for you."

A soft whine passes Jamie's lips when she pulls his cock out of the confines of his suit pants. "Fuck," he groans as she takes him in one of her hands. She presses soft kisses to his hipbone, trailing closer to his dick.

She licks the bright red tip and swirls her tongue around it, collecting the drop of precome that has already formed. She looks up at him as she takes him in her mouth. Jamie sighs and puts his fingers in her hair to probably keep himself upright. She takes as much of him in her mouth as she can then begins to move her head.

Giving blowjobs has never been something she's been particularly good at, but Jamie has helped her improve her skills since they've gotten together. His reactions and the sounds that come from his mouth let her know if she's doing a good or bad job.

Even if she were to give the worst blowjob in the world right now, she is pretty sure that Jamie wouldn't care.

He's already barely here.

One thing she knows drives Jamie crazy is when she hollows out her cheeks and lightly sucks. She tries it once and Jamie's hips buck forward. (Y/N) knew that was going to happen so she relaxed her throat so he wouldn't choke her with his dick. Jamie lets out a soft groan that's mixed with a whine. Her hands fly to his thighs to let him know to relax.

"Keep doing that and I will come a lot sooner than we would both like, (Y/N)," he warns her. She looks up at him through her eyelashes and sees how flustered he is. His cheeks are bright red and his bottom lip looks like it's been gnawed on. "Fucking eyelashes. Fuck."

She smiles as best as she can around him.

Despite the carpet, her knees do begin to hurt. She glances up at him before pulling off his dick. There is a little bit of lipstick on his hipbone where she kissed him. She smiles and looks up at him.

Jamie slides one of his hands around to the back of her neck and puts his fingers in her hair. She stands up and Jamie drags her in for a filthy kiss. She hums against his lips and pushes the unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. He lets the fabric fall to the floor around his feet.

"Love being on my knees for you," she mumbles between kisses. "I wanna ride you though."

A whine comes from Jamie's throat after her comment. She smiles and turns them so she can push Jamie onto the mattress.

The kiss breaks and he falls onto his back with a grunt when she pushes him in the direction of the mattress. She pulls off his shoes and socks before pulling his dress pants off. Jamie scoots backward further onto the bed as she pulls off his pants and boxers together.

Jamie's eyes are wide when she crawls on top of him. She straddles his waist and cock. Jamie's hands run up and down her thighs for a second as she leans down and kisses him. This kiss is hungry since she has gone a week without kissing him. She's missed the feeling of his lips against her. It drives her nuts every time he goes away for more than a few days.

There's a light pressure over the G-string that she's wearing under the sleepwear. A soft moan comes from her throat as Jamie's thumb circles her clit over the mesh.

He breaks the hot kiss and she rests her forehead against his. "As hot as this is," Jamie begins to say. "I need to be inside you so either take these off or move them to the side because I'm minutes away from coming and I don't want to make a mess of your new outfit."

(Y/N) quickly sheds the lingerie set until she's completely naked. A smile forms on Jamie's lips before he sits up and attaches his lips to her jaw. Her fingers are in his hair. When he hits the sensitive spot right under her ear, she lightly pulls. His thumb is back on her clit and she whines.

Needing relief, she grabs his dick and lines herself up with him. He looks up at her and she kisses him. It's a softer kiss than the kisses they've already shared tonight, but he licks into her mouth and it intensifies.

Slowly, she sinks down onto him. There's a familiar pressure as he fills her up. "Fuck, Jamie," she mumbles against his lips.

"Feels so good around me, baby," Jamie tells her. "Fuck."

It's only seconds later when he's completely inside of her. Jamie's hands find her waist and she bites at his bottom lip before pulling away.

Their eyes meet and Jamie begins to roll her hips against his. Her lips part and soft pants pass them. Her hands fly to his jaw and she holds on like it's life or death.

It feels so good to be like this. It's rare that Jamie lets her take control in bed but she loves it. Even now, he still has some control while she's riding him. His hands are on her waist and helping her move.

She puts her hands on his chest and pushes him back onto the bed. His head hits the pillows and she speeds up her movements. Rolling turns into bouncing on Jamie's dick.

The room is filled with the sounds of the bed squeaking beneath them and skin on skin. She's letting out quiet moans as she throws her head back and enjoys the feeling of Jamie moving in and out of her at her own pace. Jamie even lets out a soft noise or two.

"Riding me so good," Jamie tells her. "Riding me like the good girl you are. Fuck, baby."

His words alone are enough to make her come, but she holds back until he comes first. He's the one that needs to relax so she's focused on his pleasure first. She'll come when he comes.

