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azrielhours · 9 months

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Lessons on Relief

Azriel x Reader

Word count: 3k

Synopsis: Azriel is the last of the boys to lose his virginity

Warnings: Smut

A/N: picture az in his early twenties guys lol

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“That one likes you, Az,” Cassian whispered, ever the devil’s advocate. “She’s always staring.”

Azriel peered over to where Cass nodded and found a beautiful female watching him, picking clothes off a laundry line. Azriel blushed and broke your gaze when you smiled.

“See?” Cassian chuckled. It’d never been explicitly stated, but Azriel wondered if Cassian knew; of the three brothers, Azriel was the only one who was still a virgin.

That was unheard of in a camp full of warriors, males that perspired pride, who turned to females for relief on grounds meant to harden boys to soldiers. Where fucking and fighting were equal measures of a warrior’s value.

Azriel was late. He’d known nothing but hardness, coveted by powerful males for his shadowsinging. Yet he was still to outgrow his shyness. He’d look at the pretty Windhaven females from afar, brushing off his brothers when they’d insist he should talk to them.

When they spoke about their time with women, Azriel listened carefully. Tales of resistance, of increasing endurance. Of angles and rhythm, speed and relief.

He committed the words to memory so he’d know what to do when he’d finally work up the courage to see through to his need. To seek it inside a woman instead of his fist.

In truth, Azriel couldn’t imagine the females overlooking the scars on his hands, his quieter nature. Yes, he’s noted many of them admiring him, the shy glances cast his way, but he felt like he was overstepping by approaching one.

He’d never known softness in his life, so he didn’t know what to do with it when it came in the form of a woman. In their delicate bones, how they needed to crane their heads up to face his towering height. How they spoke like music, their bodies—supple hips and round arms. Azriel tried to be respectful, to avoid staring, but he loved it all. Sometimes it was a pudge at the base of their bellies, sometimes it was tiny waists. Sometimes it was full breasts, sometimes it was hips with an inward dip in the bones.

He may have yet to bed a woman, but God—that didn’t stop him from wanting them.

And that female—Azriel had seen you before, charmed by your forward nature, how you always held his gaze. You’d finished packing the clothes, hauling the basket onto your hip. “Maybe you’ll see her at the bonfire,” Cassian said.

Azriel watched you walk away, how your hips swayed. You turned one last time, smiling again, and this time, he cracked a smile back.

Azriel arrived late with Rhys and Cassian, making their way to a bench amongst the warriors. Everyone was in high spirits, drinking heartily and singing Illyrian folk songs. The steady rhythm of a drum beat in Azriel’s heart, and he let the music wash over him as he accepted a drink from Cassian.

The alcohol buzzed in his throat, releasing the tension in his shoulders as he settled. His brothers were conversing with the men nearby, giving Azriel the chance to scope out the ground. Some men were playing drinking games, some recounting tales, and some were pulling girls up to dance. That’s where Azriel spotted you.

You were even more beautiful in the firelight, glowing like precious jewels, dancing with a group of friends, laughing brightly. Azriel noted many other males watching you, hunger in their eyes as they took in your free-spirited twirls, how you bunched your skirts up to attempt the correct steps. Azriel downed his drink, but it did little to suppress his jealousy.

Rhys nudged his arm. “Go get her a drink.” Before Azriel could refuse, Rhys snatched the empty pint from his hands, pushing him off the edge of the bench until Azriel stumbled off, forced to stand. Cassian nodded in encouragement.

Azriel took a deep breath and made his way to the barrel of ale, filling a cup.

That was when he sensed movement, and it dawned on Azriel who was entering his company. He took a sip for courage.

His nerves were replaced with pleasant shock when he felt you touch a gentle hand on his elbow.

Azriel turned, and there you were.

You smiled sweetly up at him, hands tucked behind your back.

God, did Azriel love the softness of women.

“What’s your name?”

“Azriel.”

“Hello, Azriel."

He returned your easy smile.

Your eyes darted around playfully. “Aren’t you gonna ask me what my name is?”

“Oh—yes. What was your name?”

That pretty grin again. “Y/N.”

Azriel relaxed further. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.”

“Pleasure’s all mine.”

He didn’t know what to say next, but you didn’t seem to mind.

“You know, you’re not like the other Illyrians,” you continued.

“How so?”

You shrugged. “You’re not so… domineering.”

Azriel frowned. “Domineering?”

“Like, you’re not the ruffian type.”

He laughed. “The ruffian type?”

You waved a hand. “You know what I mean. I’ve never seen you make any advances on the women. And God knows they’re all dying to be talked up by you.” He looked to the ground, and you laughed. “I’ve never seen a warrior blush.”

Azriel smiled. “I don’t think there’s a shortage of Illyrians being flustered by you.”

You stepped closer, eyes bright. “So you can flirt. Took you long enough.”

Azriel’s brows rose in amusement. “I was… playing my timing correctly.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right,” he grinned.

“Well, Azriel, since you got the plan all figured out, where do we go from here?”

Before he could suggest returning to the bonfire, to let him watch you dance, you traced a finger down his hand, feeling the raised skin. He tracked the movement, then met your gaze. There was no hesitation in your eyes. You only weaved your fingers through his.

Azriel swallowed, trying to compose himself. “I’m feeling like we could use a change of scenery.”

You stepped closer. “I agree. Will you walk me home?”

Oh.

“It would be my pleasure.” Azriel thanked the Mother for the steadiness in his voice, the same couldn’t be said about his heart.

To his eternal delight, you didn’t release your hold on his hand.

You didn't mind his hands.

Azriel’s heart raced. Sounds of the bonfire grew distant as you led him between and around paths and houses until you stopped at the door of a quaint cottage.

You still held his hand even as you fished in the purse around your waist for a key, leading him inside. You released him, beaming at him as you toed off your shoes.

“You live alone?”

“My father's working in a different camp, and my sister's probably seeking her own fun tonight,” you smiled crookedly.

Not her first time, then.

Azriel just nodded.

Your gaze softened, studying his rigid posture. "You don’t… do this often?"

"Uh, not—not really.”

Your lips parted in realization, and Azriel's face burned with shame. But you just smiled sweetly, reaching once again for his hand. He obliged, holding your smaller hand, vigilantly studying your face.

"That's okay, darling," you spoke, voice honeyed. “I mean, we don't have to—”

"I want to,” he blurted.

Your smile never faltered. “Me too.” A reassuring squeeze to his hand. As if doubling down on your eagerness, you reached behind your back with your free hand, holding his hand securely between both of yours. You led him to the stairs, oblivious to how it made Azriel’s heart soar.

Azriel felt warmth coursing south. The familiar sensation of arousal heightened his bodily awareness, making him breathe deeper.

He realized he had permission to look. To want. His gaze roamed down your form before him—how your body curved and dipped. His need for you calmed the edges of his nerves.

And when the scent of your desire reached his nose, he was honed in. Hungry. He'd heard of lust overtaking people, how it became an all-consuming sensation, but to feel it outside the walls of his bathroom was liberating in a way that felt wholly correct.

You entered a room, lighting a faint faelight.

Good, because Azriel wanted to see it all.

You approached him with a certainty that had Azriel’s breath catching. The need in your eyes mirrored how he felt. He wanted to touch—to taste—

You ran your fingers down his arms. He brought his hands hovering by your frame, available for you to hold again if you pleased. You did just that, yanking down gently, rising on your toes.

You wanted to kiss him.

Azriel exhaled in relief, letting his mouth fall onto yours. Your hands inched up to his neck, pulling your body flush against his. Your lips were soft and warm, moving gently against his. He placed his hands on your waist, pulling you firmly to his body, spurred on by how you moaned into his mouth. You bit his lip and he felt his trousers tighten. Your hands roamed down his front, all the way to where he ached.

When you traced down his stiffness, he broke off from your mouth to watch. Your delicate fingers traced down. He instinctively covered your hand with his, halting at the sight of his scars—maybe you didn’t want them touching your flawless hands—

He released your hand, trying to tuck his away. It was more jarring to see them in the light of your room. You tracked his movement, and Azriel braced himself for your change of mind. You wouldn’t want him to touch you anymore.

You met his gaze with a pinch between your brows. Reaching for his elbows, you tugged his arms back forward, tracing down his forearms to his wrists. Then you lifted his right hand to your mouth.

His breath stuttered when you placed featherlight kisses along his hand. You opened your mouth, putting two of his fingers inside. Azriel’s mouth parted, mind utterly blank as he watched. You sucked his fingers, gaze unbreaking. Your tongue licking freely along his skin reignited the heat in his blood, brought back the ache in his pants.

You pulled his fingers out of your mouth, tugging his shirt out of his trousers. Message received. Azriel tugged it off, dropping it to the floor. Your eyes were dilated, chest rising quicker as you deftly traced down the ridges of his muscled front. Down to his belt when you met his gaze. So he unbuckled his belt with shaky fingers. Anything she wants is fair game. You turned your back, scooping your hair to expose your corset to Azriel as he stepped out of his pants, utterly stripped.

Azriel didn’t allow himself to hesitate. He undid the tie, gently loosening the strings. You shimmied out, pulling your skirt down before turning to face him only in your shift.

You maintained eye contact as you reached for the neckline, tugging it down over your shoulders. Over your collarbones, your breasts, your elbows. Letting it pool at your feet.

Bare.

Mother spare me.

You were everything. Maybe he shouldn’t stare even though he knew he had permission; maybe it was juvenile to take you in like oxygen, but Azriel could do nothing else. He drank in your form like it was his salvation. Studied your silhouette like it was his sole purpose. Down your ankles, up your thighs, your stomach—

You reached for his wrists, guiding his hands to your hips. He tried to breathe deeper as lust baited his sanity. He swallowed at the feel of your softness. You guided his hands to your waist, onto your stomach, up around your breasts.

You released him, letting him take what he wanted. Azriel couldn’t breathe. He squeezed the flesh, noted how it made your mouth part. He ran his thumb over your peaked nipples.

Your pleasure only spurred his need. He would make you feel as good as you already did him. He would—he would please you.

He repeated the motion—anything to get you to—

You gripped his length where it leaked against his stomach. Azriel gasped, jolting. You stroked down and back up, watching his face, setting a steady pace. Azriel’s face contorted, mouth parted as he breathed shakily. His hands dropped to your hips as he tried to focus on anything but the coiling sensation deep in his belly, or your audible breathing that brought him closer—your fingers moved faster, making his muscles tense, his hips bucking forward into your hold, all the while your eyes never left his. His heartrate sped as his breathing grew shallower and you massaged pleasure right into him—

With a gasp, Azriel came undone, ropes of his spend pulsating out of him onto your stomach. You didn’t let up, continuing until Azriel shuddered at the overstimulation, grasping your hand to cease your movement.

He heaved as he came down, knees weak.

Blood rushed to his face as he met your hungry gaze. He came too fast—that wasn’t how this was meant to go.

But you didn’t balk. Your dilated gaze held his, desire colouring your cheeks pink. You weren’t… put off by how fast he finished.

You took his hand and pulled him to your bed to sit. Immediately, your hands were on his shoulders, kissing him. Hungrier than before. Azriel was done with reluctance. He was going to take what he wanted.

He pulled you into his lap, relishing your surprised gasp. He pulled you closer, letting his want guide him. He kissed your jaw. That neck. He nearly growled, letting himself indulge in the softness. Letting himself taste it. Your soft sighs were music to his ears. His hands ran all along your form. Down your arms, across your back, squeezing your ass.

When you were a panting mess in his arms, he released you. The scent of your need was an aphrodisiac he’d happily overdose on. Your hands shook as you brought his hand to your apex where your legs parted on his lap. He let you position his hand, gasping with you at the wet warmth he was met with.

