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#absolutely weeping with joy
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4/21/23
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sunnibits · 1 month
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I know I’m biased bc I’m a whore for old men but I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone can find eye creases and wrinkles unattractive. you don’t like happy eye crinkles?? you don’t like being able to see someone’s smile echo in waves through their whole expression??? like their smile is expanding beyond their mouth to gently fold every corner of their face?? to draw you in to their twinkling eyes and the joy that’s held there???? you don’t like seeing the evidence of a life well lived, well-laughed, a face worn by smiles as a canyon is worn by rivers??? do you hate puppies and sunshine too??????
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cutie-papudi · 5 months
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astrxealis · 1 year
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did you know i love final fantasy so goddamn much (specifically xiv, xv, and xvi rn)
#⋯ ꒰ა starry thoughts ໒꒱ *·˚#hi. i just saw a gifset of ffxv okay. djhrhrrhrgehehdjhe#:(( wahhhh ffxv means so much to me i love that game with all my heart#and then xiv literally saved me. i mean that genuinely. for a while when i was especially unstable it was what kept me holding on to life.#one reason why i look forward to the future is because of ffxiv's nature as an ongoing game !! and all of its lessons and the story.#and it's helped me a lot from comparing myself to others or feeling inferior? because i like all that i am in ffxiv#there's so many different kinds of players and i'm just glad to be the kind that i am. with my special personal experiences.#so yeah. and endwalker... specifically uhm. ??#going through endwalker hit me a lot. and. if you know how it's like it's really heavy and all and really really... helpful!#ffxiv sorta gives you a reason for therapy but also is therapy of some sort. honestly. and speaking from experience.#i didn't know the world for nihilism until endwalker! and around that time a bit after endwalker i realized that my way of thinking is#existential and so you can see how that. yeah. what happened to me. but yk i kept holding on and i'm past that now!#for various reasons but also because of ffxiv. it's really helped me a lot and i'm not ashamed to say it at all#especially knowing many others share my experiences in their own unique ways. yeah!#i'm not alone. not the only one for whom the flowers weep.#i think it's beautiful how humans derive joy from different things and for me one is definitely ffxiv#and personally i just wish for all that i know to experience it because. i think it's just absolutely wonderful <3#on a less serious note ffxvi is so fucking cool holy shit i am really fucking hyped
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itsmonobun · 1 year
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losing my shit! losing my marbles! going insane! why? coz i figured out how to make speedpaints!
like i feel goofy as hell getting this excited over basic video editing with some simple transition effects and a lil no copyright music but I CAN DO THIS NOW!
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ghosts-post · 8 months
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Yandere farmer x sheep hybrid reader
Yan farmer that's absolutely obsessed with your wool. Takes excellent care of it. Even the slightest spec of dirt means you're getting a bath.
Both weeps with joy and sadness when its summer time and the weather gets warmer knowing he has to sheer your wool. On one hand he gets to collect your wool and do as he pleases with it. On the other hand you will no longer need to spend as much time with him because your wool will no longer need help being managed.
Does have other hybrids on his farm but you are the only one that's allowed into his home. And by allowed he means necessary to come in at least once a day but will always drag you into his house at night. Why would he let you sleep with the other sheep hybrids when you could be sleeping with him?
One time he accidentally mixed up the bag that had your wool with everyone else's and ended up donating it for people to use in crafts, clothes, etc. Cried about it for over a week.
He's actually extremely strong seeing as he does manual labor around the farm everyday. Can and will pick you up when you aren't being compliant with him.
If you are a type of sheep that grows horns he makes sure those are perfect as well. Will wax them and make sure nothing happens to them. He freaked out the one time your horns got stuck in the fence and ended up destroying the fence so he didn't have to cut them. Yes he knows they'll grow back but you'd just look so wrong without them being completely there!
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Yan farmer: your wool is so perfect. Every curl sits just right on you. How is that possible?
Sheep hybrid reader, who just sat through hours of yan farmer brushing their wool: *blank stare*
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Yan farmer, holding a bucket: its time for milking!
Sheep hybrid reader: you mean the cows right?
[Yan farmer's smile slowly widens]
Sheep hybrid reader, sweating: y-you mean the cows right???
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evilminji · 4 months
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*Gasp of joy* Brain, you shouldn't have!
You know how the Wayne's have basicly been the ONLY Good And Uncorrupt Wealthy Family in Gotham? And probably fuckin curse resistant AF because otherwise, HOW!? (No, seriously, the local magical population is baffled but impressed!)
....you....you wanna bet at least a few of those suckers died thinking "but I haven't completed my orphan hospital for sickly waifish puppy's and sad eyed children, yet! I... must... save... THE CHILDREN! *le dies (×.× ) * " to the tune of their beautiful (and somehow bizarrely benevolent and well adjusted) families weeping at their bedsides.
Whoop! There's a ghost! Hello, Mr. Wayne.
(Why does this Keep Happening? Please have LESS unfinished bussiness. You're supposed to be rich. Stop trying to help people ON YOUR DEATH BEDS! FFS.)
I say all this? Beeeecause~?
( >.>)(<.< )
Allright! Time to come clean, folks! Which side of the family lead to our descendant dressing up in a Kevlar BAT SUIT!!? Throwing himself off buildings in the middle of the night. Cavorting around with Amazons!
We aren't even mad about the last one! We're actually deeply and respectfully impressed! But who pulled THAT off? Angela? That yours? (*shrug* I mean... probably? It DOES seem like something my daughter would do...)
So like?
Imagine Danny~.
Trying to eat his generic brand cereal. IN HIS Underwear. When? All these Fancy Ghosts show up to his A College Kid's, Baby's First, Crap Apartment(TM). He's eating on a pillow on the floor for God's sake. It's too early for this! C'mon guys...
But, no.
They want permission to go Haunt their Descendant.
Danny sighs. He can already FEEL his cereal going soggy. This is gonna take a while, ain't it? Okay... okay, WHO is you offspring, what did they do, and for how long? You know the rules, guys.
Then they hit him with the oh so casual "BTW he's Fuckin Batman".
YOU WANT TO WHAT!?
(They convince him. How? He couldn't tell you. It's... is? Is this what It's like meeting a Fenton? For other people? Huh. He always thought people were exaggerating...)
Which? Is how a dead Victorian Old Man has arrived to ABSOLUTELY tear this Trouble Making Youngster a new one, in front of his little friends! Just full on full names him. Oh, OH! The broken BONES! The BRUISES! Have you no regard for your poor ancestors health! Their fragile hearts! Trying to put us in the grave AGAIN, are you?! Why in MY DAY-!!!
(Nightwing? Recording this for Alfred. It's gonna be an early birthday present~)
@hypewinter @hdgnj @the-witchhunter @ailithnight @mutable-manifestation @nerdpoe
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yandere-romanticaa · 13 days
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she walks in beauty.
🎀 Today is Diluc's birthday. However, instead of focusing on himself, he can't help but to fall into his usual lovesick trap of gentle obsession.
yandere! diluc ragnvidr x fem! reader.
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Ever since he was a young lad, Diluc could recall every single banquet and celebration which was hosted by the Dawn Winery estate. He could still sense the smell of various colorful liquors and taste the endless sea of pastries and cakes which were served at such events, making the inner child in him smile.
However, Diluc was no longer a young child.
Ever since the passing of his father, the need to throw any grand banquets was thoroughly diminished. While yes, there were certain things he could not avoid due to societal expectations, he still made the decision to keep things to an absolute minimum.
His birthday was not one of them. At least, not by his choice.
Everyone and their mother knew what day it was today and Diluc lost count with how many birthday wishes and gifts he had received. He was a little touched with the plethora of people who wanted him nothing other than joy, but those same people quickly became a nuisance because he could not seem to be with the one he actually wanted to be with today.
And there stood Diluc, hidden in the shadowy hallway as he watched his beloved prepare for the upcoming festivities. With both his arms crossed and his left side pressed firmly against the dark wood doorframe, Diluc decided in that moment that there was nowhere else he'd rather be than here.
His red eyes watched you thoroughly like a hawk, making sure to remember the ravishing scenery before him.
As much as you disliked his gifts, you didn't have a choice but to accept them this evening. The gentle sapphire necklace hung around your neck perfectly, the fine silver glimmering gently beneath the flickering candle flames. Diluc's gaze quickly shifted to your arms as they toyed with the various strands of hair at the top of your head, carefully adjusting the matching pin he had gotten you not too long ago.
He felt his heart skip a beat once he caught a glimpse of the wedding ring on your finger, causing him to nearly lose his composure and blow his cover altogether. His own ring seemed to come alive as he felt it around his finger, seemingly pulsing with a firey need to just take you, to see the light in your eyes, to beg you to please forgive him-
Even now, he could still hear you weep, for each tear felt like a stab straight into his bleeding heart.
Please, don't lock me away, you pleaded.
"I will be with no one but you. I will give you everything you desire but please Diluc-
Do not keep me as a prisoner!"
He sighed as he fidgeted with his gloved fingers. Diluc hated himself for doing this to you, for making you so utterly miserable. He was the one who took you away, it was him who had stolen that precious smile away from you. If you had been a normal couple perhaps this evening could have been more bearable. Perhaps he could have even enjoyed it, with you by his side.
But that was not how things were going to play out.
Diluc was stuck in a Hell of his own making. Every single tear that you had shed and will shed - that was all on him. Money can buy a lot of things but your love was not one of them. A new surge of determination was born deep inside of Diluc on that night of his birthday and he finally knew what his wish was.
He wished to make amends. Perhaps he could learn to live without your love, even if the mere thought made his teeth shake in fury and heart cry out in blind sorrow.
But he needed you to know that you were loved. He needed you to know that he was going to keep you safe. He was going to love you until his very last breath and even then, he would wait for the day of your sweet forgiveness.
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🥀 TAGS: @genshinarchives, @mod-kisa-blog, @juuuuuj101010, @kalopses-sonderes, @mayulli, @b10h4z4rd, @xiaopleasecomehome, @saturnalya, @alatusprinz, @lakxcpsta, @mewmeowmika, @ranposgirlboss, @goldenglow149
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Happy birthday to this wonderful man. He was my first ever husband in Genshin Impact, he deserves something extra sweet from yours truly.
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comfortless · 1 month
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Hello! This is the Frankenstein anon back with more praise and another prompt that you might like. Again you are amazing and everyone you come out with stuff, I weep for joy! Please continue what you are doing because it is absolute art✨
Okay onto the prompt. So lately tiktok has been putting onto this telenova drama called Hilda Furcão which is pretty much this priest and prostitute fall in love but due to societal pressures, cannot be together. The YEARNING in this show is amazing and I can’t help but think of Priest Konig in this situation. Imagine he falls in love with reader who works at a brothel but because he’s a churchly man, he’s fighting demons in his head (and down yonder) cuz he YEARNS for her but the lord says no🥴
Please keep doing what you’re doing and I’m constantly cheering you on with your work! ❤️
In the Arms of Flowers
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content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. pining, lots of talk of religion/silly metaphors, fluff, ridiculous attempts at courtship from both, dark (if you squint), implied cyber stalking, violence/murder, minor character death, some angst, sexual violence (not done by König), König becomes horribly obsessed and reader is fine with it, virgin!König-> oral (both receiving) piv smut.
wc: 11k.