Then his thumb is back on her clit and she isn't sure how much longer she can go.

"Want you to come first," she pants. "Jamie."

Jamie pulls her down into a kiss full of tongue and teeth.

She's so close. Her legs are shaking and sore from doing all the work. Her clit is so sensitive and she's worried she'll come.

"Fill me up," (Y/N) says against Jamie's lips. Even her voice is shaky. "Wanna feel you come inside me. Please."

A groan and a whine pass Jamie's lips as he finally lets go. He comes inside of her as soon as she comes back down on his cock. He uses his thumb and pointer finger to play with her clit and it's not long after that when she comes.

White paints her vision and she comes with Jamie's name on her lips. She throws her head back for a second before she collapses onto his chest.

She isn't sure that she's ever came that hard in her life. Her body is spent and her breathing is labored.

When she comes to, she's laying on the bed and the bathroom light is on. Jamie appears from the bathroom with a cloth and he begins to clean her up. She can feel his come running down her legs and it's a little uncomfortable until he wipes it away.

"That was the hottest thing I think I have ever experienced," Jamie admits to her. "I'm so fucking lucky."

"Now I have to get you a new Christmas present," she mumbles. Her voice is already slurred with sleep.

Jamie throws the cloth towards the laundry basket and climbs back into bed. He covers them both with the blanket that will need to be changed in the morning.

"I think that was the best Christmas present ever," he softly tells her. "You can worry your pretty little head about it in the morning. Right now, we're going to go to sleep and sleep in then I'm going to return what you did tonight by fucking you when you wake up."

Oh, she should be wrapped in red more often if this is how Jamie is going to react. Maybe next she can wear one of his Canada jerseys with nothing on underneath and see how he reacts to that.

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luveline · 11 months

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ooh yay okay short blurb idea!! stevie comforting anxious!reader with back rubs? I feel like he gives the best calming back rubs ever!!! need him to help me w my anxiety :( 🤍🤍🤍

It's not that Steve's presence alone can stave off your anxiety, he's not a miracle, though he is miraculous, but it doesn't take long without him to fall into unhappy thoughts. He leaves to shower and you worry about everything one ache at a time, hands braced on your knees, begging your body to just let it go this time. Just this one time.

You listen to the shower running, glad for the noise to hide your breath as it begins to wind, but Steve is quick. A minute later he's turning off the water, and a minute after that he's propping open the door to the ensuite to let out the hot air. His hair is still dry. He only wanted a refresher after the hot weather.

You squeeze at nothing, your hands aching from the scrunch and unscrunching of your fingers. Steve must sense it, your quiet hurting, because he looks up with that resigned concern already lining his mouth, lips pulled down into an unfortunate frown.

"Hey," he says, pulling the last sock on, "I'll be right there."

The distance between you is relatively small and huge nonetheless. "It's okay," you say.

You're wheezing. Steve's eyebrows furrow, and he grabs his glasses off of the night table as he sits down beside you. They slip down his damp nose and fog a little from the heat of his skin, which is a nice distraction until you realise it's a distraction.

"Can I touch you?" he asks quietly.

You nod quickly. Sometimes the panic is too much, and anyone's touch feels like a burn, but right now it's the one thing you want. Steve slides right up to your side, thigh to thigh, elbow to elbow. He slides the arm closest to you behind your back to hold you, and the other comes over his lap to your leg, where he squeezes the soft fat of your inner thigh.

"What is it?" he asks.

"I think…" you breathe in until your chest feels like it'll pop. "An attack."

"Okay," he says, pulling you that last bit closer. You're like one person.

You lean forward away from him without thinking. Steve doesn't follow, but his hand tracks a heavy weight on your back. He starts to draw as he usually does when this happens, long fingers and a soft palm roving up the length of your spine and down again, filling the dip of your back as his voice melds to a whisper. "It's okay. We have to ride it out, that's all. You know that already. Keep breathing, babe."

You cover your face with your hands. Steve makes a small sorry sound and takes your wrist, pulling your hand from your mouth.

"Just breathe, honey."

It's not easy. Not as simple as just, but you breathe. Steve's hand is dutiful and loving as it goes, tracing the same path over and over again. He whispers every now and then when you hold your breath or show signs of cracking, and when your eyes fill with tears his touch turns especially tender.

People forget how full of love Steve is. He wants to love people, even if he does get annoyed at everything. Everything, and yet never at this. This is where his patience lies.

