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soapoet · 7 months

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A letter from your future spouse

like & rb if it resonates ♡

01.

Hello,

You must be up to something, because I cannot get you off my mind. Day and night you haunt me. I type away on my computer, answer phone calls, and I could swear I saw you in the corner of my eyes. At night as I begin to drift, I hear your voice and jolt up, only to be met with an empty room entirely void of you. When you're really here with me in the flesh, I look at you only when you look away. Will I be punished for these stolen glances? You and I, are we forbidden, and if so, who will be the judge?

I thought my life was stable, and in many ways it was. Though it was painted grey, dull. I lived dreary mondays every day of the week. I chased after new experiences, new achievements, new opportunities, new things. New, new, new, new. But it was not until you walked into my life that I truly felt the warmth of the sun and the rain on my skin. Was I colour blind all along? Because you show me colours I never even knew existed. You were truly new. A new light in my life that shines so brightly, but never hurts my eyes. Still I look away. It's not proper, is it? I've been caught up in the crossfire, amidst a battle between head and heart. You're in my heart, you have it in your hands, but didn't I say you are constantly on my mind too? It seems then, my dear, that this battle has a victor, and now I must prcoeed to gather up the courage to speak what I've so carefully kept hidden.

Oh, but you're so observant. You already know. You knew all along, didn't you? You so innocently sat there, knowing I'm a moth to the flame, and that come hail or shine I would find my way to you. You're a mastermind. An architect, the keeper of the blueprint to our tale. I am in awe of you. You were supposed to be a problem, a silly crush I could get over and never act upon, but now I'm thinking of things borrowed and blue. The first day that I saw you lightning struck. It marked the beginning of the end for many things in my life which I had kept around because it was fine. Not perfect, just fine. Suddenly I saw all the cracks and flaws, saw that which I would tolerate, go along with, even when I really didn't want to. You shook me to my core. In many ways, you ruined my life. For the better, I am sure. But for a moment there I wondered what horrors you had unleashed upon me. With your face so sweet and innocent I thought surely you would be unable to trigger earthquakes. And that even if you could, surely you were much too sweet and much too kind to do such thing.

Yet here I stand, amidst the rubble of what I used to call my life. Everything came crashing down because none of it was as stable as it should've been. I'm rebuilding, slowly, and could use some guidance or inspiration. What's your favourite colour? Would you like these tiles for the kitchen? I want to build my life up to look like the perfect home for you. I wish to keep you safe. You've weathered storms just as I have. Had to grow quickly, like dandelions through concrete. You're tired, and I don't want to see you quitting so I am building you a shelter. I promise to keep watch while you get some rest in my arms. When you're healed and strong enough I will provide you the space and time so you can chase your dreams in peace. You can use our home as the foundation for your castle. I know the power you hold, and I will be there to help you wield it.

Sincerely, your future spouse.

02.

Hello,

Coincidentally that is exactly when I knew. "You had me at hello" is such a cliché, but I swear that it is true. I always know trouble when I see it, and you are quite the nightmare indeed. I hope you take no offence to my words. I say what I mean and mean what I say. That typically results in problems, but to me it's another one to toss onto the existing pile. I have a lot of baggage, but if you don't mind, I won't mind yours. Maybe we could get a big storage locker and shove all our baggage in there, lock the door and toss the keys, skip town and never return. It'll all be auctioned off one day for somebody else to deal with. Wouldn't that be nice?

Where was I? Right. Hello. That's when I knew. I always do. I fall very quickly and passionately. Really I leap off into free fall all by my own judgement, sometimes perhaps lack thereof. I know a pretty thing when I see it, though pretty isn't enough, is it? I've learned that the hard way. As I've learned most things. Behind me lays a trail of burnt bridges and broken hearts, though most of those pieces are my own. Most people are unable to tell. I have a reputation, but I think the judgement is unjust. Wholly unfair. I have developed trust issues. Betrayal cuts deep. You know that, don't you? I keep people at bay, and guard my territory fiercly. I am very loyal and I am known for my equal bark and bite. I want to be your guard dog. I swear I will lunge for the jugular if anybody dares cross you. I am protective, albeit a little reckless. I have a lot of scars to prove it.

Little birdies may warn you of me. Tell twisted tales of my exploits. I've been called toxic. Perhaps there is truth to some of it. My love burns bright and hot, but it never wavers. I crave closeness, and wish to crawl into the heart and mind of my target of affections like a spider trespassing into your home to weave its webs in the darkest corners. I want to know you better than anybody else. Know your body, mind, heart, and your soul like it is my own. You will never be left wanting reassurance, because I have known doubt, and doubt is my enemy and I will fight it on sight. You will always know that I am yours. With me you have nothing to fear. Least of all me or my commitment to you and us.

Perhaps we both had to scrape our knees as we crawled through painful loves before we found each other. Together we'll be powerful. A dynamic duo, partners in crime. Those closest to me would come forward as witnesses to my ride or die nature, and you as my life partner will be my biggest testament to this part of my character. You're not too different, are you? You would die for your people, fight with your bare hands if you had to. Together we will face the world. I'll have your back and you'll have mine, a 360° of the battlefield. We can tear down and build up whatever we want. We can build an empire, or bring them down. With you by my side, everything is possible. I would move mountains and part seas for you. Your love is an enchanted rose and I am a beast, and I will wait for you. Come to me quickly.

Sincerely, your future spouse.

03.

Hello,

I hope my words don't bore you with their simplicity. I also hope that you've been well. I have so many questions, but let us not rush. There is no finish line in love, correct? I've been alright. Y'know, ups and downs. I've kept to myself a lot. Self improvement has become akin to an occupation. I always strive to do and be better. I may not seem the kind, but I have a soft heart which I guard closely. I like old timey romance and watch sappy things when I am down. Please don't tell anybody! I am a rock, but for a long time I was but a pebble, kicked around and misplaced. I have moved around a lot and all I want is to grow roots. Would you mind sparing a little spot in your garden? I just need a little sunlight and a fall of rain to grow. I promise I won't waste your time and do my all to never disappoint you.

My affections build slowly. Too slow for many, but I hate accidents and mistakes, at least my own. I strive for perfection, though people tell me it does not exist. I see it in you, though, so they must be wrong. Sure, you have your flaws, but the glue between your cracks glisten in the light and are still beautiful to me. I really do enjoy the simple things. Do you stop to smell the roses too? I have a gentle love to offer. A kitchen bathed in morning sunlight and the smell of pancakes in the air. I'll eat the first pancakes, because the ones I bring to you in bed should be perfect, and the first one never is. You deserve so much good, and I really hope I can provide a lot of that good to you by my own hands.

I am shy, and don't always have a way with words. I will tell you through music how I feel, or paint you on a canvas in all your favourite colours. I'll help you sculpt your dreams and wishes. I'd make a great assistant. I would love to follow you on your way up ladders and mountains. I believe in you like some believe in a higher power. You can put your faith in me too. Love is a choice, and I will make the choice to love you every morning when I rise. You are the kind of fun that doesn't make me ill. The adventure I am unafraid to embark on. We can play our own roles and support each other. I'll be of service to you at every step if you need me. In return I only ask that you hold me close and never let me go.

I fear abandonment, and have known a life without guidance. I've become rigid, and hope that you'll help me bend without snapping and show me the wonders of the unknown. With you by my side I won't be afraid. My skepticism will not be a hindrance because you lead me into uncharted territory as though you have a map, and I trust that you know where we're going. And should uncertainty rise, well, I have dealt with that beast plenty, and I can tame it and send it on its way should it bother you. I will always stand by you so that never again will you need to face challenges alone. You are a promise I will keep forever if you let me.

Sincerely, your future spouse.

04.

Hello,

Have you eaten? Taken your meds? Keep yourself hydrated. Take even just a sip. I apologise if I'm fussing, but I've always been a caregiver. People depend on me. At home, at work, even my friends. I get taken advantage of pretty easily, and I try my best to keep my boundaries. Though I am admittededly prone to a bit of a saviour complex. It's not so much that I don't think others cannot get up on their own, I just think they shouldn't have to. A helping hand is often rare these days. For many, even just the day to day grind is unbearable, so any chance to take the load off another's shoulders and let them rest and catch their breath I'll happily take.

I try my best to be fair, but often lose sight of what's best for me. I want to help and support everyone who needs it, but in my quest to save everyone, I have often abandoned myself. My care is often expected and thus taken for granted. Nobody seems to understand how much it hurts. Well, until I met you anyway. You're a little fire cracker. You have a great presence despite your size. You're honest and so very clever. I was instantly in awe by your radiance, your willpower, your resilience and your strength. You taught me important lessons. I'm older than you but sometimes I feel like a student listening to my teacher preach. You're opinionated and steadfast, and have such a strong sense of justice. You call it like it is, and have called me out aplenty. Always well-intentioned. You get worked up easily, and I find it rather cute. You scold me like a parent their child when I don't take up enough space, don't hold my head high, or when I give away too much for free. You are objective and fair, never tell me I'm right or wrong unless I really am. It's refreshing. You're like a breath of fresh air.

It pains me to hear of your past. How you've been to hell and back. You face struggles even when you really can't or feel like giving up. You always get back up again, always try to find another way around when an obstacle sits in the way of where you're going. You've lived life on hardmode, and now I yearn to make things easier for you. You if anyone deserves my devotion. I know you are much too just to take advantage of my kindness and return my love in earnest. I trust you, and that says a lot as I've only ever been able to trust myself.

Would you let me be your safe space? We can build you a nest and make sure you have the nicest, softest things and plenty of snacks. I wish to provide you the space and time to really relax and let your guard down. You can safely get in touch with your inner child and heal them from all their past wounds. I will guard your sanctuary and let you be free and able to go wherever your heart desires. Let your curiosity guide you, and I will follow and keep bandaids in my pocket should you stumble and fall. You don't need to be strong all the time, and you need not be ready for battle at all hours of the day. I will take the wheel and take us in the direction of your choice whilst you rest safe and sound for as long and as much as you want and need.

Sincerely, your future spouse.

05.

Hello,

Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear, ay? Am I late, or were you just early? It seems as though you've been waiting a long time. Wasted your time kissing a whole lot of frogs, huh? Settled for good enough? Jumped from ship to ship like a pirate looking for the best loot? Well, congratulations! You made it. I'm here now! I'm just kidding, but I am, in fact, very happy now that you found me. Lots of hurdles to get over, had to crumple up many plans and ideas and kick yourself into gear on the career front. I'm far from your finish line, I am merely a little prize for a job well done. And now you'll have me by your side for the next chapters. Oh, the adventures we will have! How exciting, I can hardly wait.

Something important you had to learn before you got here is beating the status quo to the curb. You always did struggle with fitting into a neat little box and following orders, didn't you? Yet so many fools tried to bend your will and make you follow a nice little step by step pre-determined program. Hah, as if you'd ever be happy giving up your freedom like that. And I adore that about you. To hell with the status quo. I never do what is expected of me unless I myself set or agreed to those expectations. This is my life, and your life is yours. Wanna dance? Because I'll choose to court you on sight, and I hope you don't make me look like yet another fool because truly, I tell you, our dance will be an exhilarating one. We can both lead, because screw the rules!

Do not mistake my arrogance and my eleutheromania as purely egoic and a sign of wavering commitment. Though I have my admirers and my comrades, I am fiercly loyal. I do intend to flaunt you, because you are a dream come true worthy of the spotlight. I hope you're not shy, and if you are, then well, it'll be that much more entertaining for me to see you flustered by all the attention and applause. So learn to take a compliment, kiddo, because you just hit the jackpot and the prize includes a lifetime supply of praise. Along with a steadfast support system, as not only will I be at your beck and call, I fully intend to introduce you to my network of friends in higher places. Fret not, because your wildest dreams will soon appear mundane as together with some found family we will get where you are going so much faster than you've been going before.

Speaking of family, I'm not very close with mine. Perhaps neither are you, so you will understand the feeling of always having to do everything yourself and not having the kind of safety net that a family can provide. This is why I have collected friends over the years to whom I serve as family and they the same for me in return. In my anxieties of abandonment and neglect, I do everything in my power to help and support my loved ones because I know what it feels like to be without as much as encouragement on this journey of life. If you ever need some kind words, I'll be sure to whisper them in your ear and shout your name from the rooftops. You deserve the world, so pack your bags. We have tickets to explore it all.

Sincerely, your future spouse.

06.

Hello,

I pray you did not hear me talking to myself. I cry out into the void often. My mind, always abuzz with what ifs and wonder, has its way of driving me mad. Often I feel like a mad scientist, fixated on something so long I fail to take care of all my human needs. Before I know it, the sun has set and made way for the night. I recognise the passing of time only when I notice it is dark and the only source of light is the screen right on front of me. I have so many tabs open in my head I don't always notice what goes on around me. But you startled me. Admittededly I did not notice right away, but when I did I was shocked. It must've been weeks before I zoned out, watching your face as I thought of absolutely nothing. I waited for you to finish whatever it was that you were occupied with, and then it hit me. You're beautiful and I like you.

It feels easy to be around you. I can't say the same for many people, if any. I have had plenty of offers, but competing against my solitude is difficult. A race few finish, and none truly come out of as the victor. I get bored easily, and I must be honest and admit that though I may be quickly intrigued and glue myself to my newest interest, my attention is hard to keep. I enjoy the rush of newness, and yearn for a love that stays fresh and full of intrigue. And I found that in you. For you lead your own life, explore your own paths, then report back to me your newest finds. We pick apart things and situations like mechanics figuring out all the parts of a new machine. Then we go and find new things to inevitably share, and sometimes we journey together too. There is always something. I no longer feel like I am the only one keeping the conversation going. No longer the one in charge of every who and what and how and why and when and where. You pull your own weight. For once I, too, feel fascinating. And not only do I feel interesting, I find you equally interesting. It didn't drop for either of us.

Some may look at us strangely, but good heavens, are some people so easily lulled into a boring and mundane routine. Every time I would cry out my woes, I was called childish. Told that love will and should settle into a comfortable and steady routine. That it is normal for the excitement of newness to fade as you get to know someone. I refused to believe every relationship was doomed to become such a snooze. And I am glad you did too, because you keep growing as I grow and our vines they intertwine and part ways and cross again in this intricate web of possibilities. To know you is to be a student of law or medicine. Doctors and lawyers practice their craft, they're not fixed by a mere degree because neither law or medicine is fixed. It is ever-changing and developing. I pinch myself because I can hardly believe I found another student like me.