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There’s a garden in the churchyard, one that’s always been, even before his vows were taken and the cassock was pulled around his shoulders.
It’s the very place that the arching den window in the clergy house faces out towards, and the very place that an angel descends from Heaven to stalk through night after night.
Even when the thunder clamors and rolls to light up the sky above, the pretty thing is there, kneeling amongst the blooming lilies. A listless sort of purity swallows over her, bathes her in the white of petals and the bright illumination of each bolt of lightning above, arcs a halo over her head like a proper mirage.
The whole town knows these doors remain open, but never does she even look toward the church or the home of holy men at all: only the flowers. The lilies and carnations seemed to be her favorite to haunt, weaving through the petals as they sway for her in breezes like whispers from the pouting lips of cherubim.
He’s prayed for this lost soul many times already; clutched the rosary between his fingers and whispered to the Lord to protect her, to heal whatever aches, to bring her wandering feet into the chapel one of these days. But as most lilies, this one’s beauty is gone away by mid-morning.
Tonight, he wills himself to bring her in for prayer and refuge from the coming rain. Its been a long time coming, and regrettably he’s hesitated at every other opportunity. Nothing’s changed, the scene was so commonplace even the others have commented on it prior.
Maybe he hallucinates her holiness; the halo has become made up of fallen petals now as they arch over the crown of her head where she’s found sprawled out amongst them. She raises herself to sit upright, dusts the dirt from her knees and offers a wary glance with each step he takes until his soles halt in soil that would soon be mire.
“I’m sorry. I’ll leave,” the angel breathes out with her eyes darting from his collar down to rest at the expanse of short blades of grass between them. “I don’t mean to cause you any trouble.”
She doesn’t meet the concern in his eyes, and König is no stranger to sin. To the shame and grief that he’s absolved from far worse than her in the stuffy wooden confessional.
“You’re welcome to stay.” A silent prayer rests there in his breath — please stay, though even he wasn’t certain as to why there’s a demand stirring in the pit of his stomach for this woman clad in a dirtied white dress.
She smiles then, gazes right up at him in such a way that immediately sparks something misplaced, something tucked away beneath studying scripture and kneeling before the wooden altar. A sin of the flesh, a heated poker jabbing at both his heart and his loins.
“No, I’m okay,” she assures with a slight dip of her head, already taking steps back to dart away, back to whichever gilded little nest of baubles and starlight she took flight from. “I was just heading home.”
And that’s it. He doesn’t plead for her to come inside, the offer has been laid out already. It’s not his job to force a belief that one doesn’t want, only lend a kindness and a cushioned pew, advice for the lost and a choir for bleating lambs.
He bids her goodbye and walks back to the clergy house, ignoring the strange looks of his peers as they all prepare to bed down after a nightly prayer. It’s rare to smile here, when sacred words are passed from the wrinkled, cracked lips of his seniors. But König does smile, the grin is as bright as the seconds of white lighting up the sky in intervals as he silently thanks God for such a sweet vision amidst such darkness.
The fixation does not falter for the following three nights. She doesn’t return to the churchyard to whisper secrets to the blooms, but the angel weighs on his mind so heavily that König finds himself convinced that she must have been his calling, a soul that he would assuredly save.
His sermons now lack their passion. The parishioners come to him with weighty hearts and misery in their eyes, but bless him all the same, even when he’s distant. Away with the fairies, some would say. He can’t help but wonder when one such service rolls to a closing prayer if whoever conjured such words had also been in the presence of a seraph.
“Do you need prayer?,” one of his fellow priests asks as the flock trickles out, worry clear in the wrinkles laden beneath this eyes and the way his lips draw down before pressing thin. “You don’t seem to be sleeping well.”
And König regrets the words he speaks next, when he describes the woman from the flowers in detail greater than necessary: how her eyes seemed so soft, her smile fragile, and her body language more docile than that of even a lamb. He mentions the dirty dress, the way she seemed to be trying to escape something yet refused the shelter he offered.
The other priest nods and sighs, his eyes squeezing shut in thought, and though König has not feared a scolding since he abandoned home nearly two decades prior, the way the ordinarily calm priest seems so frustrated by this sends a swell of fluttering anxiety beneath his ribcage.
“The woman you describe is a temptress,” his elder explains coldly. His sharp, dark eyes rest on König’s face as though the disparity in their height does not exist at all. “Best to let her be, she does not want our help. Leave it alone.”
“Ja. Verstanden.”
The warning is enough to dull the buzzing in his chest, the mush that’s been made up of his head until he sees her again.
The bakery in town regularly makes donations of pastries and thick loaves of bread for church goingson. It isn’t regular that he’s been asked to pick them up; the eldest of the priests usually does so, some blood relation to the owners that König has never cared enough to ask about. The old man never did well in the summer months, though, far too frail now to bear the heat snaking over his pale skin and leaving burns.
With the mistake of rambling onward about this perturbing fascination still grating at his mind, he doesn’t hesitate to volunteer, to take the old truck and step away from the stained glass and crucifixes for a brief outing. A moment of respite.
There’s a complimentary mug of coffee presented across the expanse of the counter when the cashier greets him with a smile so broad it seems faked.
König’s fingers twitch when he grasps at the handle; the uncertainty was something he had sworn he would outgrow one day with God’s healing, but it never seemed to stray far from him. It rests over the back of his neck like a feeding vampire when he takes his first sip, one that burns his tongue and stings at his eyes when he notices the woman seated at a table in the corner.
It’s her: temptation and fate packaged up in a loose fitting sweater that covers the pulse in her neck and a short skirt.
She holds her phone, not the mug stationed before her, staring down at the thing with the most somber expression he’s ever seen on a lady before. She taps her thumbs at the screen, talking to someone, but there’s a loneliness in her expression apparent like the rust on the old truck parked outside.
Poor little thing.
She glances up when his staring is detected, confusion stripped bare upon her with a pinched brow and a slack jaw. Then, follows realization and she offers the same smile she did that night, some seventy or so hours prior.
“Morning, Father.”
There’s not a fractal within König that wants to make the sweet spirit uncomfortable, but each step he takes towards her table seems to make her shoulders tense. She knows that he knows, sees that sympathetic look in his eye and hates it.
Maybe even hates him for the divinity he wears in the sable cloth pulled over his shoulders.
That doesn’t stop his approach.
König sits across from her with shaking hands and a forced smile like the one the cashier wears, drops his mug onto the table and offers her his hand. Fingers bending to graze the palm as though beckoning a frightened animal when it’s he who feels most afraid.
The angel merely eyes him cautiously for a moment before she takes the cup into both of her hands and gives him a fragile huff, dismissing his attempt to pray for her soul. Again. Yet, the sting he feels is not from a lack of a starved savior complex being satisfied, only… that he has yet to touch her somehow. That sudden thought stifles him in full.
But angels are nothing if not merciful and loving; she picks up on his dejection and speaks again in his place.
“How are the carnations?”
“Hm?”
“The flowers in the garden… the red ones,” she elaborates with a soft laugh, hides it behind the rim of her cup when it’s raised for her to take a sip. Her mouth looks soft, compelling, and he’s staring again. “I like them the most.”
He knows he should stop this, that what’s become of an innocent meeting has left him feeling anything but. There’s a howling chasm in place of the heart of a worthy devotee. She’s nothing like the women who frequent the church — the only other women he sees. Brighter at best and alluring at the worst.
“I thought the lilies were your favorite…” It’s unsuited for a priest and a man so tall and broad to sound so breakable, but his voice only comes in an hurried breath, embarrassed and small.
She shakes her head, tousles her hair in the process. “I like all of them. The ones at your church grow prettiest.”
“I see…”
The woman gives him an expectant look, as if prompting him to speak more, before her phone chimes and the air seems to shift from tentative yet sweet to something vast and cold. She doesn’t seem eager to be interrupted in such a way, either; her expression falls from that subtle playfulness to something akin to a regretful acceptance.
She stands from her seat abruptly and takes a step towards the door. “I have something I need to take care of.”
God gives and takes away.
“I can bring you some,” he offers, winding in the too-small wooden chair to face her. Too late to reel in the flirtatious nature of such an offering, too late to bite his tongue and remember the vows he had taken. The burden upon his heart seems far more pressing than any words from an old book. “Carnations and lilies… some of the others, too.”
The woman almost seems shy when she glances over her shoulder and offers him the most imperceptible nod. “Yeah, sure… I’ll see you around.”
His angel leaves him to rot in thought at that lonely table, in this tiny bakery. He does not think to repent for the way his temperature and pulse spiked in her presence, for the way he takes her empty cup and stuffs it into one of the boxes of baked goods to collect later.
Riding back to the church is dreadful, because she’s already fastened to his heart like a ribbon on a pretty bouquet. He’ll ask the sisters from the cloister to clip flowers for him, tie them up in a lace that will leave her face warmed and lips pouting.
When the people in the church have their fill of sweets and bread, König tells a lie, maybe several.
He claims he doesn’t know why that innocuous porcelain thing is resting where food once had, doesn’t know why the baker would have stuffed that in there too. He takes it to his room and claims that he would return it come morning.
The bed has always felt far too small for him alone, but he pictures her there with him, sat upon his lap when he brings the cup up to his lips with his eyes closed.
It’s cold and hard, difficult to imagine it to be a kiss at all, but he pretends her lips are upon him, eager and willing. It takes only rolling his tongue back to flick over itself, envisioning it being her own, for him to feel his trousers grow too tight. He doesn’t touch himself. He can’t bear the thought of it, not with the cross staring down at him from the far wall.
And finally, regret comes.
Shame, too, because König is aware he’s become a bit of a creep; enchanting himself with second hand kisses whilst his angel takes another man to bed. A man undeserving, but… he could be. He was deserving enough to become a holy man, surely she could see he was worthy of her as well.
The bed is too small even when he curls into himself and pulls the blanket up passed his eyes. Sleep is too skittish to come for him, even when he prays in a whisper to be absolved of his lust.
The dreams are only filled with images of an angel trapped in a rose bush, the thorns sinking into her wings until blood is drawn, but still she smiles. She reaches toward him with shaky limbs, whispers something so dreadfully mournful he knows to his very soul that she is his purpose alone.
It’s what wakes him in a fit, compels him to venture out through the yard with a heart set on seeking guidance. There are moonbeams above and animal calls from the surrounding trees. All of God’s creations are in perfect, dreamy harmony.
Why couldn’t he be the same? Always the outsider in one way or another; always the sore thumb rather than the loving green. Desolation is an art, a skill he’s learned to hide back: clenched teeth to still a wrathful tongue and a layer of muscle to guard that wounded thing in his chest.