Your back starts to feel ticklish from his touching. It works better than intended, one uncomfortable feeling replacing the other slowly. Steve puts his second hand on your chest to feel your pulse, his pinky finger sliding under the neckline of your shirt. He counts under his breath.

"Good," he murmurs, pulling out his hand. "Good job, baby. You're okay."

The attack ends, the shaky aftermath begins. You feel weak from hyperventilation, hands still shaking. Steve wraps you up in his arms now you're in no danger of suffocation to hold you together, pulling your face to his neck, his cheek turned from you as he sighs in relief. "You're okay," he says again. "That was a sudden one, huh? You okay?"

You manage a soft laugh. "I thought you already decided."

"It's two different okays." He rubs the top of your shoulder with his thumb, leaving warmth in his wake. "I know from your heart that you're okay, but are you okay? You know. What do you need me to do?"

You hug him weakly. "Nothing. I don't need… Thank you, Steve." He's done more than you could ever ask for.

"You're welcome," he says, kissing your cheek twice, his words warm and quiet against your skin. "Don't mention it. Just glad you're feeling better."

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington drabble #stranger things x reader #stranger things fic #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #stranger things #stranger things 4

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keepingsecretstokeepyoutk · 5 months

Text

This is going to be very long and sound a little crazy at first, and maybe a little mean but please hear me out…

I’m convinced that Taylor sometimes purposefully includes one line or multiple lines of poorly written or clunky lyrics in specific songs to make a point.

We all have seen some version of this with bearding songs like London Boy, a simple bop whose lyrics were immediately detected as sounding disingenuous, even with the general population (the locations she was signing about were the most touristy and too far away from each other to visit on the same day, etc, basically implying that she doesn’t actually have a long term local bf there that she spends a bunch of time with exploring the city with, etc).

But just like everything else on the album, I think she’s doing maybe a more in your face version of that. No holds barred.

So High School is an obvious example of this, with all of the early 2000’s hs imagery, she seems pretty blatantly to be mocking the idea the public has of her “living out every American girl’s high school fantasy” of dating the tall popular football player. With lyrics like “touch me while your friends play grand theft auto” (barf), etc, shes being clear enough that this is not a serious song.

This is the possibly controversial part, but I’m so curious to see what others think about this - I think another iteration of this on this album is the title track, The Tortured Poets Department. Hear me out.

(First, I want to reassure you that there are lines in this song that I really like and think are well written, like: “you’re in self-sabotage mode/throwing spikes down on the road” and “but you awaken with dread/pounding nails in your head/but I’ve read this one/where you come undone/I chose this cyclone with you”. And I fully agree with the idea that these sentiments are from Karlie’s perspective. Basically, when you take out the chunks I’m about to talk about this song makes way more sense and has a beautiful sentiment of undying love behind it - which makes the following parts stick out that much more!)

The first time I listened through the album, and this was the second song, I got terrified because I didn’t understand its place in the whole narrative and when I heard the first clunky line “scratch your head like a tattooed golden retriever” I got the ick. Then the bridge with no structure and no wit and no clever turns of phrase, no metaphor, just “you put my ring on the finger people put wedding rings on” and “that was the closest I’ve ever been to my heart exploding”. So over simplified and cheesy, and doesn’t sound anything like her writing, especially the caliber of her recent lyrics

I know art is largely subjective, but I insist there is no way that the same person who wrote Cowboy Like Me wrote these lines into her title track if she didn’t have a reason and a point to make. To make it clear that this isn’t a matter of genre personal taste, because I know CLM is a very specific sound and a style that music snobs often take more seriously - I love SO many of her candy pop bangers, they are infinitely more clever, articulate, and overall works of art by a true wordsmith than this. Karma, The Very First Night, etc are all a master classes in clever words and tight writing being tucked into an “unserious” pop song.

The lyrics I cited above to me sound like what haters believe her writing sounds like, even fans who make little jokey TikTok’s about her and make up a spoofy something to sing while in character - that’s what these lyrics sound like.

Im worried im being too harsh, but please stay with me because the more I think about the more genius I think it actually is.

In the context of the themes of rest of the album, (her being trapped, miserable, manipulated, ready to burn it all down, screaming to be seen) this theory became clear to me. I think she’s leaning into her public persona (in more ways than one, we’ve already seen it with the stunting), in a way setting a “trap” for her fans and the public, that will essentially call them all out on how they ignored the real her in favor of her pr narrative, making the album about paternity tests, etc, all of which I’m guessing will become very clear in retrospect, possibly after she comes out? (Of course it’s already clear to us now, which is another purpose of the beard songs including clunky writing - to signal to us that these are not serious and that she knows that we know that she knows (like Phoebe on friends lol))

Ultimately, this is (along with So Highschool) a classic beard song. When she writes in this voice, she embodies the most extreme versions of her public persona, not just the one she has cultivated on purpose, but also the one that people have of her that don’t know her (as she did in Blank Space), including those that don’t take her seriously - because her identity as a boy crazy psycho ex girlfriend is directly tied to people dismissing her art as vapid because, they’ve only ever heard her singles, they don’t know the full her.