You showed him how to touch you, how to move his two fingers against the plush softness of your sex.

Azriel hardened again at the feel of the wet ridges he stroked. You released his hand, your whole body trembling. Your mouth hung open, brows pinched. He began moving faster, curious to see what would—oh.

You whimpered.

Your pleasure turned him on more than anything he’d ever fantasized about. When you began rolling your hips onto his hand, losing control, Azriel bent forward and captured the peak of your breast in his mouth.

You cried out, gasping as your legs widened and then closed tightly around his hips. He rose to watch, keeping his hand nestled between your legs.

Your eyes were screwed shut as you fell off the precipice, grasping his hand away. Only then did he let up, and you exhaled, your body relaxing onto his lap.

Azriel wasn’t sure if… this meant that it was over, if you were spent, but one thing he knew for certain was he’d take being painfully aroused without finishing anytime if it meant he got to bring you pleasure like that. He was content with going home now and taking care of himself, no matter how much he ached for more if it meant watching you come like that.

You ran your fingers through his hair, kissing him. “More,” you spoke huskily. “I want more.”

Thank God.

You got off his lap on unsteady legs, laying back on the bed, and the sight of you spreading your legs for him was nearly his undoing.

But Azriel took steadying breaths, rising and positioning himself over you. His hips hovered above yours, arms holding him up on either side of your frame.

Azriel felt something entirely instinctive take over. He knew where he wanted to bury himself. Where he needed to. He forgot about his worries. There was only the drive to push himself inside.

There was the rest of the world, and then there was you.

He notched the head of his aching length against your heat. You reached down and helped guide him, lining it up correctly. Lower—there, his length rested upon a soft indent. Azriel shuddered. He could hear your heart beat frantically.

He took a shaking inhale and pushed his way in. Just an inch.

His mouth parted, and that feeling—that absolute bliss that was your tightness squeezing him—Azriel couldn’t think.

This was it.

He didn’t realize he’d needed it; all he knew in the wake of your silky warmth was that this was utter relief.

There was an urge to sink in. To sheath himself.

But when he dared push forward, you tensed. Cassian’s tales echoed in his head, to not be a brute, to not take pleasure at the cost of comfort. That it can sometimes feel like breaking for females. Flashes of his father’s brawny form crossed his consciousness, giving him the strength to fight the urge to bury himself. Not him. I’m not him. So Azriel breathed through the reflex, resisting, resisting, resisting. Until you relaxed. Still, Azriel held back.

He must’ve begun shaking because your hands were suddenly soothing up and down his arms, stroking through his hair, grounding him back on earth. “It’s okay,” you breathed. With your feet planted on the bed, you hauled your hips up, spearing yourself further onto his length.

Azriel hissed. You were a temptress, taunting his self-restraint. But Azriel was a fiend, and he wanted you more than he could recall wanting anything.

So he watched as you relaxed again and gave more. Your head rested on the pillow, lolling to the side as you sighed in relief. You liked it, he confirmed. Females want it too.

He gave an experimental pull, relishing the feel of your walls tugging against his withdrawal, then he thrust forward, this time even further. Your brows pinched, giving him momentary pause again until he realized it was in pleasure, not in pain. You nearly took all of him.

It was so good. His head began clouding, a haziness that had him closing his eyes as they rolled back. He understood why the others talked about sex like it was better than breathing.

Another slow withdrawal until only his tip was notched inside, then he pushed forward, finally plunging to the hilt, his hips rested flush against yours. Azriel tried to stay present, to study your writhing, your panting, but the warmth inside you was making it difficult to focus. Azriel dropped to his forearms to keep himself from buckling onto you, the pleasure testing the strength in his arms.

He buried his head into your neck, listening to your erotic moans, holding his breath to keep from losing himself. He waited a few beats, willing away the oncoming precipice he felt approaching. No. He wanted this to last.

Then, you began rolling your hips from beneath him. Azriel groaned, low and guttural.

He set a steady thrusting pace as that knot of pleasure began growing again. He wouldn’t have lasted this long had you not brought him to release by your hand before.

Raising his head to watch, he found your brows pulled taut with pleasure. He was bringing you that pleasure. He wanted to see you tip over the edge again. “Y/N,” he rasped lowly. You opened your pretty eyes in question. “Keep your eyes on me,” he commanded; the darkness displacing your irises pulling a grunt of deep male approval from him.

You whimpered, trying to focus on his eyes, but yours kept falling shut involuntarily. He had the gall to halt when you failed to oblige, as if he could want anything more than to rut inside forever.

With his length paused halfway, your eyes flared, staring in shock. Azriel held your gaze, but yours narrowed in challenge. You planted your feet on the bed once again and began rolling your hips onto his length at the same pace he’d been previously working. It was intoxicating.

Azriel’s jaw dropped, eyes falling to where your bodies met, watched as you speared yourself onto him again and again.

The sight nearly undid him, but luckily, it got you first.

The roll of your hips brushed your apex against his pubic bone, and you whined as you pushed yourself over the limit of your release.

Your hips fell back onto the bed when you couldn’t take it anymore. Azriel seized the opportunity, fucking into you faster as your walls clenched around him. You cried out, gasping. Your warmth suctioned him deeper, squeezing him in waves. Azriel’s climax was harder than he’d ever come before. His arms shook and he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

The pleasure at last abated, and he let himself partially rest his weight on you for a moment until the feeling returned to his body. You stroked down his back, exhaling in relief. Azriel lifted himself, staring at you with wide-eyed bliss. Holy shit.

“That was so good,” you breathed. “Where’d you learn to… how did you—”

Pride swelled in Azriel’s chest as he broke into a crooked smile. “I had the right motivation.”

You glared playfully. Azriel finally pulled out, halting when you gasped. But you shook your head at his concern. “It’s okay—it’s just sensitive after—” you gestured between your bodies. He nodded, falling into bed as you yanked the covers over yourselves.

“But you’ll be okay?” Azriel asked tentatively.

You laughed, eyes closing happily. “I’m more than okay, Azriel.” You traced a hand tiredly over his arm.

He tracked the movement. “I love that,” he murmured.

“You love what, darling?”

“The softness,” he confessed quietly. The softness of women.

You smiled with your eyes closed, winding your arms around his neck, sinking against his body. Azriel enveloped you. “Come find me anytime you want some more softness,” you breathed.

He listened to your breathing as you fell asleep; despite the relief relaxing his body, it took a while for him to fall asleep from the vivid intimacy he felt with you in his arms, how settled it made him feel.

So Azriel basked in it, didn’t fight it as it crept into the crevices of his weary soul and quietly healed him until the sky turned to light.

Azriel walked through the camp on light footsteps, his head blissfully clear. He was savouring the rare peace he felt, knowing it was only a matter of time before—

“There you are,” Rhys smiled widely, coming out of the communal hall with Cassian. “Looks like someone’s feeling rather relaxed.”

Azriel cracked a smile, neither confirming nor denying.

Cassian grinned. “Was it with her?”

Before Azriel could respond, he heard soft female chatter drawing nearer. He turned to find you walking to the hall with a friend. You didn’t halt your stride, only brushing the back of Azriel’s hand softly with your own as you passed, throwing a teasing smile over your shoulder.

The boys tracked your movement, giving Azriel the chance to nod while he still had your attention. You had him wrapped around your finger. Cassian laughed boisterously when they faced him once more. “You sly dog, Azriel Shadowsinger.”

He heard you faintly laughing up ahead, having heard Cassian. That gentle, feminine sound caressed him, making him smile easy.

Indeed, he could learn about softness.

taglist: @iimisty-a @feyretopia @aroseinvelaris @cullenswife @reiincarnatiion @sfhsgrad-blog @answer-the-sirens @mrstangerinejohnson @marigold-morelli @courtofjurdan @azriels-mate123 @emotionless-lover @marina468 @slvtherinseeker @owllover123 @banasheefan56 @nyotamalfoy

a/n: I’ve been obsessed w this concept for weeks. Young az w his troubled past learning to find reprieve in women? like have you guys ever thought about his first time? he could barely look at Mor when she arrived at Windhaven, how’d he work up the courage to bed a female pls. Special s/o to darling @princess-tulip-writes for helping me w the title and listening to me vent about this obsession :) love you all

#azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel/reader #azriel fanfic #azriel fanfiction #azriel smut #azriel shadowsinger #azriel imagine #azriel spymaster #azrielhours #acotar fanfiction #azriel

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legalfirmindia · 2 years

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lilacsandpetals · 6 months

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Frozen Blossoms Pt. 6

Last part here.

Next part here.

Bi-Han x F! Reader

Tags and notes: Arranged marriage AU, SFW (but some suggestive themes), exploring emotions, Pre-MK1/MK1 AU

Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping, blood, and mentions of violence.

Bi-Han had gotten far too used to you now.

Since that night when you washed his hair, the taste of your lips lingered on his. It’s as if you’d cast some spell on him. He sought you in quiet moments of the day when no one else was around but you and him. Exchanging discrete touches, stealing kisses, and nothing more.

He inched closer to you every night as you retired to bed. You opted to wake up earlier. A chaste kiss was shared before he departed in the morning, followed by a fervent one before bed each night.

Every day that went by brought you closer to him.

Yet it still left much to be desired. The longing for more of you was present, but it seemed all too difficult to proceed as he hoped. Something seemed to always pull you two apart. Whether it was you pulling away from a kiss far too soon for his liking or him being dragged away to serve Earthrealm. Or maybe on occasion, it was his own apprehension.

He did appreciate the kiss of goodbye you would gift him before he’d depart. Which these days, was more often than he preferred. But he tells himself that it’s not only for Earthrealm’s safety but yours as well.

And maintaining your safety was of the utmost importance to him. He’d strictly insist that you remain within the Lin Kuei’s walls, and when he did, he could see the disappointment in your eyes. Yet it was for your own good. He was sure that you were aware of the fact that your position was highly coveted. So slowly but surely, whispers and retaliation of your marriage clawed their way to the Lin Kuei. But he would not allow anyone from the surrounding clans to advocate or force your removal.

Still, they were becoming more of a nuisance than he had initially anticipated.

Many clans had approached the Grandmaster with offerings of their daughters for marriage; greedy and willing to sacrifice their kin as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Lin Kuei’s protection and loyalty. Although, what right did he have to think that way? His own father had so quickly arranged his marriage for the sake of greater resources for the clan’s advancement and well-being. He knew it was tradition, and he was nothing if not a product of his clan’s laws and heritage. But still, he wondered if his mother would have made him abide by such a standard.

Either way, when you had married there were already unhappy whispers dancing throughout the other clans. With tensions brewing he urged your instructors to intensify your training as time went on, just in case things went south. Other than the blatant conflicts they’ve had to shut down, he had instances where they’ve caught suspicious characters lurking nearby the Lin Kuei’s estate.

He wouldn’t worry you about all that. He’d manage that burden on his own.

Usually, he’d be eager to use the skills he has been taught. His bloodlust is greater than he’s let anyone take note of. But when it came to you, these conflicts concerned him. He found no pleasure in engaging in disputes that may put you at risk. It causes his heart to become anxious like he needs to wipe out any threat to you the second it arises.

That’s why he is always leaving you. Your time spent together has been cut short so often because he needs to take care of you in this way.

———————-

For now, he sits at the bedside, his body is tired, but he is eager to spend time in your company.

He glances at your flowers and gently plucks a petal off of one of them, he’d need to pick you new ones soon. These were clearly dead, yet he found it slightly endearing that you kept it around. One night he had seen you pluck some of the flowers off of their buds and place them into one of your books. He never cared for flower pressing, but he did find it somewhat gratifying that you’d preserve his gift in such a way.