There is no better peace than the quiet of the church in the late hour. Moonlight through stained glass and empty, antique seats that would make the worldly whip out their phones to snap pictures in a heartbeat. The doors are always open, for the sinners and the devoted alike, though the confessional is rarely touched when there would be no saint awake set on absolving.
Perhaps that’s why he takes to the booth he needs to make himself smaller to fit into: one shoulder and one foot first, then the next set. He’s never cared for it, left it to the better and smaller. The sound just past the thin partition rattles him. It isn’t the creaking of wood below his feet, but something softer. A weak sniffle. A cry from the other side.
“I’ll leave in a moment,” comes a voice, broken from tears and so horribly sad that the usual script entirely fails him. He recognizes the voice, though a bit warbled now. The voice that would make the choir pause, an angel’s sweet tone.
“Wait… no. You can stay. I’m hiding, too.” A breathy laugh comes forced and misplaced. Priest or not, König has never been the best at consoling anyone, let alone one so far above him.
“I’m not hiding,” she tries to sound braver now. He can imagine her chin tilted forward and that sweet smile trying it’s damndest to paint its way across her face. “But… why are you?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who are you?” The crying seems to have ceased entirely for now. Clearly whatever seemed to ail her could be remedied by her own curiosity. A cute, unorthodox little thing.
“König.” It served well enough as a confirmation name when he could not settle on one of the saints. King of them all, one of the other saved men had said in jest. Ironic, now.
“I like your voice, König,” she murmurs, deliberately testing the pronunciation on her tongue in such an alluring way that a small shiver runs its way down his spine.
“Danke… and you?”
God forgive him, he doesn’t even try. Doesn’t try to bring shame or guilt, read her scripture or pray for her soul. He only listens in silence when she tells him her name, beautiful and charming as he had expected it to be. The woman then tells him of her work, of the motel she ventures to at night… the troubles with money and even vaguely, some of the men she suffers through. This had been a bad night. Strange how a singular hour could have broken someone down to such a desperation to open up, to grasp for what small comfort they could receive.
But she came for him.
She must have hoped to see him.
He thanks his god for that.
— — —
“I bought a phone.”
“I see that.” Her fingers graze over the stems of the flowers, cleanly cut by hands more patient and stable than König’s own.
The angel isn’t looking up at him, not this time. There isn’t even a smile on her face when she cradles the bouquet close to her chest, petting over it where she sits upon the motel bed wearing nothing but some strappy, barely-there lingerie. Pure white with pink lace over the cups of her bra where her breasts swell with each shaky intake of breath.
In this week apart, he’s kept the device hidden in a loose pocket and spent many a night scouring the seediest websites looking for a hint of a body that may belong to her in this very area. Only one seemed to match. The messages exchanged were about hours and pricing, establishing a location, and terms he didn’t quite understand. He didn’t harp on the small details, but finding her messages to be so rigid and dry did surprise him. There were no cute hearts or winking emojis, it all felt horribly transactional.
Priests don’t make a lot of money, it all goes back to the church, but he’s thieved enough from the offering bowls to have a night with her alone. As disheartening as the lack of flirtations seemed, he hoped not to squander whatever opportunity this outing proved to be.
The balaclava covering his face wasn’t purchased with the intention of making her nervous, only… shielding himself from curious stares. The whole town knows his face, his name, the words he speaks so resolutely to his flock. Just as well as they know of who she is, what she does.
Even this knitted shield couldn’t hide himself from her, though. The very moment he entered this drab, modestly decorated room with flowers in hand she had only looked further lost.
“You look very pretty,” he tries as he removes the mask and drops it to the floor, kneels just a hair from where her feet dangle from the bed. “I’m glad that I found you.”
“Thank you.”
The flowers are placed on the side table, petals falling down to the thin carpet below. A cascade of red like blood and white like doves feathers. Purity and a wound in one.
The poor thing looks scorned when she does give him a glance then, but she forces herself into a position that stokes a hellish, unnatural flame within him. Her thighs part as her hands rest on the cups of her bra, pushing the thin fabric down to reveal areola, her soft nipples, sights that he had never seen before.
“You shouldn’t even be here, König,” the lady warns when his gaze sweeps over the innocent flesh laid bare before him. The angel isn’t even wet. Her panties are pristine over her womanhood, and it dawns on him that… she wouldn’t risk what he was even for the generous donation he had given.
“I don’t want to ruin you.”
But she should. Crumble him into salt, cast him away with the wind. Should.
She sees something holy in him too… albeit, not in the way that he would like for her to.
He swallows hard as he rises to his feet and sits next to her. The hands that were so accustomed to being joined in prayer find her breasts now with tentative touches, a curious squeeze, until he wills himself to readjust the fabric and conceal her properly.
“Ja, but… I just wanted to visit you.”
“You don’t need to pay me just to see me.”
The tension in the room finally begins to dissolve. Not by much, but when she sighs something that sounds like amusement, the restless throbbing of his heart does begin to settle.
As much as he would like to take her like some beast in rut, lay some claim to her in bursts of white seed, he doesn’t even know where to begin. Each curve of her body looks as though it would feel like a miracle beneath his palm, under his tongue.
It’s just that nothing is going to happen, not here, not now that he’s brought a prostitute flowers and revealed who he was to her. She sees something pitiful, where he only sees someone to love.
He can’t tell her that he dreams of her, that he views her in the same way he views his god. That would only scare her away, lead her to believe he’s a lunatic rather than a man only just now having his first taste of love.
“Then could I see you every night? So that you don’t have to…” His head dips, because no matter how he tries he knows any word he says is foolish.
This isn’t something she’s doing because it is fun for her; it’s a job just like his own. Flesh or words spoken… did it even matter? And yet, König could feel a malicious, gnawing envy at the thought of a bolder man taking his place tomorrow evening. That man wouldn’t hesitate to peel away her pretty lingerie and fuck her, shove his tongue into her mouth while his cock sat between her legs as if it belonged there.
“König,” she sighs next to him, pityingly.
His jaw tenses as his fingers curl into his palms. The hopelessness of it all crashes down around him as though sung out from the loudest of the choir. He hardly notices when she presses her head against his shoulder, only realizes how close she’s come to him when her hand curls over one of his own.
“You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met.” It’s not a compliment but it feels like one when she laughs like that, airy and soft. “The sweetest one, too.”
He smells her perfume from this close, something scented like fruit or maybe maple, sap-sticky and saccharine. All of her flesh feels warm against the plain t-shirt he wears, a warmth he would give anything to dive into, but not without her explicit command. A powerful seraph in the form of one painfully cute, gentle lady. If anyone could see what he saw now, they too would forsake those holy books and eat from her open palm instead.
“I don’t know what to do,” he confesses, a peculiar bitterness hanging on his tongue.
“How about a walk?”
He pulls the balaclava over his face again when they make their way out into the quiet, darkened street. Hand in hand. It’s not from shame, but a necessity, perhaps, because his pale face has only flowered into a lasting pink since laying eyes upon her on that mattress, sprawled out and waiting. The blush only deepens with every squeeze she blesses him with, every hushed word spoken as she tells him about her favorite places.
She’s dressed in the same white dress they had initially met in, now clean of the dirt from flower beds. Somehow even more radiant at this close, too.
The churchyard and the clergy house are nothing in comparison to the way the rest of the town feels when the moon rises. It’s a world all their own, a place where no one looks at her as if she were a simple harlot, but a queen amongst chipping wood and tarmac. There’s even a skip in her step as she walks ahead of him, her hips swaying beneath her skirt. All because there’s no one here but she and her most loyal and only acolyte.
He wills himself out of her grasp when they cross the threshold into the cemetery. The darkness there is enough to pull him back to earth; thoughts of how easily swayed he’s been linger in the back of his mind. The want doesn’t even begin to reel back its claws, but the guilt does sink its pearly fangs in alongside it.
“I get it. You don’t want to be seen with me,” she says a small step away, drawing her hand up to her chest. It’s the saddest she’s ever looked, and he doesn’t have the words to further explain that he has no god damn idea what he’s doing: here, with her, in the midst of something that feels so normal even though it should not.
“Nein! That’s not—“
“You don’t want to touch me. You barely talk…”
Because the words don’t come easy. Because he’s never felt such an overbearing devotion to anyone, anything apart from what he prays to. How could she… this woman that shared in such loneliness with him not see him for what he was, not see him in the way that he sees her?
“You’re misunderstanding.”
“You just want to… to convert me, is that right?,” she hisses, sounding more shaken up than he had ever hoped to hear.
All hesitation had to be swallowed back.
There was no other option. He could feel her slipping away, a pain he wasn’t prepared to face.
God gives and takes away, but König refuses to let go.
His eyes narrow, his breath halts entirely, and he cups her face in his hands as gently as he can. The distance between them feels like miles as he lowers his head to kiss her through the knit barrier. It’s flighty and petrifying on his side… he feels cold sweat wet his brow when the warmth of her pulls through.
She could hit him, spit her curses like a proper witch, and he would only fall to her feet and kiss her heels. But… she does none of those things. Whatever pain was brewing here is ripped away with the night breeze.
Her hands peel away the balaclava, discard it somewhere into the tall grass where it wouldn’t be found, and she grants him his first, proper kiss.
With only the cracked headstones and cemetery angels watching, what once was tentative becomes a full indulgence. König samples from her mouth as though it weeps honey when the gentle peck graduates to a parting of lips. His hands run down the length of her sides as she grasps at his shirt, they pull her in close until her chest meets his own and two pairs of eyelids flutter.
She feels more heavenly than his imagination could have prepared him for, her tongue hotter and her sounds… the soft sighs and shaky murmurs of approval that fill him with both a maddening love and an urge to burn everything away if only it would keep her safe and near.
The world ceases to be entirely, cast down with Lucifer to the sulfur and smoke. Her lips remain parted when they break apart, a haze over her eyes reflecting the veil clouding his own irises.
Was a kiss really forsaking his vows? Was that really such a painful treachery? No… no it shouldn’t be. The issue remains that he can not see her as just some woman. Something as small as this could consume him entirely.
The night is spent with an abundance of those shared kisses when they return to the motel. Tentative touches, too. He’s never held a woman, not in the way he gets to hold her then. She presses tightly to him, her back to his chest with her hand keeping his own in place over her middle. She’s so soft, swans down plush and smooth as silk ribbon.
There is mint lingering on her breath each time she speaks. No talk of her work, only… she confesses how she had feared him so initially, how she worried that a holy man stepping into her life would only be further condemnation: an angel terrified by a devil that does not exist at all.
He knows he’s lost a part of himself here when he tells her he wishes to meet with her again, that if the church is no longer the place she fancies to walk, he’ll meet her amongst the dead again and again when the old clergymen sleep. Those promises he had reserved solely for God turn on themselves now, when he reveres the idol he shares this bed with.
Though her hips press back against his groin when his fingers crawl up to her sternum, and the desire strikes up within him, his cock remains untouched here. He doesn’t whisper a prayer for forgiveness into her hair when he grows hard, just tucks her in closer and smiles where his head rests atop her own.
