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getitoutofmymindwrites · 3 days

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The landing | joel miller x f!reader, 13.2k

Summary: You feel him before you see him. He’s still taking up space in your micro-universe. His sole presence creates ripples through the atmosphere as he walks towards you, softly nudging you to turn your head from your spot to look behind you. Or The one where your orbits finally collide for the final showdown.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, NO SPOILER (read A/N), ANGST, cheater!joel, discussions of infidelity, mention of food consumption, yelling, crying, the briefest mention of smut thoughts, sprinkle of fluff (blink and you'll miss it), as always let me know if I missed anything 👀

A/N: Ok, *deep breath* I know I can't make everyone happy unless I write alternate endings 😅 and I understand that infidelity can be a very triggering concept. I gave them the ending I felt they both deserved, but if you're looking for a story where they are at each other's throats for 13k words, maybe this is not for you and you are more than welcome to kindly move on. I won't spoil the ending in the Warnings, so proceed with caution, you know what the main theme is all about. All I can tell you is that this part of the story is divided into two main scenes because I didn't want to drag it out with one little scene after another. *she says after spilling 13k words🙄sorry about that👀* As always, I would love to read your thoughts on the last part and please keep in mind that writing is almost always self-indulgent.

P.S. I want to thank each and every one of you for the love I received for this mini-series, I never thought it would engage so many people. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You've all been so kind and sweet to me, so this journey filled my heart with joy! I love you all, take care of yourselves and I'll see you -hopefully- in the comments! Oh! My asks are always open if you want to know more about their story. I could even write drabbles or one-shots about anything you'd like to know in particular. Ily, bye 😘

P.S. I deliberately left the last two lines without clarification of who says what, I leave that up to you. 🤍

Dividers by @cafekitsune @saradika-graphics @plum98

previous |

FOUR YEARS AFTER THE FALL

Are you still falling?

You’re not sure anymore. Maybe you’re just used to it. Or maybe you just learned how to fly. It certainly feels like everything has slowed down. Sometimes it feels like floating. As if you’re a feather, so lightweight, swirling around aimlessly. But you can never touch the ground. Gravity can’t quite pull you down. Every time you feel like you’re finally landing, a force of nature pulls you back up.

Maybe it is a soft, warm, summer breeze, a memory of Joel.

Maybe it is a whirlwind, a contact from the lawyers.

Maybe it is a snowstorm, sign the papers, please.

Maybe it is the whispering of a gentle wind, the possibilities of what might have been, or the lack of real closure.

But it’s nice here. Even between the earth and the sky.

You never thought you’d enjoy leaving the big city and making a home for yourself on a ranch. But you loved it. You loved the peace and quiet, you loved this new community of people, you loved taking care of the horses, riding them, being around them. And then there was the house. A place you could almost call home. It was beautiful, rustic, warm, inviting, lacking none of the comforts a modern house needs, because you can’t quite get the big city girl out of you. The entire land had a soft, yellow-golden light enveloping every tree and every rock, everywhere your eyes reached, as if the sun shone differently here.

The days are easy. The chores are more than enough to keep you focused, there’s always something to do around here. It feels good to be busy, to keep your mind from dwelling on the past. You welcome the exhaustion of a full day’s work that accompanies your body when night comes.

Evenings are mostly good. You shower the day off, you cook, you chill on the couch with a good book or a film and more often than not, as the time passes and you feel more comfortable sharing the privacy of your home, you have friends over for dinner and drinks.

Nights though, nights are hard. At night, you pray that you are tired to the point of exhaustion so that you can sleep through it peacefully. Sometimes it works, but most of the time, not so much.

Time has intensified and lessened your emotional burden simultaneously.

The sharp pain that feels like thick acid being poured into you mellows in an inexplicable way. It still hurts, the pain oozing out of your every single pore even in a physical way. Only now, it has transformed into a sweet, slow poison conquering every hollow of your body, every vein leading from your heart to the ends of your limbs.

It’s almost a welcoming feeling, this pain, reminding you that you’re still alive, that he was real, that everything that happened was real. Because sometimes, sometimes, when you let yourself relax, when you let your guard down, all of this feels like a dream. Sometimes, you wake up in the middle of the night, confused, reaching with your hand for the other side of the bed and finding it empty. And for a split second you get that feeling. The feeling of how it used to be with him next to you.

Then you remember.

You know why this is happening and who’s responsible for it. This is a mix-up. This is what your treacherous brain does to mess with your resolve. It blends the bad stuff into the good, creating the strangest of concoctions. The clear image of black and white, neatly and perfectly hung in the center of the walls of your mind is now splashed with colorful memories from your life together, like a Pollock painting. You do your best to resist, to bring back scenes from all the vivid recollections of the night your life changed forever but your uncooperative brain pops another memory up, a good fuckin’ memory, like a projector, illuminating those bare imaginary walls with laughter and touches and whispers and scents and warmth. It’s relentless.

This dichotomy creates an uneasiness inside you, you choose to reject and pretend not to notice. Which in turn leads to self-contempt because, as always you can’t lie to yourself. You may lie to others but deep in your core you have to be honest with yourself. That is something you’re owed. To be aware, present in the reality of your life. So, you know, you know, you just sweep things under the carpet as a copy mechanism. You know what you should do.

You should confront him. You should demand answers and then finally say what you need to say to him. Not for him, not for his sake, but for yours. But you can’t. You've lost count of how many times you've picked up the phone and your thumb hovered over his contact to call him but you just can’t bring yourself to do it. And every time you tried to text him, to start a conversation, it felt too awkward. The only acceptable subject of discussion initiated by you was the progress of the divorce papers. You were unable to even remotely insinuate a more meaningful encounter. And he didn’t make any advances either. Not that you gave him any room to try and talk to you, but still, he seemed more settled with that, rather than not.

Maybe that fact itself was your cue to let it all go. He’s probably moved on. You don’t cheat on someone so blatantly and then want them back. Obviously, this whole delaying of the divorce is a power play, like everything else, it seems.

Good, yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Now, let go. Move on. You solved it. Let go.

But this annoying little voice is scratching the walls of your weary brain, nudging the limits of the carefully made up serenity that’s hanging by a thread.

You should confront him. For your peace of mind, for your equilibrium.

But it’s nice here. Even between the earth and the sky.

Joel, will you please sign the papers?

It’s early in the evening and you’re in the garden in front of the house near the porch, on your knees, plucking a few weeds from the ground. The fatigue of the day’s work has begun to take its toll on you, your shoulder is slightly trembling as you rest your weight on one palm to dig around with the other. Sweat covers your torso, rolling down between the valley of your breasts and the hollow between your spine, leaving your t-shirt clinging to your skin, your hair sticking to your forehead, which is lightly covered in a thin layer of dirt at some places as you keep wiping your forearm over the little beads of salty water that concentrate over your brows.

You feel him before you see him. He’s still taking up space in your micro-universe. His sole presence creates ripples through the atmosphere as he walks towards you, softly nudging you to turn your head from your spot to look behind you.

There's an overload of sensations before you shift your body around to confirm what you already know in your bones. You can smell him, taste him, feel him on your suddenly tingling skin, all at the same time.

You turn slowly and your breath hitches on your throat. You just stay in place, frozen, time infinitely stretching as you take him in from where you kneel on the ground. He stops abruptly the second his eyes meet yours and you could swear he’s holding his breath, his face completely unreadable.

He looks.. he looks like your Joel and nothing like him simultaneously. Soft yet imposing. Handsome yet battered. Determined yet lost. His clothing is simpler, dark jeans, green flannel over a black t-shirt and laced boots, as if he just returned from a working site. His curls are longer, framing his handsome face in a ridiculously good way, more white hairs nestle in his beard that is not that trimmed. Neither of you speak quite yet, taking each other in.

Your mind, your bizarre, ridiculous mind is working on figuring out what day it is. Why does it matter? Did you have an appointment? This is unexpected and a long time coming all at once, regardless of the day of the week. What comes next? Do you draw up an astrological map to determine if it's a compatible date for you to meet? Get it together.

Your facial expression must be pretty funny because Joel smiles awkwardly while scratching one side of his bearded cheek; hey, it’s me.

No, shit, you mentally respond, as if you could ever forget him. Furious is the word that best describes you because these are his first words? Hey, it’s me? And that feeling escalates into an explosive retort because you now realize that you had expectations. His first words? Who cares what his first words are? Were you expecting a tearful reunion, masterfully staged and executed like a romantic film? The guy betrayed you in your own house, sorry, his house. Wake the fuck up.

“Did you sign the papers?” you spit as you rise from your spot and he reacts as if you have punched him in the stomach. His face falls; you see a series of micro-expressions pass over his features before he settles on the last one. Has he been hurt? Did you hurt his feelings? Did he also have expectations?

“Uh-”, Joel raises his brows in genuine surprise, things probably not going the way he expected or hoped.

“It’s nice to see you, too.”, he replies with mild mockery.

Your eyes snap shut and you laugh in anger, lowering your chin to your chest and then looking back up at him, your eyes blazing, your brows mimicking his previously surprised expression, “Are you serious right now?” you cross your hands defensively over your chest.

You stare at each other for a good minute, both of you taking a moment to compose yourselves and regain your balance.

You break first, dropping your head back to your chest, looking down at the heel of your shoe scraping the ground beneath you, exhaling audibly.

“Hey,” Joel tries again, after speaking your name tenderly, your name on his lips, his head dipping down and to the side to try and get your attention back to him, his gaze filled with a mixture of warmth, regret and fear, “hi.”

You shake your head from side to side in repentance, what a great start this is, you keep thinking, “Hi.” is all you give him, still not looking at him.

“Hi,” he repeats, “it’s really nice to see you, bab-, shit, sorry.”, he winces, covering his mouth with his palm, embarrassment creeping into his features. You let out a quiet laugh, exhaling through your nose. You don’t comment on the slip of endearment that leaves his mouth, you don’t correct him, accepting privately that you liked it, you missed it, you longed for it.

Joel studies your face, but makes no comment on your silence. “You look...” he pauses for a split second before deciding to continue, “you look really good.” He hesitates, he doesn't want his compliment to come across as a feeble attempt to patronize you, because he really means it. You do look good, all sweaty and muddy and human and real. You are real. If he took a few steps forward, he could actually reach out and touch you, feel your skin under his fingertips, smell your heady scent, perhaps discreetly lick the remnants of your sweat from his thumb after carefully removing the strands of hair sticking on your forehead. But he doesn’t do that. He doesn’t do any of that.

You don’t quite know how to respond to that, any answer crossing your mind seems stupid or cheesy or dismissive. How do you respond to a compliment from the man who made you worship in his altar, only to have your faith ripped out of your heart?

His eyes keep roaming over your face, your figure, memorizing everything he can, like a blind man who has finally found his light, while he fidgets with an envelope in his hand which reminds you-

“Did you sign the papers, Joel?”, is what escapes your lips before you can think twice.

“No.” and now it’s his turn to lower his head, his eyes avoiding your gaze, as he looks down at his feet.

“Joel!”, you exclaim infuriated, rolling your eyes at him, knitting your brows together in a sign of frustration.

“No, no, it’s not like that. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want.”, Joel raises a hand in your direction to stop you from what seems to be a fair assumption, his palm up, facing you in an unspoken surrender. “I thought that- me, not signing, was a way of showing you how deeply sorry I am, how much I wanted to fix our marriage, but I understand now,” his voice wavers slightly, “that I need to respect your wishes. It’s the right thing to do. If this is still what you want, I’m gonna sign it.”

You don’t reply to that last part, only pointing out that “You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me that.”

“No, I didn’t.” Joel agrees.

“Then why are you here?” you insist, reluctant to entertain the idea that he has actually come all this way to apologize.

“Because I owe you an explanation.” is his honest and direct answer, sending little jolts of electricity through your nerves.

“Joel..” you sigh in exasperation. Not in warning or frustration, not really, but in something else. A feeling you can’t really put a name to, the closest you can come to describing it is that of a burden, woven deep into your heart, blossoming rapidly with each beat. There are so many things left unsaid; it makes you feel helpless, like you’re drowning. You want the dam you’ve built around your soul over the years to break so everything you've been holding back can finally pour out of you, but there’s just so much of it, of everything, that you’re terrified. Will the overflowing tank of emotions be completely empty? Will there be anything left unsaid? Untouched? What if the remnants left behind keep licking around your wounds, their waves pushing, shaping what’s left of you into something new, unrecognizable?

And what if, the tank will indeed be completely empty? What you’ll be left with, then? Nothing? Just.. empty? Will you remain empty? What, if anything, will take its place? Will you recognize your new self? Will you like yourself? Will you be able to live in harmony with this shell of a person? This you; you know. You hated and pitied and caressed and comforted and forgave and nurtured you into some version of a new you. But this? Everything will be torn apart, the wounds will be freshly opened, accessible to be examined in detail, plucked and bled and bruised in an all-too-familiar way.

Joel’s voice snaps you out of your trance, “No, I do. I owe you more than that, actually, but that’s the least I can do. And I wanna do that while I’m still your husband. I want to explain myself as your husband. Apologize to my wife, as her husband. Then I’m gonna sign anything you want me to.”

“And if I don’t wanna hear what you have to say?”

“Then I’ll just sign the papers and leave you in peace.” Joel confesses in all his honesty.

You just nod, looking down on the ground. You take a deep breath to ground yourself. You can do this. You want to do this. You need to do this.

You walk towards the house and sit down on the steps of the porch, as he looks at you awkwardly, not knowing where to stand. You gesture with a tilt of your head for him to come sit next to you. You can do this. You realize that you didn’t invite him into the house and you feel a bit rude for that, but it's beyond your empathetic capacity to deal with him being here and to let him into the house as well. “I just like it out here, it’s calm and-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, whatever makes you feel comfortable; I know you don’t want me here any longer than I have to be..” he interrupts you as he sits down next to you, his one side pressing against the end of the stairs, where the railing begins. He places the contract between your bodies, on the wooden floor.

It makes you uncomfortable, his statement, you always want people to feel welcome and relaxed around you. You internally chastise yourself for worrying about his feelings instead of yours, but you can’t help it, it’s embedded in your DNA. “It’s OK, Joel, I don’t mind, we can talk.”

Joel nods, but he remains silent. You don’t break the silence, giving him time to collect his thoughts. He chuckles defeated, shaking his head while rubbing his hand over his face.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, you don’t look that mighty to me anymore.” you blurt out before you can stop yourself and you immediately regret it. It didn’t sound so insulting in your head. You only meant to say that he doesn’t intimidate you anymore. Which is sort of a lie and a truth at the same time. You used to find him imposing, even his mere presence had the ability to make your skin crawl, your heart flutter and your words get catch in your dry throat, you were in awe of him. Every time you laid your eyes at him, even when you were straddling his lap or gazing at his profile as he slept beside you, you always felt as if you were looking up. You admired him.

His heart loses several beats to that. He can read between your lines now. He has lost your respect. Your admiration. The time when you looked up to him in awe is long gone.

“You know, my therapist warned me about this.”, he chuckles bitterly.

“Your-” you can’t hide your shocked expression from him as you search his eyes for any sign of him joking around, but you find none. “You’ve been in therapy?”

“Yeah, I-, I spent two years hating myself,” he chuckles deprecatingly, “and then I realized it was time for me to stop being an arrogant prick, so I spent another two doing it all over again with the help of my therapist.”

You laugh wholeheartedly at that and it’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen in his entire life. “OK, somebody’s off to a good start. Go on.”

“You mean about the therapy?”

“I mean about you admitting you are an arrogant prick”, you say playfully.

He really laughs now, his eyes crinkle up at the sides. You used to love that. You feel your heart warming up. “You can thank Maria for that.”

“For what?”

“For kicking my ass and pushing me to help myself.” Joel admits. “She’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, she is.” you agree through your laughter, the image of Maria actually kicking Joel’s ass is priceless.

“I missed that sound.” Joel is looking at you softly, as if his gaze could break you.

“Hm.” you simply smile at him, not finding it in you to respond with a snide remark. The time for that feels like it has passed, like it’s irrelevant at this point. All you really want is to have an honest conversation, irony be damned.

You both look at your feet in silent consideration for a minute or two. “I thought you’d be mad at me.” Joel reveals.

You exhale through your nose, the edges of your mouth turning up in a gentle smile. “Four years is a long time to be mad at anyone, Joel. Even you don’t have that kind of power over me.”

“Good. I have enough burden on my shoulders as it is..”, he mumbles and you decide to change the subject.

How do you admit that you are still mad at him but in a different way? How do you describe the deep scar his existence has carved into your soul making it almost unbearable to even exist without him? How do you explain that you’ll always carry him with you, no matter what? How do you instill in him that you still believe in the best version of him, the best version you know he can be, the best version of him you once lived with. Yes, you’re not mad at him for the reasons he thinks you are. You’re mad at him because the way he made you love him is stronger than any hurt he’s ever caused you.

“So, what did your therapist warn you about?”

“She, uh- she tried to prepare me for this.”

“Oh? What did she say?”

“That I should not be prepared.”, he laughs in earnest. “That I should not obsess about what I want to say and just be open and have an honest interaction.”

“I like her, already.” you say with a straight face.

He smiles softly, looking down at his boots, while he rests his elbows on his knees, one palm encircling the other. “Yeah… I had some digging to do; I still do for that matter and will be for a long time it seems.”

“Anything you wanna share?” you reply, raising an eyebrow as if you had no idea why he was here.

“Oh, boy-” he squirms in his seat, already overwhelmed by the turn of the conversation, his chest almost vibrating with anxiety, he can barely swallow, small beads of sweat starting to form around his temples. You reluctantly reach for his forearm, trying to calm him down. “Hey, Joel?”

His whole body stiffens at your touch and he wishes his clothes would evaporate so he could feel your skin against his. He fixes his eyes on your delicate fingers lightly squeezing his tight muscles underneath the fabric. “The worst part has already happened four years ago, so-” you shrug, “just breathe.” Joel keeps his eyes on your hand, his heart rate dropping slightly; you ground him. You retract your arm and keep your hands to yourself in an effort to maintain a respectable distance between you. You shouldn’t have touched him at all.

“I think- I think I understand now.” he begins, still feeling the ghost of your touch on his forearm. “How I made you feel, what your words meant. You always did that, you know. And I found it so fascinating and so exhausting at the same time.”

You look at him, confused. Joel continues, “You always chose your words carefully. You had a reason for every single thing you said. In retrospect, I realized that you were handing me everything on a silver platter, but I was too self-absorbed to see it at the time.”

You nod in agreement, gesturing with your head for him to keep going.

Joel takes a deep breath, holding it inside his lungs for a while. His exhalation is controlled, measured. “Fuck. Okay. It was not just the fact itself. It was not just the cheatin’.”

Your stomach clenches violently at his words. The time has finally come and although you know what happened, you where there, when the words come out of Joel’s mouth it's as if you're pulled back to that threshold all over again. It really happened. You feel your hands sweating. “Go on.”, you pronounce carefully, already anxious your voice is going to betray you. You can do this.

“I don’t want to sound all full of myself-” Joel hesitates.

“You won’t.” you interrupt him with conviction. The truth has never frightened you. You welcome it. It feels like a form of catharsis, it feels like you’re finally being seen. Every nerve in your body is on fire. You’re ready for this, for the truth, if only he gives it to you. Please, set me free.

“I was your everything.” he whispers, almost embarrassed, his eyes not meeting yours. You don’t respond to that, not until he looks at you, although the admission shoots straight through your heart. You stare at the side of his face, almost forcing him to turn to you. He does.

“You were.” Simple. True. Clear as the light of day.

“And I ripped that from you.”

“You did.”

“In the worst possible way.”

“Hmhm.”, you don’t trust the stability of your voice.

“And no matter what I say, I can never take back what I did. I humiliated you, our home, our relationship, everything. I-” his brows furrow in an expression of disgust, “I disrespected myself. I burned everything down. I left nothing for you to hold on to, nothing for me to hope for, nothing.”

His chin trembles and his voice wavers as he continues. “The words to describe how sorry I am have not yet been invented. And even if they had, they still couldn’t take the pain away; what’s done, is done.”

He closes his eyes and rests his head on the railing. “I don’t know what I wish for anymore. That you had never met me, so you could be spared all this pain? But I can’t. I can’t wish that, because I’m so grateful to have met you. I married you, I had you. That is what has comforted me all these years, what has got me through all those sleepless nights.” He looks absolutely devastated, desperate.

It feels genuine, because he’s not directing it at you, he’s not trying to convince you, he’s not trying at all. “I have not thought about my pain or what I want from all this for a long time. All I pray for is-” his glistening eyes are searching frantically on the ground, his brows knitted together in a painful grimace. You rest your head on the palm of your hand, your elbow on your knee. Watching this moment like an outside observer, you realize that he's trying to live up to your standards, reminding you of a child trying to impress his parents, only to fail regardless of the outcome.

“Look, Joel, couples break up, divorce, all over the world, all the time. And I guess, they all thought their partners were their everything until they finally weren’t.”, you rationalize, putting everything that has happened into some kind of perspective. It is not the end of the world. It is the end of your world. He doesn’t have to carry this burden on his shoulders for eternity. All you need from him is to understand, to acknowledge what he's done to you, how broken you’ve been.

But if he acknowledges that, if he truly comprehends the tremendous pain he’s put you through, won’t all that anguish be transferred to him? Isn't it unbearable for a truly repentant man to know that he has deliberately caused so much pain?

“But, you see; I wanted that, I needed to be your everything.”

“It certainly fed your ego..” you grin at him.

“No, no- I craved that- that look on your face when your eyes were on me, like there was nothing else, no one else around you, but me. You drove me to be better, to move forward; I felt I had a purpose. You were my purpose.”

“Well I didn’t do much of a job then, did I?” you smile defeated.

“No, honey, this-” he’s determined to make you understand that it wasn't your fault, even if it is the last thing he is going to do. He licks his lips trying to formulate his thoughts, “-what happened, had nothing to do with you, I- I was just- I got in my head..”

You shake your head dismissively, “It’s a terrible burden to put people on a pedestal and expect them to-”

“But you see, baby, that’s the thing. You didn’t.”Joel dismisses your comment and if a bucket of ice-cold water was thrown over your head you wouldn’t feel so frozen. You search his eyes for meaning, because deep down it stings to hear that you could give more. Is that what he’s saying? You didn’t love him enough? Joel catches on and rushes to explain. “You-” god this is so hard, he’s struggling, can’t he just rip his heart open and let you examine it? “You loved me so much, baby and you never asked for anything in return. You let me be who I was. You accepted me completely. You set me free.” His eyes are blown wide, burning into yours with intensity. You look so lost, how does all this fit in with what he did then?

“Darlin’,” he expands further, “we live in a competitive world. Everyone aims to control each other, from business partners to lovers and spouses; everyone manipulates, everyone tries to tell you where to look, what to do, how to act, how to fuck, how to love. Except for you. You let me be. You put your heart in my hands and you set me free. And I took advantage of that and I am truly sorry. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. That’s how fucked up I am.” you look at him dumbfounded.

“I can’t connect the dots; I don’t get it, Joel, I’m sorry, I-” you run your fingers through your hair, scratching your scalp in frustration. What does he mean?