His eyes then fall to the books. You had a decent stack of them resting at your bedside. You came off as an avid reader. When he’d return home from his work, he would find you engrossed with your novel more often than not. He wonders what type of books you like. He supposes that you wouldn’t mind him flipping through them.

Oh, how he wishes he hadn’t. You had a type of literature you were fond of and he’s not surprised. Most of the women he knew of had a preference for romance. However, he did not expect your novels to delve into such explicit situations.

What type of filth were you reading??

You often maintained such a monotone look while you read, so he never would assume you could be reading things of that nature.

He toyed at the collar around his neck. Were those actions what you desired of a man? Did you think of anyone while you read those novels? Have you already indulged in such actions with another? Or did you want to try them at all? He was right beside you when you read in the evenings. In his opinion, you had ample opportunity to initiate anything if you so desired. However, you two never went farther than a kiss. And it has been some time now since your first one. A slight feeling of unease settled within his chest. He could be the one to advance your relationship if he really wanted to.

What was holding him back?

The distinct sound of your footsteps approaching snap him out of his thoughts, so he clears his throat and sets the books back in place as if they were yet to be touched.

You rounded the corner with a smile on your face, as beautiful as always. “Husband, will you walk with me to the dining hall?”

He narrows his eyes slightly, “yes.” He gets up and steals one more glance at the books before he walks with you there. He maintains his regular demeanor. As you keep up the pace by his side, your hand slowly slips into his. He allows it and gently tightens his grip on your hand. You keep your eyes trained on the path ahead, but he can’t help stealing glances at you. Your hair was neatly tied back. A few strands always managed to escape but it felt fitting for you. The necklace he’d gotten you has taken up permanent residence on your neck, he knows you are wearing it before he even looks. The pin in your hair is simple, but he wonders if you’d want one to match your necklace. He’s sure he’d be able to find one with a jewel similar in color to that of your necklace.

———————-

Dinner went as per usual. These days your father-in-law would direct his conversation to his sons, leaving you a silent listener at the table. They spoke about their missions and their current affairs. As the matriarch-to-be, you should have been attentive to the conversation. But you often found yourself zoning out. You weren’t included in conversations of this nature that often outside the dinner table, so it made it difficult to engage properly.

But today was different. A calculated list of questions descended upon you. Inquiries on if you’ve been sleeping well and how many hours per night, how consistent you are with training, and if you’ve been eating properly.

You were confused for a moment, you appreciated the Grandmaster’s concern, but it felt nearly invasive. Still, you don’t think much of it until he speaks up once again.

“If all is well, I assume an heir will be conceived soon.”

You nearly choke on your food and begin to cough a bit. Tomas pushes your cup of water towards you. ‘So that was what all the questioning was about.’ You were not ready to have a child, not yet. And you were yet to even sleep with your husband. You seem frozen in place, not knowing how to respond. Thankfully your husband comes to your aid.

“We will inform you when the time comes, father.”

Bi-Han eyes you briefly and you look back down at your plate. That would be a different topic for you two to breach at a different time.

———————-

You’re off to bathe before bed. The warm water is soothing in the midst of the cold weather. Bi-Han is tempted to ask if he could join you. Yet he cannot find the words to do so. Matters of the heart have bested him far more than those of the battlefield. So he finds himself in his secondary place of pain and comfort of the training grounds. More training was beneficial. Unfortunately, he hadn’t anticipated Tomas or Kuai Liang to be present. They seemed more engaged in their conversation than the light sparring they partook in. What exactly were they talking about?

“Did you see his face?”

‘Who’s face?’ Bi-Han debates on whether or not he should ask, but before he is given the pleasure of deciding, Tomas spots him. “Bi-Han! Come practice with us.”

Bi-Han rolls his eyes, but he supposes the sparring partners would prove helpful. “What were you two talking about?” Tomas shoots Kuai Liang a certain look that Bi-Han takes notice of. “Well? Spit it out.” He snaps.

“It’s really nothing,” Tomas says sheepishly.

“We were just speaking on our future endeavors.” Kuai Liang remarks. He debates on whether or not he should cover up the subject of conversation, or if he should test his brother’s temper and be honest.

“As in?”

Kuai Liang throws some hand wraps to Bi-Han, which he snatches with ease. “Marriage and its aspects of love and responsibility.” Bi-Han nearly rolls his eyes. Both brothers assume a fighting stance. As per usual Bi-Han starts on the offensive, so he throws the first kick of the match, “Elaborate.”

“The same subject that father spoke about at dinner.” Kuai Liang responds with a punch that Bi-Han checks. He then shoves his brother slightly rougher than he meant to. ‘The subject spoken about at dinner?’ The sparring comes to an abrupt halt. “My wife?” he hisses.

Tomas promptly speaks up, “No! Just about the idea of having nieces and nephews soon.”

Bi-Han inhales sharply, and Tomas takes note, “I mean unless you haven’t been trying for a child yet?”

Kuai Liang shoots him a slightly amused look, and Bi-Han knows that face. It’s the same face that his younger brother would give him before he was about to spew utter nonsense. “You haven’t yet, have you?”

“Shut your mouths, you insolent fools.”

Tomas tries not to chuckle, “The more you avoid the question, the easier you make the assumption for us.”

“Neither of you is married, so do not act as if you could even comprehend such things.”

Kuai Liang respects his older brother, he really does, but right now he has to resist rolling his eyes.”Harumi and I are not married yet, but I think I’m capable of understanding such a topic.”

“You and Harumi have known each other since you were children, I met my bride rather recently. It is not the same ordeal, so don’t speak on it.”

Kuai Liang supposes his brother is correct. “You’re right in that I wouldn’t understand your exact situation. But you misinterpret my intentions.” He placed his hand on his older brother’s shoulder, “Don’t overthink it. Whenever it does happen, you’ll be fine. And I’m sure you’ll have offspring soon enough.”

Bi-Han will not voice it, but he hopes his brother is right.

———————-

Steam fills the room. You sink into the hot water and let out a pleasant sigh. Lately, you’ve had to increase the amount of time you spend training, and it is safe to say that your muscles still haven’t properly adjusted to the increased burden of it. Therefore, unwinding like this was greatly valued.

Whenever you were in this tub, you were reminded of your first kiss with your husband. The memory is still fresh in your mind and it causes heat to rush to your cheeks. He had looked stunning that evening with his hair down and his demeanor relaxed. Since then you were thankful that you had gotten close enough to exchange more kisses in private. Although neither of you breached the aspect of furthering your physical relationship. Yet you did find yourself desiring it more and more often these days. Thinking of his physique had caused your mind to wander further than you would have felt comfortable admitting.

And then it made you think of dinner earlier.

The process of producing a child did intrigue you, but the rest seemed nerve-wracking. Pregnancy was something you knew you’d have to endure sooner or later. It excited you but scared you all the same. And then the thought of raising a child in this strict environment worried you.

But those were problems that you would address later. For now, you’d relax, and ponder the possibilities of what may have happened if you hadn’t retired to bed so quickly after your first kiss that night.

———————-

Bi-Han eventually returned to your shared quarters. You were adorned in a silk robe, relaxing in the bed, book in hand. Your eyebrows were furrowed as your eyes rapidly scanned the words on the pages. You bit your lip briefly before a small smile emerged on your face. He wonders what about the novel could have you so engrossed; was it on the same topic he had seen earlier today?

He clears his throat and you look up, then briefly down at your book again before you shut it. Your eyes lift to meet his, “welcome back”

He cracks a small smile as he walks over to his side of the bed. “You say that as if I’ve been gone for a long time.”

“It felt long to me,” you tease and lean closer to him. Your book is still enclosed in your hand and Bi-Han can’t help but glance at the novel. “What were you reading?”

“Oh, this?” You hold up the book a bit higher and he gives you a little nod. “It’s a romance.”

You then stand up and motion to the stack at your bedside. “The majority are romance novels. I’ve read through a lot of them.”

You set the book in your hand down gently. “Speaking of which, I want to go get more.”

He raises an eyebrow, “More books? Why?”

‘What does he mean, why?’ You think and cross your arms rather confused, “why not?”

“Do you need them?”

“I find them enjoyable, isn’t that reason enough?”

“Can’t you find enjoyment in other things?”

You scoff and lay a hand on your hip. “I know you’re often preoccupied but the home we live in is catered to the strict nature of your clan. There are not many means of enjoyment here. My days are busy and I like to read to unwind.”

“There’s other ways to unwind.” He responds, almost in a tone that merges desire with that hesitant spite, and it only confuses you more. You step closer, “If you don’t accompany me I will go on my own.”

“You will not.”

Now you are getting annoyed. “And who’s going to stop me?”

Bi-Han clenches his jaw and steps forward, he holds your hand, “I will. You are not allowed to leave on your own.” It wasn’t safe, you’d become an object of envy for other clans. He was not going to let you out on your own.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes, you went out on your own accord when you had lived with your family prior to the marriage. You went out during the Mid Autumn Festival. So what was the problem now? To be frank, it was getting a bit tiring. Living out a similar schedule every day, seeing the same locations on the daily.

Before your husband can say anything else you come up with another retort, “Okay, if I’m not allowed to go alone I’m sure Kuai Liang or Tomas will come with me.”

“No, not happening.” He snaps. Were you purposely trying to get on his nerves? The unamused look on your face clearly told him you would not be backing down. “If you desire to go that badly. Then I’ll take you.”

———————-

Bi-Han kept his word the next day.

It was nice to get back into the village, a much-needed change of pace from the confining walls of the Lin Kuei.

You had dragged your husband along to various shops—mostly window shopping. But you eventually made it to the shop that sold the novels you had a preference for. The shop itself was quaint, and the books were located in the back corner. You make your way there and skim the shelves, with your husband following close behind, His shadow looms over you as he tries to steal glances of the books you pluck off the shelf. You can feel how close he is so you turn around, handing him the book you have in hand. “You seem slightly interested.”

He takes the book and glances at the cover, “I assume it’s a romance.”

“Of course, it’s a genre I like. Oh and don’t put that back, I want to buy it.”

Bi-Han flips through the pages. It appeared to follow the course of the other books you had at home.

Maybe he’d sneak a look at the book when you were preoccupied again. If you found the actions done in the novel so enticing, maybe he could use that knowledge to his advantage. Or rather, the overall advantage of your marriage.

He continues to follow you around the shop and ends up buying the books you picked out. As you exit the shop and make your way onto the street you see Bi-Han staring at a small establishment. It was a tad far and on the other side of the road.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

You oblige and as you squint your eyes, you notice it’s a jewelry shop of some kind. You try not to ponder, but you wonder if he was buying something for you.

So you wait on the side of the street, pacing back and forth a bit while you wait.

But something is wrong, bit by bit, the smell of smoke starts to become apparent. At first, you consider it nothing. Perhaps a nearby eatery had burned their food or something of that nature.

Then your stomach drops as you turn. Without warning, black smoke erupts into the air, and hot flames lick at your surroundings. Screams and shrieks of civilians ring in your ear as you attempt to make sense of what is happening.

You need to get out of here. Where is Bi-Han?

Your eyes quickly scan from side to side. The heat of the flames are becoming more and more apparent as your skin starts to sweat. It’s getting harder to breathe. Your sense of direction is skewed.

You need to find your husband.

But you can’t.

It all happens too fast. You don’t know when the unfamiliar hands grabbed you, and you don’t register how quickly the cloth covers your mouth and nose. You only realize you’re beginning to lose consciousness when it’s too late.