It’s the closest to bliss he’s ever felt.
— — —
“You weren’t here for morning prayer.” The voice isn’t accusatory, just observant. The nightly prayers were missed too, though a reprieve is granted by way of those remaining unmentioned.
But the guilt does eat at König when he sees the concern in this man’s eyes, splinters at his very soul until he asks in a fragile voice if he can speak to the old priest in the confessional.
Everything here feels much too small and the booth is more or less the same. The wood closes in around him, bathes him in a blackness that even the glow of candlelight within these walls can not reach. The partition separating them does not help bolster courage, it only leaves him feeling more alone.
The clergyman listens in silence as König confesses that he has become weak. He does not mention the lady of the night, but there’s no need to at all: finding himself so captivated with a woman that he considered breaking every promise to the higher power was bad enough. He does not mention how he’s considered pleasuring himself, touching her too… only that they shared a night together embraced, counts the kisses that were exchanged with each digit of his hands.
There’s a pitying sigh from the other side before the man begins a lengthy prayer that König does join him in. With the “Amen” that follows, he’s told only to rid himself of those thoughts, to bury them with fasting and prayer. No more visits with this temptress, remain on the right path. The very, very simple things he must do to receive God’s forgiveness and favor once more.
“You are not a disappointment,” his elder reminds him with a small pat to his cheek and a smile. It’s more fatherly than the sparse affection he received from his own flesh and blood before coming here.
“Danke… thank you,” he breathes when his eyes bear the burden of tears.
God loves him and so do the sainted men.
But to never see her again would be worse than flagellation.
He chokes down the pain with more water when his stomach roars with hunger, hides the broken heart with smiles and prayer. Holy clothes feel heavier now. The money he stole to spend that night with her is returned to the collection pool in a week's time. The smartphone he had purchased is tossed out with the rest of the garbage in the bins. Even the cup is returned to the bakery after being rinsed in the sink.
Still not a part of him feels absolved from this torturous puppet show.
He thinks of her more than he ponders over his fear of Hell itself. God feels like an old memory as the days pass. He counts them in his daybook, an ‘X’ next to the dates he had gone without seeing her. Ten becomes twenty, and it becomes no less agonizing.
The prayers come easier, at least. He joins with his fellow men, kneels with his hands clasped before him, speaks such heartfelt words now that on more than one occasion he’s shared a healing tear or two with the other clergymen.
God is an old friend, yes, but that title is just a placeholder for the one his prayers are truly for. The little angel of the garden, the woman who has given him nothing at all but stole his heart all the same. Was she not the same as God from that aspect?
After a month, he’s finally given the privilege to stand before the altar and preach to the parishioners again. His sermon is directed by the other clergymen, a subtle admission of his own misdeeds as he guides the flock away from the sins of lust, of worldly pleasures that would steer them away from the right path.
Amidst the men and women crowding the pews sits a new face. She wears a hat, looking uncertain and skittish as a bunny amidst a pack of starved hounds beneath its curved brim. Her coat is tugged tightly around her where her hands grip to keep it closed and snug. No one is out to get her, not here, but there’s a purplish bruise on her neck. A sad stare trails up to meet his gaze when he stammers through the words of scripture.
Then, she smiles and his heart only feels full.
The sermon ends clumsily enough, but she waits for him in the center pew. He ensures the others have cleared out before he takes rigid steps toward her, where he sits a foot or so away on the bench; the feigned friendliness is only a front for the rapid beating of his heart and the way the blush upon his face paints up to his ears.
“I waited to walk with you… like you promised we would,” she says in place of a greeting. There’s no chiding in her tone, just curiosity. Gentle, like she’s speaking to a wounded bird, and perhaps that’s what he’s become: some big, ugly vulture. Holy in its love of everything from the sky to the rot down below.
“I’m sorry. I..,” he laments, grasping for an explanation that does not come.
“No, I understand. It’s alright, König.”
He knows he doesn’t deserve the gift of her redemption with how easily he turned away from her, from the blooming of… something. It was best not to use that word anymore.
“I just didn’t want to wait any longer. I missed you,” she huffs when the silence extends between them, breaks up the tension in the air but not what creeps over her own shoulders.
“Your bruise..” He wants to tell her of his sleepless nights, of how he pictures her in place of any old deity upon a throne in heaven, but settles for where his eyes linger on her neck.
No explanation is provided, but she lets him bring his fingers to it, ghost over where the purple melds to yellow in the shape of thick fingerprints. Add wrath to the ever growing list of his sins, because it’s all he feels amidst the envy and love.
His fingers dig into the plain back trousers when they rest upon his lap again, something foreign buzzes beneath his skin. The thought that any man would be brazen enough to lay hands upon his very own angel.. It’s unbelievable, unforgivable. His thoughts spiral so quickly it’s frightening. Timid things can become vicious, too, when backed into corners.
She manages to keep this growing storm in check when she stands and smooths her skirt, and offers to tidy up the church in an act of ‘repentance’.
The chores are simple and the sisters that linger far past service seem grateful to have her here as she takes up the broom and sweeps away at the dusty floor. They chatter away with her, take her hat and rest their hands over her shoulders when the cleaning winds to an end. His angel closes her eyes in prayer, doesn’t so much as open them to send him a knowing glance when they pray for her to find a good husband, someone who deserves such a lovely, godly woman.
She shares a meal with them while König keeps to himself with scripture in hand, mindlessly roving over the words even when his thoughts drift to the night of their first kiss.
He reasons that it’s only natural when she gives him such a display of acceptance too. It only solidifies what he knows already: this woman is no succubus— she has not crawled from the depths of Hell to drag him back with her, she’s only heavensent. An angel with a broken wing or a gaping wound somewhere… something to care for.
She’s encouraged to return by several fond voices. A few of the women even offer to walk her home, the daylight is dying and it’s dangerous for a lone lady out at night. The angel smiles at him then, sharing in the knowledge that she prefers the dark. Not the wicked things, but the peace and the beauty of the moon.
And she returns when he abstains from her.
She confides in him after each sermon that she does long to see him more often, but she likes the way he speaks of Mary Magdalene and the other women in scripture, pokes fun at the lilt to his voice when he notices her amidst the crowd of others. She says she likes him a lot before they part ways in the evenings, but she doesn’t tempt him with pouts or trailing fingers.
He thanks her for respecting his faith each time - despite being the one who crossed several boundaries initially. Though he keeps his hands to himself now, the looks he gives to her are pleading and soft. If she would pull him into a kiss now, he would let her have all of him. They could run away together, from the church, from her clients…
It’s on one of those cloudy Sundays that he does ask her if she’s stopped. He braves the look she gives him when his question comes as a hushed stutter. The comfort between them no longer feels tentative. It’s just there. Ever-present as the sky above.
“Well, you haven’t,” she whispers in response, propping her elbow up on the back of the pew. It’s as if she believes it could be so simple, but it’s not. Not for either of them.
The spiels of Heaven and Hell won’t reach her, so he doesn’t bother with those. She offers him an invitation with her words and the way she remains so open that it’s difficult not to take.
It’s been months since he touched her last and the love has only seemed to have grown. Strange. Perhaps he is as odd as she’s imagined him to be. There have been weddings in this very church, talks of long years of courtship, and even then what those men must have felt for their brides had to have paled in comparison to this. It had to.
“Tell me how to,” he breathes without any underlying thought. Saints don’t question their gods, they only serve them.
“You’re actually considering it…?”
“I might.”
The silence crowds around the bench while her fingers brush over the pages of a hymnal in repetition and his only inch closer to her clothed knee.
“You could meet me at the cemetery tonight… We could talk more there.”
“At night is probably not the best time.”
“Well, we’re friends, aren’t we?”
Friends don’t kiss. Friends don’t feel the way he feels now, or how he’s felt for the past few months. Platonic arrangements don’t require repentance. But, he bites his tongue and tilts his head back, lets it roll off the shoulder when his hand draws back to his lap. Another time.
Not where the Heavenly Father could see, if he were even watching any longer.
“… Tomorrow morning would be better.”
“Then I’ll come get you. Don’t you dare try and get out of it,” she chirps with the wildest glint of mirth alight in her eyes.
Stay.
If the church caught fire now and the rafters came to sink into the earth not a part of him would or could even care as long as she were just here. But he watches her go without a word of opposition, watches her nod toward the sisters standing out in the yard and clasp her hands in front of her, smiling to herself as though the world were made for just the two of them.
It stings during nightly prayer, and it burns when he lies in bed to wait for the morning. There are cicadas singing and footsteps on old wooden boards to remind him that he isn’t entirely alone, the scent of tobacco drifting from his window when another plaster saint hides beyond the veil of night to smoke. He doesn’t sleep, his eyes remain fixed upon the ceiling until the darkness of the room drifts to a dull gray with the sun’s slow rise.
And König does not wait for her to fetch him. Morning prayer dissolves into a mournful cry because there is no part of him that can fathom or interpret any of this. A trial should not feel like a blessing when he’s faced with it. God must be playing the stupidest game imaginable to test him with someone so lovable, so charming. Where the church leaves him feeling filthy with remorse, she purifies him with only a curl of her lips and starlight dancing in her eyes.
None of it is fair.
The guilt must be something obligatory, summoned up like puffs of dust from the floorboards. Worshiping idols is a sin, but it’s not the angel that feels like one, it’s the attention he pays to the cloud in his head that does. That’s the one that should go.
He grits through prayer with the other men, doesn’t chime in with unnecessary words of devotion this time. The coffee burns his tongue when he downs the mug and forgoes breakfast. There are dark rings beneath his eyes when he ventured to the washroom to brush his teeth, and there are whispers in the halls that the young priest must be either coming under a possession or God is preparing him for something. Something big and exciting. He ignores those and the stern glances from the little nuns in their robes, huffs something of a joke about a momentary sabbatical when he lumbers out of the walls of the church.
There are no new bruises this time, but König has the memory of the last ones stuck in his skull. A clear image of four small marks on the side of her neck, another on its opposite. Larger, more pronounced. Five marks from a hand that never belonged there. Kerosene and a match are what the thoughts running rampant in his head would look like to an outsider.
She tells him on the thin picnic blanket that she’s got a new client, that he gives her enough to where she doesn’t have to consider any others now. The man has a much stranger set of interests, ones she hadn’t delved into before him, but she’s merciful enough to withhold the details that would lead König to make the crucifixion seem a gentle affair.
She tells him because she wants him to be proud that it’s only one now. That she’s making some sort of progress for him. None of it is fair, and he knows without asking that she feels more akin to the way that he does than any of the holy men.
And still he can’t help but ask, “Do you love him?”
“Of course not,” comes her immediate response, and there’s a near imperceptible glare there, judging by the fire in her eyes. It’s cute… and he feels the world's ugliest fool for daring to ask for reassurance as though this relationship was any sort of normal. If it were even a relationship at all.