Joel winces mid-sentence because he can’t escape what’s coming. This is his last resort. And he knows it is going to sound cruel and he doesn’t even mean the first part the way you're going to perceive it, but for lack of better words, for lack of the better person he could have been, a person who should have never put you in this position in the first place, here goes.

“She made me feel wanted; you made me feel free.”,

he spits out in a hurry, praying to whatever god is listening, that you won’t even catch it, knowing full well that these may be the last words you'll ever let him speak to you.

You are utterly, completely, perfectly shocked.

Then you feel it for the first time in what feels like ages. That old friend consuming you. Rage. It burns your lungs, twists your guts and pierces your heart like a thousand needles. Everything becomes crystal clear. You’re so infuriated, that your mind goes blank. A million words and nothing at all come to your mind simultaneously.

“Let me- let me rephrase that, because actually it was never even about her, I just-” Joel begins, in a vain attempt to stop the tide from crushing you both.

Your palms become clenched fists in front of your mouth, pressing against it, crushing the velvety skin of the inside of your lips against your teeth until you draw blood, in an effort to control yourself. You inhale sharply, keeping your eyes fixed on the land in front of you, blurred by the tears gathering in your waterline.

“She- what?” are the only words you manage to choke out.

“Baby, it doesn’t matter, it was never about her, she was a means to an end and-” your eyes bulge out of your sockets at the statement, “I know- I know how that sounds- just-” his palms come together in a prayerful gesture, begging you to give him a chance to explain.

“A means to an- what the fuck are you talking about, Joel?” the veins on your forehead swell under your skin, creating a map of the river of wrath flowing aggressively through your body.

“It was never an affair sweetheart, but a transaction; one I initiated. She was only a boost to my ego.”

..she made me feel wanted..

..a boost to my ego..

It's all starting to make sense now, and it's the last thing you expect to be confronted with. You've always imagined either a heated affair, a secret love story, him realizing he had found his soul mate in someone else, or him getting bored with you, finding you too much or too emotional or too unlovable. It turns out that you were accused of the one thing you never were.

“Are you-, oh god,” you can hear your heart pounding in your ears now and it takes every ounce of strength not to vomit, “are you saying that you fucked someone else; you fucked your secretary for fuck’s sake, you fuckin’ cliché of a man, because I wasn’t jealous of you?”. Your throat is so swollen, you try to scream your words at him but they only come out in wrenched whispers.

You stand up abruptly, dizziness causing you to close your eyes tightly as you see a million white dots behind the blackness of your eyelids. Your whole body vibrates with rage. You steady yourself on the railing and then begin to pace back and forth, your hands unable to stay motionless, but moving over your face, through your hair, lowering and squeezing the sides of your waist as you lean slightly forward in a subconscious way to soothe yourself.

“Oh my god, oh my fucking god,” you laugh hysterically now, as angry tears run down your cheeks, as if you've been let in on an inside joke. “It’s my fault, everything is my fault-”

Joel is frozen in place, he’s not sure if he should get up and try to reason with you or stay where he is.. or run for the hills. He’s witnessing the unleashing of a caged animal. His tongue feels heavy and numb in the cavern of his mouth but he dares to speak again, “That’s the exact opposite of what I said, sweetheart,” he tries to explain in vain, “I’m sorry if that’s what I-” but you’re not listening to a single word he utters.

“People kept telling me, urging me on, all my life;” and you slap your palms on the sides of your thighs, looking at his direction, but not really looking, “I should be more controlling, more pushy, more..” your voice begins to fade, muttering to yourself through your teeth. “They warned me, you know, that the lack of pressure in any kind of relationship would be perceived as a lack of interest.”

Don't trust completely; hold something back; men like the illusion of power; show them you need them; make them jealous; be jealous, like a manual to a pre-installed setting.

Do you agree to the Terms & Conditions?

Press ‘Enter.’

“But I didn’t listen. I never listened. Because in what world do we choose a leash over freedom?” You turn to look at him now, addressing him as if you were talking to a third party, an outsider, asking for advise or affirmation.

Maria’s words come back to Joel’s mind, words that he had long forgotten about, finally fitting like missing pieces of a puzzle to the bigger picture.

“Maybe the wrong Miller is on a leash..”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means that freedom is for those who can bear it.”

“I was really stupid, was I not? What on earth made me think that this time would be any different, what made me think that you’d be any different? You’re just- you’re just another man-” you spit your vile angrily as your eyes sweep over him. The look in his eyes is devastated, he feels shuttered, reduced to nothing.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid little girl. When the fuck will I learn? When the fuck am I going to accept that I don't really belong? When?”

Joel is staring at you bewildered, he never felt more helpless in his life. A thousand new thoughts and questions form in your head, things you didn’t even begin to imagine would cross your mind.

“Did you use her?” you ask with renewed vigor, a surge of energy running through your body.

Joel’s cheeks burn with humiliation but he has already admitted it once, what will it do to him to say it one more time? “Yes, I never had any feelings f-”

“No,” you interrupt impatiently, you don't care about his feelings right fuckin' now, “that night, did you use her? On purpose?”

Joel looks lost for a second but the cogs in his head finally turn and “NO! No baby, I wasn’t even aware of you coming home earlier than expected, no. Don’t even entertain this idea; it wasn’t intentional, I swear to god.”

Oh. There’s a new question for Joel. Why did you leave your business trip early? He had never thought about it before, solely focused on everything else that had happened, which now made him wonder, “Did you- did you know?”

“What?” you frown, lost in your own thoughts, not following his line of logic.

“Did you know? Is that why you came back early from your trip?”

You’re still a bit too far gone in your head to think clearly and try to prevent the next question from coming, “Of course I didn’t know, Joel, did it look like I did?” is all you say with a bite, annoyed.

“Then why-” Joel insists, pressuring you for an answer, but he doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

“I- fuck- I need a minute.” you declare and start to walk towards the house.

Joel waited on that porch for almost an hour, watching the sun set behind the mountain, afraid to move, barely breathing in case you stormed out and threw him back where he came from as if him standing still would somehow make him part of the landscape; as if he belonged.

And you certainly delivered.

He hears the screen door open, his back still to the house. You are standing behind him, your arms crossed stiffly over your chest, your face tilted down, to avoid his gaze. He could see the red-rimmed and swollen eyes of yours, despite your efforts to hide them.

“I can’t do this-”

“Please,” his whole face contorts in agony, “please, hear me-” you both speak at the same time.

“-tonight.”

“What?” his voice matching the look of confusion on his face.

“Maybe another time, but not tonight.”

“I-” he doesn’t know how to articulate his thoughts without sounding like an idiot. He drove all this way, four hours straight, to finally get things straight. His brain has short-circuited, unable to put a plan into action. Should he check into a hotel or a motel or whatever the fuck is around here in the middle of nowhere? Should he go back to his place? Do you really want to talk again? You sort of said you did. You said maybe. Fuck. What does he do?

But honestly, what did he expect? That this would be over in the course of one evening? Of course he would have to come back. His eyes are fixed on yours like a deer caught in the headlights. “I came all this way-” he mumbles, choking on the last part, already regretting the words that came out of his mouth.

“Well, too bad.” you spit emotionless as you turn and head for the safety of your house, leaving him stunned on the goddamn porch.

Joel returned the next evening, but you weren't there. He made the four hour journey and came back empty-handed. And you weren't there the next evening, or the evening after that. But he kept on driving the miles, hot wheels under the Texas sun. He didn’t check in anywhere near your small town. He went back home and then back to you again.

The last time he found nothing but a closed door, he finally got the message, so the next time he left the house, before he turned on the ignition, he texted you, as a sign of respect for your boundaries.

Is it all right if I come and see you?

Backspacebackspacebackspace

Is it OK if I come and talk?

And the answer was

Not today.

So, every day he texted you. He didn’t mean to be intrusive, he just wanted to remind you that you were never far from his thoughts, that he was always ready and eager to finish what he started.

You denied him for quite some time. You couldn’t bring yourself to face him again. The confessions he made have knocked you off your axis. Just when you finally felt like everything was falling into place, he dropped this bombshell, making you rethink everything you thought you knew and had sorted out in your mind. You just couldn’t wrap your head around what you’d heard coming out of his mouth. How could he think like that? Why couldn’t he just talk to you? You used to talk about everything; what the fuck happened? How did you not see that coming?

You were sure that he would give up, that he would stop bothering to contact you at all. Was it the monster of self-deprecation? Was it a deep disappointment in human beings and their general lack of persistence in trying to nurture and repair a relationship, or at least trying to give it a proper closure? You didn’t give it much thought afraid of the answer you might get. But you kept saying Not today, until one day, for some reason-

Can we talk?

Yes.

Joel’s heart is beating through his chest so rapidly, he has to cough to regain some of his composure. He almost drops his phone, trying to confirm the most convenient time for you before you change your mind.

That was the first Yes after the day you saw him again. You weren’t sure what you wanted to talk about; if you could pick up exactly where you left off. You weren’t even sure you could look him in the eye again, but you had to see this through.

When you hear the sound of his engine and tires on the dirt road, you take a deep breath and walk out of the house to wait for him on the porch.

“Come on in, I’m cooking dinner.” you announce as you open the screen door for him to enter the house.

“Are you sure?”, Joel is taken aback, he thought the inside of your house was strictly off-limits to him. You were also cooking dinner as if he was an old friend visiting you. He couldn’t help but wonder if he should lower his defenses or not but with the way you looked tonight you didn’t give him much of a choice.

You’re wearing a pair of warm cream jeans, paired with a white front tie shirt, the first few buttons left open, giving him a glimpse of your tanned sternum. It almost looks like a man’s shirt, just messily tied up over your soft skin, revealing bits of your stomach. Could it be another man’s shirt?

You are barefoot. The nails of your toes are painted in a fresh glossy black color. Your hair is casually tied up in a messy bun, loose strands falling around your beaming face. Joel has to restrain himself from pushing you against the wall and fucking you on the spot, by clenching and unclenching his fists. His mouth is salivating at the sight of you, excitement building in his groin. It's been so long since he's felt this way, a different kind of hunger is growing in him at a rapid pace, as if something buried deep inside his masculinity has just awakened from hibernation.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” you quirk back at him, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, what you’re both doing. “I’m starving. Coming?” you leave him at the entrance and go back into the house.

“You have a beautiful home.”, Joel admits as he takes in his surroundings, thinking that this is going better than he expected. He also can't help but prepare himself for the fact that this might not end the same way.

“Thank you.” you laugh nervously.

“What?”, he catches the note of disbelief in your voice. “I'm serious, the light is just right, it’s open and warm; it actually reminds me of you.” he says matter-of-factly.

“No, no, I know you mean it, it’s just- I guess it’s high praise, coming from you.” you admit. You always admired what he did for a living and how good he was at it and him seeing your place for the first time gave you another reason to feel kind of nervous.

“Oh, come on, none of that now.” he dismisses the compliment, his voice wavering slightly at the praise.

“Well it’s true, you are excellent at what you do, I mean, the house you built is a work of art and that’s a fact.”

“Which one?”, although he knows exactly which one, he presses on.

“The one we used to live in, together.” You can’t call it your house. You cannot. The mere thought of it makes your tongue feel like it’s on fire.

“Oh.”, Joel smiles as he presses his lips together in a thin line, “You mean our house. It was built out of love, that's why. It's the one I'm most proud of.”

“Hm.”, is all you give him. Déjà vu brings back memories out of the closet -pun intended- for both of you.

“Ok, now you really have to tell me. What is it?”, Joel crosses his forearms over his chest. He has to know.

“What do you mean?”, you try to buy some more time, cause you’re not so sure you want to go in there.

“You had the exact same reaction when I mentioned that, four years ago.”

“Ah, that.”

“Yeah, that.”

“It’s just- it always felt like it reflected your personality rather than mine. Or at least ours.”

Joel looks at you perplexed.

“I’m not complaining, I mean, how many people can claim that their husband built them a house the size of a small hotel as a wedding present?” you chuckle while you continue as nonchalantly as you can muster, “I would have lived in a cave with you, Joel, you didn’t have to go to these lengths to house two people. If you want my honest opinion, this was an ego project. I let it slide because it made you happy. And I liked you happy.” Joel looks stunned, his eyes darting back and forth between yours.

“Baby, I- I wanted to make you happy, to give you the best I could-”

“Joel, I’m not judging you. I am not. But you didn’t show me a single blueprint while you were designing the damn thing. You didn’t ask me what I wanted or how I imagined it. Sure, you equipped it with all the best stuff money could buy, but you never asked me what I thought about it. Not really.”, you see the hurt in his eyes and it unsettles you, but now the rabbit is out of the hat. “Again, I’m not judging you and I’m not being ungrateful, all I’m saying is that for some reason you needed your shinny new wife to live in a shinny new castle. It was a prestige thing. Just think about it.”

“Jesus..” Joel mutters, pinching the sides of his forehead with one hand, feeling defeated.

“Hey,” you give him a wry look, “I tried to avoid answering that question for four years. You were the one who insisted.” you defend yourself, clearly amused by his reaction.

“What else do I need to know?”, Joel wonders in a desperate manner.

“Well.. for how long can you keep coming back?” you joke absentmindedly.

“For the rest of my life..” Joel answers a little too quickly, not a hint of playfulness in his voice.

Your heart tightens at his eagerness, forcing you to admit a consideration that you have had more than a few times before. “You know,” you look over at him, lost in thought, almost like reminiscing, “sometimes I wish I had met you before your company took off.” You snap out of your daydream and consciously look at him and he looks pained as if some kind of realization has hit him. You change the subject for the sake of both of you. “Anyway, speaking of which, how is work? I heard you closed that deal, after all.” you grin mischievously.

“Yeah, I did.”, his voice takes on a strange timbre, almost like regret. But you’re not so sure about anything these days, so you let it pass. He puts the envelope with the contract on the counter in the kitchen and sits down in the chair next to the table already set for dinner.

“Good, that’s good. Let me guess, you’re all over it? First in, last out? Is it almost done?” you word vomit to cover your nervousness.

“Uh,” Joel rubs the back of his neck, “I wouldn’t know.” is all he gives you, clearly trying to avoid getting involved in the discussion.

“Um, you don’t know?”, you laugh lightly in confusion. “How is that possible?”, you ask stirring the vegetables in the pan.

“I’m not involved in the project and I have no idea about the status of the construction;” Joel answers your question and continues, revealing, “I quit. Sold my shares and got out.”

“Yeah,” you draw the vowels, still not looking in his direction, “right. Big, mighty Joel Miller left his enterprise-” you laugh mockingly, but you are met with silence. “You’re joking, right?” You turn to look at him, not believing what you have just heard. You feel your blood freeze in your veins.

Joel shakes his head in denial, “I’ve actually left the city and the only reason I haven’t sold every asset in my name is in case you want to claim any of them. They’re all yours if you want ‘em.” Your mouth is slightly agape, as you try to process what has just been delivered to you.

You open your mouth to protest but he beats you to it, by raising his hand to stop you. “I know you don’t want anything from me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want them either. Not without you. Just take them. Burn them for all I care, liquidate them and use the money as you see fit.”, Joel insists, trying to find ways to convince you.

“You can do that yourself, Joel.” is all you say; you don’t give a damn about his money. Joel nods and leaves it at that, he knows better than to talk about money right now.

You’re curious where he lives now, but you’re not sure it’s appropriate to ask, so you don’t. You prepare dinner and make small talk about simple things like your lives over the past four years. Joel asks you about the ranch, the horses, the chores; you ask him about Tommy and Maria, their newborn son, whom you haven't had a chance to meet yet. None of you dare to break the bubble of normality in which you have effortlessly found yourselves.

It feels like coming home after a long day, the way you both fall into a comfortable silence. Joel speaks your name softly, drawing your attention and your gaze back to him. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re eating?” Just a little longer, let me have it just a little longer.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “no, I mean, what are we doing?” he gestures with his fingers between him and you.

You look at him and then at your plate, playing around with your food, lost in thought. How do you acknowledge that? How do you confess that you’re trying to stretch time? How do you admit that you’re scared out of your mind of how it's all going to end? How do you even come to terms with the fact that you’re not sure you want any of this to end? How do you accept how natural it feels to have him back in your life? How do you admit that after four years the pain has never stopped, but the force, the roughness of it has changed into something softer, yet persistent; never quite going away, lingering.

How do you admit that all the good memories are emerging, because that’s what the mind does, that’s how it protects you, that’s how it helps you survive another day, that’s how it tricks you into falling back into a comfortable routine with him. Even if what binds you together now is his betrayal. How do you admit that you’re afraid of what will become of you once you've finished confessing your truths?

Will he cease to exist for you? Will you cease to exist for him? Will he ever bother to contact you again? Do you really want him to? Will you matter to him or will he move on, start again and shake off the last vestiges of your life together?

Or maybe- maybe he has moved on with his life and that's why he's doing all this, putting all this effort into it. Maybe he is preparing a new, clear path for himself and whoever is in his life right now. Is it her? Is it still, her?

You’re spiraling, lost in your thoughts, biting your lower lip anxiously, like a snake eating its own tail. “Baby?” his baritone voice snaps you out of it, he must have called you several times before you heard him, suddenly aware of hot, fat tears streaming down your face, his thumbs gently brushing them from your cheeks.

You let out a shuddering breath; it’s the first time he’s touched you, in so, so long. And here he is again. The familiar, old friend. He’s pounding on your door now, relentless as he is, screaming for you to let him in, lead the way, take charge, take care of you. You can almost feel his maniacal banging, vibrating through your chest, let me in, let me in, let me in.

Let me in, better angry than scared.

Better angry than scared.

Your shoulders slump, your head feels unbearably heavy. The world has stopped moving. The world is moving too fast. You savor his features as he leans further in, his intoxicating scent filling your nostrils, his eyes pleading, the brown of his irises inviting you to let him in. Joel’s face is that of a man still in love as he continues to caress your skin and you let him.

You let him, because you are a weak person.

You let him because you have been deprived of his touch, of any touch really, for far too long.

You let him because you want to have something for yourself, selfishly.

You let him, because for once you just want to take. Take, take, take.

You let him because you just want to be held and touched and loved.

And even though your mind knows that you shouldn’t want all that from him, your heart allows you that little moment.

“Joel, I’m tired.” you begin, your voice breaking as fresh tears run down your face and onto his thumbs. “Tired to my bones. All I want is to be honest with each other. Do you think we can do that? Can we talk like two adults with nothing left to lose? Can we just be truthful to each other? I know there’s too much history between us, too much hurt and resentment but we both have to try and put it all behind us. I can’t go on like this.”

There’s a stillness in him, realization and clarity dawning on him. He thinks he understands now and it shocks him somehow, as a fact, that there are still things to uncover, to revel in, to acknowledge. Every time he thinks he’s reached the end of this journey, a new sun rises over the horizon.

You don’t need the specifics of his action, at least not right now, or not anymore. What you need is closure. True, honest closure. And that can only come from him baring himself to you. “Yeah, yeah, we can do that. We can do anything you want, baby.”, he squeezes his eyes shut, knowing where to begin, but resisting the thought. He leans back in his seat, dropping his hands from your face as he lets out the breath he seems to be holding in and begins.

“Remember that night before your business trip when you came to my office?”

“Uh, yeah? I guess.”, what a strange thing to mention, you think confused. “What about it?”

“You came to me for sex.”, Joel says bluntly, no need to beat around the bush. This is it. This is how he loses you. Once again.

You stare at him and then, for some reason, look down in embarrassment. You’ve fucked him in almost every way you can think of and now the very admission of that fact makes you feel like an exposed nerve. It dawns on you, how far away this era has slipped away. You feel vulnerable as if you’re talking to a total stranger about your most intimate moments. At the same time, you still know exactly how to touch him, how to please him and a light warmth begins to shimmer inside you.

“Well, that’s one way of putting it, but- yeah..”, you admit, still nervously picking at your food with your fork.

Joel sees your apprehension but he presses on. This is what you asked for. “And I refused you.” The look on your face betrays your confusion. Where is he going with this? Only now, he sees more. He can finally see more. The hurt. The disappointment. “What happened next?” is his next question and does he really think that you can remember all these years later? Does he honestly believe that you can recall yourself leaving his office defeated and crying yourself to sleep? “I don’t remember.” you lie, shrugging your shoulders as convincingly as you can muster.

“You said you loved me and then you left.”, Joel reminds you.

“You- you remember all that?”, your eyes are wide and the look on your face vulnerable, Joel wants to pause it all and hold you in his arms.

“I can’t seem to forget anything about you,” he reveals, “believe me, I’ve tried.”

“What’s your point?”

“Why did you do that?”

“Uh.. why did I do what?”, you narrow your eyes in confusion.

His eyes are piercing yours, provoking you to figure it out on your own.

“Loved you?” He shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

Your eyes widen again, in surprise this time, as you finally see what he means.

“Walked away?” You’re fucking shocked to the core, your voice choked, you’re not sure you spoke out loud.

“Why didn’t you insist?”

Your mouth is wide open, you’re speechless, you flatter your eyelids in search of the right words. This is your second encounter and once again he says what you least expect him to say.

“You refused” you remind him now, “and I respected that.”, your hand moves to rest on your chest, palm open, to calm your racing heart.

“I didn’t want you to.”

“You know how that sounds, don’t you?”, you mock with a nervous laugh.

“Oh, please,” Joel is quick to respond, his brows knitted in a dismissive frown, “like you could ever force yourself on me.”

You genuinely are at a loss for words, your gaze unable to stay in one place, your mind running a million miles an hour.

Apparently you both are, because Joel is no better at explaining how he feels. “I wanted you to-”, he stops, his eyes still searching yours for the right words, pleading with you to feel him.

Oh my god. Oh. My. God.

It dawns on you. All at once. You see it all playing out. You know exactly how this conversation is going to go. “-claim you? You wanted me to claim you?”, your voice rises, as does your tone. You feel the presence of your abandoned friend again. You don’t want him here. But he creeps in through your veins, nonetheless. He is not giving up. If the pounding doesn’t work then he’ll poison you, slowly and persistently.

“From who? You were supposed to be mine!”, you exclaim exasperated, immediately correcting yourself “-not that I owned you, you know what-”

“That! That’s what I’m talking about!” Joel points his finger at you, “That’s what I needed. To be yours!”

“But you were! Are we really haggling over semantics? Of course you were mine! I just never wanted you to feel suffocated by me. You were not my possession Joel, you were my partner!”

“I swear to you, I would die a happy man, baby.”

“I- I tried so hard to control myself-” you mutter to yourself, rolling your eyes back to your head as you shake it in denial, “-all that hunger inside of me, eating me up-”

“What?” is Joel’s turn to look like a lost puppy. What the fuck is going on here?

“You,” you point a finger at him, “you were my first and last thought every passing day, it wasn’t even healthy anymore, Joel. But- I saw that look in your eyes sometimes, a hunger, one I thought mirrored mine and then it was gone in the blink of an eye and I thought that something was holding you back; I- I was holding you back. I thought- maybe I was undeserving..” you divert your eyes from him, embarrassed at your feeling of inadequacy, “So, I accepted what you gave me if it meant I could have any part of you.”