That voice is the straightest, the most boy crazy, the most one note, and sometimes the most unsophisticated writer version of her that people have in their minds, including her fans - the fans that refuse to see her as a whole person, the real, that believe she is head over heals for big football boy, that believe “he knows how to ball, I know Aristotle” is a romantic line about how opposites attract, the fans that say they don’t “get” some of her most beautiful and well-written songs, the fans that don’t see her and haven’t been seeing her.

They didn’t see giant Taylor on the eras tour, they refuse to see all of her queer signaling, etc, and I think she’s making the bearding songs obvious to underscore the difference between her Taylor(TM) and Taylor(person) personas.

She knows that despite the fact that the lyrics don’t even come close to measuring up to the rest of the album, the public, and many of her fans, will make this song one of the most listened to simply because they are looking for evidence of her relationships from the past year. We’ve all commented on how insane it is that this layered, complex, devastating album is being reduced to the usual paternity tests. This is currently one of the top songs precisely because it is “about Matty”. And of course, So High School is one of the tops songs along with it because it’s “about Travis”.

The juxtaposition of the bearding songs alongside her beautifully written poetry of Prophecy, Peter, Whose Afraid of Little Old Me, Cassandra, How did it end, The Albatross, etc mirrors the juxtaposition of her two selves during the Midnights era.

She has proven the point that if they think she wrote every line of this song completely in earnest, then they see her largely no differently than her haters do, as a subpar writer who writes absurdly cheesy love songs praising trashy to mediocre, problematic men. By eating it up they tell her that’s what she’s good for, for being the subject of tabloids and warring fans who make this entire album about two (purposefully) mediocre songs and the men who “inspired” them.

She has proven her point - that a subset of her fans will be distracted by a lesser song simply because they think it’s about one of the greasy men that’s she been seen holding hands with. That they will ignore once again all of her pleas to be seen, that she’s in pain and caged, and has been driven insane by their willful ignorance. That they don’t appreciate her full potential and talent, that they don’t even see it, and just want to be confirmed in their ideation of her.

This song is essentially the “forget him(her)” pill at the beginning of the fortnight mv, but it’s a sedative for the fans, who are addicted to her straight narrative. Similar to Willow’s 13 chants of “that’s my man” that started off evermore, casting a spell of heteronormativity over everyone who wanted it, so that they could choose to just completely ignore the following 14 gayest songs ever written. Don’t pay no mind to her singing directly about women with zero male perspective - she said “that’s my man!” We’re good! She’s still straight!

Taylor in the fortnight mv had to a take a sedative to be able to go into the next room and write her bearding songs - ie she self medicates to deal with keeping up the straight persona and to get through having to release dumbed down songs to feed the masses. (I also see the pill as something forced on her, I think it represents both layers)

From the first time I watched the music video I thought the writing Taylor looked so miserable and the bearding songs are why.

In this room she’s trapped, churning out the songs that her fans expect of her, the songs that make her team money, the songs that make her money, but that she has to compromise her truth to create.

But when she frees herself she’ll burn the stories that weren’t true, the filler that doesn’t represent her.

I’m curious to hear other’s thoughts on this - have you ever felt like Taylor purposefully inserts off-sounding lyrics that are written in a different voice to make a point?

I want to reiterate that it’s not the entirety of either song that I think is terrible, I genuinely love bopping along to both So High School and TTPD (track). Like I said above, when you remove the clunky lines from ttpd (track), the song has another layer and likely gives voice to some Karlie insight that is beautiful and tragically profound. It’s the red herrings, the pieces specifically meant to tie this song to a bearding narrative, that I’m dissing, and the only reason they are suspicious in the first place is because I know how gifted Taylor is with the written word.

Taylor is such a skilled writer that she can embody the voice of the bad writer that dismissive ignorant idiots believe her to be, just to make a point!

I even wonder if maybe there is a second version of this song locked away in one of those drawers in the fortnight writing room that leaves out the red herrings and is a thousand times better than the bearding version we got.

I hope one day we get to hear it.

#gaylor #kaylor #bearding #closeting #ttpd #so high school

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