Never fear I will leave you feeling stupid. I am aware of my own merit, but never wield it against anyone, unless needed. You are very clever and you have strengths and skills that I do not. I promise to be there to listen, especially in times when nobody else will. I have known loneliness and neglect. My curiosity is a form of escapism as I run away from the eldritch horrors of my past. Please be direct with me. Within me lives a tired old hopeless romantic, whom I locked away in shame as I was told it never plays out like in the movies. But you've proved to me that it actually does. And for you I'll do anything. Though you sometimes leave me tongue tied and flustered, you stabilize me. As thanks you'll have my loyalty and devotion. I'm used to taking care of others, and I know my care won't be misplaced on you. I read people easily already, but please allow me to study your face and note down every micro-expression so that I will always be able to tell how you are feeling even when you feel unable to put it into words.

Sincerely, your future spouse.

#pac reading #tarot reading #energy reading #intuitive reading #pick a card reading #pick a card #pick a pile #pick a picture #love reading #love pac #tarotblr #soapy.post

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bowieandqueen11 · 1 year

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Can’t Lose Family / Joel Miller Imagine

Request: Joel request- him helping Reader get her medications and she repays him with a kiss even though they aren't together?

This turned into a much cuter found family fic than I meant it too lmao but also sorry not sorry @miraclesabound!!

Warning: strong language, fighting infected, mentions of guns and knives, mentions of what happens with Sam and Henry, mentions of blood, and mentions of Sarah!

This one’s pushing 4,000 words lads which has to be my longest one shot - I spent all day writing this, so if you enjoyed please support me by commenting and reblogging!

(I do not own the Last of Us or its characters, all rights go to creators. Gif credit goes to @manny-jacinto.)

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

If you found one more goddamn empty first aid kit, you were going to tear a clicker’s head clean off its stupid mushroom neck.

It hadn’t been an easy journey even getting to this point. Despite Ellie’s numerous protests, snide looks, and even grabs at your jacket with a ‘questioning your sanity’ kind of look, you and Joel had both agreed that a supermall was the best next place to look for the specific kind of medication you needed.

‘It’s the only place left in this state we haven’t already scoured’, he had muttered from in front of you, pulling up Callus’ reigns and bringing the horse to a sudden halt. The building seemed to loom up from the corner of your eyes like a shooting spore; beams of light seemed to light up its cracks, spraying dust upwards through the shattered windows and clawed bricks until they flew out and danced across the sky. It whistled with every blow of wind, grumbled and heaved with the weight of its walls, howled with the furious screeches of the horde of infected that vacated the forgotten premises.

From where she was sandwiched between the two of you, Ellie managed to squeeze her head out past Joel’s shoulder and scoff. Your grip on her shoulders tightened as she tried to turn her head back to throw you an averse scowl. ‘If you guys go in there and make it back in one piece’, her words are jolted by her nose face planting into the back of Joel’s jacket, Callus rearing up his front legs and whinnying at the piercing cry of what sounded to be a recently turned runner convulsing about in horrendous pain. You straightened her back up on the saddle, and she let you wrap your arms around the top of her stomach to keep her balanced. ‘I swear, I’ll eat my backpack.’

Joel just looked past his shoulder to give her a bemused look.

‘Still would be better than having to hear another one of them lines from your joke book.’ Ellie slapped him on the shoulder, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was looking down at the sprouting shoots breaking through the strewn concrete on the road to hide her growing smile. ‘Shut up old man. You can never escape Will Livingstone.’

You tapped Ellie’s shoulder, and when she turned to see the mischievous glint in your eye, she nodded with a grin. ‘Hey Joel’, you started, waiting for his grunt reply. ‘Do you know the last place I went before the outbreak was too a zoo?’

‘Is that so’, he sighs, not even bothering to turn his head with the foresight to realise where this was going. Hearing Ellie snicker into her hand, her other clutching into his shoulder with anticipation also brought some clarity. ‘Yeah, the only animal there was a dog. It was a Shizu. Get it? Get it, a Shit-zo-’. Joel just gave a groan that erupted from the pit of his stomach, pretending not to laugh as Ellie erupted into giggles, throwing her head back against your chin.

Joel gazed forward, looking out past the large stretch of empty highway and over the impending treeline speckled in the distance towards the swirl of dull pink and sweet lavender that had begun to transfigure the sky. ‘Yeah, see, this is the problem’, he grunted, ‘maybe being a runner wouldn’t be so bad.’ He couldn’t hide the fact that he was beginning to grin too.

Ellie snorted, and waved her hand out towards the upcoming building. ‘Well if you go in there, I think your wish will come true.’ Her words brought a fresh wave of silence over the three of you; the kind of forlorn, contemplative stillness that hadn’t shrouded itself over your little makeshift family since you all lost Sam and Henry-. You shuddered, not wanting to go back there anymore. It had been hard enough burying them, let alone trying to deal with the solitude of Ellie’s guilt and the barricading walls Joel had thrown back up at even the mention of the too small grave. It had been hard, the last few weeks, and you didn’t want the people you loved most in this derelict world to fall back into a hopelessness you had fought so hard to drag them out of.

You didn’t miss the way Joel had glanced back down at his watch though, his face hardening as he steered Callus on.

‘It will be alright, Ellie’, you patted her shoulder and winced as the sound of more infected began to ring out through the dusk and pierce your ears. Ellie shook: not with fear of them, but with terror at the thought that it could take just one wrong move, one wrong moment in this life for her to be left alone again. To be left behind. To lose everyone she loved, yet again.

But she was brave, and strong, and ready to fight for every scrap she had in spite of the world’s indifference. ‘I know,’ was all she whispered as the three of you came to a stop in front of the mall’s perimeter. The resignation didn’t last too long, though; as soon as Joel had given you his hand to help you down onto the curb, Ellie had started up again at the groans of the building’s floors constricting with the cold.

As Joel had given you a boost up past the half-blown brick wall leaking frost out from the west side of the building, Ellie had thrown her hands up in disgust. ‘Fine!’, she grabbed Callus’ reigns and led him over to a bent piece of iron fence at the edge of the perimeter. ‘If either of you fuckers decide to become infected, I’m gonna kick your shins!’ Even with the crossed arms and huff that followed, when you turned your head to look back at her, she had given you a silent, pleading nod warning you to both come back in one piece. With a final reassuring smile in her direction, you had left the girl stroking Callus’ back, and leant down to heave Joel over into the grave darkness.

The first thing you heard was the sound of sneakers pounding through the walls, the huffing and sliding of about ten bodies coming running towards you. Drawing out your knife from your back pocket, you readied yourself for the oncoming onslaught, but it never arrived. Instead, you were blinded by the sudden flash of gunfire as Joel stepped in front of you, using himself to shield himself from the infected unhinging their mouths and running into the gunfire. Only when he was sure the last one had stopped twitching on the ground did he lower his gun and turn to look at you, raging frenzy clear in his eyes.

Yet he was so gentle. So, so gentle with you. He clicked on his torch and clipped it onto the lapel of Frank’s old plaid shirt, stained once again with the scent of blood. He reached out a hand towards you, chest heaving as he turned his back to the litter of bodies now staining the linoleum floor.

‘Are you- are you alright?’ He didn’t know exactly what to do, bless him. So unsure as to how, or if he should show affection anymore. His face fell stern as he looked you up and down, yet his fingers itched against his thighs and clawed at his jeans, as if he were desperate to touch you and make sure himself. You reached out to him with one arm, and he tenderly took your wrist within his fingers. He couldn’t quite bring himself to hold your hand yet, to allow himself that sort of vulnerability, to ever give in to that sort of familiarity with another person again, but it was a step in the right direction.

‘Are you okay?’ The question was more desperate now, more sober, and the most genuine reflection of his pounding heart as he flipped your hand over and used his pointer finger to check your pulse. Sometimes, when the three of you got into tough scraps, it would be the only thing that could bring him back from that fear induced rage. You pretended not to feel his thumb shake against your wrist bone, instead nodding and dragging your fingers down to squeeze his own. ‘Let’s keep going. Ellie will be freaking out by now.’

‘Yes, I am! What the fuck was that!’, you heard echoing in from outside, the alarm in Ellie’s voice filling the vacuous hallway.

Joel managed to huff out a laugh, before shouldering his gun back round his side and nodding at you. He swallowed thickly, but even as you brushed past him to head further towards the shops, you could see how desperately he was scrunching his lips to try and push away the worry that flickered in his eyes.

And now? After all that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You kick the empty case clear half way across the store, grunting in victory as you hear it smash against the legs of a frayed mannequin and toss it down onto the floor. An ash cloud of dust sprays up at the movement, making Joel cross his arm in front of his mouth and hack a cough as he’s sprayed in white.

‘We still haven’t tried the door behind the counter.’

‘Joel, we’ve tried every damn door in the country. Plus, it’s sealed shut, and I don’t see you packing any shivs to open it.’ You sigh and squat down to the ground, holding your head in your hands for a second. You only open them once you realise the thudding sound you hear is Joel moving over towards the back wall of the pharmacy, straight towards where a huge mass of spasming, bloated fungi seems to be pulsating on the wall.

‘Are you out of your damn mind?’, you seethe, as Joel reaches into his backpack to strap his gas mask on.

‘On the contrary, I seem to be the only one in this room with any sense.’ Although his words seem to bite, you can hear the mocking tone drip through the crinkled words as they rasp out past the ventilator. Joel joins you in squatting down to the floor, although his movement is done a lot less gracefully and with a lot more complaining about sore joints. He moves the light away from where its strewn over the floorboards to land straight in the middle of the heaving mess, and the sight nearly makes you gag in shock.

‘Ugh, Jesus’, Joel mutters, his face contorting in disgust as he clenches his fist open and closed in preparation. The figure clenched into the wall in front of him was barely recognisable: it’s drooping face was now sprouting from behinds its eyelids, mouth open as if in a never-ending frozen scream, its lab coat caked in dried old blood that seemed to suggest he wasn’t the only one to die in this dank room. ‘Well, here goes nothing.’ Tentatively inching his hand forward, Joel waits for the poor bastard to come tearing off the wall and clamp its three teeth left around his fingers. Thankfully, both for his sake and your heart, which had decided to start pounding through your ears, Joel is successful in inching the infected’s hand out of the way. He reaches into the breast pocket, sighing in relief and turning towards round to your expectant face.

Perched between his thumb and pointer finger is the rusted tip of a key.

‘Bingo’, he whistles as he stands up, stretching out his back and clicking his spine back into place. You shake your head as he heads off, following him round the counter edge and butting him out of the way once he reaches the back door. Shaking the handle one more time for good measure, you nab the key out of his hand and ignore the cry of indignation he gives you.

‘It’s my stuff we need, so I go first. Those are the rules.’

You slot the key into the lock and give it a firm twist.

‘Absolutely not.’ You nearly jump when you feel Joel’s hand firmly clamp down on top of your own, effectively trapping you against the doorknob. You glare over at him, but feel the bitter remark you were about to whip out about how ‘he always puts himself in danger before me or Ellie’ dies on the tip of your tongue when you see how scared he looks.

‘I go first.’ You tut. The grip on your hand grows firmer. His breath hitches as he bends and takes a step closer to you. He’s so close now, you can feel the rapid air escape his nose and brush over the side of your cheek. For a moment, neither of you are able to move; you’re both caught in some invisible entanglement, some building consequence the two of you have never been brave enough to breach before, some kind of tender understanding. You nod your head, realising now just how earnestly the two of you had been dancing around it: how the whole time you had known each other, one was always preparing to die for the other.

‘Please...I go first.’ His gaze drops to your lips, and then to your nose, and then finally settles, for the first time in a while, firmly on your eyes. Unwavering. Resolute. He lurches forward on the balls of his feet, and for a second you think he’s either about to headbutt you or kiss you. Instead, he gently uses his side to butt you out of the way, before turning his efforts to shouldering the door open in three abrupt pushes.

He lurches in, the door giving way before he expected it and taking his feet out from under him. He rolls to the floor, grunting with the effort as he nearly side rolls straight into the side of an empty rack of shelves. With the light in the musty room as bright as a grave, you’re left trying to figure out where Joel has gone by the sound of an empty pill bottle rolling across the room.

‘Joel? Joel! Where the fuck are you?’, you whisper, reaching your arms out and crouching down to try and find him in the darkness. ‘Shit, is that you? Are you alright?’ You grip onto something soft and squishy, Joel’s leg? It seems clad in denim, although slightly torn, as if he had skinned his whole knee slamming against the floor.

You realised your mistake only a second too late. Instead of the welcome, gravelly honey voice of one Joel Miller, and perhaps even the calloused fingers cupping your cheeks before taking your own to lurch himself back up, you were met by the spitting shriek straight into your face. ‘Oh, fuck!’

You roll backwards, slamming the back of your head straight into an iron railing. ‘Oh, doubley fu-’ Your shout is muffled by fingernails scraping over your forehead, a hand grasping onto your face and digging in until you could feel blood begin to run down the bridge of your nose. Grappling with your hand, you simultaneously try to pitch your knee up to stop the clicker from completely detaching from the wall and clambering on top of you, and wrestling past its bumpy elbow to reach the knife stuck behind your back. Gnashing teeth leaves drool dripping down onto your neck, and you groan with the effort of trying to stop them from tearing a chunk out of your jugular.

You finally manage to grasp onto the hilt of your knife, trying to lift up your backside to slide it out of your pocket and straight into the skull of the infected on top of you. It doesn’t matter though. A second later, it feels as if molten is being poured in gushes down onto your bare skin; you stifle a shudder as the blood leaks out from the clicker’s eye sockets and sprays over your shoulder blades. You squint, just about managing to make out the outline of Joel’s clenched teeth and furrowed brow as he pulls the crowbar he had managed to find out of the thing’s skull. Pushing it to the side, it flops unceremoniously onto the floor.

‘Jesus...’, you warble out, still slightly in shock that you had come so close to the end right there and then. So clumsily close. So stupidly.

Joel doesn’t give you a chance to finish your thought. You swear it must have hurt when he threw himself down onto the ground, not even pretending to be calm and collected as he comes sliding on his knees over to you.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘H-huh?’

His hands are shaking as they reach up to roam over your face, his movements rapid and rushed and so carelessly unlike him that it only winds you deeper into your confused stupor. Before this - sure, he may have been concerned, but it was always hidden behind a thick wall of confidence and level headedness. But this, this was different. He was gripping onto the sides of your face as if the skin was about to peel away from your body in front of him; he was trembling in the way only a man marred by ghosts could be. As the flashlight blinked across the floor, the glass smashed into fractured shoots by Joel’s fall, all his mind can see with each glare is Sarah suspended in front of him.