“Oh, baby..” Joel’s hiding his face in his palms and his heart breaks as he realizes where you both stand. How did the two of you get to this point? How could his judgment be so clouded, how could he be so blind to what was happening under his own roof? How could he be so arrogant as to seek validation, one he didn't even need, from someone else? Someone whose validation he didn't even care about. It didn't matter to him. She didn’t matter to him. How could he not sense the insecurity tantalizing your very core to the point of feeling inadequate? If only you had told him sooner.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you mirror his thoughts with your voice.

“What should I say to you? I couldn’t put it into words, even now I'm not sure I can. It was an all-consuming feeling, an absolute necessity, an overwhelming need that was impossible to handle. I wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with it. I loved you with such force that it became an obsession. I couldn’t even entertain the idea that you might not want me back in the same way. I felt helpless, vulnerable. How could I come to terms with this? With the realization that I had fucked someone else just to get a rise out of you or to prove to myself that I didn't need you that much after all?”

Joel’s palms are clenched into fists on his thighs, trying to keep himself from pressing his lips against yours. Feelings and desires that had been buried in his subconscious for too long came back as he tried to make you understand.

“A r- so, you did fuck her on our bed on purpose.”

“You asked me that before, darlin’, I promise you I did not.”

“Then how would you provoke me if you didn’t mean for me to find out?” you look at him incredulously.

“I-” Joel winces, “it wasn’t a conscious thought, I just kept fantasizing about you finding out and burning the house down for me and that single image made me so h-” Joel shuts his mouth abruptly, not the best idea to describe to you how fuckin’ hard he got, fantasizing about you while fucking someone else. You, bursting into the bedroom all raging and furious, turning the whole place upside down reclaiming what was rightfully yours.

Him.

What a sick fuck he was. “I swear to you, no. I’m not that fucked up. It was a gigantic lack of judgment, I was fuckin’ drunk, my mind was a mess at that point. That whole week was-” he’s biting his tongue hard to stop himself while rubbing his forehead with his fingers, “I was just being an idiot.”

“The week I was gone?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing, ‘snothing.” and he doesn’t elaborate. “Just a bad fuckin’ week.”

The atmosphere suddenly feels suffocating, as if all the words that have spilled out of both your mouths are hovering over your heads like a black cloud. You need some air to clear your mind, so you make your way out of the kitchen without looking back and walk slowly to the porch, sitting on the steps at the bottom of the stairs. You know he will follow. Your bare feet touch the soft soil beneath you and you try to ground yourself through the little patch of earth you call your own. It doesn’t quite work. There’s a beautiful golden glow, a last gift from the parting sun, warming your soul. Everything is going to be all right.

“Strange fantasies we both had.” you say as Joel seats down next to you, the contract once again a barrier between you. “You kept fantasizing about me finding out about your affair-”.

“It wasn’t an affair-” Joel corrects you. “Fine, fine. You imagined that, while I kept fantasizing me holding you so tightly while we fucked that our flesh became one; that’s how deep I needed you inside me, that’s how obsessively I wanted to carry you with me all the time, isn’t that totally fucked up?” you laugh dejectedly.

“I guess we are the same kind of fucked up. If only we could admit it to each other..”

“Did you really feel that I didn’t love you enough?” you whisper, almost too scared to be heard and to get an answer.

“I think we loved each other too much. I think we were both too afraid of losing each other. I think,” Joel pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts and calm his voice, “in our efforts to keep each other we did the exact opposite. More me than you, for sure. I have handled things badly and badly is an understatement.”

“You were always so patient with me. You’d always wait for me to come to you, to take my time. I needed the savage in you, or I thought I did at the time. That desperate thing I felt creeping out of you in stolen glances or bitten lips between your teeth, or when we fucked; no one has ever fucked me like you did. I did see all of you then, you know. And I think you saw all of me. If I made you feel confident or safe enough, you would have talked to me. And if I wasn’t so self-absorbed I would have asked.”

You never thought you’d hear these words from Joel, but all this time of self-reflection has changed him in a way that reminds you of the Joel you fell in love with. The one you could see behind all those layers of self-protection, the one you’d always hoped would emerge for you. And then he goes on, and you wish you knew what was coming so you could protect your heart from being torn to shreds.

“Maybe-” he closes his eyes looking pained, “maybe I was a narcissist. Maybe you gave me all you had and I kept wanting more, maybe I needed every part of you for myself. Maybe I needed you on your knees, on a leash, at my mercy, just to have the illusion of the certainty that you would never leave me. Maybe freedom is for those who can bear it, after all. Hell, maybe I was the one who needed the leash in the end. Maybe you gave me too much credit, my love, when you deemed me worthy of freedom.”

His words are earth-shuttering, obliterating, final. There’s nothing left to be said, at least nothing of substance. Final. The fucking word plays over and over in your head. Final. This is final. You could swear that you have felt every possible kind of pain during these four long years but new depths of agony are being discovered right now. The acid in your stomach makes your throat constrict. You feel petrified.

Joel can sense your distress, his words have been of no comfort to you. Your skin looks pale, covered with a thin layer of cold sweat; you look physically ill. Your forearms rest on your knees and he gently cups your elbow to check in on you. Are you OK? You smile weakly at him, the expression not reaching the corners of your eyes.

“You know I would give anything to take it all back, right?”

Your laughter is more lively now, not with malice or sarcasm, but with a sense of humor.

“Yeah, yeah, I think I do.”, you shake your head in twisted amusement, tilting your head up, to let the last rays of the sun warm your face, maybe bring back some of your lost color. It's getting dark now, the day is coming to an end, the curtains of the last sunlight are almost closed. Your eyes are closed too, your head still tilted back as you laugh to yourself, “You did that backwards, too, you know.”

“What?”

“You have burned everything to the ground, only to realize that you want to get it all back in one piece. I mean it’s- it’s-” you struggle to find the right words but Joel offers one of his own.

“Ridiculous..”

“I was gonna say pointless.. But that’s the thing, Joel. Choosing to be with someone is like faith. You believe because you just know. You don't have to find evidence to prove your choice at every turn, otherwise it’s just exhausting. You choose to trust yourself.”

“Trust me as your partner, you mean, not yourself.”

“Joel, it was never about trusting you..”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand..”

“I’m not sure how to explain it- uh..”, you raise your shoulders and your brows in unison as you shake your head slightly, searching for the words. “Trust is a personal journey. ‘Trust’ doesn't mean ‘trust in you’, I’m not trusting you. No one can be sure of anyone. ‘Trust’ means that I have faith in myself, that even if you hurt me, even if you abandon me, I will not fall apart. And..” you shrug your shoulders, hugging yourself with your hands, “look at me, Joel..”, you finish, suggesting that you’re still here, still standing.

“I am, baby; I am..” Joel replies, taking in the sight of you as if it were the last time he’ll ever have the chance to, utterly compelled by your inner glow.

“I’m not mad at you Joel, not anymore. And I believe you, I really do. But I can’t get that scene out of my head. I just can’t. I can still hear the sounds, I can even recall the way you smelled when you were standing next to me.”

His hands are shaking.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, really.”

“I know.”, his voice is barely audible.

“I think you’ve done enough of that yourself. Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself?”

“Do you?” Do you, really? Do you forgive him after all that has been said? Do all these confessions illuminate the facts from a different perspective? Does it change what he did and what you went through? And if so, does that mean you're letting him go? Are you leaving him behind? Is he leaving you behind? Why is it so hard to let go? Why do you choose the safety of the known, even when it hurts you?

You choose not to answer and instead firmly insist, “You have to forgive yourself, Joel, it’s okay.” Be the better person. If not for him, then for yourself. Let him go.

“I can’t do that.”, Joel is adamant, shaking his head while he rejects your request.

“Yes, you can.” you urge him again. “As I can and do.” Let him go.

Joel never thought he would listen to those words coming out of your mouth. He doesn’t deserve them. He hasn’t earned them. “You forgive me?”, he repeats in utter shock and disbelief.

“Yes.” Loud and clear as daylight.

“I- You can’t- I don’t- I don’t deserve that.” Joel feels like he’s drowning in your so graciously offered Holy Grail, desperately trying to keep his head above the waters of your absolution.

“I can’t be the judge of that, Joel, hell, I can’t be the judge of anyone. The way I see it, you chose your actions and I chose mine. You chose to hurt me and I chose to walk away. We both lost something. Have we not suffered enough, Joel?” you ask him honestly.

“I don’t want to presume, but- isn’t it a great burden to carry on your shoulders when you try to move on? All this anger, all that bitterness?” you search his eyes for an answer but he doesn’t give you one.

You continue, hoping to get through to him. “Your feelings are your burden Joel and it doesn’t matter if I forgive you. That’s why it is you who needs to forgive yourself.”

His eyes still refuse to meet yours, stubbornly glued to the ground. “I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for me. We need to move forward, both of us.” is the last thing you say to him, not knowing if he even listened to half of what you just said.

You both fall into a thoughtful silence, but something you said is bugging him. He can’t quite figure it out, so he turns to look at you, to savor you while he still has the chance. He knows that his time is limited.

You’re just sitting there with him, trying to comfort him, you of all people. You seem lighter now, fidgeting absentmindedly with your fingers as if some of your burden has already been lifted. And as his gaze sweeps over you, he sees it again. He sees the white shirt hugging your body and he knows what’s troubling him.

I don’t want to presume, I don’t want to presume, I don’t want to presume.

His heart beats rapidly in his chest, panic rising inside him.

“I’ve been with you for the last four years.”

“Excuse me?” your hands freeze as you turn to face him, clearly confused.

“You said you didn’t want to presume anything and I need to set the record straight. There was and is no other woman in my life except you.”

“Joel,” you blush shyly, “this is none of my business, you are free-”

“No. No. I need you to know this, it’s important to me. I meant everything I said. You have done nothing wrong. My feelings for you have never changed-”

“Joel, please..” you beg him to stop, you can’t have this conversation now, it’s too soon. No, you’re wrong. It’s too late; too soon means there’s a future ahead of you. A future where you both fit in the same universe.

“I don’t want you to think that I came all the way out here just to tie up some loose ends and move on. That is not what this is about.”

“If you expect me to tell you about my personal life..” your what now?

“No, I don’t. And I don’t think I could handle it, anyway. You are a free woman and you deserve the world. Unlike me; I don’t deserve anything and I’ll never be free of you.”

Your chin is now trembling and you bite your lower lip to stop the involuntary muscle contraction. You can’t decipher if it’s from anger for the way things came to be or from deep, excruciating sadness for how Joel feels. For how he makes you feel.

“Free woman, huh?”, you whisper bitterly, looking down at your feet, willing yourself not to cry.

“Yes, free, as you should always have been and I’m sorry I couldn’t see it sooner.”

Joel then picks up the divorce papers from the floor next to him as he’s fishing a pen out of his pocket. He stares at you and then at the blank space where his signature should be, next to yours. He splays his palm over the last page as if to straighten it out, but it almost looks like he’s caressing it. He brings the ball of the pen to the white surface and for a moment his hand lingers over it. He doesn’t dare look at you again, his resolve is not that strong. Finally, finally he signs, filling the empty spot and he hands you the contract. It’s a strange moment, the one before the signature and the one after it.

Everything seems to be the same; it is just a signature.

Everything feels completely different; it is not just a signature.

Your fingertips brush his as you reach out to take it, the touch sending shivers down your spine. Your slightly trembling hands hold the papers gently, not sure you wanna hold on to them or scatter them on the ground. Your thumb swipes softly over his signature.

You feel it, now. You feel the ground beneath your bare feet, the warmth of the earth, the weight of your footing. The falling has stopped. The feather finally rests. You have landed.

Joel moves to stand on his feet, as you keep staring at the drying ink, when you feel something fall from above onto your thumb; but you can’t see anything as it is immediately absorbed by the hungry pores of the paper, slightly smudging his signature. You look up to catch him as he dries his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“Free as a bird, baby, ready to fly over the world.”, Joel smiles at you with a look of reverence and devotion in his eyes.

You picture the floating feather in your head and smile back at him with a serenity he hasn’t seen in a long time.

“I think I just want to walk for a while. One step at a time.”

He nods, his eyes still full of emotion and you watch as he begins to walk slowly towards his truck, when suddenly he turns his body to face you but continues to walk backward in the same direction.

“Hey!” he calls to you with a mischievous smile, raising his chin to you.

“Yeah?” you answer, your voice wavering slightly as you try to hide your smile.

“Can I take you to dinner sometime?” he asks as he reaches for his driver’s door and opens it, waiting for your answer, which never comes because you think he’s joking. But he continues to stare at you, with no expectations, quietly, earnestly, sincerely, with a soft, shy smile on his lips. Oh.

Oh.

“Joel..” is all you breathe out, closing your eyes for a moment before you look at him again, because his name is all that is left in your very being right now. Joel.

He seems lighter, too.

“Maybe, one day..?”

“Yeah.. Maybe, one day..”

previous |

Taglist: @southernbe, @orcasoul, @auteurdelabre @leggtostandon @sarahhxx03

@zliteraturehoe @msmorningstaarr @gossipgirl-03 @vabeachazn @joeldjarin

@sofiparallel

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save-the-villainous-cat · 3 days

Text

With all the strength they had left, the hero crawled into the villain’s apartment through the window. After surviving the superhero, this should have been easy but it turned out to be exhausting.

The hero had landed in the bathroom and without wasting another second, they pulled themselves up and searched through the cabinets. Unfortunately, their bloody hands left enough evidence of them breaking in already. They supposed they’d have to face the villain sooner or later, even if that meant the villain was going to throw them out again.

For now, they found something close enough to practical — a razor — and opened the first aid kit the villain usually stored under the cabinet. Before they could take out the blades, the villain opened the door.

“You’re not as quiet as you think.” The hero looked at them and smiled softly. Teeth stained with blood, heavy limbs.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” they said. With no hesitation, the villain helped them up and took the razorblades out of their hands.

“What happened to that pretty face?” they asked. With one hand on the hero’s hip, they reached for a clean towel and turned on the sink. They let the soft fabric drench in warm water and gently cleaned up the hero’s face.

It all happened so fast. The villain didn’t seem to mind that the hero was here in the middle of the night.

And they were close. So close.

Whereas the villain was focused on the hero’s face and getting rid of all that blood, the hero stared into their eyes. Maybe it was this cruel change: brutal violence coming from someone they had adored to gentle tenderness from someone they had loathed.

The villain looked down at them. Their thumb traced the hero’s jawline and the hero looked away, almost ashamed.

“You look like shit,” the villain whispered. “And you woke me up.”

“I’m sorry,” the hero said. They looked at the villain’s clothes — their underwear and a shirt. The hero blushed a little. They took the villain’s hand and reached for the razorblades. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

The hero let go of them with a gaze that lingered a little too long.

“They chipped me,” the hero explained. They cleaned the blade with some rubbing alcohol and took in a deep breath. “Chipped me like a fucking dog.”

They cut into their own forearm, watching as the blood ran down their skin. It burnt even more than the open wounds on the hero’s back. They supposed they just had gotten used to that sort of pain, even if that was impossible.

With the blade, they dug through skin and muscle, clenching their teeth until they found the little tracker. They cursed when they pushed their fingers into the wound to fish it out.

Once they had the bloody device in their hand, they let it fall to the ground and crushed it under their boot.

“I knew trackers are useless at your place. You’ve slipped through my fingers quite a few times that way.”

The villain didn’t say anything. They just stared at the hero who cleaned their arm.

It wasn’t exactly easy to crawl to their nemesis and beg for shelter. The hero was too proud to do that anyway and they had planned to leave after cutting out the microchip.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” the hero said.

“You didn’t bother me.” The villain took a step forward and took the hero’s hands. “Are you alright?”

The hero frowned.

“Of course I am. I’m fine. I’m doing great.”

“You’re sure about that?” The villain let their fingers intertwine and suddenly, the hero felt very tired very quickly. “You’ve been so busy these last few days. I barely got to see you. They sent over some other lame heroes.”

The hero chuckled tiredly.

“I mean, why would they think I am satisfied with all the other rabble?” One of their hands glided down the hero’s forearm where they put pressure on the wound. “You always wanted to be a hero. When did that change?”

“I don’t know,” the hero said but the desperation and the hopelessness were already settling in. It didn’t even buy them time to lie to the villain. One way or another they found out anyway and most of the time, they asked the hero questions they already had the answers to.

The hero couldn’t really take it anymore. The pain was too much, their mind was breaking more and more.

“Oh, so many tears on such a pretty face,” the villain said. They pulled the hero closer and wiped their tears away with the back of their hand. “Don’t you know it’s not your fault?”

“They turned against me,” the hero said. Their voice trembled. “All of them. They chipped me, they put a bounty on my head. They’re trying to kill me because I don’t agree with…with all this shit.”

The villain cupped their face. “With what?”

“With all this stupid collateral damage and these dumb advertisements. Most of the time I feel like a mascot, I’m barely saving any people.”

“Oh, darling.” The villain tilted their head. Their presence was comforting in a way the hero hadn’t had experienced before. Whatever they’d done to each other in the past, the hero didn’t care. They were familiar, they were warm. The hero wasn’t going to let anyone take this moment away from them. “And who exactly beat you up like this? Your boss, I assume?”

“…yeah.” They could play pretend. They could pretend the villain was closer, that they were more than acquaintances. Even if it wasn’t real, even if the villain was using them, the hero needed some affection right now. They’d gladly give the heartbreak to their future self.

“My poor hero,” the villain said softly. “Would you let me stitch you up?”

The hero nodded.

“I’ll protect you,” the villain promised. They pulled them close to hug the hero. The hero didn’t understand why they were so gentle, so kind. Most of the time, they insulted each other like children. But the hero needed this. They really did. “They will pay for this.”

#shake baby baby shake bis uns der Himmel auf den Kopf fällt #writing snippet #heroxvillain prompt #heroxvillain snippet #heroes and villains #hero #villain #hero x villain #heroxvillain #h/c

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allfearstofallto · 2 days

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A Boon from the Tsaritsa

Arlecchino x Fem! Reader

A/N: Reader is a simp

She's beautiful from all angles. That's the only thought that's running through your mind as you kneel before her. Her haunting beauty is a sight to behold, her face like that of an angel. Or maybe, a demon, with the way she tempts you. Even the look of disinterest, of lack of care for you, sends a chill of adoration up your spine. All it took was one glance at her in passing and you were absolutely smitten.

“I was told you requested me personally?” She spoke, her voice echoing off the wall and sending a familiar tingle to your groin. Her words, spoken coldly like ice, made your heart beat even faster in your chest.

“Yes, Sir! I did,” you stuttered back enthusiastically. Her dark eyes were on you and you could feel them practically melting through your skin. And the feeling was euphoric. Her painful gaze was like heaven to you and you wished to bask in it, if only her impatience with you wasn't so palpable, “I did well on the previous mission, sir, as I'm sure you've heard. I'm actually the sole survivor of it. I was told by the Tsaritsa herself that I could have any gift I desire for my job well done.”

Arlecchino cocked an eyebrow, crossing one of her gorgeous legs over the other. The way her thighs squished against the heavy fabric of her pants had you nearly drooling, your eyes tracing up and down her long legs to where the heel of her shoe where she tapped her foot against the marble floor, “I'm assuming you have something you want from my orphanage then, seeing as you asked for me. I do not give my children up, if that's what you're asking for, so I suggest calling on someone else for your ‘reward,”

“I want nothing of the sort,”

“Is that so?” She hummed.

“What I want is something only you can give me,”

“And that is?”

Your eyes fell upon her lips. Plump and wet with gloss. The natural pink shade making them stand out against her pale skin. They were pressed together in a frown, but even that displeasing expression excited you, “I want a kiss. From you.”

She was dumbfounded for a moment, you could see the slightest change in her expression, then she went back to her neutral expression, trying to pretend that what you’d asked for wasn't phasing her. She waved her hands, shooing the other Fatui guards out of the room and they left with little sound, their feet sounding like little patters of rain against the floor.

“A boon from the Tsaritsa is not an easy thing to acquire. People typically ask for things like land or status,”

“I'm aware,”

“Yet, you're giving it all up for a peck on the lips?”

When she said it like that, you did feel a little stupid. But you were steadfast in your ways and insistent on what you wanted. Her lips plagued your dreams day and night. And passing her on your way to assignments made you mentally curse whatever fate kept her from being your superior. Although, you doubted you'd get any work done if you had the opportunity to ogle at her as much as you pleased.

“I do not feel as if I'm wasting my boon, I've wanted this for a very long time,” affirmation coated your words, showing that you meant every bit of them.

Maybe she could feel that. Feel your honesty in the way you spoke. In the way you look up at her with admiration. Most would be upset that they were made to kneel, yet, you dropped to the floor before her without any hesitation the second the order left her mouth.

You watched her feet as she stepped towards you, her heels clicking against the floor. She cupped your face, just beneath the chin. You'd never touched her before, how could you? But the feeling of her gloved hands against your skin, of her sharp nails practically testing your flesh, it was euphoric.

Bending over at the waist, she pressed her lips against yours. You would've melted into a puddle right there, had it not been for her firm grip on your cheeks. She tasted sweeter than you expected, but her lips were as soft as you'd dreamt of. Her smell up close was intoxicating, and even though you would've been more than satisfied with just her lips, you felt her tongue forcing its way into your mouth.

The way she kissed was dominating. It was suffocating. It was heavenly. You let her do whatever she desired, practically sitting there like a ragdoll for her to toy with. You wanted to remember every bit of her taste, the feeling of her lips. Her touch. You savored it, whining in sorrow when she pulled away, her lips wet with your saliva.

“Do well again,” Arlecchino spoke in a hushed whisper right against the shell of your ear, “So you can get another.”

#genshin #genshin x reader #genshin impact #arlecchino x reader #genshin arlecchino #genshin arlecchino x reader

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persevereforahappyending · 2 days

Text

Luck Runs Out |Epilogue|

Pairing: Mabel x Reader

Summary: When your luck runs out you unknowingly drag Mabel back into the life, she's so desperate to escape.

Warnings: None

Word Count: 4k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Mabel heard her name called, she stood up, silently hoping the sleeves to her gown were covering her shaking hands, she had them bunched into fists, but it wasn’t helping much. She made sure to walk up the stage quickly but no too quickly, she had been practicing more than she cared to admit. She smiled as the man shook her hand and handed her the diploma.

She had done it; she had officially graduated. It was only an associate degree from a community college, but she had gone back to school, and she had done the work. As she made her way off the stage she smiled when her eyes landed on you in the crowd, you were standing up, clapping your hands, probably making more noise than anyone else. You told her it didn’t matter what kind of degree she got or what kind of school she went to, she should be proud of everything she accomplished because you certainly were.

“You did it!” You shouted when Mabel came outside, already waiting for her. You didn’t wait for her to get to you before you ran up, lifting her in your arms and spinning her around.

Mabel giggled at being lifted in the air. When you finally sat her down, she took off her cap and lightly slapped you on the shoulder with it. “You’re ridiculous,” she said through her laughter. She glanced around, seeing other graduates hugging and smiling with their loved ones as well.

“Whatever,” you rolled your eyes. “You ready for your graduation party?”

She blushed ducking her head in your shoulder. “I told you I didn’t need anything like that.”

“And I told you,” you wrapped your arm around her, pulling her tighter against you. “It’s also a going away party.”