———————-

Your eyes can barely open. There’s a heinous pounding in your head accompanied by stinging pain around your ankles and wrists. You realize you’ve been bound there by a rope that scrapes against your skin every time you move, leaving it red and on the brink of breaking.

You’re unable to speak due to a cloth covering your mouth. You try to remain calm, but that’s easier said than done. Tears stream down your face and you attempt to regulate your breathing. You remind yourself that the more you panic, the harder this will be.

How long have you been here? The last thing you’re able to remember is being ambushed by men you didn’t know. With a thick cloth serving as a blindfold and being in what you assumed was a darker environment, there were limited ways to estimate the passage of time.

It suddenly hits you. The fire must have been a diversion.

You knew something was wrong. Between Bi-Han being more protective, the rise in clan conflicts, and the sudden increase in training, you should have deducted that something was off.

This would not have happened if you paid attention more or if you trained more. Maybe you would’ve been able to defend yourself and make it to Bi-Han in time. You knew risks came with your new status, why didn’t you take that into account more?

You never thought it would affect you so directly, that you’d become a hostage. And worse yet, you didn’t know what these men intended to do. What if they meant to kill you? You would never get to say goodbye to your family back home. You would not get to say goodbye to Bi-Han. You wished you spent more time with him. You can feel yourself shaking, but attempt to take a few deep breaths.

You try to snap out of it. You have to be calm. Worrying would do you no good now.

Your husband wouldn’t leave you like this, would he? He was a capable man. You know he wouldn’t just forget about you.

You will be fine. All you have to do is remain steadfast in your trust towards your husband.

And so as time slowly passes, your breathing returns to a normal rate, and the tears do not stop, but they slow down. You lay your head against the concrete wall. Your mind runs over the same thought again and again. That BI-Han would rescue you, you just needed to be patient.

You don’t know how long it has been, but you’ve remained practically still.

The sound of a heavy door creaking open gets your attention.

“She’s here!”

Your heart pounds as you hear two familiar voices within ear’s reach. ‘Kuai Liang and Tomas.’

“Is she hurt?”

“I think so.”

Both of them come to your aid, first removing your blindfold. Your eyes try to adjust to your surroundings and the visual confirmation that your new family is present eases the tension a bit. Tears of relief leave you as they remove the cloth from your mouth. “Thank you.” You mumble. Drool pools at the side of your lips when you speak. Between that and the tears you briefly think of how much of a mess you might look like now. But the thought leaves as fast as it comes. Kuai Liang undoes the binding on your ankles, while Tomas tends to your wrists. It hurts, and you notice your left wrist has begun to bleed. Your lip begins to quiver and Tomas hastily wraps a cloth around it. “Don’t worry, the rope didn’t cut that deep, this cloth should do until we get back home.”

“And don’t worry Y/N, you’ll be home soon,” Kuai Liang remarks in as comforting a tone that he can muster up right now. But you catch the concerned looks that the brothers exchange.

You try to crack a smile, to show your appreciation at their attempts to make you feel better. But it’s difficult right now.

Where was your husband?

As if on cue, Bi-Han practically breaks down the door as he enters the room. “They’re all dead but one, I left him alive to question.” His tone of voice is harsh, practically lethal.

You’ve never seen him like this.

Blood paints his face and clothing. He is breathing heavily and you can vaguely hear it through his mask. His eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes have never appeared so cold. There’s a blood-soaked dagger in his hand. You can see it’s made of ice and he tosses it to the side before running towards you. His mask covers the lower half of his face, but his eyes have always been expressive, and you can see the hardened look in his eyes slightly soften. He bends down to your level, taking your ankle in his hand gently before you feel his arms wrap around you. He lifts you bridal-style.

Exhaustion has overtaken you. The blood on his clothing concerns you, but it doesn't seem like it belongs to Bi-Han. Some of the blood gets on your cheek when you lay your head against his chest. You can faintly hear his heart beating frantically although he doesn’t show it. He carefully wipes a lone tear that cascades down your cheek.

You want to thank him for saving you, you want to apologize for allowing yourself to be kidnapped. You want to scream and cry, and you want him to wipe away all the tears that threaten to spill over. But it feels as if no matter how many times your mouth opens, no words come out. That no matter how badly you want to move, your body is frozen in place. He carries you out and you close your eyes.

He doesn’t say anything, and neither do you.

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Thanks for reading 💙

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tightjeansjavi · 1 year

Text

Feeling more human and hooked on her flesh

Joel Miller x f!reader

NSFW 🔞

A/N: thank you @peterhollandkait for sending in a spicy ass prompt for these two 🥵 also thank you to @headspace-hotel for the original prompt! P.S. this piece can be read as a stand-alone, or filler chapter for ‘Burning in a Hopeless Dream’

Summary: after a close run in with some clickers while on patrol in Jackson, Joel is furious at you. The ride back to town is tense and once you arrive home, he wastes no time to strip you of your many layers. Growing increasingly frustrated, when he has to remove each one of your many concealed weapons before he can reach your skin.

~Word count: 5.0k~

Warnings: dark! joel, protective! joel, mean! joel,possessive! joel, you could have fuckin died! joel, swearing, tension, anger, mild violence, smut, consent, consent, consent, unprotected p in v (wrap it kids), sexual punishment, teasing, edging, cock warming, mentions of fingering, light choking, knife kink, praise kink, so many nicknames, angst, aftercare, some fluff, paraphernalia (puff puff pass) there’s a lot of filth. Like a LOT (+18) minors dni !

Songs used:

“Angel of Small Death” by Hozier

“Tonight You Belong To Me” by Patience & Prudence

“Tear You Apart” by She Wants Revenge

“No Good” by KALEO

“Devil’s Advocate” by The Neighbourhood

“Talk” by Hozier

You, Joel, and Ellie have been in Jackson for the past few months. The three of you have become immersed in community life. Joel, has been reluctant upon getting comfortable in this new domestic life. He’s used to being on edge constantly. Ellie is content working in the stables alongside Dina, while you and Joel patrol on horseback outside of town.

He doesn’t want to give up his natural protective nature just yet. He finds comfort in constantly having his gun by his side, and you of course. At dawn, the two of your ride out to your usual lookout point. It’s the dead of winter and you’re both heavily wrapped in many layers. The cold still manages to bite through to your skin. The horses don’t seem to mind the chill, or whipping icy wind. Their thick winter coats keep them warm, and you find yourself feeling jealous of their natural protection from the elements, just for a moment.

You both dismount from your horses and tie their reins to a nearby tree. Before you can grab your rifle from your pack, Joel is reaching for it. His shoulder brushing against yours and he feels significantly warmer than you.

“We’ll stick here for a bit. It was quiet the last time. Clickers must’ve moved on.” He held your rifle out to you, stealing a quick kiss.

“Sure as hell hope they have. It’s fuckin’ brutal out here. Freezin my tits off.” You were caught off guard when he had kissed you and you couldn’t help but grab him by the collar of his thick jacket and pull him back in for one more.

He grasped your waist and pulled you flushed against his chest. “This is how we get killed, darlin.’” He gruffly spoke against your lips, pulling away before things could get too heated.

You let out a low huff when you could no longer feel his radiating warmth against you. “Yeah well, that isn’t gonna happen, remember? You got me, and I got you.” You slung the strap of your rifle over your shoulder then.

He watched you closely then while he adjusted the strap of his own rifle. “Yea honey, you got me, I got you.” He gestured to the side, signaling you to walk in front of him, like the true Texas gentleman that he was.

As the two of you crept through the thick snow, rifles at the ready, doing your best to be as quiet as possible. There was always the possibility that the clickers hadn’t moved on like you both assumed. Better to be safe than sorry.

The surrounding trees grew thicker the further you walked. Suddenly, Joel was at your side, rifle aimed when he could hear the eerie sound of nearby clickers. A chill skated down your spine, it wasn’t from the cold of winter this time.

click click click

Joel turned his head towards you, his eyes locking on yours, holding your gaze as he brought his finger up to his lips.

The distinguishable low clicks were getting closer, and closer. You and Joel were both holding your breath as 3 clickers emerged from the snowy tree-line. Your finger was already hovering over the trigger. A damn branch snapping from the overloading weight of snow on it is what gave you two away.

It happened so fast, the clickers charged. Your rifle got jammed as one of the clickers ran at you, screeching. You were tackled through the snow, tumbling down the hill leaving Joel no other option but to deal with the other two clickers.

It felt like the wind had been knocked from you when your body finally landed at the end of the hill. You had no time to recover as the clicker was thrown ontop of you, you used your rifle as a shield, but when it was knocked out of your grasp and thrown to the side, you definitely panicked for a moment. You let out a scream filled with rage as you fought. Finally getting a grasp of your knife, you drove the blade into the deep cavern of the clickers neck. It let out a screech as thick, hot blood spurted through the gaping wound, splattering against your face. You pushed the once living creature off of your body, listening to it thump into the snow.

You were breathing heavily, wiping at your face as you sat up. The snow surrounding you was stained dark maroon. A stark contrast against the pure white fluff. Before you could even stand, you heard Joel yelling your name as he raced down the hill. He nearly stumbled a few times in his fury but when he reached the bottom, he was grasping the lapels of your jacket, yanking you upwards. His eyes were wide, frantic.

“Joel—”

“What the fuck was that?! Why didn’t you shoot?!” He had cut you off then as he started furiously checking for any bite marks. Pawing at your coat, pants, grabbing your face in his hands as he turned your head anxiously. His eyes were scanning your neck frantically.

“Joel! I’m not fuckin’ bit! My gun locked, I swear!”

He was holding your coat tightly in his hands again, he was furious. His brows were furrowed and his back was tense. “Your gun fuckin’ locked?! You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me.”

Before you were even allowed to speak, Joel was yanking you up from the snow and into his arms. Holding you tightly to his chest. “You fuckin check your gun next time. Alright? You fuckin check it! Do you hear me?! For fuck sakes honey. Fuck!” His tone was harsh against your ear. Laced with the fear of the possibility of losing you.

You wrapped your arms around his broad covered shoulders as he hugged you tightly. He was pissed, he was radiating in anger. You could feel it through his damn thick coat.

“Joel, I’m sorry! I’ll check my gun next time. Okay? I swear I will!”

He muttered something under his breath as he helped you stand to your feet. His jaw was clenched tightly as he looked at you. Shaking his head.

“Grab your gun and then let’s go. I ain’t gonna ask twice. Grab it.”

When you hesitated he raised an eyebrow in your direction.

“Did ya hear me, darlin’? I said, move. NOW.”

You quickly reached for your rifle that was tossed into the snow by the clicker and slung it over your shoulder. As you walked past Joel, you could feel his eyes burning holes into the side of your skull.

Yeah, he was furious alright.

The walk back to the horses was a dead silent one. You were afraid to speak at all. He untied the reins of your horse from the tree and tossed them in your direction as you scrambled to catch them.

“Get on.” He grumbled. Grabbing the reins from his own horse before he placed the toe of his boot into the stirrup and hoisted himself back up into the saddle. You followed suit shortly after.

The tension between you two was palpable as you rode back into town. A knife couldn’t even cut through it this time. Someone was gonna have to take a fuckin chainsaw to it and even then, it wouldn’t have been enough.

Once you arrived at the stables, you dismounted from your horse. Quickly untacking and setting the saddle on the rack. Ellie had seen you two come in and then she saw the blood on your face, Joel’s pissed off expression and gruff nature. She knew something had happened.

“Are you..good? What the hell happened out there?”

You looked over at her, imagining how you must have looked in that moment. “I'm good, kiddo. Just ran into a few clickers.” You could hear Joel scoff alongside his horse.