‘Are you hurt?’ His voice is shaking as he speaks, tilting your face back and forth as if he’s scanning you for any scrabs and bites, yet his fingers are moving too quickly to truly take any of you in.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine. I just, ah-’, you cup his hands and bring them to rest within your own, both of you using each other’s weight to try and lever yourselves to a standing position again. ‘I think my ankle is twisted slightly.’ You watch his eyes widen, and try your best to shoot him a reassuring smile despite how shaken you were feeling. ‘It’s alright, it’ll be fine once I shake it off. Especially since I see another med-pack over there.’ You let go of one of his hands to point past his shoulder, finally coming back to yourself when you spot another plastic box hanging, squished in between the pharmacist's desk and the wall.

Despite the elated glow that seems to suddenly gleam in your eyes as you hobble over bits of broken glass and clamber over the smashed up computer monitor, Joel doesn’t let go of you the whole way. Not even when you unclasp the lock and throw the lid back, tilting your head back and laughing in near hysteric delight when you see the full bottles still nestled in dust inside. They move from your hands, up your arms and around your shoulders, squeezing your biceps as the two of you make your way quietly back through the supermall and back out towards the hole to freedom.

‘Fuck me! I thought you guys were gonners for sure!’ For a second, as you glanced out and saw Ellie bent over with her hands on her hips with the relief of seeing the two of you dumbasses hobble back into view, you thought the young girl was going to collapse to the ground. Instead, she took a deep breath and turned back to you with a surprisingly serious look on her face. ‘Did you find any comics in there?!’

‘Are you kidding-’ Joel murmurs out with a huff, waving his hand at her in dismissal. Ellie only raises her hand in a shrug before flipping him off, but the two of them are both smiling as Joel offers you his hand. You take it easily, but before you drop down to the grass again, you surprise Joel Miller for about the third time that day.

Before he even has a chance to blink, you lean towards him and press your lips against the side of his stubbly cheek. His eyes widen, but even as you press a second, quicker kiss against his cheek, he seems too stoic to pull away. When you finally do, he raises two fingers up to the wet patch now gleaming on his skin, and looks at you with a rapturous confusion.

‘Thank you. For everything. For still being here’, is all you whisper with a final look back at him, before falling down through the sliver of dark orange that still falls like firelight between the breaks in the pine trees. Ellie welcomes you back energetically, nearly knocking you over with the speed in which she comes running towards you and wraps her arms around your midriff, squishing the side of her face into your chest.

Joel watches the two of you for a moment: the way Ellie looks up at you as if you were pure unbridled hope as she unlatches herself from you, the way you grab her hand and help her hop back up onto Callus’ back, coming to rest on the side of the saddle before animatedly falling into conversation with her, most likely checking up to make sure she was doing okay with all of this.

He blinks back the wistfulness from his eyes as he stands on the stone strewn crag of the building, the soft ground suddenly seeming so far away. As he watches you, he tries to figure out what he feels: love? Longing? Guilt? Before he even notices, he finds his gaze has drawn itself back down to his wrist, the shattered clock face seemingly staring him down and stifling whatever happiness he was trying to feel.

He covers it with his hands, rubbing his fingers over the side as if it were burning his skin and he couldn’t bear to carry the weight of it anymore. But then you call over to him, and Ellie waves her hand up and beckons him to come down with a bright grin and yell, and suddenly the heaviness seems to unburden, to unlatch its grip on his stomach.

Sure, the misery of his past still haunted him, still dragged behind his head as he jumped and landed on the ground with a thump. But as he slowly jogged back over to the two of you, the shadows were beginning to lift. The light was beginning to break through, and Joel Miller couldn’t remember feeling so bullishly light in all his life.

#the last of us #tlou hbo #joel miller #joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #the last of us hbo #tlou #pedro pascal #tlou imagine #tlou hbo imagine #the last of us imagine #the last of us hbo imagine #ellie williams #joel tlou #joel tlou imagine #joel the last of us #joel the last of us imagine #x reader

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tigerjisunz · 3 months

Text

binded lotus (preview)

art, beauty, death and forbidden love.

SUMMARY: y/n, a passionate young 20 year old artist who is hired by the sim family to paint their portraits. the most prestigious family who comes from old money. jake finds himself obsessing over her. the family does does not see y/n to be in favor for jake or his future. the forbidden love between them leaves jake and y/n alone together.

WARNINGS FOR THE BOOK OVERALL: sex, drug usage, mentions of physical abuse, manipulative jay, small love triangle, murder, suicide

a/n: this book is loosely inspired by the beautiful movie, saltburn, starring berry kehogan and jacob elordi. please do not copy, translate or reuse this story for your own page.

w/k: 2.5k

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your eyes graze over the beautiful flowers planted into the ground, the vines growing over the walls in twisted patterns, and the beautiful deep blue sky while it waited for the moon to fall dusk on it. walking onto the estate, your heart pumped faster, not knowing what to expect from this palace.

this palace is a place from storybooks, hundreds of rooms, and amazing victorian architecture. it's the kind of place you could explore for days and not be able to see everything. you were staring at it in awe as the sunset beat on your face. its the early 2000s, intricate architecture is dead now, this place comes from old money.

the sims, they ruled over the region of south korea. now they are working on annexing switzerland. which is where you are now. they were a powerful family that was known for extending their territories across the globe. you were shitting bricks to even be in this family's presence.

the family's chauffeur walked alongside you, and helped you carry your baggage to where you will be staying in their house. you had many suitcases. they were carrying all of your clothes, oil paints, and supplies.

you walked the paved concrete with beautiful designs, taking in every detail, seeing how the sun hits the ground, how the shadows linger in between the cracks.

knock knock knock

the chauffeur used the door knocker, the knocks are heavy and prolonged. the man who opened the door for your was what seemed to be a butler. the chauffeur left the bags in the foyer of the house. the butler had a small smile on his face and welcomed you to the estate.

"welcome to this estate ms. y/n." the butler said with a small bow. "i will lead you to your room." he swiftly turned around to lead you there. he had a slim silhouette, trimmed eyebrows, little amounts of hair on his head and pointy shoes.

"thank you sir." you reply. you didn't know the formalities.

"i have worked for the sims for 3 decades, i will be here to accommodate any of your needs during your stay. you may refer to me as valentino." he says as he walks through the hallways.

as you walked through the various rooms of the house, you feel immediately inspired by the artwork surrounding you. the architecture of the house was old, victorian, beautiful and intricate. the endless colors and different shades of greens, blues and pinks painted on the walls. every room had a different vibe and tone, but every room was beautiful. there were luxurious woody fragrances that you picked up on. there were huge windows spanning from the floor to the ceiling.

as you looked out of the window to your left, there was a patio. a man sat there, while he sat on a beautifully carved wood bench. this man had a journal in hand, writing like he was running out of time. he was extremely beautiful, like Aphrodite herself had bestowed a fraction of beauty onto him.

though there was glass separating you two, you felt as if his aura was seeping into your skin. maybe it was the glow of the sun reflecting off of him, but he has such a innocent beauty radiating from him.

he had a very strong jaw, with soft eyes. he was deep in thought with his furrowed brow, while he bit down on his lower lip.

there were beautiful flowers behind him, the golden sun was starting to shine down on him, and the sky was turning pink. while he sat on the bench, a light blond dog ran up to him.

the man's face changed from serious and deep in thought, to lighter expression. a small smile was forming on his face while he petted his dog. you stopped to watch.

you had realized that you weren't following valentino anymore. fuck

fuck fuck fuck

there was a set of stairs that he could've gone up to, or the hallway to your right which lead to another room. "damnit" you whispered to yourself. how can you already mess this up.

"ah!" a high pitched voice from a woman calls out. she has an expensive australian accent. "you must be y/n! it's nice to finally meet you. jay has told me so much about your work!"

"nice to meet you elspeth." you hold your hand out to shake hands with her, she looks at it, and slowly looks up at you, then back down to your hand. she was the woman who was in change of the estate. a very important woman, she is the one who hired you.

she gives a dirty look and gives a small bow, "you may find your living quarters." as she looks away. she immediately went to page someone as she walked away.

the interaction left you feeling confused and felt a pit in your stomach, knowing that was a bad first impression. you knew she was the main woman in the house. you knew there were two women and two men you would be doing portraits on.

"y/n!" a sharp snap of a man's voice. you find his face to match the voice, and it is valentino.

his demeanor started as upset, and quickly shifted to a calmer one. "it seems that i have lost you there. follow me up to your room."

you walked up the carpet lined stairs to the room.

"your bags are all here. we searched them and everything seems to be good." he says while closing the doors.

you immediately sit on the bed and take a deep breath to decompress from what had just happened. as you look around the room that you are in, you see how marvelous it is.

the tall ceilings, the walls are painted a rich red, with accents of chartreuse and gold. the bed was king sized, with long curtains draped from poles that were part of the bed frame. the slightly opened window let in the soft sunset and a quiet breeze.

turning your attention, there was a huge vintage wooden dresser. gliding your fingers along the edge of it, you got a splinter in your middle finger.

"ah!" you say in a moment of pain. you immediately go to pick it out of your skin and you get it. there are some band aids in your backpack which you reach to get.

while doing some more exploring you find a cd player and lots of cds, madonna, MGMT, rihanna, gwen stefani, and destiny's child. there was some good shit in here, with lots of obscure artists who you've never listened to, but you will have lots of time to get to know them.

stuffing away all of your clothes, books, and bags took some time. by the time you finished, you threw your body on the bed. letting your muscles relax. today had been long, with the travel, weird out of touch rich people and feeling grimy. you had to shower.

you walked into the bathroom and it was just how you expected, fancy. on the counter, there was a beautiful vase with intricate designs. the vase was filled with in bloomed roses. it was very nice, there were 4 towels folded, with a handwritten note on top of them.

“be sure to call the service line when you need fresh towels.”

you placed the note on the sink and turned on the shower.

———————————

night time

you had been rotting in your huge bed for the past few hours. after showering, you lounged in the robe that was hanging in the closet for you. you did some skincare.

you needed some brain stimulation, after all, you were going to be using your brain a lot. painting took like of thinking, analyzing and thought. it made you feel like your brain was more of a muscle than a fatty organ with the way you felt like you were always challenging and working out your brain.

doing fine art was like working out for you. making you stronger, and it made you explode with endorphins. color theory, composition, anatomy, all of it. creating art makes you feel like you are your most authentic self. so, you decided that since you were here on a work trip, you needed to do some practice.

anatomy was your favorite, the way the body was created. drawing and analyzing the human figure was amazing to you, you had a deep connection with it. the way muscles, arteries, veins and fat lay on top of each other. the way the muscles and bones created movement, form and shape. you could learn about it forever. drawing from life was your favorite.

you went into the bathroom and took your robe off. you didn’t usually do self portraits from the mirror, because it is a bit challenging. it was nothing sexual, you just didn’t feel like drawing anything else right now.

your robe was now off your body, and you were looking at yourself wondering how you should pose. this felt kinda awkward for you, but why should it? it’s just you, alone.

you stood there for a second, moving your body in different ways to see what would look good. you decided to go for a sensual pose where you had your left hand grazing your left boob, with a rose in your hand. and your body was leaning a little.

you would take classes down at your local art school, so this was nothing irregular for you. random strangers would pose for the art classes you would take.

sketching your body was easy, detailing was a little more difficult, but nonetheless, you could do it easy. the rough sketch took no more than 3 minutes, getting the shape down. then after a few minutes, you started detailing, adding shadows, value and tone.

you suddenly jumped at a knock at your door.

“y/n. it is supper time in 5 minutes. be sure to come down.” valentino’s stern voice says to you.

“okay valentino. thank you.” you yell back as you were surprised. you subconsciously covered yourself with your hands out of fear that he would open the bedroom door and see you naked in the bathroom.

you rushed to get ready for dinner. you didn't know that were was a mandatory dinner. you didn't know what to wear. you didn't have many fancy things, so you just slipped on your cutest "formal" outfit. this would be the first time you meet the family.

the five minutes have passed and you put some makeup on, you looked cute. you went downstairs to see the headmaster and his wife eating without you. they were laughing to each other. you walked in and they all stopped to look at you. you felt the air get heavy and awkward.

the dining room was extremely huge. beautiful table settings, and a marvelous ceiling with renaissance paintings. the table was also huge, even though there were only a handful of people eating on it. elspeth and her husband sat at opposite heads of the table. a harpist was performing in the corner, playing strings of beautiful harmonies. the live music was so good.

elspeth looked at you with an annoyed expression on her face. the annoyed expression turned into a grin. valentino stood there, along with servers who started at the wall, waiting for a command to come their way. "why valentino, do not be a drag to young y/n? set her a plate at the table. she is our guest after all." she had a chuckle to herself. "be a darling and sit next to me y/n? i would like to talk to you about your work."

you walked over, sitting in the empty chair nearest to elspeth, chuckling in embarrassment. did valentino purposely give you a late heads up? what the fuck.

there were only 2 people at the table. elspeth, and elspeth's husband, sir james

"i thought i was supposed to be doing 4 portraits?" you thought to yourself.

"tell me darling, why are you so late?" elspeth laughs to herself. she was being passive aggressive towards you.

"i'm so incredibly sorry. i was not aware that there would dinner at a specific time." a pit in your stomach is arising.

"well yes, there is always a list of all daily activities in all rooms. every morning they are delivered." she looks at you as if you're stupid." valentino, be a dear and check if there is one in y/n's room for me."

you did nothing. you said nothing. you sat there embarrassed, you have been staying for 5 seconds and already feel unwelcome here.

"i hear you're a very talented young girl." sir james tells you.

"thank you. i'm very grateful to be able to-" you were cut off by a sudden clap by sir james.

a server comes close down to sir james, and kneels down to him. the server then brings out a small bag with a white substance. a small spoon, and puts it to sir james' nose. he snorts the substance.

"WHEW!" a loud yell comes out of his mouth as a reaction from the drugs, with a euphoric look in his eyes and his hand hitting the table. he squeezed the tip of his nose and looked back at you.

"i feel the most inspired when im using my sensory extenders. lets talk about art. so i wa-" he says before cutting you off.

"oh yeah!" you said to go along with his ideas. you spurted that out due to not knowing how to handle this situation. on the inside, you were shitting. this man that you've never met just did fucking cocaine in front of you, and you will be living with him for the next few months.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP. let me finish." he yells at you for interrupting you in his sentence.

you physically felt yourself get taken aback. the hairs on your arm stood up. you felt your face getting hot, your throat closing and your eyes tearing up. you felt frozen in fear.

"darling, do not talk to our guest like that." elspeth replied with a stern look, and a champagne glass in hand.

for a few moments, you just sat there, not knowing what to say. you looked down at your empty plate, trying not to cry.

you heard someone running into the dining room for on the other room. it was the man from earlier with the journal. he ran in looking concerned, but he slowed down once he got inside.