“I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow,” she mumbled as the two of you walked to her car.

You snatched her keys from her hands before she even got the chance to unlock the car. You untangled yourself from her so you could run to the car, opening the passenger door for her. “Your charity my lady,” you said with a bow.

“I hate you,” she said with affection.

“You love me.” You tilted your head, giving her that smirk you always gave her when you did something you knew would annoy her.

“Regretfully,” she mumbled, already leaning in to kiss you.

“Shut up,” you smiled before closing the distance.

She finally pulled away from the kiss to slip in the passenger seat. You peeked your head in to make sure her legs were in before shutting the door. She shook her head as she watched you run around the car to the driver's side. You quickly slipped in the driver's seat, started the car, then reached over taking her hand in your own. Whenever you were the one driving somewhere you always held Mabel’s hand, she learned that pretty quickly, no matter what, you always reached over to take her hand. You brought your intertwined hands to your lips, giving her fingers a soft kiss before backing out of the parking space.

“What if we just spent tonight at the apartment?” Mabel suggested, resting her head back against the headrest as she looked over at you.

You smiled at her question but never took your eyes off the road. “The guys are already waiting for us,” you reasoned.

“We could work on packing.”

You chuckled, shaking your head, she knew she wasn’t going to get out of this, but she was determined to try. “We’re already packed.” She let out a huff, crossing her arms before you let out an exaggerated sigh, she perked up, she didn’t want to get her hopes up but the idea that she might have gotten you to cave was too exciting. “How about we stay for a couple hours and if you still want to leave we can?”

Mabel nodded her head back and forth as if she was considering it. “Fine,” she grumbled.

A few minutes later you parked the car. Mabel looked out the window at the rundown bar, the same bar where she had met Charlie for the first time. She waited for you as you jumped out of the car and ran around to open her door again. You didn’t have to do it but for some reason it made you so happy and Mabel loved seeing that smile on your face. She rolled her eyes when you bowed once again, holding out your hand for her. She took your hand and allowed you to help her step out of the car and as usual you refused to let her hand go even if the two of you were just going to the door.

You pouted when she let go of your hand, but she wanted to take off her cap and gown. She tossed them in the backseat and was quick to grab your hand again, instantly making you brighten up. You led her to the door and allowed her to step in first. Mabel was greeted by cheers from the guys. It was just the two of you and the guys for the party, and were hardly the only ones in the bar but that didn’t matter, the guys had a couple tables in the corner saved which you were quick to drag her over to.

She continued to hold your hand under the table, playing with your fingers. Charlie slipped in the seat across from her, leaning over the table to whisper, “Congratulations.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” she said. Which was true, she had wanted to go back to school for some time but didn’t really consider it until she met Charlie. Charlie also took time to help her decide what to write her essay on and read it over before she submitted it.

Charlie scrunched up his face, waving her off. “Of course you could have.”

“A gift from the wife,” Costa said, setting down a large cake.

“Holy shit!” Mabel’s eyes widened, Anne-Marie went out of her way, the cake was amazing. It was pretty simple, but she had done it all by hand, she wrote Mabel’s name and congratulations across the top in gorgeous cursive and made a little cap and diploma out of icing in one corner.

“Drinks for everyone!” Nunes yelled as he and Tommy arrived with hands full of beer.

Everyone grabbed a beer while Charlie cut the cake and began passing out pieces. You let go of Mabel’s hand only to throw an arm around her waist, tugging her a bit closer to you. Mabel leaned into you, smiling as she laughed along with whatever crazy story Nunes was telling as she ate her delicious cake. If you couldn’t be holding her hand you found some other way of touching her or having your arms around her, she was never a physical touch kind of person but with you she didn’t mind, she actually missed your touch when you weren’t around.

She looked over at you while you were in a deep discussion with Costa, waving your fork around to help make your point. She was so lost in admiring you, she didn’t hear what you were saying but she was pretty sure it was about some movie or show, though you were being very serious about your discussion. You always got so serious when talking about something you were passionate about. There were times, like this moment, when she couldn’t believe that you were real, you were here, you were real, and she had been dating you for a whole year already.

So much happened over the year, after your first kiss, Mabel didn’t leave your side until the boat got back to port. At the docks they were greeted by the coastguard, she was terrified you were going to be arrested, the potential of all of you being arrested, including herself, didn’t cross her mind, she was only concerned about you. They didn’t arrest you though, the police were called in and you were brought down to the station for questioning. You somehow managed to sell the story that you weren’t on the boat with the rest of the crew when it exploded, you even admitted to your crew bringing in drugs. Mabel fully expected you to go away for life, to only have a future with you involving a glass window in between the two of you.

The drug operation your boss was running was so much bigger than she imagined, even though he was the boss here and you weren’t super involved in everything you were able to provide the authorities with enough information, location of the warehouse, how many workers there were, even some names, the type of drugs being brought in, and the amount and times you guys did runs. You provided them with everything they needed to bring down the biggest drug operation on the east coast. You were willing to pay for your wrongdoings, you had said you were hoping for a light sentence for your cooperation, but you were fully willing to accept jail time. Luckily for her and more importantly, for you, Charlie’s dad is an amazing lawyer and got you immunity.

Your ‘death’ was basically retracted and that was that. They managed to keep everything pretty hush hush so there wasn’t a target on your back. Besides your boss and crew, most people didn’t know who you were anyway, the one good thing your boss actually did was keep everything so secret. Everyone who could accurately identify you by photo, or name, and who knew exactly what you were involved with were all dead.

Mabel was by your side through it all and somehow you managed to take her on a real date. The two of you had been together since she kissed you, it was the longest relationship Mabel ever had and every day she fell in love with you even more. Sometimes you’d go out and have fun but then there were other times Mabel would have to stay in and study for a test or exams and you’d come over and silently sit next to her, reading or doing something else quietly. Mabel never knew how much she could enjoy just the presence of someone.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me with these knuckleheads,” Tommy said, bringing Mabel out of her thoughts.

You chuckled, taking a sip of your beer. “You did just fine before me,” you said.

Tommy scoffed, waving you off. “You choose,” he leaned across the table, pretending you were the only one that could hear him. “I’ll get rid of any of them.” He glanced to his side where Charlie sat. “Even him,” he nodded at his brother.

Charlie gasped, turning his full body to face his brother, his mouth wide open. Tommy ignored him, not even bothering to spare him a glance. Mabel felt your entire body shake with laughter. “Sorry,” you gave him a sympathetic shrug.

Tommy grumbled into his beer. “You’ll have a job when you return.”

“If they return,” Nunes said, slinging an arm around Tommy. Tommy gruffly shrugged off Nunes.

Mabel chuckled along with everyone else. Despite your differences and the amount of times you antagonized the crew of the Finestkind Tommy allowed you into the crew. Your main source of income might have been from drug smuggling, but you were actually a decent fisherman. Mabel had been skeptical when you ran up to her telling her Tommy offered you a job. She kind of thought you just knew how the equipment worked, that you only did enough fishing to not raise any red flags. After your first run with the guys though she learned that you were actually very good at your job.

“I appreciate that,” you said, giving Tommy a grateful smile. “And we’ll be back,” you threw a straw wrapper at Nunes. “We just,” you turned your head and looked into Mabel’s eyes. She had her head resting on your shoulder and tilted it up so she could meet your gaze without moving. “Want to see the world first.”

Mabel leaned up, capturing your lips in a quick kiss. She quickly pulled away and went back to resting her head on your shoulder. She glanced across the table as you continued to talk to Tommy and the others, seeing Charlie swirling his beer around, his eyes completely focused on the movement. He glanced up when he felt Mabel’s eyes on him and gave her a soft smile.

Things were slightly awkward with Charlie when you and Mabel first started dating. Mabel knew he was still getting over the relationship but that didn’t stop him from trying to help you or her. Charlie was actually the one that called his dad and had him come down to the police station and be your lawyer. Mabel had been freaking out, she had no idea what to do but Charlie didn’t hesitate to step in and help the best way he could. He also vouched for you, telling Tommy you’d make a great edition to the crew. Charlie even admitted to Mabel a few months after the two of you started dating that he was wrong about you. He originally only saw you as trouble that would drag Mabel back into the world she had been desperate to escape but you ended up being exactly what she needed.

“When do you guys leave?” Costa asked, bringing Mabel back to the current conversation.

“Tomorrow morning,” you answered, smiling at Mabel.

“Bright and early,” Mabel mumbled, cuddling into your side. She felt more than heard your laughter. The two of you would be leaving in the morning but it was actually going to be closer to late morning, not right at sunrise, still earlier than Mabel usually preferred to be waking up, the things she did for you.

“Have they told you the name yet?” Charlie asked, joining in on the conversation finally.

Mabel flicked you a glare, making you try and hide your laughter by drinking more of your beer. “No,” she grumbled. The others all broke out into a laugh, making Mabel glare at all of them.

You kept your promise and only made Mabel stay at the party for a few hours. She was never going to admit it to you, but you were right it had been fun. She was glad to get to see the guys and have one last celebration before having to leave for your trip. That didn’t mean she wasn’t happy to finally leave and get a few hours of sleep. When the two of you left, the guys were still around the table, ordering more drinks.

The two of you fell into bed as soon as you got back to her apartment and slept until your alarms went off. Mabel helped you grab the bags and pack them into the car. She did a quick check of her place since it would be a while before she would be back, she was forcing Charlie to come by and check on the place at least once a week while the two of you were gone. Once she was satisfied and confirmed she had everything she needed she hopped into the passenger seat.

You smiled, taking Mabel’s hand as soon as she was in the car. Mabel silently chuckled, shaking her head, you were practically vibrating in your seat. You didn’t drive as crazily as her, but you were at the harbor before she knew it. You were out of the car and opening the door for her before she even had her seatbelt off.

The two of you walked hand in hand, passing all the other boats as you led Mabel to yours. Finally, the two of you came to your sailboat, you quickly let go of Mabel’s hand to turn around and raise your arms, gesturing with a wide smile at your sailboat. Mabel giggled, shaking her head at you. She had seen the boat plenty of times, but you still showed it off as if she was seeing it for the first time.

“Damn, she’s beautiful,” Charlie said, coming up beside Mabel.

You didn’t say anything, just nodded excitedly. You ran up to Mabel, taking her bag in your hand before taking off to board the ship. Mabel took the opportunity to hand Charlie the keys to her car. She couldn’t exactly bring her car on the boat and the two of you would be gone for a while, so she said Charlie was free to use her vehicle as long as he took care of it and checked on her apartment.

“If anything happens to my car,” Mabel said, pointing at Charlie. “I will kill you.”

“Yes ma’am,” he saluted her. She tilted her head, glaring at him. He quickly cleared his throat, standing up a little straighter. “She will be in perfect condition when you return.”

Mabel narrowed her eyes. “Good,” she smiled.

“Have fun,” Charlie whispered, pulling Mabel into a hug. “I expect lots of pictures.”

“Of course,” Mabel chuckled.

“Call whenever you get the chance.”

“Thank you,” Mabel pulled back from the hug, looking Charlie in the eyes. “For everything.”

Charlie shrugged, waving her off. “It was nothing.”

Mabel rolled her eyes; Charlie made it really difficult to give him compliments. They finished their goodbyes then Charlie ran off to meet up with Tommy. Mabel stared up at the boat, waiting for you to finish whatever you were doing, you didn’t want her stepping onto the boat until you revealed the name you came up with, the name you had been keeping secret from Mabel since you got the damn thing.

There was a part of her that couldn’t believe this was real, that this was her life now. After the charges were dropped and you were free and clear and completely healed from your wounds you finally followed your dreams and bought a sailboat. You used the bag of money that somehow managed to survive everything and you somehow managed to hold onto. You used it to buy a fixer upper sailboat and in your free time while Mabel was at work or school you worked on it tirelessly to make it into your dream boat. With the money you had left over, which was still a couple hundred grand you gave to the guys, telling them to split it amongst themselves or do whatever, saying it was a small gesture for helping save your life.

Now, you were about to set sail on your first real trip. You had taken it out a few times to make sure everything worked properly, and you wouldn’t sink before attempting a long voyage. Mabel had been out with you almost every time you took her out on the water. You gave her lessons in sailing, made her study how the boat worked and what to do. You could sail it for the most part on your own, but it was pretty big, and you’d need Mabel’s help on a few things. She was nervous about the idea at first, she had never attempted sailing before, but you knew your stuff and helped her pick up things fairly easily, you even let her sail on her own for a bit, while you stood nearby just in case something went wrong.

“Are you ready?” you shouted, holding your arms out wide.

Mabel nodded, watching as you ran across the deck to rip off the tarp you had covering the name of the boat. You had a name picked out as soon as you purchased the thing, probably knew what you’d name it before you had ever even met Mabel. For some reason you insisted on keeping it a secret from her though. She thinks it started off as a joke and after realizing how much it annoyed her not knowing you decided to just keep it a secret until your trip.

You ripped off the tarp revealing the Odessey underneath it. “Are you serious?” Mabel asked, smiling, and shaking her head at you. She couldn’t say she was surprised; it was your favorite book after all.

“I thought about Penelope,” you admitted, helping Mabel onto the boat. “And Odysseus.” You looked around the boat, admiring her beauty and all the hard work you put into her. “But The Odyssey just felt right.”

Mabel smiled as she quickly pulled you into a kiss. “We won’t have the same journey as Odysseus, right?” she abruptly pulled away from you.

“I hope not?” you shrugged. “I still think it would be cool to face a monster,” you mumbled. “No matter!” you smiled widely, stepping back from Mabel. “I have us covered.” Mabel raised an eyebrow as you slapped your pockets looking for something. “For you,” you smiled nervously when you finally found what you were looking for.

Mabel tilted her head at you holding out what appeared to be a little jewelry box. She tried to ignore the slight shake in her hands as she reached for the box. She gave you a shy smile as she flipped open the box, revealing a matching trident necklace to yours.

“I know it’s not really your thing,” you said, rubbing the back of your neck as your eyes found the deck very interesting. “But-”

Mabele grabbed you by the shirt, pulling you in for a kiss. “I love it,” she whispered against your lips.

You smiled as Mabel turned around, moving her hair out of the way so you could put the necklace on her. She looked down seeing the little trident now dangling there then looked up to see nearly the same trident hanging around your neck. You had yours most of your life but you somehow managed to find one for her that was in the same style, the only difference was yours was silver while hers was gold.

“You don’t actually believe these will protect us, right?” Mabel asked, though she had a feeling she’d know what you’d say.

“All I’m saying is I haven’t died yet,” you said, raising your hands as if that was a reasonable defense.

Mabel opened her mouth to argue but she wasn’t sure what she’d say. You survived being shot and tossed into the ocean, somehow surviving for hours until Charlie and the crew found you. Then Mabel and the guys arrived right before you were about to be executed. You fought a guy underwater and won, you helped take out the others on the boat, and then once you shot a gas can, blowing up your boss and the entire boat, and still somehow survived without any major injuries. Mabel hated herself for thinking it but maybe the sea god really was on your side, even if your hero was a dude he hated.

You got behind the wheel of the boat and began to pull out of port. Mabel wrapped her arms around your waist, ducking her head as you moved your arm to have it around her while still holding onto the wheel. “Onward to Florida,” she said, looking up at you.

“Then to Greece,” you smiled, pulling her in for a quick kiss before focusing on the ocean ahead.

Mabel smiled, resting her head on your shoulder as she stared at the horizon in front of her. The two of you had to sail down to Florida first then after a couple days of refueling and re-supplying there you’d be able to head off across the Atlantic, finally living out your dream of sailing to Greece. You and Mabel had many trips planned, the intention was to sail around the world like you always dreamed of and to travel like Mabel dreamed of. There were more convenient places to sail to first besides Greece, but Mabel knew your dream was for your first destination to be Greece.

The trip down to Florida would take almost two weeks and then crossing the Atlantic would take almost a month. You planned to spend a couple months in Greece, sightseeing and sailing to a few of the nearby islands. From there the two of you would plan your next trip. Mabel had no idea where the two of you would end up, but she was excited to go on the journey with you.

#mabel (finestkind)#mabel finestkind #mabel x reader #mabel x fem!reader #mabel x you #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader #finestkind 2023 #luck runs out

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httpiastri · 3 days

Text

sleeping patterns – cn34

nights filled with endless crying and screaming take a toll on clement's confidence.

genre: fluff, slight comfort/angst ig

pairing: young dad!clem x young mom!reader

warnings: none

author’s note: aaaaaaaaaaa im so soft for clem and ive had such an insane baby fever recently. i miss him sm :(( he would be such a good dad, i just know it

f2/f3 masterlist

‎‎ ‎‎

the big, red numbers of your electric clock on the bedside table tell you it's only 3am, a frustrated huff passing through your lips when your eyes slowly open. it takes a while for you to realize what's waking you up – but then it makes so much sense.

the soft cries on the other side of the baby monitor sting like a knife in your heart, and you're fully awake in a matter of seconds. you're just about to push yourself up to a sitting position when the bed dips next to you. after turning around, you find your boyfriend already jumping out of bed. "i'll get her."

"are you sure?" you ask, voice creaky after several hours of not speaking.

clement nods, leaning down to press a kiss to your temple. "go back to sleep," he hums, and just like that, he has waddled through the door to your nursery.

the sad truth is that your little one hasn't been progressing with her sleep as much as she should. she had a period of almost sleeping through the nights about a month ago, but then you were hit with the four-month regression. she's almost five months old now, and still, you have issues with sudden wakeups in the middle of the night. as much as you adore every second you get to spend with her, you just wish you could get one full night of sleep sometime.

you know you won't be able to fall asleep until clement is back, you never can. but it's not because you're worried; in fact, there's not a single piece of concern on your mind over it. you know that he has mastered the cradling-cooing-bouncing sequence by now. and sure enough, your daughter's cries grow lighter and lighter, until the only sound that can be heard from the monitor is the ones of soft steps and hushed whispers.

but something feels off. even when the apartment is completely silent, clement doesn't come back to bed.

it's very strange. he fell asleep once in the rocking chair in the nursery, but complained about his back aching for a week afterwards and promised that he would never put himself through that again.

the moonlight peeking through the poorly shut blinds in the nursery casts a shadow across clement's profile when you step inside. despite how dark it is, you can see every little toy on the floor and every detail of the little race car-themed mobile that dangles above the crib clearly. you're way too used to being in here at night.

clement has put your daughter back down into her crib by now, and his hands are wrapped around the railing as he leans over it, looking down at her. he doesn't react when you come closer, and he doesn't move a muscle even when you place your hand on his shoulder. it's easy to understand that something is bothering him.

"what's on your mind?"

he turns to you and lets out a tiny exhale, as if it was a struggle for him to snap himself out of his thoughts. he shakes his head. "it's nothing."

"tell me," you press, giving his shoulder a soft squeeze.

"well, i…" he squeezes his eyes shut. "i'm kind of freaking out. it's been over four months, and… i still haven't adjusted."

"honey," you start, your hand moving to the back of his neck. "where is this coming from? so suddenly?"

"i don't know," he says with a sigh. "you've seen me lately, i've barely been able to fall asleep at all."

he opens his eyes again and gazes down into the crib, eyes softening once they land on the little bundle of love resting so peacefully. he follows the way her chest rises with her breaths, her slightly pouting lips, her tiny fists that are wrapped around her blankie.

"it feels like i'm the only one who's struggling. you're such a natural, you're doing so much better with her, while i just feel… hopeless."

you don't want to interrupt him – clement doesn't often speak about his deeper feelings, so now that he's finally going, you don't wish to stop his flow – but you have to say something. "i think you're doing really well."

"you actually think so?" he asks. though his gaze doesn't move an inch, he can still see you nodding in the corner of his eye. he takes a deep breath. "i've heard people say that new fathers go through things… that it takes time, that it takes patience- and i've tried to be patient, i really have. but…"

he finally looks at you, and his heart breaks slightly at the sight of your uneasy expression, the tension in your eyebrows and your worried eyes. he hates being the one to make you feel like this.

"i just can't get rid of this constant anxiety. it feels like i'm always stressing over something. over you, over her, over everything."

you relate to every word he says. being this young, you feel like you're stumbling through darkness most of the time, not knowing what to do. it's frankly a guessing game, with mostly correct guesses mixed with some bad ones, since neither of you have any prior parenting experiences. even though he may not see it or know it, you're going through the same things as him.

no one had expected for you to get pregnant at this age, and no one – not even the two of you – had expected for you and clement to actually keep the baby. and sometimes, way more often than you'd thought before, your youth and inexperience has been catching up with you.

it's hard, but at least you have each other.

you step closer, draping your arms around his shoulders in an instant. "it's alright," you whisper into the skin of his neck, your nose filling with that scent that's just so him, and you finally relax a bit. his hands find your waist, fingers caressing your sides through the flimsy material of your nightgown. "it's okay to feel like this. i do, too. i think… all new parents must feel it." you give his neck a soft kiss. "but they all get through it, don't they? and so will we."

he stays silent for a while before he nods slowly. "it's all just so… intimidating. i don't want to mess anything up."

"and you won't." you pull away slightly to look into his eyes. "i trust you fully, and-"

you're interrupted mid-sentence, the sound of your daughter stirring in her crib taking clement's attention away from you as he glances towards her. you see his adam's apple bob as she begins to whine, her fists clenching and face scrunching up. "should- can i take her?" he asks tentatively, hands trembling slightly on your sides.

you nod not even a second later, stepping out of his embrace to give him no excuse to hold back. "go for it."

clement had bought every parenting guidebook he could find, and read every website with tips for new parents on the entire internet – and yet, nothing had prepared him for this nervousness that he's experiencing so often. he knew it wouldn't be smooth sailing all the way, but he hadn't expected to feel this uncertain in everything he does. even in the way that he picks his daughter out of her crib, he feels anxious that he's doing something wrong.

however, the second she feels her father's presence, it's far from the story that his anxiety has been making up for him. she lets out one last soft cry before, as if out of habit, nuzzling her face into his skin.

while clement has been struggling this whole time, you can't help but notice that she settles easily into his arms. like she belongs there; like she knows that he'll take care of her.

because he always does.

"see?" you say, letting a finger run along the curve of her cheek as you smile down at her. "that's not so bad, is it? you're doing so well."

considering all the difficulties he's faced, hearing these kind words of appreciation from you gives him comfort in a way that few other feelings can compare to. his gaze is still glued to your daughter, the precious little baby that is his entire world. well, half of his world – the other half is standing right next to him. "i love her, you know," he says softly. "even if she doesn't know it yet, i do. so much."

"i think she knows," you answer, watching as your boyfriend cradles her against his bare chest. he has loved the skin-on-skin contact since day one, and you're sure she does, too; her gentle babbling is always a sure sign that she's completely content. you can't hold back from smiling. "and she loves you just as much."

"sometimes i just can't believe that she's ours. that we made her." his eyes meet yours, nothing but pure love in them. "isn't it strange?"

"strange that we've done something good for once?"

he answers your tease by sticking out his tongue, nudging your shoulder with his, though gently enough to not bother the little one in his arms.

"come on, let's go back to bed," you say, leaning in to press your lips gently to the back of her head. "one night of co-sleeping can't be the entire world, can it?"