Their hands touch, reaching for the same flaky pastry in the basket she brought along and Heaven’s bells ring out in his ears when her gaze sweeps over him. Everything is sugared dough and right again. She offers him her lap in place of a pillow for his head when the clouds grow thick and gray above, feeds him from her own hand and runs her fingers across his face with the other.
“How did you get the sky in your eyes?,” she asks him, makes him blush so easily his heart stutters within his chest. He feels like a boy in her presence, and in a way, to her, maybe he even is just some inexperienced whelp nipping at her heels.
The angel does not judge, she softly rakes her nails behind his ear and neck until he shivers in her hold. His hair is next, a victim to her comfort as she tousles it between her fingers, strokes him like the smallest of kittens when he feels anything but.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he mutters, raising a hand to brush at her cheek. Warm as he expected, yet softer. There’s nothing wicked here, only a woman. A woman who loves him as he loves her.
“Your eyes are pretty… sad. I love them,” comes the sweet reply that reduces him to nothing but scattered feathers and a howling ache.
Did he even exist before now? Before her? This woman has filled him with such purpose, breathed new life into a stagnant soul. The church was a safe place for a man scorned by the rest of the world, but that blanket felt unnecessary now. He wanted to feel her hands move over him like this, smell the petals in her perfume, hear her voice speak to him, all of it. Forever.
“I think that I lose myself when I’m with you.”
“Does that hurt you?”
“Nein… I’m happier like this.” It’s the closest to a confession he can whisper.
And he returns to her, morning after morning König rushes through paying his dues to God and his men to return to her like this.
When the graveyard is silent and the dew still sticks to the blades of grass, her voice sounds sweeter somehow beneath the glow of the rising sun. The birds sing around them and often she pushes wildflowers into his hair, clasps her hands around his neck and teaches him to kiss.
Her tongue moves with grace, his is only a thing of greed. Each chaste peck is met with a hunger from somewhere so foggy and forgotten it never had a home at all, not before now. The angel needn’t show him where to rest his hands, they pry at every part of her: gentle brushes against her cheek and neck, kneading at her shoulders, further, further until he does finally starve off any lingering thought of what is good or evil to explore the curve of her lower back.
Most of the time words come in afterthought, once lips are wet and plush from this gentle devouring, after she steels herself from running her hands any further down than his stomach. He tells her in truth that he prays to her, not for. Not anymore.
The shadows cast from the aspens keep them tucked far away from sight, from God and his people alike. A temple for two without four walls to close them in. The only place on this earth that he’s ever found himself in perfect solace.
“I want to try something,” she breathes just when he’s prepared himself to leave. The tree at his back, knees parted, where she remains sat across from him. There’s nervousness there, not the fretful way she looks after a long night, nor the way she looked to him upon their first meetings. “Do you trust me?”
“Ja… more than anyone,” he reassures in a soft tone of voice, tipping her chin up with the tips of two fingers to further accentuate it. Her beauty and her uncertainty always strike a chord within him, a fire that never dwindles. When her eyes search his own, his breath catches.
He doesn’t say a word when she peels away the robes from the front of his trousers. Her hands linger on at the waistband for a moment, takes enough time to offer the gentlest peck to the side of his neck before continuing. It’s another first, being exposed to a woman like this when she lowers the band and has him shimmy backward to free his cock from his pants. Soft with shame or embarrassment, a concoction of other things he could not name, but the moment she looks up at him with pure delight he feels himself grow stiff.
“Wow… You’ve got a perfect cock,” she assesses with a laugh, finger running up the length of it as it twitches to life under her touch.
Scheisse.
He strokes her cheek with reverence as she bends down before him, watching him carefully through her eyelashes. Her warm breath drifts over his manhood and he’s already horribly aware that this would not last long. Another lesson, like the kisses, maybe. She could mold him any way that she likes and he would be pleased to play the role of her Adam.
The tongue isn’t what he anticipated. She flattens it against the tip, breathes a laugh when a keening whine is pulled from his throat. To see such an ugly, vulgar thing pressed to the beautiful mouth he’s kissed a dozen times now. It feels wrong. There’s no hesitation when her lips wrap around him. And then all of it— everything is just right. Every moment spent in this hazy, loving glow with her is right. If Hell were to come from this, then let it.
He can’t tear his eyes away from her, can’t bring himself to speak when he feels the way his cock hits the back of her throat, feels her swallow around him and make such a pleased noise as she wraps her fingers around the expanse she can not take.
Its pitiful, the way he must look: mouth agape, eyes lidded and heavy… He brings a hand to her hair, and runs his fingers through it as if she isn’t letting him fuck her mouth, but rather in the midst of something far holier, softer. Sacrilegious or divine. If God we’re watching, let him.
She pulls back a little, an obscene, wet sound in answer when her mouth is drawn back enough to merely press a kiss the tip, puffy lips glossy with drool. “Is this okay…? Not too much?”
“You are so pretty… it feels… just keep going.” His voice no longer possesses any feigned confidence, it begs like a wounded thing, chanting, “Bitte. Please…”
His hips tilt up when she parts her lips again, all trepidation be damned. This is something, something he’s aches for and never had the chance to feel. All of the ache, the longing to be diminished, to unite with the angel who fled Heaven for him. The cock pushes at her open mouth, smears thick beads of precum over her cheek, before she takes him in again with a delighted, muffled sound. Her soft mouth, the tongue that thoroughly laps at his shaft and follows her movements to wrap and suck at the head. Otherworldly, and… unfathomably bittersweet.
Her lips suction around him, the movements of her wrist only increasing, and with the second roll of his hips he feels his stomach begin to tense as pure heat rolls its way through him. A gentle coursing becomes a blinding inferno in mere seconds, and regrettably, instinctively, that hand so gently combing through her hair comes to snare it instead and force her down further.
His soft grunts and low pleading morph to something choked and almost agonized. It’s the purest rapture, a pleasure so absolute his eyes prick as he bows lower to cover over her as she swallows his devotion by mouth. The angel pants breathlessly when she pulls away with saliva and semen still stringing them together, cleansed by his thumb tracing over her lips, replaced so swiftly by his own mouth. The kiss is so chaste it feels misplaced here, but she nuzzles against him in this comedown from ecstasy, doesn’t even chastise how he lasted a mere two minutes.
And he vows, vows in the sweetness of her comfort and love that no one else will ever have this again.
— — —
Abstaining from meals during a fast is a struggle in and of itself; abstaining from her is some long-forgotten circle of Hell.
It’s not avoidance, but a necessity.
To think that his first sexual encounter would provoke days of concern, a wistful daydream about a future he never would have thought to have had otherwise. There was a desperate, starving desire to repent when he first arrived home after that, but nothing that a bottle of communion wine and a cold shower could not wash away. Repentance has lost its merit to him.
And after seven days, he’s perfectly aware of what he must do. To absolve them both from things where atonement seems far from a necessity at all. He folds his holy robes and leaves them on the bed in the room too small, set neatly next to his Bible. The rosary was the one thing that König could not bear to part with. The beads, red and shimmery, were chosen and strung together with him in mind. It’s slipped into the pocket of his jeans after the plain, black t-shirt is pulled over his head.
There’s a hammer in his gloved hand, and he doesn’t recall where he found it. Lying with its head rusted in the churchyard, perhaps half buried beneath the soil. Some of the other clergymen are talented at fixing things, but König’s never been very good with that. His first rosary was broken with a careless slip of his fingers, and he’s shattered more porcelain than he could count on accident.
Even communion wine can be a bit too strong, sometimes. Or maybe that’s only when the bottle’s been entirely downed. He’ll blame one of his betters when the stock is counted and one turns up missing, if they bother to come seek him out again at all.
The motel is dead at this hour, so late into the night. The few normal visitors have already been accounted for with watchful eyes, and the angel waits in one of the rooms on the second floor. He imagines the laces on her lingerie, the healing bruises on her throat, and that sweet expression upon her face. Or maybe that one was reserved solely for him. He prayed… no, he hoped so.
After tonight, there would be no more mercies for him. Or perhaps there would be an abundance, blessings from the vultures and the wolves and the maggots he would feed. New gods that were still far lesser than the angel who suffers men in sheets, but only looks to him with love.
And he doesn’t have to wait long, because the demon finds his way here with haste. Does he come here every night looking as proud as he does now? His attire even resonates with death, black with those white details, a costume that seems so fitting for one about to meet the very face he wears.
Killing someone isn’t so easy. Cain murdered his brother with a rock, described in such loose detail that one would think a playful throw led to Abel’s end. But it’s not so, not when the victim is hellbent on living.
The demon is smaller, but strong. He’s been in situations like this before, doesn’t have to spit the words to tell König so. They’re felt with each blow, with the sharp edge of the knife this bastard manages to dig into his side. Just barely, before it’s jerked out of his hand and thrown several paces away. The skittering across the tarmac is enough to chant doom.
There’s blood. More with the first strike of the hammer. It seemed so much easier in thought rather than practice. In his imaginings, the head would split with the first fall like an overripe apple, crumple in and the breath would leave the demon in an instant. Instead, it’s dozens. Blow after blow while the smaller man struggles below him.
A strange catharsis comes over him when his soul grows murky, when his hands are slick and the struggle comes to an abrupt end. The sobering only comes when he’s spent an hour driving down the most forested roads to find a place to dump the body. There’s no tact to it, laying a man to rest in shrubbery and dirt. With a head so collapsed it’s hard to think of this as a man at all. A corpse, something no longer simply human.
König does not pray for him when he rests the hammer in the deceased’s hands. Does not offer it more than a passing thought when he peels away back toward home. The deed is done and he’s free of those horrid burdens tainting his heart, keeping him held back on a short leash to divinity.
Like fate, she’s found out in the garden again after the bloodied shirt and stained gloves are discarded. The wound is patched with what he could find available, a hastily tied strip of gauze covers his side. A week or so at best until the gash would heal into an ugly, jagged scar. It seemed even a bastard devil’s blade couldn't be sharp enough to fell a Goliath when he’s caught by surprise and horny.
He feigns merely emptying the garbage into an outside bin, plays off the sting of the gash with a humble, lumbering gait. She beams up at him through lines of tears running down the sides of her face like small, silver streams beneath the darkened sky above.
He’s not a saint anymore, no… a guardian angel. The archangel Michael with his sword set ablaze and divinity scrawled into every scale of his chest plate. Something holy and glowing, unsullied and beautiful.
Like her.
“You’re crying…”
“Sorry… bad night. Client just ghosted me.”
No. This was good, couldn’t she see that? All the sleepless nights, the prayer and the constant, overwhelming longing. Everything he had suffered for her, and still she only comes to him with the thought of that horrible thing in mind.
“He’s dead.” Maybe it was just the fear of a loss of money. He had enough saved up someplace, and the collection pool would be beneficial enough to pivot them towards a new life. No church. No lonely motel. He had to test it, give her a trial and hope that she did not simply break.