“what's going on. mom are you okay?" he comes in, but he seems as if this is nothing new. as if this is something that happens often. you and him lock eyes.

elspeth looks away in shame “im so extremely sorry y/n. we are sophisticated people with class.”

sir james sits there, looks at you and claps once more. the man from earlier looks at his dad in anger, looks at you, and goes over to you and elspeth.

he whispers into his moms ear and she just looks at him with a disappointed look. the man leans down to you and asks if you want to go with him.

“i know this must be overwhelming. my dad isn’t usually here most of the time. i’ll just take you somewhere else if that’s okay.” he says in his soft australian voice. he grabbed out your hand to kiss the back of it. “my name is jake sim by the way.”

——————————————

a/n: hope you enjoyed this! i had sm fun writing it and i have tons of amazing ideas for this story. stick around til the next time. i will be letting you guys know when chapter 1 comes out. :)

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mintmatcha · 1 year

Text

This took me 5ever because my brain still hurts! sorry it sucks!!!

"Can you not smoke right now?"

Zeke pulls an even longer drag, pulling away to let the smoke seep from between his bared teeth. The sidewalk outside his apartment is empty besides you two and a collection of trashcans waiting for the morning. Even without summer heat, the stench is almost papable, hanging in the back of your throat.

"When did you become my fucking mother?" He flicks the butt to the ground and crushes it between his dark heel and the pitted concrete. He jams his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched like the hackles on a dog, ready to bite.

Time may have sharpened his teeth, but it's done the same to yours.

"If I was your mother-" You pause, picking words you know you'll regret. This was supposed to be peaceful, and yet you're willingly starting a war- "I would have abandoned you years ago."

Zeke scoffs. Not a strong enough reaction to satisfy the worst part of you.

"Oh. sorry-- if I was your mom I would have sent you to military school and then abandoned you, right?"

Zeke looks up at you from over his glasses, eyes narrowed into slits. His jaw flexes, muscles working as he grits and simmers.

"God, you're such a cunt." His voice is tempered- a sign you hit the exposed nerve he never let heal. After a couple of breaths, something that always fuels the fire instead of calming him, the man straightens. "You'd be a shittiest mom."

Zeke grinds his heel into the ashes again. "And I know shitty moms, don't I?"

Usually, you could shrug his insults off, but this one sticks. He doesn't know yet, how all those tests came back positive, how the doctor gave you tiny pictures of the blob that's growing inside you.

You knew sleeping with your ex was a bad idea, you just didn't think the regret would be so physical.

"No, I wouldn't." The crack shocks him more than you.

"Are you fucking crying?" Zeke softens just a bit, more confused than anything else. You're horrified to realize he's right- tears have begun to bubble down your cheeks. You try to hide behind your hands, but the damage is done; he finds your arm, holding you by the crook of your bow as he dips to your height. "Hey, stop. Stop that. What are you doing?"

He takes your hands into his, manhandling your face free so he can see you properly. You forget that he's pretty under that personality, with deep set blue eyes and tussled blonde hair. His beard is no longer pure brown, but dusted with flecks of grey towards his temples. When he looks at you, it still feels like you're 16, talking to a boy that might love you.

"You've gone soft on me, girl," he clicks his teeth, affect still flat.

But you're not 16. You're fifteen years older than that, talking to a man who broken your heart too many times. The thought of him loving you no longer fills you with butterflies, but something heavier, the sinking feeling of lead in your gut.

"Zeke..."

He's hurt you and you've returned the favor, over and over again. Sometimes by accident, most of the time on purpose.

"What's wrong with you? You never cry over this shit." He throws in a shrug, "Why do you care about being a mom all or a sudden?"

Hands still held away from you, its all you can do to sniffle. As he waits, Zeke's face slowly drops as he thinks, paging through micro-expressions.

His eyes widen. He knows.

"Why do you care about being a mom all of a sudden?" he repeats, much more serious than before.

He knows and yet he waits for you to tell him otherwise.

"I'm pregnant."

The news hits him physically. Zeke recoils, dropping your arms to clutch at his hair, palms digging into his temples.

"Shit. Shit, that's-- it's--" He clears his throat. "It's mine?"

He knows you haven't been dating anyone else; the second anyone gets close, Zeke's there, dragging you back into his mess and back into his bed. That's what happened last month. That's how this happened.

"Yeah, it's yours. Unfortunately."

"Don't. Don't play like that right now." Zeke's head snaps to face you, lips curled in disgust. "I'm trying not to lose my fucking mind and I can't have you fucking insulting me-"

A sob you weren't expecting escapes you. The cocktail of hormones and stress has left you brittle, leaving you crumbling in its wake.

"I'm s-s-sorry," you hiccup, clutching at your face again, "I know you hate me-"

"Stop crying," he says, coming back to you. "I didn't say that, stop crying."

"Jesus Christ, it's fine." With a barely there tremble, Zeke wraps his arms around you and sighs. The wool lapel of his coat digs into your nose harder as he pulls you tighter, a semblance of real affect there. "I'm here, it's fine, it's fine. Just calm down."

"I don't know what I'm going to do," you whimper through hiccups and sniffles, wiping your face on his coat.

"Breathe or else you're gonna pass out." Zeke pats your back, stroking up and down in the way he knows you like. "You're being crazy. Is this really the end of the world?"

You scowl into him. "Fu-fuck you, you're such an asshole."

"There's my girl, there's my spitfire." Zeke presses his lips into the crown of your head, surprisingly chaste and sweet. He does it again, then again, arm locked around your shoulders and chin pressed into your forehead. After a long moment of being locked to him, he begins to sway, pressing one leg against yours to force you backwards. The give and take guides you, pushing you towards his place.

The shuffle is awkward and slow, but the man never lets you part from him, even as he struggles with the lock. You try not to let it comfort you, you try not to fall for him again, but his breath against the crown of your head sends chills down your spine.

Maybe he loves you, deep down somewhere.

The apartment is dark, illuminated by flashes and thrums of light. Eren is sprawled on the couch, headset half off of his head. He barely looks up from his game, throwing a nod your way. You nod back and hope the dim hides your tears.

"Oh, hey." The young adult pushes his mic out of this face, "Z, are we still going to order pizza, or-?"

Zeke shoots him a look.

"Alright, I'll fucking order it, damn."

You're quickly ushered back to Zeke'a room. It looks how it always does- clean, if not barren. You're finally let go, Zeke's arm falling away as you shuffle towards the bed. The man is already rummaging through his closet, pulling out the two extra pillows he keeps there for you.

"Lay down." He joins you there, puffing up the down and piling them the way you like. When you don't immediately obey, he gestures towards it, almost urgent, "Come on."

The conversation you need to have dies on your lips. Both of you stand there, the sound of Eren's game permeating through the thin walls. Tears still stain your cheeks, but the hysteria seems to have stopped for now.

"You want to have it, don't you?" Zeke says.

You nod.

"I figured. You always wanted a kid." The blonde flops down on to the mattress and you follow, spread out of what used to be your side. maybe it still is. "Just didn't think it'd be my kid."

"You don't have to be involved, Zeke."

His boots are muddied at the heels, staining the practically pristine comforter with red clay. Your own shoes aren't much better; the laces are undone and soggy, trailing halfway to the floor.

"I'm not a dead beat." His hand finds yours and squeezes. "I'm a shitbag, but I'm not a dead beat. I'll be here."

That doesn't mean anything. There's no plan, no certainty, no promises- but it makes you feel better regardless. Zeke has never been a good man, but he's always been good to you when it mattered the most.

"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" he says.

"I think it's a genderless blob of cells right now." you reply, "So it probably looks just like you."

He shoots you a look, not unlike the one he gave Eren.

"You can laugh now, but you're going to be irate when our child looks more like me than you."

Zeke'a hand squeezes tighter and you squeeze back.

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honkaiwoosh · 2 months

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My Fault // Stelle x Kafka , Stelle x Firefly

Stelle mourns the loss of a 'friend'. Kafka does her best to comfort her.

Kafka x Stelle, Implied Firefly x Stelle (Stelle is in love with both of them)

Contents: Reference to character death, hurt/comfort, fluff, established relationship, implied open relationship

-x- Stelle’s heart pounded, her head banged. She sat on the floor with her back against the wall, her head in her hands as tears fell down her cheeks.

She had been cursing herself for the past few hours, completely and utterly angry with herself. All she wanted was for the tears to stop and the pain to go away.

The loss of Firefly had hit her hard. Even the loss of Robin had affected her too. It was one shock after another. All Stelle could think about who was next. Sunday? Acheron? Black Swan? Himeko? Welt? March?

She was afraid of going back to Penacony. She had hid herself away on the Astral Express in her room whilst everyone else remained there. Her mental state could definitely not handle that place right now.

Her thoughts were swiftly cut off by a loud bang at the door.

She tried her best to blink away the tears, using the sleeve of jacket to wipe them away too.

“H-Hang on!” she exclaimed.

But before she could even stand up, the door slowly opened. Stelle immediately turned her head away. She had probably just woken Dan Heng or Pom-Pom up with her sobs.

“Stelle…” well that definitely didn’t sound like Dan Heng or Pom-Pom.

She turned her head back to look at the intruder, “Kafka?” her voice cracked due to all the crying she had been done. She really hoped that Kafka wasn’t here for trouble because she definitely couldn’t handle it right now.

Kafka closed the door before walking over towards Stelle, “My Stelle…” Stelle noticed Kafka’s voice. It was soft and understanding, not like her usual strong and dominant tone.

Kafka wasted no time in sitting on the floor next to Stelle, her arms coming up to bring her closer.

Stelle wasn’t quite sure what Kafka wanted, but she wasn’t about to say no to a hug. Her own arms made their way around Kafka, the latter pulled the silver-haired girl into her lap. Stelle straddled her and buried her face into her shoulder, tears already beginning to stain Kafka’s clothes.

Kafka had caught wind of what happened. She had been paying close attention, so of course she knew about the quickly growing relationship between Stelle and Firefly. Kafka wasn’t usually the jealous type, but she couldn’t help but seethe upon hearing Acheron suggest that Stelle and Firefly were on a date. She was well aware that Stelle had developed some feelings towards the girl, but she wasn’t going to scold her for it. After all, their own relationship wasn’t anything concrete.

But now was not the time to dwell on any of that. Stelle was hurting over the loss of a friend she already seemed close to and Kafka wasn’t about to make her feel any worse.

Kafka’s hand carefully rubbed up and down her back, her other tangling into her silver hair to hold her as close as possible.

“I’ve got you, darling,” she placed a gentle kiss against her head, causing Stelle to squeeze her tighter.

Stelle’s face was continuously being assaulted by the tears, her heart hammering against her chest causing her breathing to falter. She felt panic flow through her.

Kafka simply held her, hushing her softly.

“I’m not the best at… these things… but I’m here for you, Stelle,” Stelle cracked a small smile at that. She’d never really heard Kafka be awkward before so it was quite a surprise. The smile didn’t last long however.

Stelle wanted to speak, but her dry and sore throat refused.

“She seemed… like a wonderful girl,” Kafka whispered.

Stelle gripped harshly against the back of Kafka’s coat, afraid that she too would disappear if she let go.

The sobs from Stelle died down as the minutes passed by. She had been at it for so long she didn’t even know the time, her body felt exhausted.

Kafka had been gently rocking her. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she had the biggest soft spot for this silver-haired girl in her lap. Her heart ached seeing her in so much emotional pain.

“There we go, darling,” her hand rubbed a final soothing circle at the bottom of Stelle’s back, “Now… Lets have a look at you,” Stelle reluctantly pulled away slightly, moving her hands to rest on Kafka’s shoulders.

Stelle’s face was red, there were bags under her eyes and tears had stained her cheeks.

Kafka offered her a soft smile, trying to reassure her, “It’s okay now,” she raised a hand and cupped her cheek, rubbing softly with her thumb.

Stelle shook her head, already fighting back the next onslaught of tears, “I-I could’ve saved her… I could’ve-”

Kafka quickly moved her finger to Stelle’s lips, hushing her, “There’s no point in dwelling on the past, darling. You did your best and that’s all that matters,” she dropped her finger, going back to cup her cheek. She leaned in a gave a soft kiss to the corner of Stelle’s mouth, “It’s not your fault.”

She moved back in to bury her head against Kafka once more.

Laughing softly, Kafka stroked the girl’s hair, “Now… I think it’s about time you got some rest. Are you going to stand up or am I going to have to make you?”

Stelle simply clutched around her harder.

Kafka sighed, “Okay then,” she braced one hand against the wall and the other securely around Stelle. She pushed off of the wall and somehow managed to stand up with Stelle still holding on, her legs had wrapped around Kafka’s waist, “Have you always been this heavy, darling?” her voice was clearly strained but she tried her best to walk.

Stelle whimpered when Kafka placed her onto the bed and pulled away.

“I’m not going anywhere, Stelle,” she promised, “But we do need to get you out of these clothes. I refuse to let you sleep in such a condition.”

The pair both got dressed into something more comfortable, Kafka borrowed something from Stelle. It was slightly baggy on her but she wasn’t complaining.

“You… You’re staying here?” Stelle’s voice was quiet, almost hopeful.

“Of course I am. What kind of partner would I be if I were to leave you here and wallow in your own misery?”

Stelle was simply shocked. She had never seen Kafka be this soft around her so it was quite a surprise.

She shifted awkwardly on the bed, kicking her feet over the edge, before looking up at Kafka, “I… I don’t want to be a burden. You don’t have to stay-”

Kafka rolled her eyes before strutting towards her. She wasted no time in straddling the taller girl’s lap, Stelle froze and gulped at the contact, her shaky hands somehow managed to plant themselves on Kafka’s waist.

“I don’t want to ever hear you talk about yourself being a burden again. Okay? I won’t have you talking bad about my girl,” she smirked at Stelle, twirling a finger into her hair.”

Stelle nodded with a slight smile, “Okay.”

“Good girl,” Stelle’s heart flipped upon hearing those words. Kafka leaned in to kiss her softly. The kiss barely lasted a few seconds, despite Stelle’s protests, “As much as I would love to continue this, darling. What you need right now is a good rest.”

After Kafka removed herself from Stelle’s lap, the pair both got into the bed. Kafka immediately wrapped her arms around Stelle, the latter buried her face into Kafka’s chest and put her own arms around her. She let out a deep sigh in content, immediately tangling her legs with Kafka’s trying to get as close as possible.

Kafka chuckled, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Mm…” Stelle hummed in response, finally starting to allow herself to relax.

“Although… If any of your colleagues find out I’m here, I’m taking no responsibility.”