#f1 #f2 #formula 1 #formula one #formula two #formula 2 #elms #european le mans series #clement novalak #fluff #angst #x reader #x you #x yn #x y/n #imagine #scenario #fanfic #fic #romance

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maiko-san · 2 days

Text

The Chain + TP! Reader

Linked Universe belongs to Jojo

Plot : You are Twilight's childhood best friend, who like Twilight can turn into an animal, that is a crow. You just happen to follow Twilight into the portal in your crow form and meet the Chain.

( Fem Reader )

You and Link have been friends ever since you were kids, always went on adventures together. After the event of Twilight, Link had gone out on a quest to find Twilight Realm, to find Midna and usually he brings you along with him but this time he didn't.

You asked him why, 'It's too dangerous, (N/n). I don't want you to get hurt....' he said. You know he cares about you...but you know how to protect yourself. He has been acting differently, as if he's hiding something from you.

"I'll be going now, (N/n)" Link said, holding your hands. "Be careful, Link" you give him a smile as Link returns the smile of his own before pulling you into a hug. He takes a deep breath, burying his face into your soft hair and taking in your scent before pulling away. "Wait, before you go!" you said, grabbing his face and kiss his cheek.

This causes Link to turn red from embarrassment, "What's a hero without his good luck kiss?" you smile. Link coughs lightly as he plants a kiss on your forehead, "Love you" he whispered in your ears. NEIGH! Both of you hear a whining and turns to see Epona sticking her head through the window, "You want one too, girl?" you questioned. The chestnut horse nods as you give a kiss on her forehead. "There you go, my lovely" you said, rubbing your cheek against her.

Link smiles at the interaction as he opens the house, "Next time, I'll be staying home for a few days" he said, caressing your cheek before mounting Epona's back.

"Bye!" you said, waving at them as you watch Link rides away. As he disappears around the corner, you quickly go to your room and take out your drawstring bag.

"I'm going to follow him, whether he likes it— or not!" you said. You open the door and close it behind you, making sure to lock it. You make a sprint and jump, your body shifts and turns into a crow. Your bag shrinks along to make it easier for you to carry it on your back. It was a gift from Midna which she enchanted so it can shrink whenever you turn into a crow.

You fly high up in the sky to locate Link, it takes you a while to spot him and you finally see him along with....

A group of men.

You land on the tree branches and hide away from view, you observe the situation and you were shocked. 'Why...why do they look almost like him?!' you thought. All of them almost look alike, blue eyes, blonde hair well it's in different tones but the face!

Are they his brothers? Distant relatives. No wait— both of you grow up together and there's no way he has relatives. If he does, he would tell you!

'Doppelgangers?!' you gasped in your mind. Oh wait— he had told you about meeting people during his adventures. Are they the ones he was talking about?

You couldn't hear what they're saying but they're heading in the same direction. You follow them and make sure you check the wind's direction to avoid Link to pick up your scent.

The group stops as you perch on a branch, your eyes widen at the sight of a large swirling portal.

'Is this why he doesn't let me come?' you thought, it looks dangerous and your crow instinct tells you to stay away from it. You watch as they enter the portal one by one, the last one was a man in armour and has a scar over his right eye. He shares the most resemblance to Link.

He checks his surroundings as if making sure nobody is following before entering the portal. You wait a moment before you dive into the portal, you close your eyes and go through. You feel the breeze hit your feathers, you slowly open your eyes and see that you're no longer Faron Woods but instead an unfamiliar one.

'Where am I?' you thought. 'Urgh...I feel sick all the sudden' you cover your beak with your wing to hold back your breakfast.

"It feels great to be back" a voice said, you panic a little and quickly jump into a nearby bush. You take a peek to see the group up close, "Since we're at my place, lets gear up and start our search for Shadow" said the one in multi coloured tunic. "I want to pay my grandfather a visit before we go" he said. The group walks away and you quickly fly after them, you're not risking getting lost in an unknown place.

You follow the group from above and you can see a small house ahead, yet again you hide in the trees and watch them enter the house but others decide to stay outside and wait.

That would be your Link, a blonde with pink shades, a young boy, a dirty blonde with white cape and a man with a blue scarf.

"So, Twilight. What took you so long anyways?" questioned the one with the blue scarf. "I went to fetch some stuff from my house and talk to my friends" Twilight said. So, they called him Twilight instead of Link? Weird....

"Oh really? Then, what's that on your cheek then?" pinky said with a smirk on his lips. Twilight's hand touches the cheek and turns to look at the window to see lipstick on his cheek.

Twilight blush lightly, "Oooh~ our rancher has a special someone~" teases the scarf boy. "Wait what—really?!" gasped the little boy as he stared up at Twilight. "Do tell why you are keeping a maiden all to yourself, hm?" he smirked. "Oh hush it, Wars." Twilight said. "Haha, come on guys, stop teasing the rancher" smiles the one with the cape.

You hold back a snort as they tease Link or Twilight about his love life with you. The others come out from the house, "What's with the ruckus?" questioned the one in armour.

"Hey, Time! Guess what! Our rancher here has a girlfriend!" Warrior said, bringing Twilight in a headlock, pointing the lipstick mark on his cheek. "Oh—" Time was surprised and gave the rancher a teasing smile. "Malon would be delighted if she hears this" he said.

"Time!" Twilight shouted, face now burning from embarrassment. You watch the men laugh wholeheartedly, causing you to smile at it.

[ End of part ]

#linked universe x reader #linked universe #lu x reader #Twilight Link x Reader #linked universe hyrule #linked universe time #linked universe four #linked universe twilight #linked universe sky #linked universe wind #linked universe legend #linked universe wild #linked universe warriors #reader insert #fem reader #reader is from twilight princess #I want to write something different once in a while

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thedeathlysallows · 1 day

Text

Is It Over Now? (12)

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Aemma Velaryon

Summary: You drew up some good faith treaties

Warnings: canon typical Targaryen incest. Developing Stockholm Syndrome, Aemma is becoming an unreliable narrator.

Tag list: @callsignwidow

Aemond is gone, but Vhagar returns after two days time, reuniting with Vermithor. Their happy roars echo across King's Landing and it fills your heart with a bittersweet emotion you can't quite name. Is Aemond thinking of you at all in Harrenhal? You know you're thinking of him. Constantly. The smell of him lingers on the bed sheet, on your clothes, and on your skin, fading with each passing day. You feel uneasy without your husband around.

On the third day of his absence a letter arrives strapped to Vhagar's saddle. It's a letter from Aemond, written in High Valyrian. He tells you about Daemon's attempted siege and how Harrenhal withstood it all. He tells you how House Strong no longer stands, their ancestral home now belonging to him. He tells you about a woman. Alys Rivers. She's a supposed bastard of Lyonel Strong, older than Harwin and Larys, but he's taken her as a prisoner of war.

It doesn't sit right with you, the way he talks about this woman. His tone is almost... love sick.

He tells you that you would like her, and you decide to be the judge of that.

Getting out of the Keep won't be simple. None of the guards will allow you to just walk out the front gate... plus, you're certain Aegon himself is still keeping an eye on you. All of your secret tunnels are gone, sealed up by Aemond weeks ago. So, what's left? How can you escape?

Vermithor's loud roar reverberates through the Keep and you dash to the window of your bedchamber. He soars through the sky, dancing along with Vhagar in graceful arches. You let out a low pitched whistle and his head turns in your direction, mighty wings changing his path mid-swoop. Before you can question yourself, you climb on the window ledge and jump, hoping Vermithor understands what you need him to do.

The months the two of you spent apart melt into nothing as you crash on his large back, quiet understanding passing between dragon and rider. Vhagar comes up on your left. Her eyes are old and knowing as she dips her head towards you and takes the lead. You aren't sure which direction Harrenhal is, but both dragons seem to understand what it is you need.

Who it is you need.

Harrenhal is not a pleasant place by any stretch of the imagination. Death seems to linger in the very air, pressing down on your chest and making you want to run and hide. You don't though. You dismount Vermithor with your head held high, already missing the warmth and familiarity of him. He remains as close to you as he can, head swinging back and forth as if waiting for an ambush.

"Easy," you tell him with a gentle pat. "Stay with Vhagar. You'll keep each other safe."

Vermithor huffs at you, smoke billowing from his nostrils. He'll listen only until he senses you're in danger.

As you enter what remains of Harrenhal, you're greeted by Aegon and Aemond's soldiers. Each one bows to you with sheepish expressions. It's as if they know something you don't.

"Where is my husband?" Your gaze flits from soldier to soldier, none of them willing to speak up. "Well?"

"The Great Hall. m'lady," one finally says.

You march past the soldiers, eyes fixed firmly ahead, tuning out the whispers of the men as you leave. Tears sting your eyes but you won’t allow yourself to be humiliated further by crying in front of them. Any of them. Your cheat of a husband included. Because why else would the soldiers stare at you with such pity? Why else would they whisper behind your back? Aemond is fucking the Rivers woman.

There’s simply no other explanation.

“Aemond,” you call out as you enter the Great Hall.

Before you see him you hear a feminine giggle and the soft rumbling of Aemond’s voice.

“Clearly I need to make my presence better known, husband.” Your shoulders tense and you tilt your chin higher as you take in the sight before you. “It seems I took your men off guard… as well as you.”

Aemond doesn’t move from his seat at the head of the high table, doesn’t move to put Alys Rivers off his lap, doesn’t look at you with anything less than anger. In fact, if it weren’t for the rise and fall of his chest you could almost believe the shock of seeing you sent him into the arms of the Stranger.

“Aemma,” he finally breathes out your name, shoving Alys to the side. “Why are you here? How are you here? Aegon should’ve had you under lock and key.”

“It seems the bond between dragons is stronger than we all thought.” You give him a non answer. “Did you know Vhagar has been coming to see Vermithor since you departed? She led us here, the smart girl. I wonder what she wanted me to find?”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“And you shouldn’t be fucking a woman who isn’t your wife! You despise your brother for the very thing you’re now doing. So what is it, Aemond? Are you the honorable man I’ve always cared for or are you a liar no better than his brother?”

Aemond’s violet gaze seems to pierce your soul as he stalks toward you. “Right now I’m a man worried for his wife’s safety. What do you think will happen when they find you missing at the Keep?”

“What do you think will happen when I tell your mother her favorite son is no different than her eldest?” You don’t know why you’re saying these things. All you know is that you want Aemond to hurt. You want to hurt him.

He takes a deep breath, eyes shutting briefly. “You don’t understand what’s happening here. We need Alys-“

“Oh, we do? I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware we needed someone to keep your bed warm while-“

“Leave!”

But his order isn’t directed at you. Instead, Alys (who had been listening very intently to the conversation) offers a quick curtesy and leaves the Great Hall. You stand completely still and quiet, waiting for the swish of her skirts to disappear completely. Once it does you turn back to Aemond who still wears a thunderous expression.

You clear your throat. “I’ll give you one minute to explain what I saw and what your grand plan seems to be.”

“And after I explain?”

“I… haven’t decided. We’ll see once you explain.” Part of you is ready to go back to Vermithor and not even wait for an explanation. It’s the same part of you that is vaguely considering running back into Aegon’s arms. But you won’t do either of those things until Aemond has a chance to explain.

Aemond nods as if reading your mind. “There are whisper that Alys Rivers is a witch with a penchant for seeing the future. We need her. Having her power on our side could end the war tomorrow.”

“End the war… and in this plan, does my mother come out of the war alive?”

“That depends on what Alys sees.”

“You’re giving this strange woman a lot of power and importance.”

Aemond sighs, wrapping his arms around your waist. “It’s a command from the King. I’m to keep her happy and ensure her loyalty.”

“So she gets to sit on your lap and play the part of a princess while I’m locked away?”

His smile is wry when he says, “you don’t currently appear to be locked away.”

You don’t respond to his attempt at levity. “I don’t like this, Aemond.”

“I know. I know. Just trust me, please. Alys will never compare to you.”

You aren’t sure if you believe him, but for now you’ll leave the matter alone.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you

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amongemeraldclouds · 4 hours

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sweet dreams

It should have been simple: boy meets girl then falls in love. Except everything only happened in his dreams. Can Theodore Nott bridge the gap between fantasy and reality to get the girl of his dreams?

Inspired by Taylor Swift's song, Guilty as Sin?

Theodore Nott x f!Reader

Warning: Fluff, some smut so 18+ only MDNI, characters are aged up. Uses a magical concept that deviates from canon.

✿ Masterlist | 2.9k words

Prologue

The door creaked as you swung it open to leave The Three Broomsticks, eager to breathe in the cool evening air. You scrunched your note as smoke invaded the fresh air you hoped for and turned towards the culprit, Theodore Nott. You didn’t know him personally, but guys as popular as him did not need introduction.

He didn’t notice you as he took another puff and the streetlamp cast him in a soft halo. It was not fair how some people could look so effortlessly gorgeous.

“Want one?” He reached out when he finally saw you staring, offering you his pack of cigarettes.

You huffed, “No thanks, I was hoping for some fresh air.”

He simply shrugged and turned the other way, smoking in a different direction and out of your way.

You hoped the cool air could return some of your sobriety, but nothing was as effective as a good ol’ near de*th experience. You looked up when you heard someone shrieking from the distance, growing louder and louder until you saw a broomstick zig zag across the sky that was quickly hurtling towards you and Theo.

Theo was quicker than you, holding his wand out and casting a spell just fast enough to redirect the impact to an open space. By the time you held your wand out, you had enough wits about you to cushion the witch’s fall.

You ran towards her to make sure she was fine. She laid on the ground as if she was peacefully sleeping, oblivious to the accident. You crouched beside her, arm outstretched to wake her when-

“Oh bumbling broomstick!” She yelled out and sat upright. You yelped in surprise, yanking yourself back and landing on your bottom. Theo was there within seconds, offering you a hand.

You took it and it was unbelievably soft, his grip strong as he supported you back up from the ground. You registered the smell of alcohol and cigarettes with a subtle hint of expensive cologne. You wanted to take another whiff, but reminded yourself to focus.

“A - are you okay?” You turned back to strange woman, careful to keep your distance this time.

“That chap knows sod all about wizard engineering. Mixing magic and muggle work - ridiculous!” she spat in disdain, dusting off her dress.

She turned around, catching your worried look and Theo’s stoic expression, noticing you both for the first time. “Oh my, where are my manners?” She asked, straightening her back and introducing herself.

“I’m Miss Amelia Adams, thank you for rescuing me,” you shook hands and smiled at her politely, introducing yourselves in return.

Your eyebrows knit together as she fished around her bag, looking for something.

She beamed when she found it and held out a daisy for you. “To properly thank you, please accept this flower,” she then leaned in conspiratorially, “it grants a wish.”

She winked before gathering herself and her ‘bumbling broomstick’ as she called it. “Well, I’m off,” she declared, walking away as quickly as she had come before you had any chance to say goodbye.

You were stunned, holding the flower in your hand. You scoffed at the idea of wishes, the only way to get something is to go out there and take it. Hard work and strategy was far more effective than any wish. After a few moments of awkward silence, you turned to Theo. “That was…” you trailed off, trying to find the right word.

“Odd,” he completed for you, just as stunned as you were.

“Are you okay?” You asked Theo. He grunts and you reassured him you’re fine in return.

“Have this flower, you saved us first. Thanks, by the way. You should get the wish,” you said casually, only half believing the mysterious Miss Amelia.

He accepted it and placed it in his coat, stoic expression still in place. When he said nothing else, you turned on your heels to go back to your friends in the pub.

You paused when Theo called after you as if saying goodbye as an afterthought. “See you at school?” He said. It seems he recognized you too.

You turned around and gave him a friendly grin, “in your dreams,” you said in a playful tone. Despite being school mates, you and Theo revolved around different orbits. You experienced just enough failed relationships to know better than to start a friendship with Mr. Emotionally Unavailable.

He just smirked and watched you go before returning to his cigarette. Had he held the flower in his hand, he would have noticed it glow before bursting into tiny glitters, a wish about to come true.

That night, Theo first dreamt of you.

Main story, months later

The booming party music faded when Theo heard the familiar sound of your laughter. He shifted in the Slytherin common room couch as his entire focus gravitated towards you like you were the sun his planet revolved around.

It was always disorienting, he thought, to hear and see you somewhere outside his dreams. Mostly because you never looked his way here but in his dreams, you’ve given him everything he ever needed and more.

He recalled the first words you ever said to him in his dream, “you again?”

“Is that such a bad thing?” He asked with his boyish grin, amused. He wasn’t used to seeing this reaction from others except for his friends.

He no longer remembered the rest of that conversation, but one minute you two were laughing at something silly and the next, he was tucked comfortably in bed. It was then he realized it was all a dream he could just laugh off and forget about. It was no longer funny by the third night he kept seeing you.

You both discussed how absurd this all was until you realized how fun it could also be. So you tested different ways you could take your power back and control the dream you found yourselves in. He discovered you were smart and funny, it warmed something in Theo’s heart that he did not care to examine.

Soon enough, he was flying with you through the sky, swerving through clouds as the stars blurred past like strings of fairy lights. You both flew like it was the most natural thing in the world, no broomsticks needed. He felt like a kid again, fearless and free.

One time, he went to a muggle amusement park you heard so many great things about. You rode on roller coasters and ferris wheels then ate candy floss. You would have gotten a fever the next day from all the sugar and shouting if not for the fact this all happened in your dreams. He had never felt happier.

On quiet nights, you laid on cool grassy hills enjoying the evening breeze. Sometimes, you watched sunsets on the beach while listening to the ocean waves. Those were his favorite days. You told him about your big plans and ambitions. He tried to stifle his smiles, but your energy was so infectious. The world felt bigger and brighter when he was around you.

He’d tell you about his mother. How close they were before they were permanently separated. He said he kept her alive by remembering their happy moments that he’d tell you stories about. He also talked about his strained relationship with his father and how silly his friends were, but oh how he’d d*e for them.

He found himself spilling thoughts and secrets he could never tell anyone else. He stammered every now and then, not used to opening up, but you were so patient. He felt safe with you because you’re a good listener. Besides, wasn’t he basically just talking to a figment of his imagination? He tried not to overthink it.

Theo felt the couch beside him dip as the familiar smell of smoke and cologne announced Mattheo’s presence. “Want to go for a smoke?” He asked with a smirk as he flashed a joint.

“Later, okay?” Theo replied distracted, his focus still on you.

A student rose from the couch and moved away as Lorenzo approached. Thanks to their popularity, the boys always seemed to find a convenient seat when they needed it. He joined the two with a grin, drinks in hand. Mattheo took in Enzo’s disheveled hair and loose tie. He accepted the drink and gave him a high five knowing he already had his conquest for the night. Theo accepted the drink and just held it.

“Who’s the lucky girl?” Mattheo asked, taking a swig from his cup.

Enzo blushed and took a sip of his drink. “You know I never kiss and tell.”

Mattheo rolled his eyes in response, “until you’re drunk enough.” He pushed Enzo’s cup back to his mouth. “Come on, drink up.”

Theo tuned out the conversation and he saw you dancing with your friends, your hips moving to the beat of the music. His eyes darkened as he remembered how those hips rocked into his. It didn’t take long before you first kissed him under the stars when the conversation died down, simply because there was nothing else to say.

All other thoughts and sentiments could only be expressed in the way your fingers gripped his wavy hair, when he bit your bottom lip and you moaned against him. Before he knew it, you were reciting his name like a prayer even though it felt anything but sacred when he slammed his hips into your dripping pussy. He savored the way your nails scratched his back. He didn’t know until then how someone’s grip could make him feel so wanted.

He always made sure you knew he how much he appreciated you:

“Fuck, you’re taking me so well amore.”

“I’ll make you feel so good principessa, I’ll ruin you for anyone else.”

“You’re so beautiful when you’re on your knees,” he’d say as he stuffed his hard length down your throat.

He memorized your shape and knew just where to touch you to be rewarded with your filthy moans and curses. He liked making your eyes roll to the back of your head. Loud screams, sheets gripped, chest heaving. He took delight in the way you came undone for him, your little whimpers were so cute he could not resist thrusting faster into you so he could feel you clench against his desperate cock again and again.

His favorite part was after he came inside you when you swiped your finger on your upper thigh and brought his spilled seed to your lips. You said you loved the way he tastes. He always said you could have as much as you want, he was all yours and you were his.

“Theo, mate?” Blaise called out to the unresponsive boy who gazed intently at the crowd.

He turned to Mattheo and narrowed his eyes, “how much weed did you give him?” Blaise couldn’t help but worry about his friends, it was exhausting really. Mattheo pushed Theo outside his comfort zone whereas Theo pulled Mattheo back in when he went to extremes. They always kept each other in check, but he was worried that balance could tip off at any moment.

“Easy on the accusation, he’s a big boy. He can do what he wants,” Mattheo replies defensively. “Besides he hasn’t taken any green, he’s too high on that girl already. Been eye fucking her all night.”

Mattheo’s harsh words finally cut through Theo’s daydreams and his jaw twitched in annoyance, “I’m not. You should talk about her more respectfully.”

Enzo chimed in, “you know I hate agreeing with Mattheo, but he’s right.” Ignoring Mattheo’s de*th glare, he continued, “there’s nothing respectful about the way you’ve been looking at that poor girl.”

Theo just rolled his eyes and groaned, not wanting to discuss this with his friends. Even if he did, he wouldn’t know where to start. Instead, he stood up and said, “I’m going out for a smoke,” and walked away before anyone could protest or go with him.

As he walked, his thoughts returned to you. One day, you laughed because of his jokes. He laughed because he was in love with you.

He laughed at how ridiculous it all was, but it had been months and he could no longer deny it. He always thought love was overrated. How can others go out there declaring love like it’s a wild adventure you’re about to embark on? Love that you would fight and break for? He didn’t want an adventure nor a battlefield.

Then there was you and he realized everything he knew about love had only been one version of it. Being with you restored his breath and calmed the butterflies in his stomach. It’s a love that did not challenge him to be better, but instead told him he is already good enough. That he was always enough. It’s the kind of love that felt like home. It’s the kind he never knew he needed.

You haunted him even when he was awake. He was always tempted to approach you to see if the things he saw in his head could be real. His only clue was the way you wore ribbons in your hair and how it matched your mood to the stories you’d tell him.

He noticed you wore red when you were angry like the time you had to do a group project by yourself. You wore blue when you felt sad and green when you felt generally peaceful. His favorite was pink because it meant you were happy. He noticed how the closer you got, you wore the pink ribbon more often. But today, you wore a black ribbon. He had never seen it before and it worried him. Then again it was only a theory, maybe it didn’t mean anything.

So he always talked himself out of approaching you. Theodore Nott was used to broken things whereas everything with you and about you was perfect. He knew at the very least to leave it well enough alone.

His thoughts carried him to the Astronomy Tower where he lit his cigarette and stared at the evening sky.

“You always seem to be polluting the fresh air I go out for.” Something in his heart froze and then burned brightly. It was you. He heard the smile in your voice before he turned around to look at you. Salazar, you were so beautiful.

“You always seem to find me when you need fresh air. Are you sure you’re not just looking for me?” He teased, but nevertheless moved to extinguish his cigarette.

You chuckled at Mr. Arrogant who always knew his way around girls. “I was just kidding, keep your cigarette though your lungs probably hate you.”