The look that crosses her face is one of confusion… Then comes a strange twist of relief. Her mouth falls slightly agape and her arms squeeze slightly around his middle.
“We just spoke a few hours ago. How…?” Finally, suspicion.
Maybe he’s too drunk on playing God now to care, to realize this isn’t how a good man would have handled things. The only thing that holds any weight, that resonated with him any at all is the thought that he loves her, that he will protect her until his dying breath, pray at her feet and anything else she might ask.
That’s what pulls him to press her down against the bed of the truck, to kiss her with every lesson she’s blessed him with in mind. Tongue and teeth, fire and spit, she accepts all of it. She doesn’t beg him for an answer: she’s seen the worst of men, taken cocks far less deserving. Her hands find his hair as they drift away here, gives the strands a sharp tug to usher him closer, roll her tongue against his own.
The sheer tights she wears beneath her skirt are ripped at the seam between her legs by large hands, panties pushed to the side before she finally presses against the broad chest against her to gain some space. Her breath is shallow, face warmed and hair a mess, still the loveliest thing he’s ever laid his eyes upon.
“Are you afraid?” He tilts his head to the side, curious, as if there were no reason for her deny him of this now after he had just *killed for her*. After he forsook what once was all he knew all for her. He would do it again without question, with no gain at all, but the sting of rejection was not something he could entirely choke back.
But his angel never runs out of mercies, it seems.
“No… just give me a second.”
She slips her hand down between her parted legs, demonstrates for him just how to prepare a woman. He watches, mesmerized, as she circles the bud above her slit, dips her finger downward to spread wetness along her flesh. Dew over petals. A finger slips inside of her, and all at once is shoved aside.
“Let me,” he pleads, already pressing both hands to her inner thighs, tilting her hips upward as his head sinks between them.
“You don’t have to,” she whispers, but grants him his wish with feverish nods that betray her words, allows him to kiss her sex as he shifts himself into a better position.
There’s nothing to go off of but her sounds, the cries of pleasure when his tongue lolls out to lick at the nub where most of her reactions stem from. He mutters against her about her taste, something so ethereal he could not even begin to place. Her scent envelopes him in full, and he’s never felt closer to anything prior. She allows his clumsy licking, moans louder for him when he can’t stifle his own groaning. The pants are too tight around him, and patience is another virtue he finds that he lacks.
She doesn’t reach some fantastical height of pleasure when he presses a finger into her cunt, but her body seems to fit even that like a glove, squeezing around him as he lazily circles her bud with his tongue. She doesn’t come, but she tugs him by the hair to usher him back into another kiss, hands roving down his abdomen to free his manhood from the barriers of fabric. And finally… finally he’s granted entrance to Heaven.
The first thrust leaves him spiraling, lost into a world of silk and honey. And the angel does not give him any time to recover, she writhes beneath him, shifting her hips to pull him in deeper, muffles each whine and groan from his lips with her tongue hungrily lapping over his own.
He’s thought about having a woman many times, but never imagined it could feel this good. To be so complete, every woe or fear cast aside in the act of mindless pleasure.
He doesn’t know where to put his hands, to keep his eyes shut or gaze down at her and cease this assault on his mouth to tell her that he loves her, that she feels like pure fucking paradise and he’s already on the verge of coming undone. He settles for moving, dragging himself in and out of her in slow movements, turning his face away to bite down on her shoulder when the feeling of her walls cinching him like a vise threatens to spur him into finishing on the spot.
“That’s just… god… you’re good at this,” she gasps when a hand is sunk between their bodies, flicking at her clit as he spears her open. Her hands find his back, raking her fingernails down past his shoulder blades. It’s agonizing, trying to fight back the urge to breed her full, watch his come spill out from her perfect cunt until he finds himself hard again. The very thought makes him gasp, grind himself deeper inside of her as her nails dig into his back.
“Mein… this is… you understand…,” he’s babbling, hardly coherent, and she only seems to accept it. The angel chants her agreement amidst the beginning of her rapture.
She cries out for him when she comes, her sex pulsing around him as she shivers that all restraint is immediately lost. She hugs him so tightly, squirms as she hisses a curse into his ear.
It’s a miracle he’s even lasted this long. He halts his pace for a mere second to prop himself up, gaze down at her in absolute reverence before that fire swallows him whole. It’s unceremonious when he comes: a growl and a wail as he buries he face into her neck and pumps every last drop of his seed into her pussy.
He doesn’t want to pull out, doesn’t want to leave such a complete embrace. The world has already ended for him, a long time ago on the very night they met. There’s no need to drag out their ruin with whatever else occurs when she’s out of his grasp.
She strokes over the marks she’s made, gentle, tickling touches of her fingertips and shy giggles when their eyes meet again.
“I thought I would never get to do this with you,” she admits, quiet when her hands drift to cup his jaw instead. “You’re perfect, you know that…?”
He wants to cry, wants to fuck all of his woes away, kneel before her and beg that she find a place where they can never be apart. Steal her away to some cabin up in the Alps, where flowers grow in thick patches on the hillsides, a wild garden of her very own.
“… You should stay with me,” he huffs into her ear, fingers dimpling the flesh of her hips as he tries desperately to force himself closer to her.
“You can’t mean the church,” she giggles. “So where should we go?”
“We can figure that out in the morning, hm?”
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heartfullofleeches · 8 months
Text
Fratbro Darling is too good for this world (and their yans). Beefy thembo who literally loses sleep if they ignore someone in need. Their yans abuse their caring ways to their advantage for scraps of time out of their busy schedule. Asking them for directions, to carry their books, walk them home. Reader doesn't have the heart to say no unless they've already promised their help elsewhere, but they still try to make sure everyone's cared for because that's just the type of person they are
-
Yan Classmate: Thanks for walking me home- I hope it's not too much trouble...
Fratbro Reader: Nah, it's all good. Having a stalker is no joke and I'm glad you have enough trust in me to ask
Yan Classmate: You're the only one I feel the safest around... I'm really sorry, but this whole thing's making it hard for me to be on my own.. Can you stay the night?
Fratbro Reader: Of course!
Yan Classmate: ...and sleep in my bed?
Fratbro Reader: whatever makes you comfortable
Yan Classmate: I'd feel really comfortable if you took your shirt off....
Fratbro Reader: Just gonna pretend I didn't hear that and get you to bed now-
-
They make sure nobody is left behind, gaining them favor with the outcast on campus. They show genuine interest in their quirky little hobbies and interests how could they not absolutely adore them.
Fratbro Reader: Hey, dude!
[Creep Yan screams out of reflex]
Fratbro Reader: Whoa, didn't mean to scare you. I just really liked those drawings you did of me so I asked around for your socials and found some of your comics
Creep Yan, pale as a sheet: y....you did?
Fratbro Reader: Yea! You got some real talent, man. Your anatomy skills are insane. For a while I thought I was looking at pictures of a real crime scene. The relationship between the murder and their crush is kinda cute to. I personally like the crush because we have the same initials. What a coincidence, right?
[Creep Yan - unsure if they should cry tears for joy or weep from the anxiety instead dry heaves as they pull out their notebook]
Creep Yan: t-there's more in here.. Just give me a minute to rip out a few pages
-
Fratbro Reader catches people checking them out at the gym and thinks they're just curious about their routine, and nor staring at their ass like it's a full course meal-
Nerd Yan: I'm gonna get stronger and be just like them! [Goes to the gym and almost lifts a weight only to lose the strength in their arms as Fratbro walks by in skin tight shorys
[Fratbro Reader - post work out, sweaty, and their shirt rolled up to their abdomen lifts the bar off them with no problem]
Fratbro Reader: Need some help, bud?
Nerd Yan, delirious from all their blood rushing elsewhere: ...God?
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konigsblog · 20 days
Text
tw/cw; sensory overstimulation, kidnapping, yandere, punishments, dub-con/non-con, rape. MDNI 18+ 🪦🕊️
thinkin' about sadistic!könig. 🩸
pairing this with yandere/kidnapper!könig would be hell on earth for the poor reader. :(
könig absolutely loves to inflict pain onto his beloved captive. he's infatuated with the rope burns along your bare skin, the tears that coat your cheeks, how sensitive you are when he rubs his calloused thumb over your sores and aches. he can't get enough of the sight of blood dripping from your bottom lip after beating you and mocking you until your face is nearly unrecognisable with the marks he leaves and you're left weeping from his cruelty. his poor angel, worn down and broken in, clinging to könig for care and attention.
don't worry, despite the bloodiness of your pretty face, könig is still obsessed with you—unable to keep his filthy hands to himself.
könig experiences the same feeling of gratification and joy during rough sex, when you're wailing and whimpering, being taken for the first time and shown no mercy. he twists and tugs at your stiff and perky nipples, overstimulating you until you're nothing but a shaking, bloody mess with crimson running down your legs. his treatment merciless and savage.
my brain has started to rot away with the thought of sensory overstimulation. he'll lock you away in a puppy cage, with no fan to cool you down, keeping you there until you're sweating and heaving, panting as if you're a mutt in heat. your holes are filled with his creamy stickiness and plugged, forced to keep every glob of his arousal, feeling stuffed full. you weep out pathetically, mortified at the state you're left in.
he'll take care of you afterwards, once he's had his fun with your weak, exhausted body!
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soldat-buck · 23 days
Text
i had a vision while making coffee this morning
bg3 culinary headcanons: Companion Edition
- Shadowheart: absolute zero regard for contamination while cooking. kitchen habits of a permanent bachelor. licks the tasting spoon clean and keeps using it to cook. eats hot cocoa straight out of the container with a spoon. thinks pouring ranch over an entire head of lettuce and eating it like feral animal while holding it over the kitchen sink counts as "salad". if you can get past the contamination thing, the food she makes actually tastes pretty good, even if it's sometimes odd (she cooks like a stoner, despite being perfectly sober. she is just Like That).
- Astarion: perfectly capable of cooking, and actually can cook quite well. food may not taste the same after becoming a vampire, but his enhanced sense of smell tells him nearly everything he needs to know about how to season and cook food properly. he doesn't cook because he doesn't like to (washing dishes? by hand? no fucking thank you, being undead is harsh enough on the nails and skin. finding a good lotion for normal undead dryness is already impossible)
- Lae'zel: in the modern world, if her life took her in a chef direction, she'd be in a Michelin star restaurant as the world's best and most terrifying sous chef. she absolutely would throw a knife at you for fucking up her plating (she'd intentionally miss. the first time). no nonsense is ever tolerated in her kitchen, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's got temper issues (her coldness and lack of tantrums is what makes her terrifying). she'd put Gordon Ramsay in his place for his rage theatrics and then make him weep with joy after serving him the most competent omelet he's ever had in his life. if she likes you, you may address her as "Yes, Chef!" outside of the kitchen.