Stelle didn’t care at this point. All she wanted was Kafka, Kafka and Kafka. If any of her friends had anything negative to say then she would deal with it at a later time.

There was a moment of silence, the only noise being Stelle’s laboured breathing.

The thought of Firefly was still gnawing at the back of head, the silence around her allowing her to think about it once again.

“Shhh…” Kafka started to realise Stelle’s distress, “You’re okay…” her fingers tangled in her hair, scratching her scalp. Stelle groaned in response, “I promise I’ll be here when you awake, Stelle.”

Kafka never stays. Stelle felt her heart swell hearing how much Kafka actually cared for her.

Finally, her eyes closed. She knew this wouldn’t be the last day she’d cry over Firefly, but perhaps it would be easier if she could convince Kafka to stay for a few more days.

Kafka’s next words were barely audible, but Stelle was glad she heard the quick ‘I love you’.

A tear slipped past her closed eye before she passed out, hopefully going to a better dream than the ones she’d had in Penacony.

#kafka x stelle #kafstel #firefly x stelle #hsr #firefly stelle hsr #stelle hsr #hsr kafka #hsr firefly

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write-and-buried · 2 years

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Celestial Navigation

Chapter 5 - Full Moon

Summary; Thanks....giving Warnings; *deep breath* - oral sex (f!receiving) PinV Sex, dirty talk, cumplay, aftercare, drug use (marijuana), intense sex, unprotected sex, extremely messy sex. I think that's all of them. A/N; five chapters! I did it! I wrote a slow burn! Now to have them burst into metaphorical flame. Once again, the sheer volume of love and support this silly little story has blown me away. I cannot thank you all enough for the love.

Time slows like syrup. Thick molasses that you can almost taste, rich and heady and sweet as chocolate. Dieter seems to freeze in time, his eyes moving frantically as though he is trapped in stone, flicking from your twined fingers to your eyes, your mouth, over your shoulder to the room behind you.

The noise of the party falls away, replaced by the erratic thumping of your heart, nerves and anticipation swirling oily in your stomach, mixing with the flat champagne and cheap canapes. You can hear your own breathing, shivery and weak as the seconds stretch into seeming eternity, your hands growing hot and clammy as you wait on a precipice.

Dieter tightens his grip on your hand, the world comes rushing back as he tugs you closer to him, his hand on the small of your back as he leads you down a hallway, a stairwell of concrete and fluorescent lighting hidden behind a thick door that closes with a heavy thud.

His hand is on your collarbone, warm and broad as he brushes his thumb across your hammering pulse, wraps his other arm around your back and spins you, your shoulders pressed against the cinderblocks as he presses his body against yours. He’s taller, tilting his head to look at you as he shuffles closer still, personal space a memory as the scent of whiskey and cedar and paint fills your senses. It’s so quintessentially Dieter, the him of comfortable clothes and rambling stories, the him you craved all night, his eyes blown black and hungry as you hear his shaking breath.

“I didn’t think about this part” he says softly, the low rumble of his voice washing over your skin in a shuddering wave. It soothes and heats you, sending little tingles of pleasure to settle between your thighs.

“I thought about a lot of things” his thumb brushes your lower lip, tugging it from its hold between your teeth. He’s broad and strong and memories of the night on his couch flood your senses, the softness of his touch and the strength of his words as he sat beside you.

“Things about your lips. how pretty they would look stretched tight around my cock, dripping cum from the corners, swollen from me fucking your hot little mouth. How those lips would feel before you bare your teeth to sink them into my skin, muffle a scream of pleasure against my chest because it has nowhere else to go.”

You try to squirm, but he holds you still, the wide splay of his hand tugging your waist closer to his hips, the heat of his body seeming to pool between your thighs.

“But I didn’t imagine this”

“W-why not?” your voice cracks, its hoarse and raspy, deeper. The arousal lodges like a stone in your throat, making it hard to swallow, the air thicker to breathe. You can barely hear yourself over the hammering of your heart. Instinctively your hands find the loops on his pants, holding him closer, wanting him to press harder, smother you against this cold stone.

“Because I don’t think anything I imagine is going to live up to it” His thumb brushes your lip, your skin breaks out in goosebumps. You can feel the callouses from brushes and sculpture beneath the pad of his finger, the whorls scraping against the skin.

You could count his eyelashes, the number of greys in his beard, each crease and wrinkle around his eyes. The angle of his nose, his cupids bow, close enough to study, to memorise and burn into your memory as his hand slides around your neck, your head tilting naturally up towards him. His nose brushes your cheek.

Everything stops.

His lips touch yours with a whisper. The briefest softest brush that could be accidental, if not for the length of his body moulded to yours, your hands sliding to press against his chest. His heart is beating as hard as yours. You can feel his shaking breath on your cheek. A whimper escapes the blockage in your throat.

He can taste it. That sound that lives with him, a roommate that curls around his life like a clinging vine. It’s sweet, bursting like lightning across his tongue as he nudges your cheek, your head tilting enough for him to kiss you again, pressing firmer this time. He can feel your shirt crumple beneath his fist as he grabs at you. He could fit you inside his ribcage, right next to the beating of his heart.

You respond to him instinctively, the scratch of your nails audible on the lapels of his suit jacket, the hitching breath between each press of his mouth to yours. You’re so soft, so lips so plump and ripe against his own that he feels the vibration of a groan from deep in his chest. Your tongue swipes his lip, and everything turns fuzzy and white.

Dieter might not have thought about it, but you had. And he was right, reality had nothing on the expectation. You had built it as a fantasy, the start of a familiar ride that ends in awkward laughter and sticky skin. But it steals your senses, bleeds them together as you taste the vibration of his skin. You feel his knee between your own, nudging your skirt up your thighs as you spread your legs for him.

You wonder where he has found the ability to control the rest of his body, yours reduced to nothing more than a tuning fork, vibrating pleasure at the lick of his tongue against your teeth. He tastes like whiskey, and you drink him down. His hand travels down your back, smoothing over the curve of your ass as he curls it around your thigh. Hitching it over his waist seems like no effort, the press of his fingers on soft flesh as you feel cool air hit your aching core, the muscle of his thick thigh pressing into you now.

“We need to go” he mumbles, his teeth scraping your jaw as his fingers tangle in your hair, pulling your head back further, licking at the hollow underneath. “Now”

You walk. The cool autumn air does nothing to chill your fevered skin. He stops you, grabbing your cheeks to kiss the air from your lungs, a parking meter pressed into your spine, catcalls and hollering empty noise from the busy streets as he takes long strides between deep kisses, his brow focused as you wind through the streets hand in hand.

The journey takes less time than the first day, the bell over the door scraping hollow as he jams his shoulder into a creaky lock. The shop is dark when you enter, the dim glow of the coffee machine casting an electric blue in a corner. It smells like fresh beans and sugar, mixing together with the scent of him that tugs in your belly with the familiarity of home.

His touch turns desperate as you crash into the door, you hear a tear in the fabric of your skirt as he lifts you, stretching your legs to wrap around his waist, his teeth on your collarbone as your hands find the softness of his hair. You lose a shoe in the melee, hear it clatter somewhere in the darkness.

“I got that chair for you” he mutters, his mouth messy on your own. You can feel your makeup smearing on his skin, the expensive suit turning crumpled under your touch as he presses his hips into yours with a hiss. “I’m going to fuck you on it, spread you open and lick your cunt until your moans are etched into the brickwork”

You’re pushing the collar of his jacket, trying to slip it over his shoulders as he squeezes your ass, pulls you into his groin, where you can feel the thick length of him tenting his suit pants. The scrape of fabric against your thighs makes you moan.

The beads tangle in your clothing as he carries you to the stairs. You feel him yank to free you, hear the cheerful skitter as a strand comes loose, covering the floor in the dark. You laugh and he groans, the sound seeming to shake something loose inside him as you wrap your legs tighter around his waist, your other shoe falling free, feeling him jostle you both to the stairwell, a mad dash up them as he pushes open the door to his apartment, already unlocked.

It takes three steps to get you to his bed. The sheets are soft and cool against your arms as he lays you on the rounded surface. You feel the loss of his warmth immediately as he stands up, surrounded by the moonlight. You hear the thud of his shoes, the dash of his feet on hardwood as he moves, scrambling.

You tug your shirt free of the hem of your skirt, lifting it over your head and throwing it into the darkened room. You hear Dieter crash into a wall before the light blinds you, making you wince as the ceiling fan blurs in your vision. He skids back in front of you, your fingers on the zipper of your skirt as he looks at you, bare skin exposed under the soft light of his apartment.

He watches you as you slide your skirt over your legs, shrugging off his jacket to meet it on the hardwood floors. He doesn’t undo the buttons on his shirt, opting to tug it over his head, a few loose buttons skittering free. His skin is warm, his chest dusted with hair, thickening below his slightly rounded stomach, dipping beneath the waistband of his slacks. You can see his cock, pressed hard against the zipper, straining and warping the pleats in the fabric.

“Dieter” you say softly.

He falls on you, his hands on your ribs as he kneels between your spread thighs, his mouth going to your throat. His beard scratches at your skin. Your hands spread across his shoulders as he slips his arms beneath you. You feel the snap of your bra, his thumb smoothing the skin of your spine as he sucks lightly on your collarbone.

You feel achy, your skin fevered as his mouth trails across the hollow of your throat, his hands sliding the straps of your bra off your shoulders as he braces himself, giving you room to wriggle out of the garment, his eyes locked on your chest as your breasts fall free.

“Fuck. Needed the lights on. I needed to see you like this. Look at you, your back arching, presenting these perfect tits for me. You want my mouth on them? Want me to taste them, Lou?”

You nod, feeling the heat sear across your chest at his words, your nipples tightening as your spine bows further. He bites down gently on the sensitive skin, groaning against you as he trails his tongue to circle a nipple, a hand coming to test the weight of another in a wide palm.

His arm shakes as he holds himself above you, pressing his hips lightly against yours, the bulging zipper scraping against your underwear as he switches between your breasts, leaving your nipples tight and aching, wet from his mouth. He kisses between them, looking up at you with dark eyes as he lifts his mouth.

“I’m going to put my cock right here one day. Feel you squeeze these tits around my cock so I can fuck your pretty mouth.”

“Jesus… Dieter”

“Not today though. I made you some promises, didn’t I? Told you how much you’d need to be prepared. Tell me Lou, have you been practicing at home? Cramming those fingers nice and deep inside yourself, wondering how it’s going to feel? Did you buy a toy, pretend it was me splitting you open?”

Your brain is full of static. His voice is hoarse, deeper than you’ve ever heard it, zapping down your spine as he kisses your stomach, his fingers playing with the waistband of your underwear, sliding and stretching the elastic against your hips. His shoulders are broad between your legs, he palms your thighs, spreading you wider as he stares at the damp fabric covering your cunt.

You look heavenly. Skin trembling, bathed in the soft lighting of this apartment. He thought he chose these bulbs for painting, adding dimensions to water colour. But it was this, for you, spread open on his bed with a wet patch between your legs, smelling like burnt sugar and fresh fruit as he presses his face into you and breathes in. You try to squirm away as he bands an arm across your hips, reaching to pull the soaked fabric aside as your pussy blooms open like a flower for him.

He's wrecked from the first swipe of tongue. The first taste of you makes his hips jerk, his cock twitching violently in its fabric confines, spurting precum into his underwear as your hand twists in the sheets. You’re wet and hot and clenching right in front of his eyes, his mouth covering the hard berry of your clit as you whimper into your arm. He’s surrounded by you, feeling you coat his chin and his beard as he ruts his hips into the sheets, trying to stave off his own hunger until you cum for him, more than once, so he can spread you wide and fuck you on these sheets he picked out – they’re your favourite colour.

Dieter’s talking to himself, mumbling against your folds as he explores you with his mouth, his tongue dipping deep inside your entrance, lapping at your underwear, the scrape of beard on fabric making you ache. His hair is soft beneath your fingers, winding through his hair as you arch into his mouth, another groan vibrating as you tug gently on the strands.

You feel like you’re underwater, lungs burning as you gasp for air between each frenzied touch of his mouth. You can hear the sounds you’re making, the whimpers as if from very far away, the wet slurp of his tongue against you as he moans and tugs you closer to his mouth. You feel him tease your entrance with a finger, stretching and rubbing around the outside as he sucks your clit between his teeth. You meet his eyes when the orgasm breaks over you, they’re blurry and dark.

He slips two fingers inside you easily, pressing down against your clenching walls as he rests his forehead on your stomach, scissoring you open gently as the room is filled with the lewd wet squelching of his fingers filling you. Two of his feels bigger than three of your own, pressed deep as he slowly fucks you with them, curling his knuckles against the clutch of your orgasm.

Three is a stretch, you feel the sting as something sweet as he spreads three impossibly thick fingers inside you, mouthing at your hip at you clutch the sheets. He flicks his tongue across your clit, watching the way your body shudders, feeling the way you react as he splays his palm wide across your stomach, pressing down enough that you feel the stretch of him deeper inside you.

He moves slow, a rocking rhythm in and out as he mouths at your sensitive clit, skating his tongue to the side as if he knows that touching it directly would be too much. He laps at your entrance, the wetness coating his palm as he nudges repeatedly at a spot deep inside you that makes your legs feel like water, everything loose and pliant as he sucks lightly at your clit.

It builds slower, the ascent longer as you thrash your upper body on the sheets. You can feel him watching you, curls over his brow as he studies each twist of your face, each cry of his name that reaches his ears as he watches your hands, the sheets twisted between them, feels the scratch of your nails on his scalp.

It detonates through your body. It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before, each cell exploding in unison as you arch off the bed, followed by his mouth, his hand effortlessly holding you up as he drinks from you, half rabid and relentless as the force pushes his fingers free. He tilts his head back, taking deep breaths as his eyes drift closed, a look of ecstasy on his face as he smiles.

“Every day” he mutters “We’re doing that every fucking day”

It makes you laugh as he meets your eyes, grabbing a pillow from the foot of the bed to wedge under your hips. He drags your underwear down your legs, his eyes fixated on your swollen cunt as he balls them in his fist, standing up to loosen his belt, dragging his underwear and pants down to kick free over his feet.

You’ve felt it. Imagined enough to understand what you’re looking at. The light in the room plays off his skin, slightly sweaty as he watches you take him in. Thick and heavy, his cock hangs angrily between strong thighs, dusted lightly with the same sparse hair. As your eyes trail the length of him, you watch him twitch, the weight jerking valiantly up as a bead of precum appears and drips, long and sticky. You can see the shine of others, know he’s been steadily leaking in his briefs for some time as you watch him, the hand with your underwear in it coming to cup the shaft.