He scoffed, he already hated himself. But mostly, he hated how desperately he wanted to reach out and kiss you without being a total creep. “I’ll survive,” he replied, taking a final drag before snuffing it out. “What brings you here?”

“Aside from the not-so-fresh air?” You grinned before turning serious. “This is a nice place to think.”

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Salazar, he’s relentless. “I’m in an impossible situation and I’m starting to lose hope,” you admit. So that’s what the black is for, Theo realized.

He scrunched his nose as he thought twice about what he was about to say. It was so silly trying to hold back when he’d give you the moon and the stars if you asked for it. “Whatever it is, you shouldn’t lose hope.”

You laughed at him and let out an exaggerated gasped, “coming from Mr. Emotionally Unavailable?”

He laughed in return, “ah, my reputation precedes me.”

“Exactly, so don’t go around saying things like that. People might think you have a heart behind that big brain of yours.”

“Wouldn’t want that, would we?” He leaned in conspiratorially.

“No, everyone would stare at you then.”

“You know it’s rude to stare.”

“Oh yeah? What should I do instead?” You challenged.

“Kiss me,” he said with a smirk, a half joke and a half plea.

You laughed and took a step back, placing distance between you. So this was how he got girls, you mused.

Salazar, he was losing you. If he was going to try, he had to be sincere. No charms, no masks. “Amore, I…” he began but grew self conscious at the nickname. “I mean, I wanted to…” he started then stopped. “I wonder if…” he tried again.

“I know,” you said, fire burning behind your eyes at recognition. This was the boy of your dreams. Awkward when he tries to be sincere and it was so adorable. It always made you feel special because you knew he had walls for the rest of the world. But with you, he was at home.

You closed the distance to meet his lips and the kiss said everything he needed to know. All those evenings together talking beneath starlit skies, exploring flesh and soul, falling in love. They were real.

His hands found the curve of your hips so naturally as he pulled you closer against him, just like he’s done countless times. He savored the way your fingers made their way through his hair. Everything felt electric, at once new and familiar. It was better than anything you had dreamed of.

When you both broke for air, you found yourself blinking in disbelief. “How do we both have the same dreams?”

Theo just shook his head as if to say he didn’t know but then he remembered your first meeting. There was a witch with a bumbling broomstick and a flower. His eyes widened. “The flower from all those months ago.”

Your eyes lit up with remembrance, “the mysterious Miss Amelia!” You brought your hand to your lips, “I didn’t think it was real. I said you’d see me in your dreams.”

“And now you’re my dream come true, amore,” he said, pulling you in for a hug.

You giggled at how sweet Mr. Not So Emotionally Unavailable could be. “And you’re mine. See you tonight then?”

He chuckled, “and then tomorrow I’ll take you on a real date?”

You scrunched your face, “but now we can’t fly through the stars anymore.”

“Oh, I have other ideas,” he whispered in your ear.

Your heart leapt to your throat and anticipation hummed in your veins. After all, some things were sweeter than dreams.

✿ Masterlist

A/N: I've mostly written for Enzo and Mattheo until now but when I thought of this plot, I just knew only Theo could do it justice. So this is how I wound up writing my first Theo fic. Hope you liked it!

#theodore nott x you #theodore nott x reader #theodore nott imagine #theodore nott smut #theo nott #theodore nott #slytherin boys x reader #slytherin boys #amongemeraldcloudswrites

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nevadancitizen · 2 days

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-> FASCINATION WITH THE ORDINARY

synopsis: your world is vastly different from the nevada native to madness combat. after the main three + 2bdamned get transported to your world, they each find things that fascinate them.

word count: 2.5k

characters: hank, deimos, sanford, 2bdamned, player! reader

trigger warnings: ehh slight yandere/obsession but could also be read as super heavy pining if you're not into that lol

notes: madness combat fandom arise. madness combat fandom come back to me (also set in @/saltymongoose 's self-aware au)

For the sake of consistency, let’s imagine that the Player lives in a big, lonely, woodsy and plain-sy plot of land. There’s little to no outside human interaction, and lots of animals wandering through the area with a river running through it. For the wildlife, I’m basing it on the American South because I’ve lived here my entire life and know how they act.

SUNSETS & SUNRISES

2BDamned would be the most entranced, since he has the most memories from before the fall and before Hank killed the sun. He’s an early riser by nature (since his body has conditioned him so he’s mostly overworked and under-rested, as unhealthy as it is), so he leans more towards the beauty of a sunrise, towards the light that starts to paint the dark sky with hazy orange shades and rosy hues. He likes breathing in the crisp air and the way it almost sends a shock through his lungs.

But the sun stirs a lingering feeling of nostalgia, though, for the way things were before everything fell to madness. Doc tries his best not to let the thoughts get the better of him as you slip through the front door and out onto the front porch, carrying two steaming cups of coffee.

God, he could imagine staying like this forever: just you, him, a beautiful sunrise, and coffee. Surely the way you pay attention to him, the way you get up extra early to watch the sunrise, the way you doctor his coffee just right – they’re all examples of how you care for him, just as he cares for you. But for now, he’ll just bide his time, blowing the steam off the surface of his coffee and purring, soft and raspy, both at the taste and because of your company.

But that doesn’t stop the others from appreciating the astounding view at dusk, because Sanford and Deimos are more partial to sunsets after long days. They like lounging in the adirondack chairs set up around the fire pit, cracking open a few beers, and simply relaxing with you. (Don’t worry, Sanford will gather firewood and Deimos will set it alight if it’s a little too cold for your taste.)

They’re fresher clones, so they don’t remember the sun well, if at all. They both always go quiet when the sun starts to dip below the horizon. Sanford props his tea sunglasses on top of his head and Deimos sets his cigarette in the ashtray as they both stare at the way the light turns the clouds purple and paints the sky with pink streaks. It stirs something sad in your heart – both of these men are pushing and just over the cusp of thirty, yet they don’t know the simple sweetness of a sunset.

But as soon as night overtakes the sky, they both turn their attention back to you. Deimos makes some suave comment about your beauty being nothing in the face of a sunset in that rumbling, smooth voice of his, and Sanford gives him a pointed glare. Sanford points out that your beauty and the beauty of nature are two whole different things, but keeps showering you with not-so-inadvertent compliments, leaving you flustered and blushing from both grunt’s words.

Hank is somewhat of an anomaly with this one. All of the grunt’s biological clocks are absolutely porked from their time without a sun, but Hank’s affected the worst by far. (That, and he doesn’t really care for the sun. He literally slaughtered it.) Therefore, he’s more privy to waking up in the middle of the night and dragging you onto the roof to look at the stars.

He likes laying on his back with you on his chest, pointing out the brightest stars and asking you questions about them. (He doesn’t really care, he just likes hearing your voice.) He loves your vivid descriptions of the constellations and how you describe them in intricate ways. To Hank, they’re just sparkly, unreachable dots in the sky, but it seems like, to you, they’re beautiful: like millions of silver nails driven into a dome of dark blue velvet.

He savors the moments like these the most, when you’re alone with him. There’s no sound except for the crickets and dog-day cicadas and spring peepers and your voice and Hank’s sputtering purring. Honestly, it’s as it should be – without those other pesky dipshits ruining your time together. (Well, he can tolerate Doc, but that annoying extraction team could go fuck themselves for all he cared.)

ENTERTAINMENT

Sanford hates being lazy. He hates feeling like he’s not doing anything useful, even if he’s being useful by resting. The only real way to make him sit down and stop moving is by trapping him on the couch, laying your head in his lap, and turning on the TV. (Even if, for the first thirty minutes, he’s too focused on you and your body heat and how fast his heart is beating to even consider looking at the TV.)

But the thing he loves watching the most isn’t any sort of movie with amazing cinematography or show with riveting writing – it’s infomercials. Specifically, infomercials from the 90’s to the late 2000’s. He likes seeing what things could’ve been like if there was no madness in Nevada, because things are oddly peaceful (at least, to him) in your world. Billy Mays and Cathy Mitchell make him wonder about domestic life with you (even if the Jupiter Jack and the Xpress Redi-Set-Go are completely obsolete by now), and how these little gadgets would make your life together supposedly go smoother.

He likes combing his claws carefully through your hair as you both watch these people play up how useful these obviously useless inventions are. He tries to avert his eyes and act interested in the TV as you look up at him and point out how the Red Devil Grill was recalled because it got so hot it collapsed and caused fires, but can’t. He just can’t keep his eyes off you when you look up at him so sweetly, and can you blame him? You just make his face so warm and his heart beat so fucking fast…

Deimos has always had a fascination with electronics, but it’s mostly been from a tactical and weaponized standpoint. But he’s discovered (well, really, you introduced him to) video games. He absolutely loves curling up into your side, purring and providing commentary as he watches you play. (Because, despite his trying, he hasn’t really gotten a hang of the controls yet.)

He loves more story-fueled games with characters he can really get attached to. He likes investing himself in things and people that don’t actually affect him, because seeing your favorite character go through dire straits or even die hurts for a little while, but it’s nothing compared to seeing someone get eviscerated right in front of you. And, yeah, he totally cried when Arthur Morgan died (and totally played it up so that you’d comfort him).

He also likes draping himself over you in the middle of a boss fight, wriggling and nuzzling into your cheek, causing you to giggle, lose focus, and, obviously, die. He strings together half-hearted apologies through his raspy purring, but he’s not really sorry. More deaths means more time spent with him, and internally, he’s completely and honestly unapologetic for his underhanded tactics.

Due to the nature of his administrative role, Doc spends a lot of time in front of screens. He likes to unplug and unwind by reading, no doubt with a straight-up hazardous amount of coffee by his side. He prefers reading with you with an arm wrapped around your shoulder, whether you’re also reading or working on something else. Though he’s inexperienced (and sometimes even shy) with these types of things, he’s more than happy to ease into affectionate touches and romance that kills his common sense with you.

His tastes are often cheap, but when he earns enough dough, he likes to splurge on second-hand college anatomy textbooks. No, he’s not planning on going to university, but he wants to know the inner workings of the human system (and, therefore, the inner workings of you). He also likes speculative biology and seeing what humans think about other intelligent species potentially being out there.

He would absolutely be elated (though he tries his best to hide it) if you took his interests seriously and discussed them with him. He tries to keep you in his makeshift office and away from the others so you can continue to spend this precious alone time with him, but that doesn’t stop the red-hot flare of jealousy as one of the others bursts in with a childish ask about something that should be obvious. (Of fucking course you wouldn’t want to go for a walk, Deimos, have you seen the weather out? Leave you and him alone!)

Obviously Hank would love gorefest and splatter film movies because of his all-encompassing and absolute love for carnage, and he’d love them even more if you got scared and hid yourself in his shoulder or chest. It’s clear that he’s your strongest and most capable vessel, so he clearly agrees with your choice to choose him as your protector (even if that choice is based on an instinctive need to hide).

He also loves WWE and MMA fighting. When given the choice, he opts for MMA because it’s real and bloody and he prefers seeing people push themselves to their absolute limit rather than some predetermined fight that serves a higher storyline. (But, then again, he really likes the clip of Undertaker breaking into Paul Bearer’s house during an interview and throwing a cabinet at him because, what the fuck? He’s never thought of that before! Using things from the environment when out of weapons instead of his fists could be an improvement. Maybe he can learn a thing or two from these fake fighters…)

And, yes, if you give him access to Twitter he will turn your entire timeline into those backyard fight videos and dashcam car crashes. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens.

ANIMALS

Being a natural night owl, Deimos loves keeping a lookout for what critters come out at night. When he’s on the front porch with you, smoking a cigarette and waving away mosquitoes, he makes sure to keep an eye out for weird and unusual wildlife. (While pressed against your side and purring loudly, no doubt.)

He likes watching the whip-poor-wills swoop down and catch the moths that swarm around the overhead porch lights. Yes, he will try to catch one, but backs off when you tell him to. Instead, he opts for digging in the dirt to find beetles and grubs to toss up in the air for the small birds to catch. He will kinda feel bad if the beetles hit the ground but will continue to throw them to the birds when you tell him insects are basically immune to fall damage, so… no harm, no foul.

He’s also absolutely enamored by raccoons. He likes throwing food to them from the safety of the porch and watching them eat with their little grabby hands. He’s very reckless so, despite your warnings, he’ll try to squirrel one away inside the house. (He does this multiple times and, without fail, gets bitten each time. 2B has given him multiple rabies shots after shooing the raccoons out with a broom.)

Speaking of Doc, he enjoys going out in nature and finding decaying things just to see how many buzzards arrive. He excuses it with something about wanting to see if decomposition works the same across both your world and his, but he secretly finds some relation with the birds – something about being deliverers and arbiters and negators of death. (Though the last one really only applies to him.)

He also likes the rare sightings of wild horses. He’ll go out of his way to (carefully, shyly) rouse you from whatever you’re doing to go take a look at the majestic beasts, and he’ll be even more excited if there’s a foal wandering between the stocky legs of the adults.

He just barely brushes his fingers against yours as you both stand on the edge of the treeline and watch them graze. Seeing the foal break from the herd, kick out and tumble and fall over and immediately get back up sparks… something in his heart. A vision. Just you, just him, linked pinkies, and a future together, with this warm feeling in his chest.

Hank really likes the more dangerous creatures. He gets along well with cottonmouth and other venomous snakes (and “gets along well” really means that they’re mean as can be and strike as often as possible while he just holds them and smiles at you).

If you don’t keep a close enough eye on him, he’ll wander off and try to provoke larger animals, like bobcats. To him, they’re just tiny little pussycats, even if they pose a real threat and could kill him. Please don’t let him go too far, because if he comes across a bear, he will try to wrestle it, and Doc doesn’t like having to do emergency surgery on the island countertop in your kitchen.

On multiple occasions, he’s come back to the house after being missing for hours, reeking of skunk spray. He just purrs happily as you tell him to strip and hold still as you spray him down with the hose.

Sanford is way calmer with his interactions with wildlife. He likes sitting on the dock with you and watching the fish swim by (because he’s impressed both by the fish and by the river – he’s never seen water in such great quantity!) Set him up with a hook, lure, and line and he’ll be entertained for hours. Though he struggles a bit with making streamers and fishing knots due to his big hands and claws, he’s more than patient when you teach him (mostly because he gets to spend time with you).

When he’s fishing, he likes to look around and observe – mostly because fishing is a waiting game. His favorite visitors are herds of whitetail deer, especially when summer is in full swing and the fawns are ready to start exploring. They remind him of his family, mainly because of the way the does don’t really care which fawn is theirs, just that each is getting enough milk. You point at them and discuss them with him in small whispers because you don’t want to spook them.

Again, it reminds him of his want for a domestic life with you. Just basking in the mottled sun that seeps through the trees, dipping your bare feet in the cool river water as a catfish tugs on the line – it’s all he wants, really. Now if he could just get the rest of the grunts to leave you alone… excluding Deimos, of course.

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casuallyimagining · 1 day

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Doubt || kth.

Kim Taehyung x female!reader

Summary: Taehyung is an eccentric young musician working on a song that he believes will save him. Can it also save the woman he loves?

Genre: Greek Mythology AU, Orpheus AU, Fluff, Angst Word Count: 8,678 Rating: T Warnings: hunger and poverty; manipulation; major character death

Notes: Based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Thanks to @daechwitatamic for beta-ing. Banner by @itaeewon.

It’s so cold out that you can see your breath, a puff of pale steam that quickly disappears into the dull landscape around you. The clouds are starting to lighten, they’re less grey, less dense, and you can tell the sun’s still somewhere up there, at least. But gods, it’s almost mid-May and you can’t remember the last time you’d seen blue sky. Hell, you can’t remember the last time you’d seen the sun.

Growing up, you’d heard stories of the seasons changing on time. Tales of spring coming in late March, bringing rain and flowers and much-needed warmth; that fall would reliably start at the end of September, the land turning to shades of orange and red and yellow. Between that, days got warmer and longer, and then colder and shorter. It was a cycle, and it was predictable, and it was nice, and it was mundane.

That didn’t really happen anymore.

You tug your jacket closer around your body. It’s starting to wear thin and the zipper is broken. You’ll need to find a way to fix it when you get into the next town. There’s no way you’ll be able to afford a new one, but maybe you can trade for some lining and a new zipper. Though that means you’ll have to find something to trade…

Good-paying jobs are hard to find, especially with the world’s economy in flux the way that it is. Most everyone is more focused on finding food and shelter, and people are much more willing to migrate to find work during the good season if they can. You’d been doing odd-jobs up and down the eastern seaboard for years now, as long as you could take care of yourself. Some cleaning here, accompanying someone to a different town there. You’d even done some childcare near the gulf when you’d been down south.

Now, you’re following the railroad tracks north.

Eventually, you stumble upon a sleepy town somewhere south of the city you’re trying to get to. There aren’t that many buildings that you can really see, and most of them are still covered in snow. Snow’s piled up along the streets and under the windows–it’s almost touching the sills in some places. None of the buildings look to be taller than three stories. The town is small, but the square in the middle of town is surrounded by lit buildings. You’re freezing. First stop: find a bar or a hotel or an inn.

The bar isn’t hard to find, but it’s dark when you finally push through the door in a swirl of bitter wind and snow flurries. Every head in the bar turns to look as you enter. You slide into a table by the door, a little embarrassed but ultimately just happy to be out of the cold.

“You’re not from around here.” The man who approaches your table is tall and confident, and when he offers you a soft smile, you instantly feel more at ease. He pulls a small pad of paper out of his back pocket and slides into the booth across from you. “I’m Yoongi.”

You tell him your name, and he tells you what’s good on the menu before taking your order. Yoongi leaves you alone with a promise to check on you later to make sure you have a place to stay the night. You allow yourself to relax into the vinyl cushions of the booth, enjoying the atmosphere–significantly less tense now that Yoongi has welcomed you into the establishment–and the warmth of the fireplace across the room.

There’s a house band that sits in the corner playing some jazzy number that reminds you of one of the gulf cities you’d stayed in back when you were passing through the bayous of the south. The pianist is slight, a little too skinny, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he plays. He’s talented, remarkably so, and paired with the saxophone and the upright bass, the music they play is some of the best you’d heard in a very long time.

A plate clattering onto the table in front of you draws your attention from the band. A young man stands in front of you, honeyed eyes wide. He looks to be around your age, his dark hair pushed out of his eyes with a thick cloth headband. He has a kind energy, despite his sharp features, if not a little odd.

“Yoongi said you’re new in town,” he says finally, his voice a little deeper than you were expecting. “Do you have somewhere to stay? Are you going to be here long? You should stay with Yoongi and I.”

You sigh. The man is forward, that’s for sure. You’d been hoping to grab a hot meal here, rest a little, and move on. You’re close to the city–maybe a couple days of walking, less if you can hitch a ride with someone or sneak on the train. But you can tell that this place, and these people, is somewhere you could easily stay in.

You can’t let that happen.

Yoongi appears then, a glass of water in his hands. He places it on the table in front of you, nudging the man out of the way. “Don’t be a pest, Taehyung. Remember what I said about scaring away my customers?”

“Oh, so he’s like this with everyone?” You ask it playfully, but there’s a bit of real questioning in it. You get the sense that maybe this guy–this Taehyung–is a bit of an oddball. Not in a bad way, but you’d like to know what you’re dealing with.

The way Yoongi rolls his eyes tells you that yes, Taehyung is like this with everyone. “He tell you about his song yet?”

You raise your eyebrows. “Oh, he’s a singer.”

Taehyung blushes, a light dusting of pink blossoming across his cheeks. “There’s this contest, and I… The prize is a year’s supply of soup.”

You hum. Any more, money isn’t really a great prize. Bartering is more or less how the economy runs. But soup? Any kind of food in that amount would make someone richer than even the wealthiest city dwellers.

Taehyung is certainly an intriguing fellow.

You can’t say at what point in the night Yoongi slipped away, or when Taehyung slipped into the booth across from you. But you can’t deny that--despite his way too forward introduction--his presence is comfortable.

“What brings you into town?” he asks as you take a bite of your sandwich, watching you expectantly as you chew.

“Job hunting,” you say simply, glancing in the direction of the band as they start to play again.

“What did you do before? Where are you from?”

You shrug. “Bit of everything.”

Taehyung hums and rests his chin in his hand. If he notices that you ignore his second question, he doesn’t mention it. “Hey, maybe Yoongi could give you a job? He’s always saying about needing someone else to wait tables. Apparently I’m ‘unreliable’ and ‘flighty’.” He makes a face, eyes widening almost comically as he wiggles his head.

Then, he sighs dramatically and watches the band for a moment before bursting into a fit of giggles. It’s a little dopey, but it’s endearing how his face scrunches up and he covers his mouth with his hand.

When he calms down, he leans on his hand. “Yoongi really isn’t that bad to work for. He’s just busy is all. He runs the bar, but he’s also station master over at the train station, and he delivers mail sometimes when the post office is short-staffed.”

“That’s… a lot of jobs.”

Taehyung shrugs. “He likes to stay busy.”

Things quiet down, then, and you listen to the band play as you finish your meal. Sometimes, Taehyung speaks, telling you a bit about his life and about the bar, but for the most part, he sits with you in silence. He nods along with the band, and every once in a while, he pulls out a small notebook to jot something down. Even though he isn’t talking as much, he seems happy. You get the sense that he’s just excited you aren’t ignoring him or shooing him away.

When it’s time for the bar to close, Yoongi comes to collect Taehyung so they can get to work cleaning and closing the establishment.

“Wait for me?” Taehyung whispers to you as you stand from the booth. He tugs the scarf from around his neck and drapes it over yours. The striped fabric is a little thin, but you can feel his body heat radiating off it slightly. “I’ll meet you when we’re done. There’s a park down that way three blocks.” He points east. “It’s just across the street from my apartment. You can wait there if you want.”

He’s gone before you even confirm that you’d wait for him.

“He’s a good kid,” Yoongi’s voice from behind you makes you jump. “He’s a little naive, but he’s got a big heart.” He holds the door open for you as you leave the bar. He nods at you. “I’ll see you later.”

The night is cold, but nowhere near as bitter as it had been a few nights before. The seasons are starting to change. This year, if you’re lucky, maybe it'll last the correct amount of time.

You find the park easily, wandering around it for a few minutes before selecting a bench near the center fountain. It’s turned off to prevent the icy spray from getting whipped around in the wind, and you’re grateful. The last thing you need is to be cold and wet.

It’s a surprisingly nice night. The clouds have parted, if only slightly, and you can see stars in the breaks in the gloom. You tug your jacket around your body and wrap Taehyung’s scarf around your neck, closing your eyes and leaning back against the bench. It’s been so long since you’ve gotten to just relax.

You’d started out almost a month ago when the blizzard ended. The town you had been staying in had started to get too small, the people had started to get too friendly. It had all started to chafe at your brain. So you’d left and started walking, catching a ride where you could, always following the train tracks.

You don’t hear the footsteps behind you until a body sliding onto the bench beside you makes you jump.

“Sorry,” Taehyung apologizes, a soft, boxy smile on his lips. “We uh… we finished up early, and you looked so pretty just sitting here. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

It’s not a problem, and you tell him as much, placing a hand on his forearm as he leans sideways against the back of the bench. The flush springs to his cheeks almost immediately, his eyes flashing to where you’re touching him.