- Karlach: uses 4 pots to make ramen. not because she's doing anything fancy or elaborate with it, the first pot was too small and started boiling over (whoops). the second one was, oh hold on, that's a cast iron pan, maybe you're not supposed to use that for boiling liquids, huh? wait shit, can't use this one either, i'm not supposed to use metal spoons on nonstick, don't want to scratch it. There we go! this one is the right size! and if i scratch this one, it's fine! wait, where the fuck did the flavor packet go (you should definitely be concerned about leaving her alone for the weekend)
- Wyll: very resourceful cook due to his Blade of the Frontier days. can improvise a meal out of damn near anything. can identify every edible plant and mushroom and tell you how to use it in a dish. would carry an herb garden in his adventure pack if he could. would absolutely thrive on the show Chopped (he's actually banned from auditioning again because it's not fair to the other competitors to have him on). he could make you a dessert featuring rattlesnake and fresh picked clover, and you don't know how or why, but you actually like it
- Gale: approaches the kitchen the same way he approaches most things in his life - academically. knows the proper safe temperature to cook meats/etc to, knows how to brown an onion, knows what seasonings are typically used together for certain flavor profiles and how to match seasonings to proteins. knife work sucks because he uses mage hand for mise en place and his mage hand has shitty DEX, but he's scared of his chef knife from the one time he sliced his thumb open (he was cutting an onion with improper hand placement and the knife slipped)
- Minsc: would exclusively eat by dumpster diving if it weren't for Boo's disapproval. eats like a human garbage disposal. he will eat a n y t h i n g that fits in his mouth, he is the least picky eater you will ever meet. does not understand how food challenges in the show Fear Factor are supposed to be challenges
- Halsin: world class forager. very competent hunter. prefers to eat everything as raw as possible. understands but doesn't believe in strict food safety because obviously stomach acid kills germs (and anyway, a little dirt here and there never killed anyone; exposure to germs is good for your immune system). open-mouthed kissing him is gambling with your health. makes the best vegetarian salads but do not trust any chicken he has "cooked". people with weak CON might want to consider avoiding his food
- Jaheira: uses Talk to Animals to Cinderella/Ratatouille rodents in the kitchen. she commands them like she's in perilous battle and the entire world is at stake (also rodents are worse to direct than cats, they do not know the difference between left and right. there's a lot of "No! Not that cupboard, the other one! NO, the OTHER other one! Flank him, he's off balance!"). making a cup of tea is a convoluted, stressful process that takes 10 times longer than just boiling the damn water yourself
if you want more bg3 culinary headcanons, there's also: the Absolute Edition
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Text
"I think this is my favourite way to touch you" she said lovingly, while gently tracing circle after circle with her nails along my bare back.
"What?"
"Scratching your back, I think it's one of my favourite ways to touch you. That, or playing with your hair."
I post a lot about how stone4stone love has been healing for me in a way that is so profound and almost spiritual, but finally having it in person has only taken that to a whole other level. My darling femme saying this caused my entire world to slow down as I processed what, up until that point, I thought impossible. A fantasy that would never fully be spoken.
For context, my top three favourite ways to be given physical intimacy/love are the following:
Having my hair played with over long periods of time
Scratching my back and scalp
Massage, especially when chronic pain flare ups are bad
I react so intensely that it excites people a lot of the time. You'd think I was having sex if you were simply listening to the sounds from the other room (which is ironic given I actively hate receiving during, joys of being stone). For my entire life, for my nearly 15 years of dating, every single person before my femme has followed the same pattern.
They'll discover how positively I react to scratches/hairplay, and they actively engage in it regularly due to the advent of your new partner enjoying something that much. Inevitably they get bored but will continue because it makes me happy. Eventually though, the novelty fully wears off and the only true way I can get that level of attention is when I explicitly ask for it. I've often gotten sighs followed by "oh alright" as if it's some chore, or worse yet, half sarcastic "if only you made sounds like this during sex". Every single time I'd inevitably start feeling guilty, anxious, and simply stop asking.
The sheer number of times I'd ask myself "if I said I never wanted to receive during sex again, if I wanted intimacy in only this way, would so-n-so be upset" and the answer was always yes. Always. I'd begun to internalize that my way of receiving was a chore. That how I wanted to be loved was a reward to be earned.
Then comes this absolute darling of a femme, unprompted during our quiet night of non-sexual intimacy after a long day, casually dropping that her favourite way to show me physical intimacy is tied between scratching my back and playing with my hair. By accident in a single half-entraced phrase she took my perceptions of love, what I deserve from love, and what I could expect to receive, shattered them into a thousand fragments, and then stitched them back together into a mosaic that would make the Byzantines weep.
There is something to be said for your partner loving you in a specific way because it is how you like to be showed love, even though it's not their preferred method of showing it. It is a league-of-its-own different feeling to find someone who shows you love the way you want to be shown love because it's how they prefer to show love. She has taught me that and I am never settling for less again.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
Stone4Stone is Holy.
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oliviajdjarin · 1 year
Text
Joel Miller: Mint
Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader (afab; she/her)
Excerpt: Your joy was forever gone, your clothes, your warmth against him as he slept, the voice that sucked him in as soon as he saw you in that fucking dive--
Suddenly, his mouth was pressed against something warm, and soft, and minty, and real.
“Joel,” you whispered into his mouth before kissing him again, and again, and again. Your warm, perfect hands framed his face as you did, but he wasn’t strong enough to meet your face with his own. “Come back to me. Come on baby, talk to me.”
You weren’t gone. You were right here, warm-blooded, healthy, and his. 
Warnings: Major death talk, a woman gets torn apart by clickers, Joel has a panic attack, kissing, slight allusion to sex at the end, this is pretty self-indulgent.
A/N: So, Episode 3, am I right?
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Joel Miller had done worse things than drag a screaming man by his pantleg back into Jackson, but he would soon discover he had few things quite as haunting.
The man wiggled in his grip--screaming and digging his nails and mouth into the muddy, icy gravel--as Joel made his way back into the small town.
“Take me back,” the man howled, throat clogged with flem and grief, “take me back to her. I can’t leave her.”
Joel kept on hauling. 
“Joel,” the man was weeping now, sobbing through his beard. “Take me back to my wife. Please, my wife Joel, my wife.”
The man knew what he was doing, using that word. 
That word. 
That word cut through Joel like a hot knife, gliding along the insides of his belly and up his throat. Tha man’s wife was long gone, likely torn to pieces by the infected that had nearly gotten the man in Joel’s own hand, but Joel didn’t let him go. He didn’t let him jump down there with her. 
Why didn’t he? 
The man was silent for a few moments, his sobs the only proof he hadn’t slit his own throat, before his weeps became the sobs of grief that Joel was all too familiar with. The sobs that indicated yes, that did just happen, and I have no idea what the fuck to do from here.
“Please let me go,” the man finally whispered, and Joel dropped his leather-covered foot without hesitation. They had made it to the center of Jackson by that point--meaning a sizeable crowd was beginning to form around them, which Joel absolutely loved--and with one final look back at the defeated and lost man, Joel kept his march forward. 
Forward to you. 
It was barely noon--Joel was always better at the morning watch shifts than you--which meant you had to have been freshly showered and making yourself a late breakfast. Whenever you took shifts at night you always took the liberty to sleep in plenty in the morning, which gave Joel the opportunity to admire the woman who had him wrapped around her finger--literally and metaphorically. He could still taste the mint of your prized chapstick on his lips. You had kissed him particularly hard that morning, hard enough for him to fidget with his matching band more than usual. The weight of it was there when he left you, when the woman fell, and when the man jumped for her. 
Estelle was her name, a beautiful name for a very not-beautiful time, yet a beautiful soul. Her screams pierced the air as soon as she slipped, silenced when she hit the ground, and ignited again as she was torn into. 
Joel being the survivor he was acted on instinct alone when it happened, catching the man from the air as he jumped to join her in her fate, and proceeded to tow the decaying, lamented man back home. 
The fear in Estelle’s eyes before her feet went out from under her, the rawness of her screams, and the acceptance of her final whimpers didn’t become yours in his brain until right then, his steps towards his home. The man’s cries to join her didn’t become his own until he had to close his eyes at the view of you in the window of your wooden home, taking a mammoth-sized book off of the shelves he had crafted for you.
“Joel,” you had said in reaction. “It’s just...it’s just a random Tuesday.”
He made his way over to you, wrapping you in his arms. “I know.”
He entered your shared home, stomping the snow off his boots on the welcome mat to let you know it was him as always, and breathed in the perfect scent that was your fresh-brewed coffee.
When had he started crying?
“Joel,” you said, still facing away from him and towards your shelf, “you’re early. Very early. I’m guessing things either went really well, or really--”
You cut yourself off when you turned to him, likely noticing the single stream of a tear etching its way down his left cheek, and his breath escaped from him at the sight of you. Your form shaped by your favorite pair of jeans, hair laid just how you liked it, and your favorite shirt fresh from the washer. His favorite vision of you, the happy one. The comfortable one. The “I’m-in-love-and-clean-and-fed-in-a-world-where-I-should-be-neither” look. The truest form of his wife.
His wife.
Take me back to my wife. Please, my wife Joel, my wife.
He couldn’t feel his legs.
“Joel,” he heard you say from somewhere far away. Surely that wasn’t you in front of him, guiding him to his feet, leading him to the sofa, squatting to your knees to look into his eyes, breathing into his face that perfect hint of mint. You were torn, fractured, snapped, shredded, devoured at the bottom of that fucking ledge. He was laying in the middle of the square, waiting for his organs to shut down from the cold. Waiting to join you. 
He could see it so clearly--he wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, good enough. One more person he failed, one more gaping hole in his chest with no bullet to match. Except this time, you weren’t just another person, you were his everything. Everything. He shouldn’t have let himself fall. He never thought he’d have a wife, and maybe he was never supposed to. 
Your joy was forever gone, your clothes, your warmth against him as he slept, the voice that sucked him in as soon as he saw you in that fucking dive--
Suddenly, his mouth was pressed against something warm, and soft, and minty, and real.
“Joel,” you whispered into his mouth before kissing him again, and again, and again. Your warm, perfect hands framed his face as you did, but he wasn’t strong enough to meet your face with his own. “Come back to me. Come on baby, talk to me.”
You weren’t gone. You were right here, warm-blooded, healthy, and his. 
He exhaled a puff of relief, like reality did its best to punch him in the stomach so hard he couldn’t even respond, before saying, “I would bet on really bad.”
You laughed joyously before wrapping your arms around him so hard the breath he had just gathered escaped him once more, and more tears spilled from his eyes when he tucked his face into your neck. He must have been leaking them the entire time. 
You held him closely, intimately. It was a hug only lovers could mold themselves into. You exhaled in relief before suddenly pulling away and shoving him so hard he fell against the back of the couch.
“Darlin’, what--”
“What the hell was that, Joel Miller,” you yelled. “You come home hours earlier than you’re supposed to, stare at me like I’m a fucking ghost, and collapse! I thought you were having a goddamn stroke or something, Christ.”
“Y/N, I--”
“You better fuckin’ explain,” you state sternly, “and quickly because Jesus Christ.”