You know how big his hands are. You watch as his fingers barely touch as he squeezes himself, dribbling over his knuckles as he kneels back on the bed. It seems to grow bigger as he gets closer, pulsing and twitching in his grasp as he nudges your thighs open, your ass propped on a soft pillow, tilting your hips towards him.

“Under there” he says, jerking his chin towards a mound of pillows near your elbow. Sliding your fingers under the cook fabric you find the tube, half empty, raising your eyebrows as you pull it out.

“Thought about you a lot” he says with half a shrug, reaching with his free hand as he shuffles closer, his knees under your thighs. Your fingers brush as you pass him the lubricant, sending sparks skittering up your arm. You touch his hip, brush the bone as it shifts beneath his skin and watch his eyes flutter shut.

“You’re going to make me fuckin’ lose it” he mumbles, dribbling a generous amount over his length as you watch. Each stroke of his hand over his girth makes it almost sparkle in the light, the wet squelch of his fingers as he squeezes the tip, massaging your thigh as he spreads you over his own.

It’s burning hot, and thick. He swipes the head across your clit, making you jump as he groans, sounding almost pained as he watches your face. Sliding a hand to your waist you watch him, the concentration in his face as he presses the head against your entrance.

“Fucking hell.” He moans, pressing just the blunt tip inside you. “I can feel you. You’re sucking me in Lou – this greedy little cunt squeezing around me, you want it don’t you? Want this fat cock splitting you open, making you scream. I’ve gotten your whimpers, your moans, I’ve heard my name, I want to hear you scream it.”

He rearranges you. There’s no other word for it, nudging you to make room for him inside you as he sinks in, wet and messy and dripping all over his sheets as you feel your body yield to the impossibility of him. He groans, shallowly fucking into you as you adjust, each thrust just an inch more, your legs spreading wider, more open for him as he watches the place where your bodies join.

“Listen to it.” Dieter says, flicking his eyes to your face. “Listen to what it sounds like when I fuck you”

You’re grabbing for his forearms, your nails digging into his skin as he presses his pelvis against yours, the muscles of his neck cording as you watch him take deep breaths, feel him fist the sheets beneath you. He slides his hand up your back, dropping his weight onto you as you twist your legs around his thighs. He feels so good. So warm and heavy as he kisses your jaw. You can feel his heart thundering in metronome with your own.

“Fuck me” you whimper, wanting to feel what you’ve fantasised about since that night on his couch three feet away. His hand clutches your hip, tilting you further into him as he licks the sweat from the hollow of your throat and rolls his hips, pleasure rolling through your limbs like a tidal wave.

Its loud, the smack of his skin on yours, his hoarse swearing into your neck between scrapes of teeth and squeezes of flesh. He moves so fluidly against you, battering that spot inside you that makes your lungs feel like they’re burning. Each thrust of his hips knocks your brain further into the soft fuzz you associate with Dieter, a pleasant hazy buzz as he grabs your skin, hitching your leg higher as he fucks you faster.

“You look so pretty like this; you’re fucking wasted on my cock right now. Fucked out and all messy for me – just for me yeah, taking me so fucking well, like you were made for me, made of star stuff just for me, just for me. Touch yourself for me, I want to see”

He rears over you, both hands over your hips now to drag you into the slamming force of his own, talking words you can’t here as he fucks you wildly, his own eyes hazy and lost. Your fingers feel numb as you reach to touch your clit, electric pleasure sparking through your body as you press down, the pressure enough to make your hips jerk, your spine arching as everything goes white at the edges.

“That’s it, yes, I can fucking feel it, you’re squeezing me so goddamn tight, come all over me, fuck yourself on me, just like that, I want to feel you cum all over this cock”

You do scream his name this time, everything locking down as he pulls your hand free, gripping his cock to smack against your throbbing and aching clit as you come harder than you can remember in your life. He jerks himself against you, the wet mess smearing all over the flushed angry head of his cock as you twitch and spasm.

“I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna fucking cum, all over this wet sloppy cunt, all fucked open for me, so fucking beautiful fuck… fuck, fuck!”

His fingers dig in your thigh as he cums, his back curling as you feel the hot pulse of him against your folds, his mouth falling slack as he smears the mess over both of you, each pulse bringing a deep groan of your name as his breathing goes ragged.

You watch as his hands shake. His head falling forward as a silence falls over the room. His hair has curled wildly, his skin is shiny with sweat in the light. You wait, unsure, with his seed drying on your skin as he catches his breath, your own coming easier.

The briefest tendril of fear chills your skin as you remember this part from every other moment in your life. This is the part where he goes to grab a washcloth, maybe a glass of water, stretching his muscles as he leaves you to fend for yourself, your skin turning cool with the absence of his warmth.

But Dieter falls on top of you instead, rolling to the side as he grabs you, arms wrapping tight around your back as he pulls you into a messy kiss. He doesn’t let you go as he reaches to the ground behind you, producing a bottle of water, pulling your chin with his thumb as he pours it into your mouth. It spills out of your cheeks. He licks the droplets from your skin, taking a swig of his own.

He doesn’t let you go as he struggles with blankets, kicking his legs and making you laugh as the blankets flutter and settle over you both. He keeps kissing you, palming your cheek as he pulls your leg over his thigh, humming to himself.

“Have you seen Ninotchka?” he asks.

“No?” you reply, your eyebrows twisting in confusion.

“It’s one of the first movies that made fun of Stalinism. It was the movie that got Garbo her last Oscar nod. They marketed it as Garbo Laughs… because it was a comedy. It’s so charming, the stuffy Russian communist converted to great American capitalism by falling in love in Paris.”

“Dieter” you stop him. “You’re so far ahead of me… with all of this. Are you just waiting for me to catch up?”

He smiles, tilting your chin as he kisses you again.

“We’re on this journey together. Couldn’t have gotten started without you”

You smile as he kisses your forehead, closing your eyes against his neck as you feel him begin to rub your back.

“Of course, it didn’t win any Oscars, but it came out the same year as Gone with the Wind, so that’s not surprising. But it’s so funny, great slapstick humour as they come from two incredibly different worlds…”

The smell wakes you. Sweet, like blueberries and sugar, just a hint of smoke as your eyes struggle to open, the sleep gluing your lashes shut as you hear a soft humming. Rubbing your palm against your eyes you roll over, the sheets tangling in your limbs as you orient yourself.

You’re still naked, clutching she sheet around your chest as you sit upright, the room swimming into focus. Dieter is standing on the coffee table, his sweats low on his hips. You can see smoke curling above him, a paintbrush is behind his ear.

A wooden palette hangs from his thumb, dripping paint on the hardwood as he swirls on the brickwork opposite the bed. The brush sounds scratchy, his low humming layering over it like a melody as you watch him ash the joint into a mason jar full of paint water.

He stills, putting the palette down as he pulls the detail brush from behind his ear. Thick globs of paint are turned into thin lines, delicate arches and whorls in an image you can’t really make out. It smooths and blurs into focus as you look at his shoulders, warm and tan as he smudges the paint with his thumb.

It’s you. Not a portrait, but an abstract series of shadow and light. You recognise the curl of your hair over the shell of your ear, the roll of your stomach as you curl on your side, your knuckles, gripping a pen. You see his head tilt, the curls catching the morning light, turning them golden.

“This is a good look for you” he says, not turning as you watch him smudge another shadow.

“What is” you answer, feeling a smile creep over your face.

“Naked in my bed” you hear the clatter of the paintbrushes into the jar, the sizzle of the joint as it follows. He steps down from the coffee table, wiping his hands on his sweats as he comes to the bed, crawling over you on his knees.

“You smell good too” he says, burying his face in your neck, his beard scraping against your skin. You shiver. Your arms wrap around him as he starts kissing your neck, burning as you feel his erection grow against your hip.

“What do I smell like?” you ask, cupping his cheek to bring his lips to yours. You feel swollen, sensitive and raw as he tugs the sheet free, the cool air making your nipples pebble.

“Like me. Like you, smells good together. Will you stay today? Tomorrow too? We have movies you need to see” he says biting at your bottom lip as he hitches your leg around his hip. His hands roam your skin, tracing warm paths across your thighs, your ass, dipping between your thighs to swipe against the wetness.

“Do you smell like me?” you ask, grinning against his mouth as you nod agreement.

“I smell like paint” he says, pressing kisses down your sternum. “But I can change that”

Owen can’t breathe for laughing. His fists are scrunched on Dieter’s counter as Molly throws utensils at him, spoons with mash potato remnants bouncing off his shoulder as she yells for him to shut up. Dieter has his face buried in your shoulder; his hands firm on your waist as he muffles his own laughter.

“Mols… how”

“Because I was eighteen?! You’re a moron when you’re eighteen!” She shouts, flinging a green bean at him.

“Sweetheart… that stupid?”

“Fuck you Owen” she spits, flipping him the bird before joining you and Dieter on the couch. You offer her a sympathetic smile as she reaches to flick Dieter’s ear.

The day has been full of moments like this. Your ribs hurt from laughing, entertained by Owen’s tales of his knitting club, or the foam party he went to last weekend, the new heels he brought that hurt his feet. Of Molly’s stories of Upper East Side drama, the petty jealousies that ran like rivers through the rich. You all cooked, Dieter weaving in between you all with Jell-O Shots and joints until the early dinner was made of pleasant fuzz and red tongues, the stuffing all the better.

Dieter nudges a water bottle to your lips, wrinkling his nose as you take a sip, kissing the coolness of your lips right after, stamping affection on you as his hand disappears under your shirt. Which is his anyway, his insistence this morning after he kept you in bed until ten minutes before Owen and Molly arrived, their shoes clanging in the entryway as you exited the shower. You’ve spent every night here since. Waking early to watch him paint before leaving for work. You haven’t had a headache all week.

It was easy, to fall into this with him. He made for the softest landings; his broad frame wrapped around you like a clinging vine. The painting on the wall is finished, your purple smudged thumbprint right next to the charcoal in which he signed his name.

Owen flops on the floor in front of you all, stretching his limbs as he grabs for another handful of snap peas from the coffee table, crunching them in the silence that settles over you all. You’re tired, the warmth in your stomach spreading through your skin as Dieter strokes a pattern against your ribs.

“Do you have loans for it?” you mumble, the question seeming out of place in the silence.

“Course I do. I’m still like forty grand in with those fucking idiots. Bachelors in Fine Literature my fucking ass – what kind of college has a ‘centring yourself’ class as part of its curriculum. Since that stupid nanny job fired me, I’m working with D as well as overnight in a bodega just to keep up the rent on a rat infested six story walk up. Once I’ve dug my way out of it, I’ll get right back on the merry-go-round with some two year course somewhere”

“You can come and live with me” Owen says, his mouth full.

“Orgy-Town? I love you Owen, but there’s not enough disinfectant spray in the world to make me sit on your couch, let alone sleep in your spare room”

He shrugs, nodding agreement.

“They go under?” you ask, shifting on Dieter’s lap to look at her. Her head is lolled back on the couch, fingers playing with the ends of a braid.

“Yeah, fraudulent exposé like 2 years ago or something”

“Federal loans?”

She nods, her mouth set in a thin line as you sit upright, some of the fog clearing as you look at her.

“You can get them forgiven”

“I don’t want to forgive those fuckwits”

“No not them, the loans. Federal student loan debt can be forgiven if the institution was fraudulent”

Owen sits up, cracking his shoulder on the coffee table.

“What?” Molly asks, her head snapping towards you.

“Yeah, it’s called Borrower Defence or something like that. I don’t know the exact law for it, but you can get some or all of the loans forgiven.”

Your fingers are playing with Dieter’s shirt, tugging on the neckline to see the little jewelled bruised you’ve left with your teeth. They made you smile.

“How come nobody has told me about that?”

“Why would they? You’ll keep paying your loans. If you want, I can get some more info and an application for you when I go back to the office”

“Seriously, just like that?”

You nod, your limbs feeling pleasantly heavy as Dieter massages your spine gently. The food, the booze the weed are all blurring your vision, everything feeling warm and safe and happy. He noses your cheek and kisses it as you nod the affirmative.

“I knew I liked you” Molly says, sounding amazed.

“Bullshit – you still owe me twenty. You said they wouldn’t get together until after Christmas!”

Dieter nudges Owen in the ribs with his foot.

“You were betting on us?” he asks, mock sternness in his voice.

“Yep. Speaking of, which of you made the first move? I can win it all back if it was Lou”

The sound of their argument, filled with laughter rocks you to a heavy sleep. You don’t hear them leave, you don’t feel Dieter cover you both with the thick and heavy blankets as he curls behind you, whispering in your ear between brushes of his lips on your skin.

The sound is horrible, blaring and loud as you both bolt upright, the fake foghorn sound blasting from his kitchen as he scrambles from the couch, grabbing his phone and his falling pants simultaneously. His voice is gravelly and low as he answers.

It’s dark out, no lights left on in his apartment as he paces around the couch, the voice on the other end unfamiliar as his brow furrows, his thumb coming to his teeth as he worries at a cuticle. You blink the tired from your eyes, worry seeping through the pleasant warmth of your skin like icy wind.

“Right, thanks for letting me know.” He throws the phone onto the bed, watching as it bounces onto the floor.

“Everything ok?” you ask, watching his shoulders round, the deep breath he takes before coming back to the couch.

“We need to talk” he says, pulling you back into his lap. His fingers shake as they cling to you.

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo / you #dieter bravo x female reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo x reader #dieter bravo fanfiction #dieter bravo fic #the bubble fanfiction #the bubble fic

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unhinged-summer-fun · 2 years

Text

farmer joel snippet 02.

Written for Danktober 2022 Day 8: Waxplay, Match, National Motorcycle Ride Day.

A/N: Once again, this is a context-lean snippet of a larger in-progress story. This is asynchronous to the other three snippets I'm posting in October, but for these snippets in the greater story timeline, the order should be 02., 01., 03., and 04., with an unspecified amount of time between each snippet. Next Joel is on the 12th. Tomorrow is omegaverse Marcus Moreno.

Content warnings that may be triggering (this fic will be Explicit, and this snip earns an overall Mature rating) to some readers: frank discussions of mentally ill parents, child abuse by way of neglect and disowning of a teenager, teenage pregnancy, miscarriages, implied but unfounded accusations of child predation, internalized guilt and shame stemming from breakdowns in communication surrounding consensual kink and roleplay, domestic violence, divorce, abandonment, emotionally stunted folks, all the usual TLOU warnings tbh including unapologetic murder <3 stay crazy friends

Word Count: 6,514 (LOL)

[full danktober list here]

[farmer joel masterlist here]

“Why’d we stop?” You matched Joel and placed your foot down on the pavement, keeping mindful of the deceptively dangerous exhaust pipe.