“So you’re a singer,” you ask, changing the subject. Taehyung nods sheepishly. “Sing something for me?”

“Oh! I uh… wouldn’t know what to sing.” Taehyung dismisses you with a wave of his hand.

You hum. “Oh come on. You can’t just say you’re working on this song and then not sing.”

He sighs. “I don’t know...”

“At least hum something for me?”

For a moment, he stays silent, and you think he’s going to tell you no again. Which would be fine. You would drop it. You’re curious, and you’re a little stubborn, but you know when to drop something. But when he opens his mouth, he sings.

The tune is beautiful and haunting, despite it being incredibly simple. It’s only a few notes that for the most part move up and down along the scale. You’re mesmerized, and you close your eyes, feeling a warmth spreading through your body. He stops suddenly, and the park grows eerily quiet.

“Taehyung, you’re amazing.”

His smile is brilliant, and he looks beautiful in what little moonlight there is. You don’t know why your stomach is doing flips.

“Oh hey you two,” Yoongi greets, suddenly in front of you. “Ready to go home?”

As it turns out, Taehyung and Yoongi live together. You walk across the street with the two men, pausing in front of a door between the two ground-floor businesses–a bookstore and an empty storefront.

Yoongi slumps into the sofa, seemingly exhausted, while Taehyung disappears deeper into the apartment. He returns a few minutes later, changed into more comfortable clothes, carrying some blankets and a change of clothes for you, too.

“You can use these,” he says, handing the bundle to you. Then, he turns to Yoongi. “It would be nice to be able to offer a job, you know…”

“It’s late. We’ll talk more later. It’s past my bedtime, and you kids have to be up early tomorrow. It’s a big day.”

“Wh-” Yoongi waves goodnight, and he’s gone before Taehyung can even finish his sentence.

A few moments pass in silence before Taehyung yawns, stretching his arms above his head. He encourages you to get comfortable and bids you goodnight then, apologizing for not having a proper bed for you to sleep in. His is small, he says, or he’d offer to share. But honestly, the couch doesn’t seem so bad. It looks soft, and it’s better than sleeping on a bench outside. He looks like he wants to leave, but he’s frozen in place.

“Thanks,” you tell him softly. “For everything. You’ve been nothing but kind to me. I appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

“Do you want your scarf back?” You unwind it from around your neck, holding it out slightly for him to take.

“Keep it.” He offers you a shy smile before leaning in and pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Goodnight!” He hurries away, turning off the light as he goes, leaving you standing in the middle of their living room alone and in the dark.

You hadn’t missed the bright blush on his cheeks, or the way your pulse had quickened at his touch.

-----

It’s a beautiful day. You were worried because the past few days, it had been sweltering hot. The kind of oppressive summer heat that saps your energy and makes you want to do nothing but lay in front of a fan all day. But it’s cooled off some, and there’s a nice breeze going.

You sit on the bank of the river, just close enough to the water where you can feel it lapping at your bare feet, but not close enough to actually get wet. It’s serene sitting there, listening to the birds chirp in the trees and the ducks splashing around in the water. Very different from the seemingly constant chaos that is Yoongi’s bar. Even when it isn’t busy, it’s loud. And while you enjoy the atmosphere, you’re not used to constantly being around that many people. It takes a lot out of you.

Which is why you took the opportunity to come to the river just on the other side of the train tracks to take a break on your day off. Taehyung had followed you, because of course he had. But you don’t mind. You don’t feel the need to entertain him, to constantly be talking with him. You barely have to focus on him. It seems to be enough for him to just exist in each other’s company. It’s nice.

He has his head in your lap, laying perpendicular to you. One of his knees is bent and he has the other one raised and resting against his bent knee, creating a little table for himself as he scribbles in his notebook.

“What are you thinking?” you ask him, reaching down and brushing his hair out of his eyes. It’s grown longer. You wish he would let you give him a haircut.

“Music,” Tae responds simply, his attention flicking to you for the briefest of moments. You can see the playfulness in his eyes, even as he turns his focus back to his notebook. He’s determined to finish that song. “And how I want to marry you.”

He’s been playfully asking you since the second day. At this point, he says it so nonchalantly that you aren’t even phased anymore. You roll your eyes and poke him right in the middle of his forehead.

You brought a book--one of Yoongi’s, he doesn’t mind that you borrow it--and you read while he works, stealing glances at him subtly every once in a while. His concentration face is truly a sight to behold, all focused eyes and set jaw and furrowed brow. Sometimes, he catches you looking and flashes you a confused, boxy grin, which you return. You’re pretty sure he has no idea what he does to you.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks softly. When you look down at him, his full attention is on you, his notebook resting face-down against his chest. He fiddles with his pen.

You hum and lean back against the hill, letting the book fall to the ground gently beside you. “Sing me something?”

So he does. He sits up only to fall to the ground again to lay beside you, his shoulder brushing against yours. He sings of longing, of love lost, and of love yet to be. It’s beautiful and haunting and sad, but there’s a kind of hope in the song, too. When he’s done, he reaches out, hand grasping your own, and the two of you sit in silence for a long while.

Eventually, he shifts beside you and grabs his notebook from where it fell to the ground when he sat up. Smiling, you reach out and brush his hair off his forehead. He glances up at you, eyes sparkling with the reflection of the smile on his lips. His smile is unlike anything you’d ever seen. It’s innocent, and warm, and so unabashedly joyous that it makes you feel like nothing bad can ever happen if he was there.

You’ve never felt like that before.

You’ve been alone for so long--it’s been just you since your parents had passed in your early teens--you barely even recognize how much it sucks. You’ve gotten so used to being alone, you no longer even recognize that you’re lonely. For so long, you’ve forced yourself not to get close to anyone, have focused on taking care of yourself for so long, that you hadn’t even recognized your heart had grown cold. All you’d ever known was how to take care of yourself and get to the next day. And the next one. And the one after that.

You like the warmth he brings you. You like how he makes you feel: as if maybe you don’t have to go it alone. You like that he makes you feel happy.

And you have no idea what to do with that information.

It terrifies you a little. You’ve only known him for a few months, but it feels like you’ve known him for your entire life.

“What are you thinking about?” Tae’s voice cuts through your thoughts. He reaches over and squeezes your hand, fingers slotting between yours. “You look like you're thinking hard about something.”

You hum. There’s no way you can tell him your exact thoughts, you can barely articulate them to yourself. It’s a lot, and you don’t want to scare him away. You want this--whatever this is--to last. So you sigh, and instead of telling him what you want to, you simply say, “Just thinking.”

“Ah.” He nods sagely. “Big thoughts. I get that.” For a moment, he’s quiet, toying with your fingers in the silence. “Can I tell you something?” All of a sudden, he seems nervous. You can feel the anxious energy practically radiating off him. He can’t seem to look you in the eye. His other hand clutches at his notebook.

“Yeah, of course.”

“I just…” Taehyung swallows hard before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I know I can be a lot. I know I daydream a lot, and I get too into my songs, and I have trouble paying attention sometimes when you tell me things. I know I’m weird. So, I guess, just… thank you for wanting to spend time with me.”

You smile gently, feeling your heart soften even more at his vulnerability. “I like spending time with you, Tae,” you say earnestly. And you do. You’ve never enjoyed someone’s company as much as you enjoy his.

“I really do want to marry you,” he confesses softly, his eyes darting out to the river. “I know that’s dumb, but it’s true.”

Two months ago, you would have dismissed him--you had dismissed him--as just being a man looking for one thing. But now that you know Taehyung, well… things are different. “Let’s get through this winter, then we’ll talk.”

“Really?”

“You would have to promise me things, Tae. We both know how rough the world can be. I need to know you’re willing to weather whatever storms come this way.”

He nods eagerly. “I will. You know I will.”

You wrap your arms around him then and pull him to you, his arms immediately slotting around your waist. He’s warm, and despite the fact that it’s sweltering hot out, you’re certain you could stay wrapped up in his arms until you both turn to dust and scatter to the wind.

“Tell me you’ll hold me forever. Tell me that things won’t change when the storms get bad. Promise we’ll stay with each other and it will always be like this.”

You feel him nod against you, feel him hold you tighter. “I will. All of it. More. I promise. It’ll always be like this. You and me.”

When you pull away, his dark eyes are warm and inviting, the small smile on his lips inviting, drawing you in until you’re connected. His kiss is soft, tender, and for a moment, he’s frozen, as if his brain short-circuited and he’s trying to reboot. But then he’s kissing you back, slow and measured. You want to memorize what he feels like in this moment, his hair tickling your face in the light breeze, his hands pressed into your lower back.

His nose brushes against yours as you part. There’s a dusting of pink across his cheeks, and he has the goofiest, most awestruck smile. It makes your stomach do a flip seeing him like that. And in that moment, you know that this adorable man will be the death of you.

-----

You cringe as the door to the apartment slams shut behind you. The wind had kicked up over the past half-hour, and while the door needed some extra force to shut it, you had overestimated just how much extra. Thus, the slam. Normally, Yoongi would have yelled at you, but he’s working double duty at the station because of the storm, making sure that travelers are getting where they want to go in a safe and relatively timely manner.

If Taehyung heard the door slam, he doesn’t seem to care. Though, you doubt that he had heard it at all. Tae had entered a self-imposed sabbatical almost two weeks ago, attempting to finish his song. He seems to have placed an arbitrary deadline on it, and he’s determined to meet that goal.

“How’s it going?” you ask softly, hanging up your coat and scarf on the hook by the door. They were gifts from Yoongi at the start of the winter. Something to help you to survive if you’re going to keep working for him at the bar.

Taehyung doesn’t even look up from his notebook at the sound of your voice. He sits at the small piano in the corner of the living room, brows furrowed, staring at the pages of scribbles he had been working on for the past few days. He’d been in the same place when you’d left for the bar.

You nod, walking into the kitchen and pulling a glass down from the cabinet over the sink. “It’s starting to get bad out there,” you say absently, watching out the window as you fill the glass with water. And it is. You can see the wind blowing snow flurries perpendicular to the ground. Snowing sideways, your mom had called it.

You glance at the cupboards as you walk back into the living room, briefly opening up the refrigerator to check out the situation. “We need food,” you tell Taehyung as you sit the glass of water down beside his piano. “And we’re starting to run low on firewood.” Luckily, Yoongi had stocked the apartment with wood for the fireplace before the storm had gotten too bad, but those supplies are starting to dwindle now that he hardly has time to come home.

“It’s right there,” he mumbles, and though you suspect he’s talking more to himself than to you, you can’t help but respond.

“What?”

“The melody. It’s right there. It’s like it’s just been… forgotten.” He scribbles something more down into his notebook. “That’s why the seasons are all messed up. But it’s right there, just out of reach. It won’t get better until we remember.”

“Then you’d better finish it quick.” You push his hair back and lean in, placing a delicate kiss to his forehead. He hums briefly and squeezes your hand. “I’m going to run out and get some firewood and maybe swing by the pantry to see if I can get some supplies to hold us over until Yoongi comes back.”

But he’s gone again, his attention back to his notebook and the 88 keys in front of him. You sigh and nod, returning to the hook by the door to grab your coat and scarf. You want to have faith in him. You want to believe he’s right, and that the song he’s working on can fix things.

“Okay, you finish it,” you tell him, knowing full well he isn’t paying attention. “I’ll be back soon.”

And so you step back out into the biting wind and freezing cold. You pull your coat tighter, flipping your collar up to attempt to shield your neck from the snow. The public pantry is further away, so you turn in that direction, going mostly on instinct because it’s nearly impossible to see with all the snow that’s falling.

You walk for about 20 minutes before stopping. You should have reached the pantry already. But there’s a large open lot beside it. Yoongi said it was an old field for playing sports--an old football field, he had said, and a baseball field beside it. You know the field is to the left of the pantry, so you turn to the right and begin to walk again, the snow getting tougher to trudge through, and the visibility continues to worsen as you go.

You’re confused. There’s no way you had gotten this far off-track. The town isn’t that difficult to navigate, and you should have come across some building by now, even if it isn’t the communal pantry. Instead, you’re still in the middle of a snow-covered field, the blizzard raging on around you. You turn around in an attempt to follow your steps back in the direction you came.

Unfortunately, your footprints are gone, already covered by the snow.

“You’re resourceful,” a voice behind you says, the howling of the wind calming as if commanded.

You spin around, coming face to face with a young man. He looks to be Taehyung’s age, maybe slightly older, his dark hair neatly styled and combed back off his forehead. He wears a white collared shirt under a smartly tailored suit jacket and a woollen double-breasted coat, a pair of lined leather gloves on his hands.

“Are you lost, little songbird?” His voice is deep and warm, and you find yourself drawn to him, taking a few steps forward. At your silence, he smirks, and you can see the stars dancing in his eyes as dimples press into his cheeks. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“I was trying to get to the pantry,” you manage, taking another step forward. And then another. Until you’re standing directly in front of him.

“You’re going to freeze to death out here.” He pouts, reaching out to rub your arms, creating some friction and heat. His touch isn’t even direct, but you can feel the warmth in him, like he’s made of fire. “You’re going to the pantry? Why?”

“We’re running low on food.”

He hums and nods sagely. “That’s no good. Pretty little songbirds like you don’t deserve to suffer.”

You feel your cheeks heat at his words and pray that if he notices you’re flushed, he assumes it’s from the cold. You have no idea why he’s affecting you like this. Normally, you would walk away by now. But something about this man’s aura draws you in.

“I’ve seen you around,” he says, adjusting the hat on your head. It’s Taehyung’s beanie. You borrowed it to keep your ears warm. “You have a good head on your shoulders. Smart. Resourceful. You’d do well as a manager. Have you ever thought of working in a factory or a warehouse?”

“No, I… I’ve never really been one to put down roots.” You have no idea why you’re telling him that.

“Shame. I think you’d be good at it. And it’s a good job, you know? Steady income. Guaranteed housing. Meal vouchers provided by the company.”

“Which company?”

“Mine.” He flashes you a wide smile, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. The sight of it warms you from the inside. “Think about it, okay? When you have nothing to lose, you’ll be welcome.” He digs into his pockets and pulls out a slip of paper. “Take the train to the end of the line. I’ll be waiting.”

With that, the snow and wind pick up so harshly you have to shield your face. When it calms down seconds later, you’re standing in front of the public pantry, and the man is gone.

-----

Two days pass, and you can’t get the beautiful man with the captivating aura out of your head. He hadn’t said much, but he was charismatic, and you couldn’t help but hang on his words. He had said you were smart and resourceful. No one had ever complimented you like that before. It threw you off, but you can’t help but admit that it had made your heart soar a little.

It was nice to feel wanted.

Taehyung is still working on his song when you walk into the living room in the morning. It seems like he never moved. He’s always sitting at the piano, staring at his notebook. Sometimes, he’ll move to the couch, but he never leaves the living room, never looks up from his notebook.

You know his song is important, know he has to finish it to send it off, and truly, you know that when he does, it could save you all, even Yoongi. But at the same time, you have concerns. Things were so different in the summertime. It was supposed to be the two of you: birds of a feather. You were supposed to weather the storms together.

And yet…

You sigh, looking into the cupboards to try to find something small. You’re starving. The pantry wasn’t able to help nearly as much as you hoped, and it’s hard trying to feed both you and Taehyung on the meagre leftovers in Yoongi’s cabinets. You hoped he would’ve been home by now to help--he always seemed to be able to help find food--but the storm hadn’t let up and he’s still out there making sure mail gets delivered and travelers arrive at their destinations safely.

“We’re going to need food again soon.” You say it loud enough that you know he can hear you, but whether it registers or not, you have no idea.

You watch him work, watch as he taps one of the piano keys repeatedly as he thinks, the sharp ‘tink tink tink’ of the note permeating the otherwise silent living room. After a moment, it becomes clear that he didn’t, in fact, heard you, and you feel the annoyance and hurt flare inside you.

You’re angry at yourself most of all. You could have left. You could have gone somewhere else, found a job--a good paying job where the owner wouldn’t forget to pay you because he’s out playing postmaster and barkeep and stationmaster all at the same time--found shelter and food and safety for the winter. But instead, you had followed your heart for once.

And look where that got you.

Your mind drifts once again to the mysterious stranger and his promises. You have no idea if he would keep them, but anything is better than starving to death. You want to stay--it almost physically hurts you to think of leaving--but you can’t ignore the ache in your stomach or the chill in your bones.

“Tae?” you try softly, walking into the living room and stopping in front of the piano. “Taehyung?” Your tone is sharp in an attempt to get his attention. But he doesn’t look up. He simply hums in a brief acknowledgement. “I’m going out.” The words leave your mouth before you even really know what you’re saying. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Or if.”

He plays another note on the piano.

You turn away, not wanting him to see your heart breaking. As you grab your coat off the hook on the wall, the paper the mysterious stranger had given you flutters to the ground from your pocket. You pick it up and examine it one last time.

It’s gold, but it doesn’t glitter. The writing on it is neat, if a little smudged, as though placed there by an old-fashioned stamper and inkpad.

No charge.

One-way.

VIP.

Your fingers tremble as you stuff the ticket back into your pocket. With one last glance at Taehyung scribbling in his notebook, hair falling into his eyes despite his headband, eyes and jaw set in concentration, you’re gone.

-----

The factory floor is quiet. The only sounds come from the machines. You sit at your workstation, your eyes strained from watching the repetitiveness of the assembly line. You tried to talk to some of your coworkers the other day. Or was it yesterday? Last week? You can’t remember.

It doesn’t matter. None of them answered you, anyway.

Outside, the shift whistle blows, and you stretch your arms above your head, hearing your joints pop and crack from sitting still for the past however many hours. Your shifts always seem to fly, you can hardly remember what you do during them.

However, despite your fast shifts, you aren’t really sure what it is you make. The factory is huge, encompassing at least five huge buildings the lengths of city blocks. The parts you’re responsible for are small, unidentifiable, made out of metal and a bit of plastic. You don’t even know what they are, let alone what they’re used for. But thousands of them pass by you daily as you make sure they sit upright on the conveyor.

You find yourself wandering through the park just outside of your apartment complex. You aren’t quite sure why, but the park always seemed to draw you in. You love the view from the bench in front of the fountain. The way you can see the buildings peeking out over the tops of the trees makes you feel sentimental in the weirdest way, though you can’t quite put your finger on it.

Along the path through the park blooms flowers in the most brilliant shade of red you’ve ever seen. Sometimes, if you look at them too long, you’re overwhelmed by a sense of melancholy, but you have no idea why. You’ve never seen flowers like that in your life.

There are times where, if you close your eyes, you can almost see yourself somewhere warm and bright. Someone is always at your side. You can never quite make out their face, only how your heart speeds up when they look at you. You’d been in the city for months–you can’t remember how many exactly–and these daydreams don’t look like they happen in the city. Maybe they’re premonitions, or some sort of deja vu.

You hope so. Daydream you always seems so happy.

You’re sitting on your bench in the park after your shift one day when you hear someone speak far off behind you. It makes you jump slightly. You haven’t heard someone speak in… the factory foreman had said something recently, but you hadn’t really paid attention to what he said. So when the voice behind you speaks again and comes closer, you turn to investigate.

The man that approaches you is handsome, if not a little eccentric. His shirt is half-tucked into his pants, and the sweater he’s wearing is too big and very thin. His dark hair bounces as he lightly jogs in your direction. As he gets closer, his smile widens, his dark eyes sparkling with joy.

He speaks again, baritone voice soft and full of emotion. It’s a name he’s calling. Is that… your name? How does he know your name?

“I can’t believe I found you!” he says excitedly, his hands capturing your own as soon as he’s close enough. “Yoongi said it could take forever, but I’ve only been down here a few days. I… I can’t believe it’s you!”

He pulls you to him then, arms wrapping around your waist tightly. You’re confused, but you find yourself hugging him back. He feels skinny--too skinny--and his face is a little sunken-in and dirty, like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. There’s something about him that’s familiar, but…

“I’m sorry,” you say softly when he pulls away. His eyes dart around your face as he holds you at arm’s length. It’s almost like he’s inspecting you. “I… Do I know you?”

For a moment, his eyes light up and he laughs, a gentle guffaw that pulls at your heartstrings in a way that sets your mind–and pulse–racing. But then, it seems, he realizes you aren’t joking. You watch, unable to do anything as his heart breaks right in front of your eyes.

The way he whispers your name, halfway between a prayer and a plea, convinces you. Even if you don’t know him, he certainly knows you. No one sounds that broken over a complete stranger.

“Who…” you try tentatively. There’s no way this won’t be awkward. But you want to know more about him. You’re oddly drawn to him, like you’d known him in some other life. “Who are you?”

“Taehyung.” His voice is barely audible. His fingers twitch, and you get the sense that he wants to pull you in for a hug again and it’s taking a tremendous effort to not.

Why does his name sound so familiar? You’re certain you’ve never seen him before.

“I can’t leave without you.” He sounds determined, confident, like he’d walked halfway through hell to find you. And, well… perhaps he sort of had.

But that’s crazy. You don’t know him.

“Come home with me,” the man–Taehyung–pleads, reaching for your hand. You let him take it.

“I can’t.” For some reason, it makes you sad. You know it in your gut. Even if you do know him, there’s no way you can leave the city.

“You can, though. I know the way. We just have to go back the way I came down. Yoongi told me about it. I don’t know how he knew, but-”

“You’re not from around here, are you, boy?” You have no idea when the man in front of you appeared. The air smells of ash and sulfur, and all of a sudden, it’s hot.

Immediately, you freeze, and you find yourself squeezing Taehyung’s hand. You haven’t seen the man since you’d signed the contract, but down here, he had a reputation for being no-nonsense. When he’s in a good mood, Namjoon looks harmless. But when he’s angry, he’s downright terrifying. And judging by his set jaw and hard eyes, he’s pretty angry. Beside you, Taehyung stiffens, standing up straighter.

“I don’t know who the hell you are, but the little songbird is a law-abiding citizen. You should go back to where you belong.”

“Taehyung, you should go,” you whisper, dropping his hand and taking a step away.

He turns to you, dark eyes sad when they meet yours. “I’m not leaving without you.”

Namjoon laughs, loud and boisterous and dark. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” he asks, taking a step forward. “Don’t you think she would have left already if she could? She signed on the dotted line. She’s here forever now.”

“What?” Taehyung’s attention darts back and forth between you and Namjoon. “That’s not true. Is it?”

You sigh, avoiding his eyes. “I did what I had to.”

Namjoon’s jaw clenches, and he motions for you to head back into the factory. “Heed my advice, boy. It would be in your best interest to leave. I won’t ask twice.”

A swirl of shadow. The smell of sulfur and ash. And Namjoon is gone.

It takes a few moments, but eventually, the tension leaves your body. Beside you, Taehyung visibly relaxes before he lowers himself to the ground in a defeated huff. For a second, you watch him, unsure of what to do. You still don’t remember him, but he’d come a long way, and for that, you feel bad.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, voice soft.

“No, it’s… it’s not your fault.” For the briefest moments, he stares down at his hands, but then he looks at you, dark eyes big and sad. “What happened?”