“I thought they were—”

“Me too. It’s alright. I’m good, Ellie. Don’t worry, okay?” You gave her shoulder a light squeeze.

Ellie looked between you and Joel before she sighed. “Yeah, okay.” she mumbled.

Before you could comfort the girl further, you felt Joel’s firm grasp on your forearm as he pulled you out of the stables. He didn’t let you go as you headed back to your home. You struggled to keep up with his footsteps and you looked away when he gave you a warning look.

Once inside, he slammed the door shut and locked it. Hanging his rifle along the hook on the wall and yanked yours from your shoulder.

You watched as he un-jammed it with ease. Hanging it alongside his.

“Joel, I’m sorry I know I should have been careful and checked it before—”

“Save it. I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it right now. You could have fuckin’ died out there. Fuckin’ stupid. That was completely preventable.”

His words and tone he delivered them in sliced through you like knives.

You could hear his heavy breathing from where you were standing. You saw his knuckles flex, before clenching into tight fists.

“Get over here.” He gruffly demanded.

Your feet were moving quicker than your brain could process it. You could feel your blood pounding in your ears as you stood before him.

He grabbed your face in his calloused palms, wiping fiercely at the dry blood on your face. His eyes searching yours. His pupils were dark in contrast to how gently he was handling you. You wondered for a moment how long that would last. His eyes flickering to your lips.

“You can kiss me.” You spoke through the stagnant cold air. He didn’t need your consent, you were fully ready to give it to him.

“I know I can.” He rasped out, his tone low, almost sounding like a growl.

He kissed you hard, backing you into a nearby wall with a harsh thud. He had completely encaged you against the wall as his lips kissed you feverishly. You could taste his hot breath on your tongue. His scent swirling around you, intoxicating your mind and body.

You went to move your arms up around his neck but he stopped you, grabbing your wrists in his clutch firmly, slamming them against the wall on either side of your head.

“No.” He muttered into your lips before he harshly bit down on your lower lip, drawing blood, tasting copper on his tongue as he released your plush lip from his teeth.

“Joel—”

“No. You’re gonna be a good girl. You got it? Don’t test me, Sugar. I ain’t in the mood.”

You meekly nodded and turned your head to the side slightly, taking your lower lip between your teeth as he attacked the bare skin of your neck with his lips and teeth, nipping, sucking, biting at the sensitive skin. You were definitely gonna need to borrow some makeup from Maria after this. That is, if Joel would allow you. He liked marking you up like this. Letting everyone know that you were his.

“The hell do you got in here, huh?” His words tore you away from your thoughts then as he was pawing at your coat. The sound of carbon steel clanking on the hardwood could be heard as Joel was finding your secret stash of weapons.

When you didn’t respond to his initial question, he asked again. Firmly this time.

“Where the hell did you find all these, huh?” He tore your jacket down your arms then, tossing it down to the floor with a thud.

“Around..” you spoke above a whisper as his hands roamed over your covered skin, on a mission to find more of your concealed weapons. He was in slight disbelief that you were this armed.

“Around, huh? That’s pretty fuckin’ vague, sweetheart.”

“Can never be too careful.”

He had reached behind you feeling through the thick layers that you were still wearing, and when he grasped the handle of a pistol, sticking out of your jeans, he chuckled.

“How the hell was it even comfortable to ride with that back there?” He pulled the pistol out then bringing it between you two before he tossed it down onto your coat.

“Maybe I’ve just gotten used to the pain. It’s not that bad.” You boldly spoke.

He raised a brow, grasping your hips firmly in his hands, he felt something hard sticking out between the fabric of your jeans.

“You’re jokin’. There’s more?” He reached between the gap of the tight fabric. Pulling out two sheathed knives on either side of your hips.

“Those were a bitch to fit in there. Just so you know.”

He tossed them down onto your coat.

“How many knives do you really need, honey?” He mused.

“Enough for you to keep finding them.” You spoke with zero hesitation.

He grabbed a handful of your ass then, giving it a good squeeze through the denim fabric. He leaned in, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear, sinfully. “Am I gonna find anythin’ back here darlin’?”

You immediately lurched forward, not expecting him to grab you like that but you definitely wanted more.

“No.” You squeaked out. “Nothin’ hiding back there, cowboy.”

He chuckled lowly. The deep, smooth sound snaked down your neck, wrapping you in a delicious embrace before it settled between your thighs. Damn, you were fucked.

“Mmm. Alright, I believe ya, honey.”

He released your ass from his firm grip before his hands moved to the hem of your 2nd layer of clothing. A thick wool sweater. He wasted no time yanking the fabric over your arms and head. Discarding it to the floor beside his worn boots.

“There’s still more. Believe it or not.”

He paused then and looked at you trying to figure out if you were bullshitting him or not. You weren’t and it was quite obvious you both were getting enjoyment out of this little game. “You gotta be shitting’ me. Ain’t no way there’s more.”

“Oh, there is. You just aren’t looking hard enough.”

He grumbled under his breath at your response. It was frustrating for him. He just wanted to get to your skin already. He was absolutely craving it. The next layer irritated him even more. Course you just had to be wearing a sweater with fucking buttons.

“Seriously? I hate these fuckin’ things. Who the hell needs all these buttons? What is the point?” He spoke while his fingers started to undo the top buttons but when they wouldn’t immediately budge he growled under his breath and ripped the rest off.

You had let out an annoyed sound of protest as the buttons fell to the floor, bouncing and rolling off in different directions.

“Really, Joel? Was that necessary?”

He wasn’t even paying attention to your words. He was completely zoned in on the knife strapped between your breasts. Secured with a makeshift fabric holster.

“Sorry, not sorry Sugar. It had to be done. Now this? This is absolutely fuckin sinful of you. You do this just for me?”

You couldn’t help but smirk then. The look of disbelief on his hardened face absolutely egged you on.

“Oh, that?” You innocently spoke. “I completely forgot that was there. Whoopsie.”

His hand was at the base of your throat then. His eyes narrowed. His grip was firm, yet still gentle in his own way, his thumb was just barely applying pressure to your windpipe.

“You. My dear, are a filthy fuckin’ liar.” He spat the last part out.

You didn’t even flinch.

“So what if I am? You love it.”

“Yeah? You’re right, I do. I love it.” He admitted.

You watched with hooded eyes as he yanked the knife free from its confines between your breasts. He examined it closely before he used the tip of the blade to expertly cut through the fabric.

“No wonder you said you were freezin’ your tits out there. Ain’t got nothin’ coverin’ ‘em. Bet your pretty little nipples were as hard as fuckin’ rocks, eh?”

He couldn’t help but lightly drag the tip of the blade against the swell of your breast. He was extremely careful to not accidentally cut you as he dragged it against your peeked bud. The cool sensation from the steel had you nearly mewling.

“Now, Sugar. I’m only gonna ask ya this one time. You better give me the right answer too. No lyin’. You hiding anything else? If you are, I’m gonna find every last one of ‘em. I can promise you that.”

You shook your head, taking your lip between your teeth once more. This game was addictive. “No. I swear. That’s it. There’s no more Joel. Can you please fuckin’ touch me already? This is torture.” You nearly begged him.

“No? Are you absolutely sure? Cause if I find any more..” He trailed off. Dragging the tip of the blade down your navel before he slowly dropped to his knees before you. He used his free hand to feel up and down your thighs. Squeezing here and there as he looked up at your face to see if you were lying to him or not.

“There’s nothing. I swear on my life.”

“That’s a pretty risky thing to swear upon, honey.”

Once he reached your calves, he wasted no time tugging the bottom of your jeans from where they were tucked into your boots. There he found 2 smaller daggers strapped around your thick socks. He pulled both of them out and tossed them on your coat before he moved to the other boot and found 2 more in the same position.

“Well, I think that answers my question. Don’tcha think? I’m impressed, honey. You lied though. Even when I gave you the chance to fess up.” He pressed a kiss to your covered knee as he slowly stood back up.

“Oh no, you caught me! How did those even get there? What are you—” your words were abruptly cut off when he had cupped you firmly through your jeans. He could only imagine how wet you already were just from his teasing alone.

“You’re skatin’ on some mighty thin ice, sweetheart. But ya know what? I’m feeling a tad generous.”He moved his thumb over the button of your jeans and popped it open before he dragged the zipper down slowly. “I’m gonna reward ya. Just this once, for the fact you somehow managed to store that many weapons under your clothes. You’re filthy. I just want you to know that.”

“I know I am. You bring it out of me.”

The hand that was still holding your knife moved upwards then. In one swift moment, he had embedded the blade into the thin wood on the wall, right next to your head before he was swiftly yanking your jeans down over your hips. The rough denim scraped at your thighs from the quick movement.

“I know I have, honey. I’ve taught you well. Done me so fuckin’ proud.” His fingers had dipped in between your panties, feeling how wet you were for him already as he teased your slick folds. Slowly dragging his fingers against your clit in a circular motion.

You couldn’t help but let a small moan slip out. You were absolutely aching for his touch.

“Joel, you gotta give me more than that. Please, baby.”

“You want me that bad, huh honey? You gonna beg for it? Gonna beg for me? C’mon pretty girl, let’s hear you say it.” He sped his fingers up slightly, applying a bit of pressure before he dipped them down, teasing your entrance before he slipped them in. Immediately curling them against the warm spongy texture of your walls. His other hand wrapped around your waist, his fingers splayed against your lower back as he pulled you in so you were firmly flushed against his chest. His lips barely brushed yours as he teased you with a half kiss. Pulling away at the slightest when you tried to properly kiss him.

“Please, goddammit. I’m not gonna last long you mother fucker. Give me your fuckin’ cock Joel or I swear to god—”

“Mmm. There she is. There’s my pretty girl. You want my cock? Huh baby? You want me to fuck you against this wall? You want me to be so fuckin’ deep inside of ya, you can feel me in your guts? I’ll give it to ya honey. You just say the word.”

You were nearly on the edge from how slow he was pumping his fingers inside of you. You could feel just how much you were clenching around him and it was clear he wanted to drag this out.

“Yeah. Give me your absolute fuckin’ worst Miller. Fuck me against this goddamn wall.” You hissed out.

“Oh, alright, Sugar. If you insist.” He kissed you finally. His lips entirely capturing yours in a sloppy kiss. His fingers had slowly slipped out of you. They were coated in your arousal and he wasted no time popping the button off of his own jeans and dragged the zipper down. He didn’t even bother pushing his jeans down. He wanted you to feel the bite of his denim on your thighs. He pulled his cock free from the confines of his boxers hissing under his breath as he rubbed his thumb over his tip that was already leaking with pre-cum.

You kissed him back immediately. wrapping your arms around his neck as you pulled him in as physically close as possible. You threaded your fingers through his salt and pepper hair and gave it a firm tug.

He gave himself a couple good tugs as mumbled against your lips. “Hike your leg up over my thigh, sweetheart. I gotcha.”

You wasted no time to do just that as you brought your thigh around his hip. Driving the heel of your boot firmly into the back pocket of his jeans. While he used his freehand to grab a hold of your thigh. Digging the pads of his fingers into your skin as he held you up with ease. Your other leg stayed firmly planted on the ground for support.

He dragged his tip along your folds for a moment as he continued to kiss you deeply. Your teeth were clashing together from how hard you were kissing when he had finally slipped inside of your warmth. He stuttered out your name as he brought his other hand against the wall. Grasping the hilt of the blade that was still embedded next to your head.

“Fuckin’ hell.” You both moaned out in sync. He started with a delicious slow roll of his hips into yours. You could feel the harsh denim of his jeans rubbing into your thighs as he rolled his hips. It was a delicious combination.