He was quiet a moment, looking around with that ever-present frown that disclosed nothing.

Most people looked like him these days, in your experience. Even in your childhood years, over a decade before the outbreak was even a whisper on the wind, you remembered the look of wary exhaustion and the dark shadows that came with trying to hide just how little sleep helped anymore.

You recognized the same look in your own face, when you were strong enough to look yourself in the eye at all. Joel shook you from your thoughts and lifted a hand to point toward the east.

“Storm’s coming.”

When you followed the line of his finger where he indicated, you saw the dark clouds gathering, chasing the path of the sun to the other end of the sky. Pressed against his back as you’d been the whole ride, your face had been turned away from this half of the sky. Upon first inspection, they looked heavy and menacing, inescapable, but you weren’t too concerned with a bit of dour weather.

Water was just water, after all. Those who drew breath today knew that far greater dangers came from the earth, in things that grow for the purposes of destruction.

“How far is it to the depot?”

“Too far. We’ll have to find shelter for’few hours.” He kicked his foot back up onto the motorcycle, indicating for you to do the same. “Can’t ride in the rain.”

Joel was a man of action even when he spoke. He often used gestures and movement to punctuate his meaning. His body language spoke volumes in each sentence.

When did you start to feel comfortable enough around him to assume you knew a damned thing about him?

The thought sat heavy and low and dark like the storm clouds above as the motorcycle roared down the road. There was hardly a single stretch of pavement you’d seen that wasn’t cracked or warped or distended by unchecked, ferocious nature. It meant no trancelike drives, no idle minds for busy hands. You were reminded of a statistical sadness: you hadn’t seen the ocean in over ten years. For some reason, drifting off felt just as alien whether you meant it figuratively or literally.

Shelter appeared just as the first few droplets of rain began to spatter against your skin, making you jolt here and there while Joel weaved his way between cracked concrete cliffs and crags. Your leg had started aching something fierce in the rising air pressure from the storm, but you kept your mouth shut about it until a time where it could be fixed.

Joel didn’t outright ignore complaints or requests, but he did tend to grow frustrated when he knew there was nothing he could do to change it. Even if he ultimately chose not to help or fix something, he wasn’t particularly comfortable being reminded of his fallibility. So you kept quiet most of the time. You knew some questions were just impossible to answer even if you had the words for it. The kindest thing you could offer him was silence, an armistice where the crowbar of question marks was set down. I will not pry you open, you promised his shoulder-blades. The ribs are not a crate to be torn apart, and the heart does not lay unprotected on a bed of hay.

Shit, there you go again.

The house he settled on, like nearly every rural house in the surrounding 90 miles, was abandoned. No more than that, though. Abandoned, meaning mostly untouched except by nature, as few things were these days, yourself unfortunately not included. You’d seen looted homes, picked clean like bones in the wake of vultures. Hell, you’d even looted a few yourself. You felt a similar unease peering inside that you’d felt when looking at yourself in the mirror before you were ready.

The house was abandoned but untouched by the greed and desperation of mankind. A time capsule with a fatal leak in the seal. Shoes lined up at the door. Keys on a side table. Flowers that were past the point of being even called dead, gathering and becoming dust in a potter’s casket. Hell, the appliances were still plugged into outlets which had been demoted to complicated holes in the wall and you wondered what trusting a light switch would feel like again—

“Sheesh,” Joel muttered, drawing his sidearm and hunting knife. But he was looking up at the house, inspecting it with a different kind of focus than he normally regarded the unknown. “Looks just like the glade-house did when I found it.”

That piqued your interest greatly, and you repeated your initial scan of the place, averting your gaze from the signs of life frozen in stale, humid air. You saw some of the facade breaking, details telling a different story the longer you looked.

Paint that had long-rotted off the siding. Stucco which peeled in barklike shapes like sunburnt skin, or wild-fired trees. A tarnished mezuzah on the doorframe. Some days, you wished you still deserved to believe in God.

You wondered if you ever had been deserving of that delusion.

The door crashed open after a firm boot to the lock plate splintered the wood. You’d never seen Joel do something like this before, but he moved like it was easy or as practiced as his other skills. You were told in a low, firm twang to stay outside while he did a sweep.

While you waited, your clothes dampening from the rain picking up at your back, you tried not to look too closely at the water damaged family portraits along the wall, hidden thankfully behind splintered and broken glass. Still, you felt their eyes boring into you from the past. At least you didn’t have to see yourself in the reflections, a hollow wraith of a woman appearing uninvited among the living and joyful. Much like God, you no longer wasted faith believing in haunted houses, but you still held the notion that some people just welcomed others’ ghosts a bit more than the rest. It was easier to digest than a hard diagnosis.

Joel interrupted your dark thoughts when he came back up from a set of stairs leading down.

“Basement’s dry, probably due to bedrock and a good seal on the concrete. Rest of the place is structurally unsound, wood rot and warped windows from some shit job aligning the panels. ‘Prawly wasn’t enough to notice at the time but time reveals all, and bad craftsmanship shows itself quickly.”

He spoke at a quicker pace, the kind of excitement that came in the middle of singing a song you didn’t think you remembered. It was like your heart-memory had taken over. Though he’d most likely forgotten he had an audience, though he’d most likely forgotten you were even there, you felt warmed by the way his voice sounded younger. This was his past speaking. Not just his past, but the Past everyone had thought they buried in the early years of the outbreak.

Nothing dead is guaranteed to remain so, you knew.

Maybe this house was meant to draw and hold life as it had been - like the shine of stars long since succumbing to themselves thousands of millions of years and miles away. It was both glinting constellatory pinpricks in the fabric of the universe, but also an inescapable black hole. It made you weary to cross the threshold at all.

But Joel was already moving like he expected you to follow, and whether he knew it or not, you were already sucked into the fatal gravity of Joel Miller.

You took a breath and followed his voice inside, helplessly tethered to that deep drawl. You liked hearing him talk about home building in particular, on the fleeting occasions he spoke longer than a few words. The topic seemed more personal to him.

“Bet I could just…naw, I won’t do that. But this might-coulda been one of those quick-build new constructions with beer cans left in the walls.”

“They left beer in the walls?”

“Folks who didn’t give a shit about their work did. Was difficult to give a shit getting paid next to nothing to build a house in three days, knowing you could never afford it in your lifetime.”

“You’re fucking with me. No way did they—”

You jumped as Joel tapped the tip of his steel-toe boot into the base of the wall a few times, waiting til the sound went hollow enough before drawing his leg back and plunging it into the not-so-drywall, leaving a crumbling crater the size of a baking sheet in his wake. Your voice hadn’t quite stopped leaving your mouth, and you formed a soundless noise of alarmed confusion he turned to glance at you sharply. When he saw there was no threat or injury toward you, he looked back at his work, squatting to peer closer.

“Mhm. Twenty-sum’n years on and shit ain’t changed.”

Several crunched shapes of what were once-bright colored beer cans peeked from the rubble, gleaming jewels hidden in the same dark trove for decades before Joel’s unearthing.

“Sheesh,” you muttered, repeating his earlier sentiment.

Joel swiped his hands across his thighs and stood back up to his full height. You imagined that the Joel who had this body in the Past would have tried to hunch or crouch in on himself to make himself seem smaller. Now, in the wild jungle of the world, the laws of that land applied here. Small meant prey. Big meant alive.

Shit, why was that alluring?

“…‘Sides, all the bedrooms are infested with mold.”

You tensed at the implications of potential spores. Where was his mask?

Wait. Old habits, nevermind. You inwardly cringed when Joel was able to pick up on your misplaced tension.

“Just black mold.”

“Oh.”

You remembered seeing your childhood home go up in flames, your batshit father convinced it was the only way to rid it of the black mold. Shortness of breath, hallucinations, and migraines seemed so harmless compared to the effects of cordyceps.

The bike was rolled into the front hallway, the door kept mostly closed with its back tire since Joel had rendered the locks useless just a few minutes prior. He kept his eyes forward as he took you to the basement, down a switchback set of stairs you lost sight of the moment the door at the top swung shut behind you.

You froze.

The darkness was too similar to the darkening of lights that preceded feature films. The reel that spun up in your mind across the silver screen of the inside of your skull was the same perennial showing you couldn’t ignore in unconsciousness: That Night.

Even now, knowing your feet were in boots and your clothes were more rugged, your feet slapping wetly over grass, slick with blood from your injured leg, you felt brambles scratching and pulling at a dress. You heard the crashing of branches and lethal movement too close behind you, and in your mind’s panicked eye, the glade was just a few yards away, bathed in moonlight. The barest hint of claws ripping at the air that touched your back, tearing the oxygen from your lungs and leaving you drowning in fear and—

Joel said your name.

He took your hand.

You were here again.

Somewhere in the wildlands, taking shelter from a storm. You took a shuddering breath. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said gently, his twang soothing you in a way you were sure he didn’t want it to.

It was as much kindness as he’d allowed himself to give to you til now. Admonishment out of context, but warmth in his actions. Was this nonverbal punctuation a comma, promising more to come? Was it a parentheses, threatening to close abruptly and be remembered as little more than an aside? Was it a period, signifying the last time he’d touch you so assuringly?

All I’m getting is question marks, you thought frustratedly. This is why Morse code has no fucking punctuation. It just makes shit complicated.

He led you down the stairs, explaining in a low voice that he’d found a space for the two of you to stay. Your feet eventually crossed onto a thick-pile rug, and he had you sit down on it. “They had candles and matches down here somewhere. Don’t go anywhere.”

You remembered the mezuzah on the doorframe. Yeah, there’d be candles.

His footsteps left the island of the carpet and echoed dully in the space. Thunder rumbled and shook the house above you, but didn’t scare you. A verse of abrupt scratching, its refrain, and the telltale hiss of phosphorous igniting marking the relief of the chorus. You caught the faint glowing song of light on the ceiling, growing as Joel lit several candles at once.

When he returned to you, making several trips to bring you light before returning to the dark for more, you arranged the candles in a little circle, trying to light the space within it while doing your best to ignore the menorah stacked atop a box labeled neatly in Hebrew you didn’t want to be able to read, though your mind screamed its meaning at you anyway.

When Joel returned with the last candle, he joined you on the floor and set the candle between you, the softened wax end jammed into a glass votive. The singing box of matches joined it on the rug. Finally, he sighed and leaned back. The rug wasn’t as comfortable as some of the furniture in his house, but it would have to do.

As your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you took in more of your surroundings. The house was a place for a family to live, but a basement was typically only used for things, not people.

Even in Tornado Alley, bunkers made things of everyone.

“Holy shit,” Joel said with a chuckle of disbelief, sitting back up in a fluid movement that belied his true age, whatever it was.

“What?”

“Look at that.” He got to his feet and walked the few steps over to what he’d spotted. He’d found a wine rack, just a few bottles across the whole structure, but they were sealed and just a bit dusty.

“No way,” you laughed. Most of the booze you’d tasted was vile, brewed or distilled in tubs or toilets or worse. You’d heard people wax poetic about wine, though. It had always held some sort of mythic quality to it, an elixir more than a beverage in your mind.

“We might be here a while…” Joel said, quirking an eyebrow your way.

“And we might get thirsty…” you said with a growing smile. Joel didn’t smile.

You both inspected the labels back in the circle of light, turning them to see the flames break through the tinted glass and liquid within it. “What was your poison, before?” Joel asked after clearing his throat of whatever was keeping him from asking in the first place.

“Oh, man.” You laughed. “I don’t think it qualifies as much more than actual, literal poison.”

“I was simple. I liked a beer.”

“Careful, Joel. Your Texas is showing,” you teased, but something told you he wasn’t ready to rise to your playfulness. You hoped there was a yet at the end of that.

Joel looked at the wine, turning it over in his hands. Shit, it looked minuscule when he held it. Your mind made some quick and very unhelpful comparisons between your size and his. “Sometimes I’d spring for something nice like this, when I felt like it.”

He handed you the bottle, some collection of letters and words that meant nothing to you. Still, you tried to read them to push your focus away from where his palms had left the glass warm. You spoke quickly, knowing he was observing you and trying to hide your flustered state. “This is a red, right?”

Oh, for fucks sake, girl.

“Yes.” He sounded amused.

Fuck.

You hummed, praying to the concrete to liquify and entomb you before your brain made things worse. You traced your thumb over the small plastic seal at the corner of the label. “Let’s open it.”

The wine rack had a corkscrew, and Joel opened it with ease, the pop sparking some long-forgotten memory of seeing adults holding out delicate stemware, almost toasting the air about the bottle instead of greedily asking for their fill.

You thought of those adults more in the greedy sense, now. There was no holy grail humbly held beneath the bleeding Christ. There were only vampiric predators waiting to sip upon the spoils of a Pyrrhic victory they felt no shame over.

“I wouldn’t trust the glasses they had over there, but…” he took the first five off the top of a stack of red plastic cups, and plucked two from the center. “Sometimes we used to get the silver and gold ones, pretend we were fancy.”

You smiled at his story, holding out your cup to him.

A toast to the wine.

The storm carried on a conversation with itself as you drank with Joel, just looking out in the darkness and trying not to let the flames blind you when you glanced at them too long. You started to understand why Joel preferred beer as you drank with him. The wine was strong, not as strong as the hooch you made do with in the outbreak, but it was still strong, nonetheless. It loosened your thoughts from tightly-wound and anxious toward smooth and sultry, ones you’d tried your best not to focus on while living with him.

His face was cut harshly by both shadows and time, but the corners of his eyes smoothed some when he would take a drink of the wine, years falling off his shoulders like rain washing away grime. His even breathing turned to sighs you weren’t sure he noticed he was making.

When he finished off the first bottle, he looked at the bottom of his cup and shook his head. “Didn’t know how good that would be.”

“There’s more…” you pointed out.

“You sure?” He said, looking over at you with the empty bottle dangling in his fingertips.

Your traitor brain wanted to interpret those words in so many different contexts. You nodded your head dumbly, which was only a little fuzzy but you liked the pleasant feeling it gave you.

Another bottle opened with a pop. Joel relaxed a little closer to you after pouring, body sprawled into a position of comfort more than rest.

Your fucking mouth won a fight you didn’t know had started. “You ever think about the things you wanted to try but never got to because they didn’t fit into the world around you?” You weren’t sure where the question came from, but Joel didn’t seem to mind it.

“Here and there. That kinda nostalgia kick is a slippery slope.”

“Yeah.”

You were ready to resign yourself to the feeling of sheer mortification for the rest of this tempest, strange bedfellows made estranged by loosened tongues. But then he met your eyes, and you saw he’d lost a similar fight in himself. He spoke.