He just stared at you, at that passion that always simmered underneath you finally boiling over, before smiling bigger than he had all day. 
You scoffed before squatting down to meet his eyes straight on once more. “Explain. Now.”
He leaned forward, finally tracing the face he knew better than any other with hands rougher than it ever deserved, and spoke. Your eyes softened as he talked, tracing his features as they did, and your soft, lovely fingertips kept his eyes looking into yours the entire time. 
“Once I came in here, I--” he began, clearing his throat as the emotion and panic struggled from the restraint he had planted on them, “--I only saw you falling, and me being dragged here. I realized how imminent that is. I could taste it.”
You swallowed, your own eyes beginning to mist, and brought your forehead to his. 
“I’ve lost people,” he whispered, “so many people, and I’ve gotten back up. If I lose you, I...I won’t be able to. I’m going to go down, and I’m going to stay there. I can’t live in this world without you in it, Y/N.”
You swallowed harshly as tears escaped your own eyes. Your hands remained framing his face, rubbing his jaw and cheekbones with your fingertips, before you pressed your lips to his once more. It was that combination of the warmth and wet of your lips, the taste of your minty breath mixed with the unique taste of you, as well as the breaths from your nose that proved to him yes, you were here, you were real. 
“My Joel,” you whispered against his lips, “you haven’t lost me. I’m right here.”
You bring his right palm to your left breast, right above your heartbeat, where he both heard and felt that familiar tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump.
“I’m right here.”
His misted eyes met your own, full of nothing but complete raw adoration, before you stood and tucked his face into your stomach, letting him fall apart.
He fell apart in your arms, weeping while clutched to your clothing, and once he was done, you covered his mouth with your lips, and put all the pieces of your husband back together.
Tag list: (I apologize if your tag is not present/not working. If you’d like to be added or I’ve made a mistake, feel free to ask!)
@leahkenobi @aninnai i​ @untitledarea @avengersfan25 @lexloon
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13keithxpidge13 · 1 year
Text
I wanna write an AU where Rhaenyra chooses Harwin to marry and their marriage is solidified in the eyes of the Realm.
Immediately, Rhaenyra becomes pregnant. The couple are overjoyed and the kingdom celebrates, excited at the prospect of introducing a brand new prince or princess to the world.
When Prince Jacaerys Targaryen is born, Harwin is absolutely /flooded/ with joy and pride. Jace is his precious boy, his /beautiful/ firstborn son. He looks so much like himself but with Rhaenyra's violet eyes and her gorgeous smile. It doesn't matter to him that his hair isn't white (he doesn't care /what/ the Queen says). Jacaerys is his perfect, special boy.
Not even two years later, Rhaenyra is announced to be pregnant with their second babe. Her stomach doesn't grow nearly as large as it did when she was in her later months carrying Jace which did worry the Maesters just a tad but, Harwin wasn't concerned at all. Rhaenyra was strong, stronger than anyone he knew, if anyone could pull through-it would be his beautiful wife.
And, he was right. Eight months into her pregnancy, albeit a little early, Rhaenyra gave birth to their second son; Lucerys Targaryen. Harwin's precious, sweet little second son. Tinier than most babes he is but as strong as can be nonetheless. He looks like the spitting image of Rhaenyra. Bright violet doe eyes, a button nose with freckles caked across his cheeks, and a sparkling happy smile. When Rhaenyra first laid eyes on him, she sobbed with joy and whispered how he looked so much like her mother; the late Queen Aemma. King Viserys agreed, holding his second grandson and weeping whilst gazing at his sweet face.
It was at this time that the rest of Viserys's children had begun to become more curious about their older sister and their nephews. Prince Aegon often dragged the young Prince Aemond down to sneak into his and Rhaenyra's chambers to get a peek at the two young boys when Luke and Jace were playing.
Harwin wouldn't say anything against the young princes when they sneak in, when they think no one could see them. If anything, it warms his heart to know that, despite Queen Alicent and her bitterness against his wife and their children, her boys nonetheless attempt to be close to their nephews even when their mother argues against it.
Harwin watches, amused as Prince Aegon rushes over to Jace and immediately plops down next to him from where Harwin's eldest boy is playing with his youngest. The two sit on the floor surrounded by tiny dragon wooden cut out toys and Jace squeals as Prince Aegon takes one of the toys and starts playing. Little Luke kicks his tiny four month old feet out and giggles loudly, clapping his hands together.
Prince Aemond takes a little more coaxing but, eventually, they all are playing together on the floor with the sound of happy laughter and childish giggles ringing throughout the room like church bells.
It isn't too long before Rhaenyra returns, entering their chambers and the group of children all whirl to meet her.
"Oh my," She gasps, but she's smiling and little Luke squeals, babbling nonsense and reaching towards his mother. "It seems I have a group of little hatchlings nesting in here. What are you doing away from your mother at this hour, brothers?"
"Playing!" Prince Aegon shouts and stands up, smiling wide as he raises his arms. "Mother forgot to put Aemond down for a nap so I brought him here!"
At that, his wife's smile falters just a tad. It was not secret that Queen Alicent often...neglected her children, leaving them to the servants and wet nurses instead of spending time with them herself.
But, that didn't seem to bother the two young princes as they would often sneak away to come find their nephews anyway.
"All by yourselves?" Rhaenyra asks, concerned and that's when Harwin speaks up from where he was situated beside one of the desks inside their bedroom, hidden from sight but able to keep an eye on the group.
"Don't worry, princess," Harwin spoke up and all heads turned to him. "I've been watching them."
Rhaenyra sighs with relief and stalks towards little Luke who was practically crawling over to her at this point, desperate to get to his mommy. He had always been more attached to her than Harwin but, Harwin supposed he didn't blame his son. He was quite attached to her too.
"Hello, little love," She whispers to her second son as she picks him up and cradles Luke against her chest. He coos and babbles, clutching onto her hair and nuzzling against her. "Yes, hello, my sweet boy. I've missed you too."
"Can we stay, sister? Please, please?" Prince Aegon begs, bouncing on his tip toes as he grabs at her black dress. His eldest sister chuckles and she gently runs a hand through his wavy white hair and he leans into it.
"Ah, well," She sighs in a teasing manner. "I /suppose/ you could stay for a bit while longer."
Prince Aegon and Prince Aemond cheer and Jace and Luke follow along, all of their giggles resounding and joining together.
Harwin and Rhaenyra smile at each other and he walks over to kiss his wife, his girl humming against his lips and he then plants another kiss upon her head and one on little Luke's.
It won't be for some time that they have another babe, many years but, Harwin cherishes each and every moment he has with his family. His perfect family.
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bloopitynoot · 8 months
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3 Shadowgast fics that made me ugly cry
Okay so I read a LOT of shadowgast fanfics and I wanted to share some of the ones that made me absolutely weep. (I was going to wait until tomorrow but I got too excited to share).
All of these have some intense emotional distress, but I promise you all they may be angsty but they absolutely have happy endings.
They are all set in very different AU's, are hefty completed fics, and have similar feels!
1. the breathe before the phrase
(171513 words) by @kmackatie Chapters: 20/20 Rating: Explicit Summary: The ringing note of a concert A is played by the oboe, echoing on its own in the space. It’s picked up by the wind section, followed rapidly by the brass, and the familiar feeling of an orchestra calibrating takes over Caleb. The tonal adjustments as each person brings their instrument into alignment sinks into him and something inside Caleb shifts in recognition as Essek leads the strings into their own tuning. It’s like something is waking up, like something unfurling and firing across long-unused paths of memory. His hands shake slightly, as he raises his bow and joins them, fingers fumbling against the pegs and fine tuners that give him control over his instrument. ---- Essek Thelyss is a leading violinist, his spot as Shadowhand of the Rosohna Philharmonic Orchestra has been uncontested for over a decade. Caleb Widogast is a recent arrival to the city, convinced by his friends to audition for one of the vacant violinist positions. After starting off on the wrong foot, Caleb and Essek get to slowly know each other, discover what brings them joy, create while defying expectations, and find out that what they can produce together may just be better than anything they can do separately.
Why I cried: The amount of pressure put on Essek made my heart absolutely shatter. That plus the pinning between Caleb and Essek had me weeping. The hurt/comfort energy. The bad parent Dierta and of course past Caleb Ickythong trauma healing. Other than the story itself Katie has put so much energy into explaining the music, the playlist is stunning, and the inspiration for the played pieces in the fic are grounded in actual compositions. No spoilers, but the ending is gorgeous <3
2.Till Human Voices Wake us
(66080 words) by @ariadne-mouse Chapters: 23/23 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Additional Tags: Merman!Caleb, no Mighty Nein but otherwise canon setting/events, Neutral evil Essek, Essek-typical anxiety and fatalism, Loneliness, Hurt/Comfort, spooky gothic vibes, some horror and disturbing imagery, the ocean as a threat/love language, Illustrations, drowning themes Summary: Essek Thelyss, lonely and ambitious prodigy, comes to Nicodranas to make a risky gamble with the Assembly. At the water’s edge, he finds himself swept up in another dangerous entanglement he can't seem to escape — and as time goes on, he's less and less sure he wants to. Will his treasonous alliance or the sea itself devour him first? (Or, the one where Caleb is a merman.)
Why I cried: okay so look, this story was so fucking sad I can't even begin to describe it. The love and longing between the two, the tragic backstory for Caleb. Treason = death for Essek (it's a happy ending though so do not worry, but I definitely worried so you don't have to LOL). It also has some stunning art in it!!!
3. what luminous worlds await
what luminous worlds await (178674 words) by @essektheylyss Rating: Mature Additional Tags: Champion of the Luxon AU, Alternate Universe - Future, Space Opera, Religious Conflict, religious trauma, Violence, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Dreams vs. Reality, Demisexual Essek Thelyss, Past Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Fictional Religion & Theology, Implied/Referenced Sex, Mention of Using Sex as Self-Harm, several immortals grapple with loss while trying to save the world, so so many liberties taken with consecution, this wouldn't be a problem if you'd EXPLAIN matthew mercer, and/or if a certain drow would give literally any straight answers, (I mean he can't give straight answers when he's not straight), Background Fjorester (Past), Post-Canon, …very post-canon Summary: “You seek my nature. It is a lonely endeavor. Would you like to join me on this path?” “Yes.” — After a thousand years, a divine champion awakes in a lightless cave above Port Damali with little memory to speak of and a beacon in his hands. Even as he struggles to piece the past together and process what he has lost while he slept, the future demands he answer for the crimes of his elders. It offers little in return, but perhaps there are fragments of possibility awaiting him.
Why I cried: Omg oh boy, this one made me BIG cry- honestly one of my favourite fics I have read so far. A true space opera, a story of love, in many forms, over time, space, and multiple lives. I sobbed from chapter one literally until the end. Though I think you will need an A03 account to read this one, but it is worth the wait to set one up. My partner watched me cry so much while I read this. I totally did download and save this fic to send to pals so they can cry with me. It is worth the agony for this happy ending. I might still be crying LOL
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