“Takin’ me so well already honey. You want more?” He groaned out.

You responded by biting down on his lower lip hard letting your nails scrape against his scalp as you hissed out. “Fuck me already.”

He gave one harsh thrust then, causing your head to knock back against the wall slightly. He did it again, and again before he found a good rhythm, jutting his hips into yours. Drinking in each one of your moans that slipped past your pretty lips as he pounded into you mercilessly.

You both heard the sound of fabric ripping. It was your jeans of course. The friction of his movement and tightness of your thigh wrapped around his waist was enough to split the already worn fibers. You could care fucking less.

“That’s it baby. Doin’ so well for me, honey. Gripping me so well with this pretty little pussy. Keep doin that, okay? Don’t fuckin stop.” He gritted out as he drove himself deeper inside of you. He was all the way at the hilt now and he was gripping the handle of the blade embedded in the wall so hard, his knuckles were turning stark white.

You were a mess beneath him, crying out his name as your lips fell from his, breaking the kiss. “F-fuck Joel! Keep going baby, I’m close please don’t stop, please!”

He let out a low grunt in response and buried his face against your neck, biting down on your already broken skin. He swore he could taste blood as he soothed the skin with his hot tongue. “Keep fuckin’ screamin’ my name, darlin’. Want the neighbors to fuckin’ hear that you’re mine.” He mumbled against your skin.

Your thighs were already quivering as you reached down between your connected bodies. rubbing your already sensitive clit between your fingers.

“That’s it, honey. Get yourself off on me. You’re so fuckin’ filthy. Gonna cum all over me? Gonna coat my cock? C’mon baby I wanna feel ya!”

His thrusts were beginning to get sloppy as he got closer to his own release. He had released the blade from his grip on the wall only to secure his hand around your throat. His lips had moved from the skin on your neck to nipping at your jaw and chin and finally kissing you once more.

“Cum for me, Joel. Fuckin’ fill me up, honey.”

His hips gave out as he moaned out your name like a fucking chant. Just as you came undone around him. You were both a hot, sticky mess by the time your orgasm passed. His forehead was slick with sweat as it rested against yours. His back muscles were quivering as he was absolutely spent.

Even as he went soft inside of you, feeling yours and his cum dripping down your thighs, he stayed buried inside of you. While your fingers played with his sweaty hair gently. You couldn’t help but let out a giggle. You were absolutely high off sex.

“Hey, we should like..do this more often. I would absolutely love it if you rammed me up against a wall every now and then. Maybe bend me over a counter next time?”

He chuckled. Slowly and gently bringing your leg down from around his hip as he finally slipped out.

“Yeah? Sure honey, I’d love to bend ya over a counter. I’ve got a few ideas myself. Oh and, sorry about your jeans.” He gave you an apologetic, sweet kiss then.

“Oh, the jeans? Don’t worry about it Joel. They were on their last life anyway. I’d love to hear your ideas. Can only imagine what you come up with in that filthy head of yours.” You kissed him back sweetly and watched as he tucked himself back into his boxers and fixed his jeans.

“Oh, they’re filthy alright. You hang tight, kay sugar? Gonna get ya some fresh clothes and clean you up.” He left the entryway then headed upstairs, where he grabbed you a fresh pair of panties, one of his shirts and a towel. Returning to you in a matter of minutes. He yanked the blade from the wall before he got down on his knees and carefully cut what was left of the remaining fabric of your jeans, and tossed the shreds of fabric to the side before he unlaced your boots and set them down as well.

Aftercare, as you learned, was extremely important to Joel. Just as much as consent was equally important to him. You almost enjoyed this intimacy more than the actual sex. You watched as he gently wiped between your thighs. Cleaning you of your cum and his when he noticed the redness on your skin from where the fabric from his jeans was chafing against you.

“Does it hurt? I’m sorry about that doll. Ellie, or Maria probably have some lotion somewhere.”

“Joel, I’m good. It kinda stings but it’s not bad. I liked it. Enjoyed it, honestly.”

He slowly rose back to his feet then and helped you into the fresh pair of panties and his shirt before he scooped you into his arms bridal style and carried you into the living room, setting you down on the couch. “Alright pretty, you just get comfy, okay? Gonna start us a fire.”

You watched as your man was bent over the fireplace, adding logs expertly before he lit a match and tossed it in. He grabbed you a glass of water, food, which was abundant here, and a little something extra; Weed. Thank god for Ellie and Dina.

He plopped down on the couch beside you then, handing you the glass of water, stealing another kiss before he rid himself of his boots and jeans and the rest of his layers. He was just now in his boxers, bare chest and joint between his plush lips as he lit it.

Your mouth literally watered at the sight of him. You were mesmerized, infatuated.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” He chuckled as he took a long drag, the tip of the joint turning bright red as he inhaled, blowing the smoke up towards the ceiling. He reached over, handing it off to you with his fingertips brushing yours.

You found your foot resting against his bare upper thigh as you took a long drag. “Where the hell did you get this, huh?” You blew the smoke out to the side before taking another hit.

“Dina and Ellie. Don’t tell ‘em though. I definitely did not steal from their stash.” He wrapped his hand around your calf gently, rubbing his thumb against your warm skin.

“You’re a bad man, Joel Miller.” You handed him the joint once more, a small grin gracing your features.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You love it though.” He mused.

“I do. There’s no denying that.”

He took another long drag, closing his eyes as he let the drug relax him. “Say, you think you can show me how the hell you managed to fit that many knives under your clothes? Cause..it really just fuckin’ kept goin. ‘You secretly Houdini or somethin?”

You laughed and took a long sip of your water. You were parched and he wasn’t helping.

“I’m sorry, honey. A lady can never reveal her deepest secrets.”

He squeezed your calf gently while he held the joint against his lips as he inhaled once more.

“Fair enough. I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“I’m sure you will, cowboy.”

Ellie had later found that one of her perfectly rolled joints was missing. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was either you, or Joel. Probably Joel though. Definitely Joel.

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ausetkmt · 1 year

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Three young Black girls were strangled and left in a pond last summer in east Texas, and no arrests have been made in a case that advocates and experts believe has been severely mishandled by local authorities.

Nine-year old Zi’Ariel Robinson-Oliver, 8-year-old A’Miyah Hughes, and 5-year-old Te’Mari Robinson-Oliver, known as the Oliver 3, were reported missing on July 28, 2022, in Atlanta, Texas. The girls’ cousin, Paris Propps, who was watching the three sisters and their siblings while their mother was at work, reported the girls missing around 9 p.m. Hours later, on July 29, all three bodies were found in a nearby pond.

Initially, authorities said it was a drowning. But in March, nearly eight months after the girls were last seen alive, the Cass County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that a homicide investigation is underway.

“Autopsy reports concluded the manner of death for all three girls was homicide, indicating evidence of strangulation. The girls also suffered lacerations to their faces,” the press release obtained by Yahoo News from the Cass County District Attorney’s Office said.

Now advocates are stepping in to demand answers. On April 3, Minister Quanell X, the leader of the New Black Panther Nation, traveled four hours from Houston to hold a press conference in Cass County and demanded that the FBI and Department of Justice step in to investigate. The FBI has not responded to a request for comment from Yahoo News.

Quanell X stood beside the mother of the Oliver sisters during the press conference. “She was told that they drowned, but she always had a suspicious feeling that the girls did not drown. Well, her suspicions were confirmed by the autopsies,” Quanell told Yahoo News.

The Cass County District Attorney’s Office is currently working with the Texas Rangers and the sheriff’s office to investigate the murders. “Multiple witness statements have been obtained, DNA testing is ongoing, and the investigation will continue,” according to a statement obtained by Yahoo News from the district attorney’s office. Yahoo News contacted the office for additional information but a spokesperson declined to provide more details.

According to U.S. Census data from 2022, Cass County has a population of 28,539 people, and advocates say the town does not have enough resources to investigate three homicides.

“They were presumed drowned because of a sham investigation, a lazy investigation by investigators who obviously didn't have the resources, the training that was necessary to properly address an investigative crime scene,” Quanell said.

Investigators are still searching for suspects, but experts say the months-long time lapse could have been avoided.

“The usual time frame [for autopsies] depends, I would say within two weeks,” David Thomas, professor of forensic studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, told Yahoo News.

But for small towns, “they send those autopsies off to a whole different county, hours away from that county to do the autopsy,” Quanell said.

However, the autopsy reports are just one piece of the puzzle. Thomas says more could have been done at the time investigators found the girls in the pond.

“They sat and they made an assumption that they had drowned, which would be unusual for three people to drown at the same place, at roughly the same time — [it] doesn’t make any sense,” Thomas told Yahoo News. “If it was Gabby Petito, the world would have come to a stop.”

Revolt Black News weekly recently reported that authorities were aware that a crime had occurred soon after the incident, but just recently released the information to the public last month. “However, they didn’t say why they delayed sharing the info,” the article stated.

“At the end of the day, any seasoned investigators when they retrieved the bodies from the [pond] would have been able to see that this was more than some accidental drowning by the bruising on the faces and the necks of the girls,” Quanell said.

Quanell believes the investigation is not a priority because the young girls are all Black. “I think Cass County is doing what Cass County historically does when it comes to investigating injustice and murder involving Black people as victims. They’re not taking this case seriously in my eyes, because it’s not three young white children,” he said.

“National statistics tell us that over 60,000 Black women are missing, and Black women are twice as likely than they appear to be victims of homicide,” Brittany Lewis, co-founder of Research in Action, told Yahoo News in March.

Now experts say the investigation will be much harder because of the lengthy time lapse. “That eight month time gap is devastating,” David Carter, professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University and a former Kansas City, Mo., police officer, told Yahoo News.

“The longer time between when the bodies are found and the investigation begins, the harder it is. It’s harder to find suspects, certainly harder to find witnesses, and harder to find evidence,” Carter said.

Carter says that as a former member of the law enforcement, there’s no excuse for the delay in the investigation. “I’m really at a loss of why a criminal investigation wasn’t started immediately,” Carter said.

As authorities continue to investigate, advocates emphasize that whoever committed these crimes is still at large.

“They could be anywhere,” Thomas said. “But I would say the likelihood that they knew that pond was there would probably give you an indication that it might be somebody local or somebody that's very familiar with the area.”

“This sounds like a very, very targeted personal crime,” Carter added.

There have been no arrests in the nearly year-old case, but more people are pushing for justice. Recently, civil rights attorney Ben Crump and celebrities like Viola Davis and Niecy Nash shared a montage video on social media of the Oliver 3. The video was created by Black Girl Gone, a true crime podcast that sheds light on Black girls and women who are missing.

“A child killer. A serial killer is on the loose. One who was not afraid to murder three children. And if you kill three you will kill more. Especially when you believe you will get away with it like this perpetrator has,” Quanell said.

On April 26, Quanell and the New Black Panther Nation plan to host a town hall in Cass County, as they continue to seek justice for the Oliver sisters.

#texas #Black LIves Matter #3 Black girls were found dead last year in a Texas pond. Police have made no arrests

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sanguineterrain · 7 months

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sanne i know nothing about these men but… somehow i know you’ll do something so delicious with that little panicked reach for them (ready to catch them at all costs) if they trip ever so slightly + jason todd…. or dick if he fits better :] they’re vigilantes right like surely the reflexes are turned up to 11

ruby!!! hello my dear <3 i appreciate u sending a prompt for my newest brainrot :D makin me feel warm n fuzzy inside. short n sweet! thank u for the prompt :)

dick grayson x gn!reader. fluffy, reader trips for a second.