“There was a lot I think everybody took for granted, though.”

“Like what?”

“The ability to forget, I think is most common. To distract yourself.”

The storm kicked up a ruckus. It must have truly hit you now, wind shaking the house above. It felt miles away. You considered his answer, trying to understand his meaning around the soft pile of your brain.

“Movies and television are starting to come back in the bigger cities, from what I know…” A shot in the dark.

“I don’t mean like that,” he said with a wince. “I mean letting yourself forget the shit outside your door and just live by the laws of your own space.”

You frowned. “I’m not sure I follow, Joel…”

He caught himself, like he’d let his mind drift off to some dangerous place of want and daydreams that only held inevitable grief. “Got lost there for a second. Forget I said anything.”

“I asked the question, though,” you teased.

“Well forget you said anything.” He smirked back up at the ceiling for a bit, enjoying rather than shooing the memory he’d stumbled into. He was quiet, but not bored. Whatever he was looking back on, it was pleasant to him.

“What’re you thinking about?” you asked. Your voice sounded a little deeper, huskier from the effect of the wine. Joel rolled his head over toward you.

“You don’t wanna know.” There was a glimmer of something in his eyes. It was almost a smile, but it had a dangerous, thrilling glint about it.

“Oh, now I really wanna know.” You scooted closer. “Tell me.”

He gave another big sigh, letting a smug look take root in his expression. “I was into some kinky shit back before it all went to hell. Miss that sometimes, but I don’t think I need it as much no more. Least I tell myself that.”

Your breath caught in your throat, and the candles felt a little hotter around you. “What kind of kinky shit?” You asked, a little mortified with how breathy your voice had gotten.

Joel met your eyes. In the candlelight they were washed of depth, just inky black circles that hid as he… oh, is he checking you out? You swallowed roughly and took another sip to hide it. “Little bit of everything.”

The admission made you squirm, unable to sit still while talking about the adventurous sex life Joel once had. “Suppose I’m in a similar boat, then.”

“Hm?” he said, urging you on.

“That was one of those things I never got to try for myself. Porn and dirty books, I could find those wherever I went, but someone who wanted to do those things to me? Fuckin’ shame.” Oh, you’re in trouble if you’re talking about your little porn fantasies with him.

“Fuckin’ shame,” he repeated, lips barely moving though his eyes roamed over you freely. “What rocked your boat most, then?”

“What the fuck, Joel,” you laughed, pouring a bit more wine into your cup. “I haven’t thought about it in a long time. Not even sure if I would still like it.”

“C’mon, tell me,” he said, reaching a hand out to poke your leg. He was almost wheedling you. Your resolve stood no chance.

“Fuck.” You looked off into the dark again, beseeching it to give you an answer that wouldn’t tie your tongue up in knots. You kept your eyes unfocused as you spoke. “I think the top of it all was some form of dom-sub shit. Felt so taboo and intoxicating. Roleplay, the punishments, dirty, teasing humiliation.” You swallowed roughly, holding a few secrets back though the shape of them sat expectantly on your tongue.

“I liked those things, too. Liked being in charge. Probably some psychological reason for that, sure. But it felt nice.” You had to close your eyes against the darkness, but that only made the image of Joel in that position even clearer. Instead, you stared at the candle between you and him.

Don’t play with fire, you warned yourself. You still know the wet fear of burns.

“I asked a partner to spank me once, he thought I meant ‘beat me half to death’.”

The easy, heavy-humid-hot atmosphere that had grown between you was put on hold as your icy gust of a confession swept between you and him. “What happened after that?” he murmured.

“Took his I’m sorry and shoved it down his throat and pulled the trigger.” Your words were evenly spoken and unapologetic.

“Good girl.”

Your eyes snapped to his, expecting… reproach, disgust, maybe even fear, anything but the approval on his face. The echo of his voice rattled around your head the way the crushed cans upstairs rattled between the rotted walls, and it was only in seeing Joel breathe that you remembered to do the same, oxygen flowing shakily past your lips as you cast your mind around for the proper response in the situation.

"What else?" you asked after long last. Joel seemed too serious, too in control of himself, for you to feel duly matched in this conversation. He'd never been this open with you before, and you weren't foolish enough to think that you'd deserved that trust all on your own. He trusted the wine to ease whatever discomfort that came with telling you of himself. You trusted the wine to help you ask.

"Don't wanna scare you," he said, a new tone in his voice. It was unfamiliar in its levity, and you thought for one hysterical moment that he could be teasing you.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. "There's nothing you could say that would scare me more than the world already does."

"Suppose that's fair." Joel's dark eyes drifted down to the candle between you, contemplative. "My tastes were varied. Things from sensory deprivation to sensation overload, edging and hurting and overstimulation back when you had toys to help."

"Hurting?" it seemed out of character for the Joel you knew, but you supposed your admission of taking a life in revenge had been out of character for you to admit, as well. How many secrets lay beneath the skin of a survivor, each raised scar another unsettled pile of gravedirt?

"Nothing I was never asked for explicitly," he said, an undercurrent of vehemence beneath his tone. It made your back straighten up, a prickle of heat licking at the back of your neck. "When I was first starting out, it was the more tame spanking, flogging, a good slap to the face here and there. Liked to feel the sting in my hands, after a day of feeling nothing beneath the gloves I wore on site." He flexed his fingers before his eyes, remembering ghosts of mutual pain and pleasure.

"As we got more into the scene, it elevated to things like temperature play, even…" He reached those fingers out to the candle, dipping a fingertip into the well of the candle made deep by the lit wick. "Playing with wax." He showed you the pale wax cooling against his skin, unflinching at the burn.

You tried to ignore the we for all of half a second.

"On yourself?"

His slowly-raised eyebrow told you otherwise. You thought he’d made his point, but he spoke and with it, stole your breath.

"I like to see 'em flinch."

You shuddered again, chewing on your lip and fighting to keep his gaze. "Sounds fun."

"It was," he murmured, that melancholy look returning. He flicked the glob of wax off his finger away into the darkness, but stared after it for a long time.

"But the outbreak didn't get rid of candles," you said. "Did you stop before that?"

He hummed. "I was a different man then. We all were."

"Why'd you stop?"

He took a deep breath, sighing with some edge of discomfort. You realized with dismay that this could be the end of the conversation, the end of the easy oversharing, the period-line break-page break-roll credits when reality swept back in and all you had was the memory of his playful smirk and teasing tone. But to your surprise, some determination took root in his expression, and he drank a bit more before speaking.

"When I was seventeen I got my girl pregnant. I was over the moon, thought I was so lucky to get my life started so fast. We were both kicked out’n disowned, I didn’t feel like finishin’ high school, so. Married her less'n three months after we found out, same week found a place out in Buda, made plans and hopes and dreams that didn’t involve Waco no more. Day we signed the lease we lost the baby."

He spoke with such a toneless voice that it hurt just to hear. When was the last time he thought about this, much less talked about it? But he wasn't looking at you. He was looking into the flame, like it’d burn away the pain of remembering.

"It laid us both low. She was in a worse-off state than me, looking at her new husband who she would later say she never planned to marry at all, wondering where the fault lay in it all. I’s workin eighteen hour days on construction sites. All those football muscles became buildin’ muscles. I was so goddamn tired. Tryna please her. If I didn’t, then… then I wouldn’a left my baby brother for nothin, y’know?”

Though the sentence ended in a typical request for feedback, that yes, you understood the bleakness of vain attempts at righteousness, he still spoke like he forgot you were there. Was it the wine, the house, or you that made him open up to you?

And even then, was any of it true? Why were you doubting his words at all? What would Joel gain by lying, anyway? It was clear from his rambling speech that he either didn’t speak from the heart a lot, if ever. You trusted stumbling words more than rehearsed ones.

“The doctors told us after the miscarry that there was no fault to be placed anywhere in our marriage bed, but I wanted to be a good husband so I took the blame, against what I knew was true. Had to be me. Had to be my… my contribution to it that poisoned the well. I was too tired, stressin’ her out. Working too much, she felt lonely. Built up all these excuses outta me for her to step all over and feel happy ‘bout.”

You wanted to protest, but he'd even admitted that he knew those things weren’t true about himself.

"Thought she was gonna leave me before the year was out. I was trying everything not to get left. My brother looked up to me, even after I got kicked out, he moved in with us when I turned nineteen, but he couldn't—I wouldn't show him I was fallible. Not ever. Not when he needed me. Practically raised that boy myself. After both their sons had called it quits on the Miller family, they left Texas entirely and eventually my wife asked Tommy to move in with our mamaw up in Hutto, tol’m he needed to finish school. I was so angry when he left. We were supposed to stick together. But I had to listen to my wife and I had to show Tommy I did, more’n that.”

He’d talked about having a brother before. You even knew his name. You knew he lived south of the glade, but the distance could have been a hundred yards or a million miles depending on how Joel spoke of him. Sometimes fondly. Sometimes with indignation and frustration. Sometimes with regret and sadness. You hoped Tommy was still alive, though you weren’t sure it’d make a difference in Joel.

“Eventually we found something that would get her mind off how much she hated me enough to love me again. We couldn't talk about it at church, no, nor at Christmas Dinner. It felt nice to have a secret just between us, a secret we could keep and be happy about. I didn’t feel so exhausted knowing I could come home and she’d want me again. Knowing I could provide for her more than just with money.

"We explored a lot about ourselves. I found pride in making her happy in our scenes. I found confidence and a slew of other things I found liked about myself, of course she took most of those things in the divorce. But that was years down the line."

He was walking around the subject that sat at the crux of it, the crux of this whole fucking deluge of soul-spilling, and you waited for it’s arrival with bated breath.

"We stumbled upon it by accident one day, just watching porn for what we called 'research purposes' back then. Some girl was getting railed, and turned around, tears in her eyes, and called him daddy."

The word spoken from his mouth, wrapped around his tongue and slow drawl, made it feel like you'd swallowed the flames of the candles all around you, and you had to force your breathing to slow. Your own explorations had been more similar than you had anticipated, then. You had no idea why you liked it, only that you did, and it got you off when nobody else could.

"We took each other's awkwardness as discomfort, and made some jokes about it. Joked about it more and more every day til she was saying it while I made her cum. Fuck, I was a goner, then." His voice rasped like a serrated blade teasing over a delicate piece of art. "I wanted to hear it all the time. And she wanted to say it. So we dove in."

He paused and you felt that not all the players in this final combat of his marriage were present in his story just yet. He closed his eyes.

"Then we had Sarah."

His voice hitched as he said her name, and the quiet following it was tense and calm all at once. You remembered this kind of calm when you walked through deserted towns, the quiet made by the muffling overgrowth crawling up the sides of stone. It reminded you of the mouse-quiet steps you took in a columbarium, visiting ashes you couldn't tell were wood or grandma. You felt silenced by the death about you, like if you breathed loud enough the walls would shake and trap you in the granite for eternity. When you were a child, death frightened you enough to follow you to your dreams. As time went on, you began to realize that death was a blessing, and what came after was the real thing to fear.

"We had the same birthday. September 26th. Liked to call her my birthday girl every day of the year."

This was the first time you’d ever seen Joel smile, and the very sight of it made you want to cry.

"It took a while to get used to the routine of it all, the fatherhood I’d lost nearly everything over. I was working, she was healing, Sarah was growing more every day. By the time we came back together in bed, something was distant and awkward like it'd been back then. When I asked her t—" his voice caught again. Pain flickered across his face, but for his sake you believed it to be a trick of the light. He cleared his throat. "I asked her to come sit on daddy's lap for me, she stood up and started calling me… terrible, horrible things."

He flinched, memories still sharp as the day they cut him open.

"Accused me of things I'd kill men for. That I have killed men for. Told me I was sick, I was an actual father and I shouldn’t indulge in some horny fantasy while my child slept in the next room. She decided that she wanted out. That she felt trapped and disgusted by me. Laughed when she told me she never wanted to be a mother, or my wife. Walked out the door and served me the next day. Guess she'd been waiting a while."

You had to speak up then.

"She left you with an infant?" you asked, bewildered. He looked up at you, tired but not really hung up on his history.

"Wrote the termination of parental rights right into the divorce. I knew she didn't really think I would… she didn't believe what she said, because she left me in the care of a small child without so much as hesitating. But I had to move, couldn't afford to live in the old place by myself. Left Buda, moved west to Rollingwood. Next door to my brother, he’d inherited mamaw’s house and she owned the property next door, turned out. By then Tommy’d already seen the ways things can fail despite your best intentions, it had nothing to do with what kind of brother I was to him. That was a disaster of my own making."

Based on his continued resignation regarding his brother and their fallings-out, you supposed that he'd made his peace with never seeing him again when he chose to live in isolation out in the glade. He'd also told you of his sad life of unspeakable actions, tragedies self-made and otherwise. You believed he’d told you that much just to try and scare you off with his whole I’m a bad man, you shouldn’t trust me schtick.

"I knew what she'd said about me and my desires weren't true. I knew myself, knew my soul was free of those sins. Knew my heart had other sins there, dark things waiting to be cashed in as soon as I'd finally knock at the devil's door. I knew I wasn't that kinda monster. Even still, it wasn’t worth it to try and explore that again. Didn’t date at all while raising Sarah. And by the time I thought about it again, Sarah’d been gone some five years on.”

The conclusion of his roundabout story, and the mention of calling himself a monster made your teeth clench a little behind painted lips. "I know something of monsters, Joel. You ain't one."

He was surprised by your ferocity, stunned into silent agreement by sheer force of your insistence.

"You saved my life when you could've kept ignoring what lay beyond the glade. You took care of me when you could've let me die, healed me when I was better fit to be fed to that thing out there. You may have done terrible things, fuck, I've done terrible things, but surviving is a terrible thing, Joel.”

“Stop—”

“You're not a monster. You're a man, and a survivor. You will never ever be a monster to me. No matter what you do."

"That's enough," he said weakly, desperately. His eyes shone with something behind them, a clear limit in danger of being reached.

You thought back to the crowbar you promised not to be, in even the privacy of your mind.

You took a breath, and didn't apologize. You simply nodded, and drank the rest of the wine in silence, and waited for the storm to pass.

As you sat in the quiet beneath the storm raging overhead, you considered your non-apology in its similarity to Joel’s kindness. He admonished you to fool his mind into allowing himself to protect you. In the same manner, at the warning of his limit being reached, you kindly did not retract your truths with sorries and neverminds, and you did not press for more.

You would stand silently at the line he drew in the sand, and wait for him to let the tide wash it back to sea.

#joel miller x reader #unhingery #danktober 2022 #f!reader #pedro pascal fanfiction

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