You shrug, kick at a rock on the ground and watch it skitter across the pavement before you crouch next to him. “I don’t remember,” you admit sadly. “But there’s this contract. I signed it. I… He made such pretty promises.”

You don’t remember what they were, exactly, but you remember the way Namjoon’s eyes glistened as he spoke, the way his dimple pressed into his cheek as he promised you whatever it took to get you here.

Taehyung hums, his head hanging low. “This is my fault.”

Your heart breaks at the sadness in his voice, at how disappointed in himself he sounds. Part of you wants to comfort him, to tell him that no, it’s not his fault. He did his best. This is just a shitty situation and a powerful man chose you to manipulate and deceive. But you don’t. Because you don’t know how true any of that is.

Something inside of you says that it’s not as true as you’d like.

He grows quiet. All you hear is the factories around you. The next shift has started. You should be in there with them. You wonder if anyone has even noticed that you’re missing. Absently, Taehyung picks at the grass, and something stirs in the back of your mind. A memory, though it feels almost like it belongs to someone else. Taehyung and you laying in the grass on the bank of a river, the sound of a train in the distance.

“Can I show you something?” he asks, and silently, you nod.

He clears his throat and begins to quietly sing. His voice is beautiful, a delicate baritone that nimbly, delicately touches on each note. He’s in full control, eyes closed, hands folded in his lap, a master at work showing you the melody that lives in his mind.

You can’t deny that the song is beautiful, a haunting acapella that moves you the way a psalm might move a priest. You feel it in your heart more than you hear it, his voice so soft that you really aren’t even sure that you’re hearing it properly at all. It wraps you up, gentle cocoon around your broken heart, and you feel it trying to heal what it finds there. You find something swelling within you. Something akin to pride.

You have no idea why you react this way. But you want to. You want to remember.

“That’s beautiful,” you tell Taehyung when he’s finished. And for a second, he looks at you, a hardness in his eyes that you can only describe as determination.

He leans in, lips gently brushing your forehead, before he stands. “Come with me,” he says cryptically, offering you his hand.

You take it without question.

-----

You’re uneasy. The path is dark--you can barely see Taehyung walking in front of you. He’s just far enough that you can’t reach out and touch him, but close enough that you can easily follow behind. But the soft dirt below your feet muffles your steps as you go, so it’s too quiet. Thus, your unease.

The path is barely wide enough for a person to pass through, and it slopes upward fairly steeply. You have no idea how long you’ve been walking, only that the longer you walk, the lighter you feel. You hadn’t noticed it in the Underworld, but the fog that seems to surround your thoughts and memories parts more and more the closer to the surface you get. By now, you remember almost everything--Yoongi, the bar, your past, everything.

But most of all, you remember Taehyung. And you remember fully why you left.

You want to call him, to tell him that you forgive him, to tell him that you’re so proud of him for finally finishing his song. But you don’t dare. You refuse to do anything to jeopardize your future. Namjoon has given you one chance. You doubt he’d give you a second.

The stones on either side of the path are damp and oddly shaped, and they’re difficult to use as hand-holds when the path gets too steep. But you hang on anyway because the other option is to stumble and fall flat on your face.

In front of you, Taehyung trudges on. You can tell he isn’t happy about the situation just from the visible tension in his back, but there isn’t anything he can do about it. He walks quickly, but not too quick so as not to lose you. His hands are stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, his broad shoulders set against the chill of the underground path.

“Go. Before I change my mind,” Namjoon says, turning his back on you.

You have no idea what Taehyung said to change the man’s mind. Maybe it was his persistence. Maybe you caught Namjoon at a good time. Maybe he just liked Tae’s song. A combination of all of the above and more. None of it at all. But you can’t believe what you’re hearing.

“How?” Taehyung asks, his grip on your hand tightening.

Namjoon sighs. “You’ll walk. You know the way well enough to lead, don’t you?” He sounds exhausted. “You lead. She’ll follow. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your eyes on the road ahead. If you don’t, well… maybe it really was her time to go.”

“It’s a trick.” Taehyung sounds angry.

“It’s a trial. One you’ll do well to pass if you want to make it out of here alive.” Namjoon rubs his eyes. “You test my patience. Leave. Or regret it.”

You stumble as the path slopes upwards more steeply, your hand reaching out for the rock. You must have made some sort of noise, because Taehyung pauses. You can see him fighting himself, refusing to turn around.

“Are you okay?” he calls back. When you don’t answer, he grunts but continues walking. “I hope you’re still back there,” he mumbles.

That’s the hardest part about this trek. You can hear him talking to himself. Sometimes, he hums his song, and you can hear the soft echoes off the stones in the passage. But mostly, the long stretches of silence are interrupted by Taehyung’s whispers to himself.

“Only a little further.”

“I hope you’re still back there.”

“Gods, I’m so stupid.”

“Please still be back there.”

Suddenly up ahead, you can see a speck of something bright. It’s only a pin-prick in size, but it grows steadily the more you climb. You find yourself pushing yourself to walk faster, attempting to match Taehyung’s speed as he practically runs up the slope.

And then he stops, and you stop, almost walking straight into his back. The mouth of the cave is just a large hole in the ground, like some gaping maw prepared to swallow someone whole. You recognize the area vaguely as being along the railroad tracks just past the station.

You breathe deeply. The air is still a little frigid, but it has that smell to it, like it could turn warm at any moment. You try to remember what month it was. March? Maybe April? You had gotten on the train in early September. Has it really been six months?

Before you know it, Taehyung’s arms are around you, catching you mid-step and forcing you to take a step backward. You hold him, allowing yourself to get lost in him for a moment. He’s warm, and he smells like dirt and wood and lavender.

“I missed you,” he says, pulling you impossibly closer.

Pulling away slightly, your hands find his face, cupping his jaw tenderly. “I’m sorry,” you say earnestly.

Tae hums, offering you a wide, boxy smile. “You’re safe now.” His hands grip your shirt at your waist. “Plus, I’m the one that should be apologizing. I let you down. I got too focused on my song, I forgot why I was in a hurry to finish it in the first place.”

A tug on your ankle draws your attention, and you try to glance down subtly to see what’s happening. But Taehyung’s grip on you is tight, and he notices you shifting. His eyes fall to your feet, one of which is firmly planted on the frozen ground of the mortal world. Your other foot is still in the soft dirt of the path from the Underworld.

Shadows are already starting to creep up your ankle.

“No,” Taehyung says firmly, trying to tug you forward. “No we made it. That’s not fair.”

You shake your head, your foot not budging. “Apparently not.” The shadows slowly grow, engulfing more of your leg.

Taehyung pulls you to him, then, his arms wrapping tightly around your waist. “I’ll come find you again. I’ll sing my song for Namjoon. He’ll have to let you go.”

You sigh, your hands balling in the fabric of his jacket. “I love you,” you whisper. And you do. You realized it while climbing out of the Underworld. He’s the one who had been in your daydreams down below, he had been the happiness you had been missing.

He kisses you, then, tenderly but desperately. You let yourself melt into it, one hand finding purchase in his hair. You want to remember him, to commit this moment to your memory so that even when you do inevitably forget him, you’ll remember how he made you feel. The happiness, the joy, the love. Even the frustration. Because of course, that was part of it. You love him so much that you did get frustrated with him.

Your neck is cold, and you know it’s the shadows, swirling and trying to pull you back down. Taehyung’s eyes are wide when he pulls away, and they glisten in the midday sun. He blinks quickly, and you can tell he’s trying not to cry.

“Wait for me?” he asks softly, brushing your hair back and kissing you lightly on the forehead.

“I always will.”

Taehyung offers you a sad smile just before the shadows overtake you. In a second, he’s standing alone, the smell of ash and sulfur in the air.

#taehyung #taehyung x reader #bts taehyung #bts taehyung x reader #kth #bts fic #taehyung angst #bts taehyung angst #taehyung fic #taehyung fanfic #bts angst #bts x reader

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sequinsmile-x · 1 day

Text

Bezel

He couldn't fix or change her past, but he could give her this.

-x-

Hi friends,

As we all know, I have a very famous lack of control. The lovely @eyesontheskyline posted a gif set and made a comment about Emily's giant watch in 2x20, my mind went haywire and once again here we are.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this - please let me know what you think <3

-x-

Words: 3.5k

Warnings: Mentions/references to loss of a parent

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Emily sighs contently as she takes a sip of her beer, the coolness of it removing any last bits of tension in her shoulders that the case they’d resolved had created.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

She turns her head to look at Aaron and smiles as their eyes meet, his eyes soft in a way they rarely were outside of either of their homes or the hotel rooms they shared. There was something strangely empowering about him looking at her like that in front of their friends and it warms her from the inside out. She nods and reaches for his hand that is slung over her shoulders, linking their fingers together as she leans in to kiss him, the taste of the scotch he was drinking passing from his lips to hers. She smiles into the kiss when she hears the others groan, making a point of deepening it for a moment before she pulls away, squeezing his hand tightly as she leans in further to his side.

“Okay, we get it, you guys are adorable,” Dave says dryly, a fond glint in his eyes as they both turn to look at him, “I think I preferred it when you two were pretending not to like each other.”

“I didn’t,” Penelope says, her glee at seeing them together obvious, her entire body practically vibrating with it. Her gaze drifts to Emily’s bare wrist and her smile drops, the corners of her lips turning downwards into a slight pout, “Sorry about your watch, Peaches.”

Emily looks at her wrist, her bare skin peeking out from underneath the sleeve of her shirt. Her watch had been damaged during the takedown of the unsub, the glass face of it smashed against the wall as he tried to evade arrest and shoved her out of his way. She’d cried out when it happened, more in shock at being pushed than anything else, her worst injury a slight graze of her palm against the brick wall, but it had been enough for Aaron to overreact. Her usually reserved and stoic boyfriend had briefly forgotten where they were and gone out of his way to make sure she was okay, barrelling into the room she was in as if he’d heard a gunshot, accidentally revealing their relationship to the team as he checked her over for injuries that didn’t exist.

It was why she’d allowed herself to get dragged into going for drinks with the team when all she wanted to really do was snuggle up with Aaron in his bed or hers. The news had travelled fast and Penelope had called her before the unsub was even in the back of a cop car, demanding they all went out when they landed back in DC because she wanted to see them. Aaron had been hesitant, his embarrassment at overreacting clear, but Emily had talked him into it. Her smile and a promise of later enough to convince him a few drinks with their friends was a good thing.

They’d told them what they wanted to hear, answering their friend's questions in a way that still allowed them to keep their privacy. Emily felt a certain sense of pride blooming in her chest when they told them they’d been together 8 weeks without anyone noticing, although Dave claimed to have known the entire time. Even though Emily knew they would both miss their relationship just being for them, she liked sharing it with the people she cared about. It made it feel impossibly more real - the three words she hadn’t said outloud yet, the three he hadn’t said either, on the tip of her tongue.

“Oh, that’s okay,” she says, smiling as her gaze drifts to where her hand is linked with Aaron’s for a second before she looks back up at her friends, “It wasn’t expensive. I have plenty of others”

“Are you talking you expensive, or regular person expensive, Princess?” Derek asks, hiding a grin behind his beer, “Because those are two different things.”

She laughs humourlessly as she makes a point of rolling her eyes. She makes eye contact with Penelope again and sighs when she sees that she still seems worried, a crease between her brows that lets Emily know her friend is still thinking about the smashed watch in her go-bag.

“I mean it, Pen,” she assures her, “It’s just a watch, it’s not like held any great sentimental value.”

There’s something about the way she says it that makes Aaron pause, his brows furrowing for just a second as he looks down at her, a smile still fixed on her face as she carries on talking to Penelope. Emily had always been very purposeful with everything she’d ever said. She’d been taught at an early age that words mattered, that everything had weight to it. She was never calculated, but she never said anything she didn’t mean, so it makes him curious and leaves him wondering if she meant that she did have a watch that held sentimental value. He files it away for later, sure that whatever it was it was something she wouldn’t want to share with the team.

When they get back to his apartment, it’s late. They shower together, their laughter and muffled groans lost under the roar of the water, neither one of them wanting to wake Jack up by mistake. By the time they climb into bed, Emily is tired, her body relaxed and sated as she crawls half on top of him, her eyes already closed as she relaxes into his embrace. He hauls her closer and smiles as she giggles, a sound she’d deny if he ever brought it up, her hand fisted in his t-shirt as she anchors herself to him.

“Can I ask you something?” He asks, his lips against her forehead as he trails his hand up and down her back. She hums as she settles further into his embrace, her arm over his waist and her leg over his hips.

“Always,” she murmurs, turning her head just enough to kiss his chest, “But make it quick, the combination of the beer and your magic touch is sending me to sleep.”

Aaron chuckles and kisses her forehead, taking a moment to breathe her in before he asks the question he’d been thinking of since they were in the bar, “Earlier, you said the watch you broke today wasn’t sentimental. Does that mean you have one that is?”

A part of her wonders if she should be annoyed that he noticed, that he was so good at his job it bled into their personal lives, but she can’t bring herself to be. Instead, she realises she wants to tell him, that she wants to reveal another part of herself to him simply because he’d asked.

“Do you remember that big watch I had?” She asks, her gaze locked on the wall of his bedroom, “It had a leather strap, the face of it was wider than my wrist.”

He nods before realising she isn’t looking at him, “I remember.”

“It was my dad’s watch. When he died…” she clears her throat and presses her lips together, giving herself a moment before she carries on, “My mom gave it to me. I kept it and one day I couldn’t find my watch so I wore it to work,” she lifts her head to look up at him, her hands on his chest as she rests her chin on them, “It was huge on me. Big and impractical and so obviously not made for me,” she chuckles, “But it made me feel weirdly close to him. Which probably sounds insane.”

“It doesn’t,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, smiling encouragingly at her as she leans into the touch, “It doesn’t sound insane at all,” he assures her and her response is to turn her head to kiss his palm, “What happened to it?”

He’d picked up on how she was talking about it in the past tense, had seen the wistful look in her eyes as she thought about the watch. She smiles sadly and slips one of her hands into his, pressing their palms together to test the size difference.

There was something comforting about how big he was in comparison to her, something about it that made her feel safe. She didn’t need him to protect her, didn’t need him to hold her together, but she wanted him to. She wanted to share things with him that she’d never shared with anyone because she knew nothing would scare him off. He’d seen the very worst of her and he was still here, he still wanted to know more.

“It was sold with everything else when I died,” she says carefully, making sure to link their fingers together as she says it, hoping the way she squeezes his hand lets him know she doesn’t blame him, his guilt for making that decision for her still lingering every time it was mentioned, “I was surprised Mother didn’t take it - she was the one who got it for him. But…she had all my things sold,” she smiles sadly, a shaky breath slipping past her lips as she thinks about it. About how her mother had all but wiped any memory of her from the face of the earth. She knew it was likely a defence mechanism, a way of dealing with the fact her only child was dead, but Emily liked to think if it had been her she’d have made a different decision.

Aaron drags her in for a quick kiss, his hand on her cheek as he encourages her closer to him, unable to bear to not kiss her any longer, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You deserved better than that.”

She smiles and kisses him, letting her lips linger against his for a moment longer than necessary as she tries to convince herself that he’s right, drawing the comfort from him that only he had ever truly been able to provide.

“I never understood their relationship. They loved each other, just not in the way I ever wanted to love someone,” she says, looking down at his chest again, at the random patterns she was drawing on his shirt as she willfully ignores the fact they hadn’t told each other how they felt yet. The words unspoken but felt in everything they did for each other, a gentle kind of love they both thought was beyond them, “Mom got Dad the watch for his 40th birthday. It had this engraving on the back of it - See You in Paris,” she smiles sadly as she sighs, “It was their favourite place. It’s where I always remember them being at their happiest.”

“Paris?”

She laughs, an edge of bitterness to it as she nods, “Yeah, Paris,” she says, her eyebrow raised as she looks at him, “The universe has a sense of humour apparently.”

There’s so much he wants to say, an apology he knows she won’t accept trapped in his chest as he stares at her, but in the end he settles on kissing her, pulling back just enough to speak as he rests his forehead against hers.

“Thank you for telling me.”

She smiles, familiar love for him burning in her chest, desperately trying to escape as she presses her lips together to hold it in place, still worried it was too soon to say anything.

“Thank you for asking,” she replies quietly, kissing him once more before she rests her head on his chest, sighing contentedly as he wraps his arms around her. He immediately re-starts running his hand up and down her back, the warmth of him drawing her in, making her feel heavy and light in equal measure, “Goodnight, honey.”

He hides a smile in her hairline as she yawns and he kisses her forehead, “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

He lays there as she falls asleep against him, an idea forming in his mind before he joins her, his grip on her never loosening.

___

Aaron pauses outside Penelope’s office, his hand frozen in place as he hesitates to knock, wondering if he is making the right decision. Before he can talk himself out of it the door swings open and Penelope shrieks, her eyes wide as she places her hand on her chest.

“Sir, sorry,” she says, clearing her throat before she steps back to let him into her office, “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“That’s okay,” he says as he closes the door behind him, “I wanted to ask you something-”

“If this is about the checks I did on Henry’s school, I was only checking if-”

“No, it’s not about…” he frowns as he trails off, raising his eyebrow at her, “Should it be about that?”

She shakes her head, “No definitely not,” she says, taking a seat at her desk, “How can I help?”

He sighs, scratching the back of his head, hesitancy he doesn’t like washing over him, “If I ask you to look for something for me, can it just be between us?”

Penelope’s eyes go wide, the idea of being in on a secret exciting her, “Of course,” she says, before she gasps, her eyes somehow even wider, “Is this Emily related?”

He hides a groan as he shoves his hands into his pockets, “Yes.”

Penelope covers her mouth, physically holding her excitement in as she shifts closer to him on her chair, “Oh my god, are you going to propose?” She asks, and he glares at her, his stern gaze forcing her to calm down, “Okay, no proposal…yet,” she says, “How can I help?”

“When Emily…” he clears his throat, “When she died all of the things in her estate were sold on in an auction. Do you think you could track one of those things down for me?”

He sees the flash of pain across her face, how she struggles to push it away before she nods, “Just tell me what you need bossman, and I’ll find it.”

He smiles gratefully at her and pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket, all of the details about the watch written down on it, “And remember-”

“Not a word of this to Peaches or anyone else,” she says as she takes the piece of paper from him, a sense of determination overtaking her as she turns back to her computer, and he knows this is one secret Penelope Garcia will keep.

___

“Are you sure I can’t help with anything?” Emily asks, smiling as Aaron meets her eyes from where he’s standing. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, giving her a delicious hint of his forearms, the muscles shifting under his skin from where he’s washing dishes.

“I’m all done, sweetheart,” he says, reaching for a dish towel and drying off his hands, “Do you need more wine?”

She shakes her head and grumbles, “What I need is my boyfriend to come over here and make out with me.”

He chuckles and nods, pulling one of the drawers in his kitchen open, blowing out a quick breath before he lifts the large jewellery box out from where he’d hidden it under a towel. The search for the watch had been a little tricker than he’d hoped. In the last couple of weeks, he’d almost given up hope, and at times he’d only been bolstered by Penelope’s seemingly unending optimism that she’d find it. When she did she’d called him, her excitement so loud Emily had heard her from his phone while standing on the other side of the room. He’d brushed off her curiosity and was grateful when she didn’t ask any further questions. The nerves he’d felt when he first thought of doing this for her return in full throttle as he walks over to the couch, a piece of her history gripped firmly in his hand.

“Before we get to that,” he says, sitting next to her, holding the box out so she can see it, “I got you something.”

She hums curiously and sits up straight, placing her glass of wine down before she takes the box from him, “I haven’t forgotten our 10-week anniversary or something have I?”

He chuckles and shakes his head, his hand heavy and warm on her thigh, “Is that a thing?”

She shrugs, “If it is, I owe you a blow…” she drifts off, her joke dying in her throat as she opens the box, her mouth hanging open as he looks at the watch. She chokes on a laugh as she looks between him and the watch, words escaping her for a moment as she shakes her head, the conversation they’d had a couple of weeks ago coming back to her, “They don’t even make this model anymore.”

Aaron squeezes her thigh as he watches her run her finger over the bezel, her touch delicate as if she’d damage the steel, “It’s not a duplicate sweetheart,” he says gently, his smile soft as she looks up at him, her eyes shining, “It’s your dad’s.”

She frowns as she pulls the watch out of the box and turns it over, her breath catching in her chest as she looks at the engraving on the back, as if she hadn’t quite believed him until she saw it.

See You In Paris

She presses her thumb into it, and feels the dips and curves of the metal, a habit she’d picked up when her mother first gave it to her. One of the few ways she felt close to her father after she lost him. She looks up at Aaron, her vision blurry as tears push at the back of her eyes.

“Aaron…” she breathes out, his name caught on a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, “How did you find this?”

He shrugs as if it’s nothing, as if he hasn’t just given her back a piece of herself she thought was lost, “I asked Garcia to help,” he says, smiling when her eyes get wider, “She found the guy who bought it and I bought it back from him.”

She holds the watch tightly as if it would disappear and presses it against her chest. She closes her eyes and blows out a shaky breath. She places her other hand over her mouth, her fingers pressed against her lips as she tries to gather herself, her nerves shot at the unexpected kindness and love he’d shown her.

He watches her carefully, his eyes fixed on her face as she sits perfectly still, the watch grasped against her chest and her eyes screwed shut. Anxiety bubbles in his gut and he squeezes her leg, “Sweetheart, if this was a bad idea-”

“I love you,” she says, her eyes flying open as she cuts over him. Tears splash down onto her cheeks as she laughs and shakes her head. She looks at the watch and then back at him, her spare hand cupping his cheek as she drags him into a kiss, “This is…this is the best thing anyone has ever done for me. And I love you so much.”

He smiles and hugs her close, her hand with the watch still clasped in it pressed in between them. He kisses her temple and then her cheek before he tilts her head up to kiss him.

“I love you too,” he replies, kissing her again, “I love you.”

She laughs, the sound wet as it sticks in her throat, and he wipes some tears from her cheeks, “Thank you,” she says, the words not feeling anywhere close to enough as she rests her forehead against his, “This is…” she blows out a shaky breath, “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead, “I can’t give you the 7 months you lost back,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “And I can’t undo anything you’ve been through,” he wraps his hand around the one holding the watch, “But I can do this.”

She shakes her head at him and rests her cheek on his shoulder, “I love you,” she says again, the words she’d been afraid of saying for weeks suddenly the only thing she could say, slipping past her lips with ease now she’d said them.

“I love you too,” he repeats, running his hand up and down her back. She sinks into his embrace, her eyes closed as she breathes him in.

“I can’t believe Pen didn’t let it slip,” she says as she pulls back, wiping her cheeks, “She’s terrible with secrets.”

He laughs loudly, the sound reverberating around them and he nods, “Well, I think I won’t be so lucky if I get her to help me propose when the time comes.”

She presses her lips together to stop her smile from getting any wider, the thought of marrying him, even this early on in their relationship, not scaring her as she knows it would with anyone else, “I think she might surprise you.”

When they get married 18 months later, Aaron wears her father’s watch, the weight of it against his wrist feeling like a promise as he watches Emily walk towards him.

-x-

I think I might have to add 'watch' to the list of inanimate objects I've made emotional thanks to these two...

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