****

"...And I was telling her about this new coffee shop that had just opened, and she wants to bring her stupid boyfriend! Like, what is that about?"

Dick smiles as you walk backwards, cup of froyo in one hand, bag in the other. He's offered about a hundred times to carry both, but you refuse, insisting he needs to save his strength for patrol.

That had earned you a very unimpressed look.

"Not to play Devil's advocate, honey, but you also have a boyfriend—watch the pole!"

You dodge the telephone pole before you ram into it. The close call does nothing to discourage you from continuing to walk backwards. Dick shakes his head.

"Sure, fine, but you're actually fun to be around, Gray."

"I'm glad you think so, sweetheart, I really do try. Hot dog cart!"

You walk around said hot dog cart. Dick sighs at you, fondly exasperated.

"Can't I persuade you away from walking backward, dearest darlingest?"

"I'm practicing for my initiation into the Titans," you say. "Anyways. Where was I? Oh, yeah. If you met this guy, you'd get it. He has the personality of desk gum."

"Is that gum you keep in your desk, or..."

"It's the gum kids stick under school desks that you probably have to use a blowtorch to remove. And he acts just like that! You know he made her give up a—"

"Babe!"

Your next step is wrong as you cross a curb. The dip in the sidewalk makes you wobble backwards, and you squeal in surprise, froyo flying out of your hand.

You brace yourself to sit hard on your butt. Instead, a strong arm wraps around your waist and yanks you back to solid ground. Dick's other hand darts out and neatly catches your froyo cup.

"Are you okay?" Dick doesn't wait for your answer, herding you to a nearby table in front of a cafe. He sets everything on the table and takes your ankle in hand, rolling it experimentally.

"Dickie, I'm fine," you say, petting his head. "Just a stumble."

He huffs, then looks at you, hair falling into eyes.

"Now will you walk forward?"

"Only if you'll hold my hand," you say, wiggling your fingers.

"Is that supposed to be a bargain? I'm basically getting two things I want," Dick says with a grin.

He pulls you to your feet and hands you your froyo, but not your bag. When you reach for it, he tuts.

"Ah-ah. How will you hold my hand, then? Plus, you need at least one hand free to balance."

"You'll always catch me, though," you say.

Dick kisses your temple. "'Course I will. Still not getting your bag back. Let me be a gentleman, hm?"

#dick grayson x reader #dick grayson x you #...writing this is making me realize that dick is kinda steve harrington coded. lmao #dick grayson x y/n #nightwing x reader #nightwing x you #nightwing x yn #nightwing fanfiction #dc fanfiction #batman fanfiction #inbox #blurb

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karunasharma · 27 days

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#advocate near me #lawyers near me #best lawyer near me #advocate nearby #lady advocate near me

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semisolidmind · 2 months

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What happens when they outlive angel? Since poppy was first created in the 50’s it seems like being preserved as toys has granted them longer lifespans if not technical immortality, so angel aging is going to become a problem sooner or later, and I’m kinda wondering what happens when the inevitable comes. I made myself sad thinking about this and now all of you will be too, suffer with me

(i was thinking about this as well, uuuugghhhh)

it's so so sad. what will the toys do without their one advocate, the one person who truly understands them and what they represent? when the one good home they've ever had is gone, they've got nowhere else to go.

so, they stay.

when y/n dies, the toys have a quiet burial for them in their backyard, under a big shady tree. they make a simple marker from rocks, and pick wildflowers nearby to lay on the grave. none of them speak. it was hard enough digging the grave, and unbearably difficult to lay their savior to rest.

the house is horribly quiet afterwards.

poppy is likely the strong one throughout all this. she's had the most experience saying goodbye to people she cares about (thanks to her longevity), and she attempts to maintain a sense of optimism about it all. they'll all be ok, she's sure of it. they'll find their way through this, like always. it's what y/n would have wanted. kissy withdraws into herself further, following poppy's lead and trying not to cry.

dogday is devastated. devastated beyond all measure. he was the one to discover y/n when they passed. they were so pale, he could feel their warmth leaving them. their face looked so peaceful, they looked like they had just fallen asleep. he knew it was coming, they were getting older, but—but it's still not fair. it doesn't feel real. it can't be, his angel can't be dead, nothing has ever kept them down before, they always get back up, why couldn't they get back up—

...he tries to stay calm.

he took on the duty of grave digging. he took on the heavy burden of laying his beloved angel into the makeshift coffin they were able to cobble together. he could barely keep it together when he did. he managed, but not without crying.

that night, he waits until the girls have gone to bed before he closes himself off in y/n's bedroom. in the privacy of the once-shared space, dogday allows the truly desperate, heaving sobs he's been keeping in to finally leave his chest. tears mat down the fur on his face as he cries. he shakily grasps y/n's jacket to himself, wishing that there was some way, any way, that they could come back to him. he knows humans aren't meant to live forever. but that doesn't stop him from wishing that y/n could achieve the tentative immortality that the toys have, if only so that they could stay with him.

dogday becomes somber after his angel dies. they were his source of hope, his reason for living. they saved his life in ways beyond just physical. they were the only reason he was alive at all. without them, he's...he's not sure if he wants to keep going.

but he must. he knows he has to. y/n would want him to take care of the others, they'd want him to protect and provide for them. so, without any other purpose...that's what he does.

the toys live in their savior's house for as long as they're able. it's just their luck that the house is never put up for sale, that it's just sort of...forgotten about. it becomes a "haunted house in the woods," feared and avoided. they're more than happy to become the vague, cryptic monsters in local legends if it means that they're left alone.

nobody will come by to check on y/n for a while, and the toys will have power and food (their water comes from a well hooked up to the house) for at least a little while longer. and after that, they'll manage on what they can find in the woods.

they live as peacefully as they can for as long as they can.

#fr dogday may as well be a widower here #he and y/n werent married technically but they may as well have been #if this is canon dogday he goes completely hopeless after yn dies #but survivor dogday with his limbs intact would keep going and just get kinda bitter about everything

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moralesluvr · 10 months

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Hii. So I had this idea where it’s (e-1610) miles saving Reader from something and when he finally looks at her he immediately becomes attracted towards her (like love a first sight thing) and gets all shy and cute

love at first sight ft. miles morales

♡ pairings & aus: miles morales x fem!black!reader, college au, cafe au. ♡ summary: after getting hit on after walking home from work, your friendly neighborhood spiderman is here to save you-- and he‘s stunned when he sees you. ♡ warnings: none jus fluff! ♡ a/n: this is so extremely self indulgent because i wear glasses and i was just visualizing this the whole time LOLLL ♡ got a request? | masterlist ♡

YOUR SAGE-TINTED FINGERNAILS PINCH around the soft material of your apron, a broken sigh tumbling off of your reddened lips as you placed it on the coat rack in the back of your workplace. Another huff leaves you, this time of relief, eyes darting to the clock that resides on the wall. It reads, it digital numerals, '10:22.'

You should've closed twenty minutes ago, but of course, some of your avid regulars insisted that they needed a coffee or slide of banana bread right as you had grabbed the broom from the back, ready to shut the cafe down. But you couldn't complain because you were at least happy that you had the next couple of days off, so you let your worries roll off of your t-shirt clad shoulders, grabbing your purse and keys from your work cubbie and switching off the lights.

Keys jingling as you step outside, you stick a golden one into the hole that's below the door's handle, locking it and beginning your walk down the street.

A shiver courses through your veins, your body not quite adjusted to the sweet, yet wintry cold that summoned goosebumps on your bare forearms. You hugged yourself and tucked the sides of your coat in, throwing your Coach bag over your shoulders as the pretty lights of Brooklyn advocated for your lack of vision.

The cafe that you worked at was the only place you could earn money and also enjoy. Your boss was one the upperclassmen that you knew from your university, which really helped because she always gave you days off and flexible work hours. All your co-workers were just close friends or classmates-- plus, you loved to bake, so it really was a genuine place of interest.

You're humming one of your favorite songs down the block when you reach a strip of shops. There's a pub nearby and you always hold your breath when you pass it-- because it's not so much a bar, but more of a place where teenagers hang out and smoke or drink ill-tasting beer. Usually you're safe passing through, but that wasn't necessarily the case tonight.

A boy that you recognize from your university stumbles out of the place, eyes reddened and droopy as he stopped you in your tracks. He smirked at you, "Why're you walkin' all by yourself? Need some company?"

Pushing a curl back behind your ear, he beams a smile at you, one that makes your stomach feel uneasy as you slowly moved his hand back down to his side.

"No, Aaron, I don't. I...have a boyfriend." You lied through your teeth. You definitely didn't, but you needed a valid excuse as to why you didn't want this creep taking you home.

"I think you do need some company, though, pretty thing." He insists, pushing himself closer to you, a laugh sounding from his throat. "I don't see your boyfriend. What kind of man would leave his girl alone at night, walking down the streets of New York?" His hands find home on your waist and you let out a squeal, "Stop!"

Although it's no use. He continues, trying to learn into your lips as you fight his tight embrace. But he's stronger, and you genuinely think that you're a goner until a tall figure in a-

Spider-Man?

He comes literally out of nowhere, standing in front of Aaron as he grabbed both of his arms, removing his grip on you. The masked vigilante twists his hands behind his back and he screams, biting his lip, "This your pathetic boyfriend, huh? Some idiot playing around in a mask?"

Spider-Man says nothing to that, except he just shoots a web at Aaron's hands, pinning them behind his back. He then flips him around and webs his mouth, moving closer to him. He whispers against his skin, "Shut up."

Aaron's eventually pinned to the brickwork of the pub's walls, when Spider-Man finally turns to look at you. You're smiling, even though anxiety is still pumping through your blood, "Thank you, Spider...Spider-man?"

He just stares at you.

You're so pretty, curls tucked back in a ponytail with some loose ones hanging against your dark glasses frames. You're clad in a leather jacket and a pair of ankle-high boots, a pretty skirt resting on your thighs. The moonlight glows against your brown skin, and he finds his mouth dry because it's wide open.

You cock an eyebrow at him, "Spider-Man? Are you okay?"

And although he longs to say something, to get the words out, he can't help but give you one last glance as he finds himself webbing to a wall, swinging away without saying a word.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 ☻ thank you for reading!

𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑-𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓🕷️: @queenesther996 //@sukunas-slutty-bitch // @c3f21 // @wydney // @rinnyisnothere // @brieryann // @moisttowllet // @Dee-m-cee // @liliummz // @starhrtz // @daisydark // @randomhoex // @solanawrld // @whore4hobie // @tanakaslastbraincell // @simp4miguell // @nyrovi3 // @my3tumbles // @aziulsworld // @enchantingfoxsparkles // @mancerseedu // @cafehyunji // @personofyou // @mcdvsr // @kopiivie // @ellatienesuscosas // @venuswash3re // @calliarlerte // @pr0wlerpunk // @tzuyuzzs // @wisepoetrycheesecake // @clearskiiiess // @d3atht3hek1d // @vienreina // @pixqlsin // @caulifloweron // @aizawassimpblog // @stvrgrl // @zerosinterweb // @ishqani // @mookiebut // @urmotherswhor3 // @cumbermovels // @asmobeuses

𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ✎: @Dee-m-cee // @euphorichappiness10 // @adoree-kaelynn // @mhadnirb // @mmst4rz // @iris-theflower // @fleurrieerecs // @kenlani // @kala2022 // @ilyless // @milesmolasses // @laylasbunbunny // @all444miles // @thecoloredpages // @bl00dsuccker // @evacowan // @popeheywardssecretgf // @adoremvney // @anikaluv // @qtdenks

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @enj4i // @chrissytalia // @chaoticevilbakugo // @motheroffae // @luci1fer

#‧₊˚✩ — 𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒!#spiderman #spiderman into the spider verse #spiderman: across the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse #miles x reader #miles morales x black!reader #miles morales #miles morales x y/n #miles morales x you #miles morales x reader #miles morales x black reader #atsv miles morales #‧₊˚✩ — 𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒!

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fishing-lesbian-catgirl · 8 months

Text

Cartoonish miniature version of me wearing a pilot’s uniform and sitting in front of a panel full of unlabeled levers, buttons, and dials: hey do you ever think about how strange it is that we exist?

Cartoony mini version of me wearing nerdy glasses sitting in a nearby chair reading a large book: We don’t exist, we are just fictional personifications of different parts of fishing-lesbian-catgirl’s brain meant to communicate to the audience the process of thought and internalized debate. For example, you’re the part in charge of body movement and fine motor control and I’m the part in charge of rational thought. That fidgety one over in the corner there represents anxiety, the two in the cage over there are intrusive thoughts and devils advocate, and the one sitting next to me eating trail mix is survival instincts

Survival instincts: sup BM

Body Movement: oh, that makes way more sense than having this one large person controlled by dozens of us each with our own quirks, personalities, and gimmicks, you’re so smart RT

Rational thought: of course, that’s what I’m here to represent afterall

Creative thought: hey hey hey my good buddy BM, can I take control for just a second, I won’t do anything bad I promise?

Body Movement: I’m supposed to make sure you and RT agree on everything before taking action

Rational thought: CT you understand how the system works, we can’t just let you take control

Creative thought: oh come on, you both owe me, I mean you saw how good that joke I made last week was, right?

Body movement: they did kind of save us from that conversation going really awkwardly, it couldn’t be that bad, right RT?

Rational thought: I am opposed to it but I will allow it just this once

Creative thought: thanks ladies, you won’t regret it. this one is gonna do numbers, I promise

Survival instincts: hey wait why am I getting a bad feeling about this?

#fujoshi conversion therapy #<- had to give it a weird and memorable tag to find it later

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blueskittlesart · 7 months

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What advice would you give beginner artists?

it's fine to want to do more stylized art, but nothing will help you improve quickly like studying from life. even if you want to draw very stylized figures, life drawing is still going to help you understand how the human body works and then you can build your stylization off of that understanding. I also recommend studying specifically things you're looking to improve--if you feel like your poses aren't dynamic, ask your model to do some quick (1-2 min) dynamic poses and work on getting the gesture down. if you're looking for anatomy, ask for longer, more static poses and really study the contours of the body. this also applies for portraiture and character art--my expressions and facial structure improved like CRAZY when i started doing portrait studies from life! (note: i know live model sessions aren't accessible for everyone. i'm a huge advocate for nude models, if you can find a studio nearby that's affordable to you that offers sessions, that's the best you're gonna get. however, there are sites that will give you photos of nude models to draw from, too, or you can even just ask friends or family to pose for you when they aren't busy, that's what i did before i started getting model sessions from my school!)

materials are not everything but sometimes a good material can make a difference. it's important to know what's worth it and what isn't for your skill level. invest in some decent-quality supplies or a good art program, but understand that you're still going to need to work to understand your materials and use them to their fullest potential. (if you're a digital artist buy csp. trust me on this. get it on sale. it will change your life. also do not fucking use photoshop)

tracing is ok. listen to me. TRACING. IS. OK. tracing is how you learn. don't trace other people's art and pass it off as your own, obviously, but there is literally no problem with tracing real-life reference photos. I routinely trace references for backgrounds and the like. there is no reason for you to kill yourself trying to make complex perspective and shit up from your head when you can very easily just overlay a photo and get what you need.

in that same vein, USE REFERENCE PHOTOS. find pics online or take pics of yourself and USE THEM to see how your poses work. it makes it SO SO SO much easier. the understanding that you need to create a pose out of nowhere will come with time but you're not going to get that skill unless you have a foundation of understanding how the real human body works, and the easiest way to get that understanding is by copying photos of real people.

last but not least, there's generally a sort of 'rulebook' that new artists are expected to go by, especially online, when it comes to digital art. when i was first learning, it was all about lineart and cell shading, two things that I didn't really like. Nowadays it seems to be all about rendering. the single most important thing i can tell you is if it sucks you don't have to do it. if you hate lineart just color your sketches. if you hate shading don't shade, or find a different way to shade that you enjoy more. if rendering is annoying or difficult for you DON'T BOTHER!! art is supposed to be fun. if part of your process is annoying or upsetting to you, cut it the fuck out. don't torture yourself just to do art the "right" way. i guarantee your art will look better when you're having fun making it anyway!

#asks #ALSO don't go in expecting to monetize your social media presence/go viral as an artist. make art for YOU and make what you want to make.#if your art has passion behind it then attention will come naturally!

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twistedwonderlandimaginesblog · 1 year

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hi! could a request a scenario with sebek where his s/o is really short and quiet and so he doesn’t notice them behind him and accidentally elbows them in the head or face and ends up injuring them? and how he feels and takes care of them after it happens

Sebek Zigvolt:

Sebek was a strong advocate for loudly announcing your presence before entering a room.

He had come up with this rule only because you’d stood around waiting to draw his attention for almost too long, politely

allowing him to finish a conversation before speaking up. He was surprised then, eyes wide as he asked just how long you had been standing there waiting to speak with him. He seemed more annoyed than even you were, scolding you on standing tall (hard to do when you’re short) and puffing out your chest with some authority so you drew attention to yourself. You had nodded and promised to try, pushing his advice to the back of your mind as you got on with the task you had been given.

But clearly, you should’ve taken him a little more seriously.

You can see the shock in Sebek’s face as you let out a pained cry, hand protectively cradling your potentially broken nose. His eyes start out wide, like an enemy observing its prey and getting ready to chomp down on their throat, but they soften when he realized it was just you. There’s a brief moment where he’s getting ready to address you before his brain noticed the slight amount of blood dripping from between your fingers to the floor.

“W-What happened?!” He asked, wincing as you did the same and took a step back out of reflex. He’d already elbowed you in the face once, you and your bones weren’t prepared for round two. “Come here!”

Nurse Sebek is on the case as he sat you down on a nearby chair, whipping his head around for any cloth in the area he could use. He demanded you keep pinching your nose until he was back, rushing around the dorm like a madman as he gathered all the material he needed; he requested Silver get some ice from the cafeteria for him as he didn’t want to leave your side for that long, his sleepy companion nodding without question. Sebek was in such a frantic state, with a splash of blood on his hands, so Silver could only assume something had happened to either you or Malleus (which he would know about if it was the young master) and that meant achieving his task before discovering what had happened.

The pain is subsiding ever so slightly and the bleeding has finally slowed, with Sebek having you keep your hands at your side as he carefully dabbed at your face with a wet towel. He was concentrating more than he did on his exams, a gentle touch he didn’t normally apply being used as he couldn’t bear to worsen your wounds that he caused. You could see there was guilt written everywhere across his face, the brief tears that had gathered in the corners of his eyes after he realized he had been the one to hurt you coming to mind again, almost making you want to cry.

“…I’m sorry.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I should’ve announced myself like you told me… I’m sorry.”

Sebek looked frustrated, clenching the towel so tight his knuckles turned whiter. He doesn’t reply at first which sets you a little on edge, he wasn’t really one to keep things to himself and the lack of communication was already setting your anxiety off.

“It was my fault. I’ll take the responsibility for it.” He’s still quieter than you’d ever heard him be but at least he’s talking now; you wanted to reach out to touch him, to hold his face and tell you that you accepted his apology but you knew he hated being coddled like that. “I-I’ll clean your uniform as well! And the floor--"

"Thank you, Sebek. I appreciate your help!" You gave a small nod, slipping in a reassuring smile as well before Sebek went back to dabbing at the still red areas where dried blood was. "And you are forgiven. Please don't beat yourself up over this."

Sebek just had to train more. To sharpen his senses so he could detect you, to know when you had entered the room without you having to be the one to speak up. He should've been training himself for such a situation this entire time, considering he knew how stealthily you could maneuver, and yet he had neglected to act despite telling you to change your own behavior.

He would become a better man, a better body guard, by honing this trait.

And he would hopefully never have to see you wounded again.

#Disney TWST #Disney Twisted Wonderland #TWST #Twisted Wonderland #TWST x Reader #Twisted Wonderland x Reader #TWST Imagines #Twisted Wonderland Imagines #Sebek Zigvolt #Sebek Zigvolt x Reader #Scenario

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compacflt · 11 months

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For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.

Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.

[Carole. 1994.]

He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”

She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.

They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.

“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”

“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”

“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”

Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”

Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”

Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”

“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”

She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father.

She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”

So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out “Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?

At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.

And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”

And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life.

“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.

—

[Maverick. 1998.]

“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”

“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots.

Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.

“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.

“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”

“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”

“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”

“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”

Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”

Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”

The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”

“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.

“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”

“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”

“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”

“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”

Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”

“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”

Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”

“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”

Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”

Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.”

“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”

And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.

“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”

“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”

“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”

Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.”

Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation.

They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”

Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.”

Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.”

So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.

Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.

And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.

“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.

“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”

“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.

Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is.

Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”

—

[Bradley. 2000.]

“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.

“Practice ended early today.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”

“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”

“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”

Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”

“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”

“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“But—”

“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”

“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”

Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie.

Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Don’t you want to know more than that?”

“No.”

And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm.

—

[February 2003.]

Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2003.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[May 2004.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2010.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[October 2014.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.

…

“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”

“…You think we ever will?”

The longest silence.

—

[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]

You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.

“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.

“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.

And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well.

TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.

Like father, like son.

You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.

But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.

“Dagger One is hit.”

“Dagger Two is hit.”

Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.

“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—

But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?

“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”

“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady.

Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.

“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”

“A vice.”

“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”

“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”

Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”

TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.

—

[Tom. 2018.]

“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”

“Where is he again?” Tom asks.

“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”

“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.”

“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”

“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”

Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”

Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”

“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”

“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”

Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”

“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”

“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.”

Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.

“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”

“Why?”

“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”

“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”

Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”

“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”

“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”

Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”

“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.

Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”

“All of it. —All of it.”

Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”

“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”

“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”

“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”

“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”

It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”

“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”

“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.

“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”

Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”

“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”

“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—

—which makes Tom reconsider.

Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”

“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”

Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.

“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”

“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”

“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”

Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”

“Yeah. We did good.”

Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”

Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”

“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”

“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.

“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”

“That’s our life.”

Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens.

He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.

#happy Father's Day!#some light discussion of religion in this one but u should be used to that with me #this one is long bc it hits a LOT of prompts sry it took a minute #going thru my inbox: for this anon obv #and FTAW (for the anon who) wanted more competitive icemav #for the FOUR anons who wanted ice and bradley to talk about queerness in the navy #FTAW wanted rooster to explain how hangster came to be #FTAW wanted more ice breaking the rules (‘management tier asshole’ lol)#for the THREE anons who wanted more soft 90s icemav #which is hard for me to write bc those years are kinda boring #it’s literally just: they wake up together. Go to work together. raise their kid together. eat dinner together. fall asleep in the same bed #occasionally fuck. Keep it a secret. don’t talk about it.#for 5 years. like… narratively speaking it’s v boring but yeah they’re happy :)#FTAW wanted more of ices prenavy backstory (this isn’t really much but…)#FTAW wanted icemav’s relationship with religion #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #top gun maverick #top gun #icemav #top gun fanfiction #you guys sure love ur anonymity don’t u #i wanna know who’s sending in asks!!! my dms are open!!! Please come say hi!!!#there are some timeline issues wrt Carole in this one sorry. u can deal.

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